Short Manifesto

General

How can the Church grapple with the spiritual salvation of Wealthy Man?

How can the Church once again connect with a Man whose society sates him so elaborately?

How can the Church console a population whose pains are no longer physical but are entirely psychopathological?

The Church will step outside of itself, into the contemporary world. It will study both how the human needs it used to fulfil are being satisfied so much more effectively elsewhere; and it will examine what ills and anxieties are besieging the minds of its potential congregations.

Then firstly it will reconfigure its sacraments according to the lessons learned, so that it may speak the message and convey salvation in a manner that contemporary man will understand; and secondly it will create new spaces and rituals which will offer release from and consolation for the anxieties of today’s world.

The Church wishes to re-inject meaning into the contemporary world, and to do that it will learn from that world, but note that it will not become that world; rather it will be an edified reformulation of that world, it will be a re-sanctification of culture. The Church will continue this experiment -unceasingly- until it has managed to attain a blueprint for the re-sanctification and consolation of contemporary man.

Formal

There is a hierarchy of formal concerns which must govern the language of the new Church:

1. A balance must always be found between recognisable historic form, and novelty. One must never be found without the other. Where the content of the space is a new introduction, the recognisable should dominate; whereas where the content is unchanged novelty should prevail. References may vary according to region but the principle must remain.

2. Although the Church will clearly define how each layer of its space should be expressed as a formal expression of its purpose, and thereby be distinct and recognisable, the different layers should come together at as many points as possible to convey a vigorous, contrasting, combinatory unity.

3. As new liturgical developments are expected to continue for some time, the new Church should be within an open framework which should never be seen as finished lest the possibility of expansion be precluded.