I spent two weeks in New Zealand over the holidays to visit my best friend and family – my first trip from the country in a few years and only my second time in New Zealand. It was fun to get out of the states and immerse yourself in a new place for a few weeks.
While I drove through New Zealand during the trip, I was hit by the number of churches that I saw (so many Mormons and Anglicans and a surprising number of evangelical -looking churches!), And I made a comment that said the friend so much , I was the friend that I was a visit.
Apparently it was a little strange to comment on how many churches I noticed when we drove through the North Island. I had only considered it strange at that moment. It seemed a matter of course. However, my friend called it out, made it clear to me that I often have an eye on the religious landscape of a place.
I do it in my own city as I walk around, commute and errands. I notice that churches and temples or maybe more often have become condominiums here in the northeast. I notice that the people who go into these places and go out of these places. I notice religious advertising on the bus and on the train and the people who proselize at T stops.
And I am looking for the same things when I travel, maybe even more than in my own city – I am looking for different religious buildings, sights, signs and advertising boards, etc. In fact, my curiosity often get the best of me, and I I'm not a Google Rabbit -hole above when I see a religious point of interest (well, interesting for me, apparently for many others).
I notice these things and ask myself all kinds of questions. What types of churches and other religious buildings are there? How many are there? How prominently do you seem? Are there more in certain places than in others? Which denominations are most common? How do you mix into the landscape – you really mix in, you notice? Are you the more traditional buildings that you expect for a house of worship or something else? And why do all these Protestant churches have such silly names?
But these apparently superficial questions indicate deeper questions how religion shapes a place. What could this religious landscape to tell us about society in a broader sense? Does the religious landscape point to the secularization or the growing influence of religion or on something in between? What does it tell us about who is and who is not involved in a kind of religious practice? What does it tell us about the changing demography and the history of a place?
Let's take a look at some examples from my own neighborhood to illustrate what I mean. There is a church on my usual hiking route, which is clearly historical and has probably been in the neighborhood for at least one century. In a traditional city of the working class and a bourgeois city outside of Boston, this building was located in the first years in which I lived in this neighborhood, but today was home to an Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The episcopal church that I was present in the same city now shares the room with a Haitian Baptist community. And my neighborhood is also covered with Armenian churches and a good number of historical church buildings that are now condominiums.
All of these examples tell a story. A history of immigration and diaspora and the way different waves of immigration could affect a neighborhood. A story of the ebb and the river of religious practice – some churches, some disappear, others are transformed into something new.
What does the religious landscape around you look like? Let what you notice, awaken your curiosity and imagination about the religious landscapes and stories that surround us all. If you look at the religious landscape of your city or your neighborhood, I am sure that the people and places you see have your own stories to say if you are just careful.