Skyscrapers and Steeples

Rod Dreher recently asked , “Who was it that said you can always tell what’s most important to a society by the use to which they put their tallest buildings?”

I don’t know who it was, but he didn’t live in New York. Rod’s observation may hold in small towns or the medieval city, but  not in today’s city centers: Where real estate is at a premium and limited space pushes up the skyline, there’s nothing more luxurious than a low-lying building.

While seeing a steeple in the shadow of a skyscraper suggest the domination of church by commerce, it actually indicates our society’s collective willingness to sacrifice massive economic gains to preserve a space for worship. That land is very valuable and, in a strictly economic sense, would be put to much better use by the construction of yet another stack of offices of condominiums. It is a typically modern inversion that the steeple overawed by the skyscraper represents a real and costly decision in favor of faith.