Sacred Art for Secular Minds
How Religious Symbols Reflect Our Highest Potential
The sight hit me like a physical force. I caught a glimpse of it in the distanceāan unexpected surprise that made me abandon the party happening on the lower deck of our Lisbon river cruise. I needed to be upfront, alone with what I was witnessing. As our boat approached the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge, there it stood: Cristo Rei, towering 110 meters above the Tagus River, arms outstretched in eternal welcome. I was almost moved to tears.
The intensity of my reaction puzzled me. I don't consider myself a Christian. I write a secular blog, not a religious one. Some would regard me as an atheist. Yet something about the divine continues to speak to me, and this was undeniably a spiritual experience.
The Architecture of Awe
This wasn't the first time sacred art had stirred something deep within me. Whenever I travel, I seek out the grand Catholic cathedrals and churches, taking time to absorb the magnificence of soaring ceilings, intricate stone carvings, and the jewelled light filtering through stained glass windows. There's something about these spaces that commands reverenceāa sense of entering into something larger than myself.
Growing up attending Pentecostal churches, I never experienced such awe. Those buildings were plain, undecorated, basic. The focus was purely on the word, not the visual. But standing beneath Gothic arches or Renaissance domes, I understand why humans have poured centuries of craftsmanship into creating spaces that lift the spirit upwards.
When Sacred Becomes Secular
This brings me to Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, which I encountered a few months ago on a solo trip. Upon viewing the supposedly great sightāI felt something entirely different: disgust. The cartoon-like fruits sprouting from stone stems, the bubble-like architectural style, the deliberate departure from gothic traditionāit all felt wrong. Where Cristo Rei and traditional cathedrals inspire reverence, Gaudi's masterpiece felt like a mockery of the divine.
I realize this puts me at odds with architectural critics and millions of tourists who find the Sagrada Familia breathtaking. Perhaps it was the lack of sunshine and building works surrounding the building that affected my perception of it on that day. Regardless, the contrast between my experiences in Lisbon and Barcelona illuminated something important about how we encounter the sacred.
The Mirror of Potential
Religious symbolism, I've come to believe, requires a certain gravity to be truly effective. When sacred art takes itself seriouslyāwhen it strives for transcendence rather than noveltyāit has the power to touch souls regardless of the viewer's faith background. The Cristo Rei statue doesn't need to explain itself or justify its existence through clever design choices. It simply stands, arms open, a silent testament to hope and redemption.
Traditional religious architecture speaks a universal language of aspiration. Pointed arches draw the eye upward. Massive scale humbles human pride. Intricate details reward contemplation. These aren't accidents of styleāthey're deliberate attempts to create encounters with our highest potential.
Jesus Christ is a symbol of unconditional love, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, rebellion, justice and more. In one man, he upholds and mirrors back to us values that we should embrace as citizens of the world. The awe I felt wasn't directed necessarily upward toward heaven, but inward toward the recognition of what humanity is capable of achieving.
The Danger of Diminishment
But here's the crucial point: religious symbolism only maintains this transformative power when it's treated with appropriate seriousness. When sacred imagery becomes too casual, too contemporary, too eager to be relevant rather than reverent, it risks losing its ability to inspire personal transformation. The line between making these ideals accessible and making them trivial is finer than we might think.
This isn't about being conservative or traditional for its own sake. It's about recognizing that some human experiencesāencounters with our highest potential, moments of moral awakening, the recognition of our capacity for greatnessārequire a certain solemnity to be fully honoured and internalized.
Conclusion
Standing on that boat in the Tagus River, watching Cristo Rei grow larger as we approached, I understood something fundamental about the human spirit. We need unexpected encounters with our own potential that stop us in our tracks and remind us that life isn't just about partying, but it is also about stillness, reverence, contemplation and elevation.
