Abstract
This article proposes storytelling as a tool to return historic church buildings to the people in today’s secularized society. It starts by recognizing the unique qualities shared by most historic churches, namely that they are (1) different from most other buildings, (2) unusually old, and (3) are often characterized by beautiful exteriors and interiors. The argument builds on the storytelling strategies that were chosen in two recent book projects (co-)written by the author of this article, on historic churches in the northern Dutch provinces of Frisia (Fryslân) and Groningen. Among the many stories “told” by the Frisian and Groningen churches and their interiors, three categories are specifically highlighted. First, the religious aspect of the buildings’ history, from which most of its forms, fittings, and imagery are derived, and which increasingly needs to be explained in a largely post-Christian society. Second, churches tell us local histories, because they were the communities’ most public space for centuries, and a room for social representation. Finally, third, local history is always “glocal”, because it is interwoven with multiple connections to other places far and near. Researching, cherishing, and telling these stories are powerful means to engage communities in the future preservation of their old churches as religious and cultural heritage.
Highlights
Jenkins painted a daunting picture of the state of religious heritage in Britain in the first decades of the twenty-first century
The Groningen foundation owns about one hundred church buildings, whereas the Frisian foundation is the holder of fifty-five
Church from is a of their struggle for an independent state. Reminder of their struggle for an independent state. The aim of this contribution was to show how old churches can be utilized as storytelling goldmines; the focus on two provinces in the northern Netherlands could be exchanged with that on any other region in Europe
Summary
In 2018, I noted a quote from Simon Jenkins, the author of the bestseller England’s. Thousand Best Churches (1999): “Cultural heritage is not about having more, it is about being more”.1 He spoke these words during a conference at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2018, organized by the heritage organization Future for Religious Heritage (FRH) in the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage. Jenkins painted a daunting picture of the state of religious heritage in Britain in the first decades of the twenty-first century. 10,000 medieval churches, for example, an estimated 5000 are practically unused Jenkins laments this development, not for religious but rather for cultural-historical reasons. Not for religious but rather for cultural-historical reasons In this way, he argues, the special character of churches as public space and as the collective art galleries of towns and villages is lost: “For a community to say of their largest and oldest building: ‘this is not my place’, is a true crisis”.3. A number of events and developments over the following centuries gradually anchored control over religious buildings and their use with higher echelons such as central church authorities or—as happened in France after the Revolution—with the State.5 This meant that local communities gradually lost their sense of ownership to more distant, abstract entities.. History of the Church through its Buildings (Doig 2020). Most recently, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a series of “Churchcrawls in Solitude” with
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