If church architecture is going to be soul-sucking, it ought to be in the sense of drawing the sinners in. This style of church architecture (an actual design by the firm my poor, deluded congregation has chosen) is more in the style of "suffer the automobiles to come unto Me."
Here's our perfectly charming existing building, whose only fault is that it's a little too small and suffers from the usual depradations of coastal climate.
A church elder whom I respect and admire oftens chides me gently, suggesting that I shouldn't be so hidebound about traditional forms of architecture. After all, our little church has been knocked down by hurricanes and rebuilt several times in our relatively brief history (this area wasn't much settled until after the Civil War). I don't disgree with him; I happen to like wildly nontraditional architecture.
What could be more beautiful than Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamps (left)? The problem, I think, is that only a very good architect can do a good job forging into new style territory, whereas even a mediocre architect can do a reasonable job sticking with the vernacular. Corpus Christi, the nearest source of architects, does not run to brilliant visionaries. We're going to end up with something like the first example above, which might as well be a dialysis center.
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