Expecting Christ’s imminent return made evangelical architecture deliberately functionalist

Evidence

The belief in Christ’s imminent return transformed American evangelicalism in ways ranging from trivial to profound. At the former end of that spectrum, premillennialism is responsible for some colossally bad architecture: If Jesus is going to return at any moment, why bother with design or ornamentation? Cinder block will do just fine—the triumph of function over form. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 57

Categorization

• CANDY: Fun, tweetable observation: premillennialism as the intellectual root of ugly cinder-block church architecture.
• XREF: connects to: Belief in Christ’s imminent return absolved evangelicals of duty to reform society — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 55; Expectation of Christ’s imminent return produced drab evangelical architecture — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 56; End-times theology split between premillennialists and postmillennialists yet believers often hold both — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 621

Related

• Expectation of Christ’s imminent return produced drab evangelical architecture (similarity 0.97)
• Belief in Christ’s imminent return absolved evangelicals of duty to reform society (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Expectation of Christ’s imminent return produced drab evangelical architecture #corroborates (0.95) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 56
• End-times theology split between premillennialists and postmillennialists yet believers often hold both #qualifies (0.75) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 621