Reviewed by: Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on Sacred Space ed. by Julio Bermudez Ryan Patrick Budd J.D. Julio Bermudez, ed. Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on Sacred Space Washington, dC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015 xviii + 332 pages. Paperback. $34.95. This volume's title is an apt one: As a multidisciplinary collection of essays from authors of various religious convictions (including, it seems, "nones"), one realizes that to understand this book is to go beyond the purely architectural aspect of sacred space. In other words, the various authors bring with them to architecture various views about what the sacred or the "numinous" is, and these views more than any architectural school shape how they look at architecture in its relation to the sacred. Each author, in respect of his or her views of the sacred, appears sui generis, and thus the compilation has much to say for itself as a collection of highly diverse points of view. As Thomas Walton begins his particular essay, "one only needs to peruse the table of contents to know that this volume is a rich panorama on the theme of transcendence" (260). The book, to this end, does well in sporting a thorough index whereby one can see how different authors engage the same terms and concepts. Furthermore, its generous use of images helps the reader to understand what the various authors see as a representation of the sacred or "numinous." One can identify in this volume two prevailing general perspectives on the purpose of sacred architecture. One is that sacred architecture's role is to create a feeling of the sacred; that its matter of study is the science of religious experience itself, in the tradition of Mircea Eliade and his successors, so as to help those who frequent the space to transcend the particulars of their daily lives. Here, Lindsay Jones's description of this point of view—with its inherent possibility for manipulation—is instructive (esp. 173–175). I will call this the "emotive approach." The other general view—distinctly in the minority in this volume—is that sacred architecture is to express or proclaim truths. Jones (170–207), Father Kevin Seasoltz (113–129), and Duncan Stroik (239–246) all offer descriptions of this viewpoint from the Christian tradition. This [End Page 184] second approach focuses on helping the believer enter more deeply into truths he has grasped intellectually; here, architecture serves as an aid to what Blessed John Henry Newman would call passing from "notional assent"—assent to a proposition as concept—to "real assent"—assent to a proposition as reality. I will call this the "dogmatic approach" because it necessarily presumes doctrinal commitments, whereas the "emotive approach" can certainly be agnostic or relativistic. Another important but ultimately helpful trend in this volume is a more-or-less explicit contrast between "purity" in spiritual experience and "religion," where the latter is seen as grasping, man-made, and commanding (e.g., Juhani Pallasmaa, 19–32). Indeed, as Rudolf Otto understood "the numinous"—an important concept to many of the authors—creeds could seem to be foreign to any genuinely religious frame of mind, because the numinous is ultimately undefinable (Michael J. Crosbie, 225–230). There is something profoundly true in this recognition: it thereby seems clear why the only true religion can be the one God commands men to practice—anything else would be an attempt to systematize the Purely Actual, to degrade the Wholly Other and chain Him to the human intellect. Thus, in their distaste for "religion", these authors actually help us discern something of what idolatry is and why it is treated so harshly in Scripture. Of course, as Christians we believe that we have received from the Church the very religion God has indeed commanded men to practice. Perhaps, however, the uniqueness of this claim has been lost on us; recognizing that, to one without faith, what we believe must appear a sort of appropriation of an unfathomable mystery ought to inspire us with gratitude and confidence toward the God Who has revealed to us the true path to beatitude. Indeed, confidence in Christianity as the true religion is often (perhaps almost proverbially) missing in...