Two Airport Chapels, Both Alike in Dignity?

Rabat, Morocco

Being a religion major and fascinated by this stuff, I can’t help but notice certain things when traveling.

This time I noticed airport chapels. Which is not something I’ve ever really noticed before. Beyond thinking “There are chapels in airports? Why do you need a chapel in an airport? Does anyone ever use those?”

The “chapel” in the airport at Dulles was small but well-furnished, and seemingly used. I myself visited for 18 minutes of centering prayer. There were prayer rugs, maybe fifty chairs arranged in rows with kneelers, Bibles and various texts from a variety of religious traditions. A couple of people came in and out while I was there. “Stained glass” windows hung on the walls, with the most ecumenical images possible. Hands in prayer, etc. Against the back wall was a small raised platform and an open religious text, of seeming quality with gold edges (I didn’t inspect it to see what it is exactly). Not a place committed to one tradition over another, but a good, well-designed ecumenical space that someone had put some thought into: an open, well-lit and welcoming design, with a glass front facing the corridor of passing passengers.

In my wanderings through Charles De Gaulle International Airport, I found a “meditation area” sign in the terminal here. Intrigued, I followed the signs (which looked very similar to the Smoking Area signs). I traced it back to a hallway off the main corridor, behind some pillars. A closed, windowless orange metal door, the immediate impression was of a utility closet. Not a glass wall and doors like Dulles, where one could see what was available and going on. No, here I actually had the distinct thought that I'd either get knifed or interrupt an amorous couple, amid the dust and brooms. I find neither. I find a completely dead space. The immediate impression is one of a doctor's waiting area, a dentist's office. A couple of old magazines, some mismatched office chairs facing each other. The dentist's waiting area is for the Jews and the Christians, the sign says, seemingly for them to wait for their spiritual root canal. The Islamic area is better defined at least (perhaps “helped” by the fact that the two areas are separated by a blank, bureaucratic wall). A large arrow, scratched in blue pen ink on the wall by an intrepid soul, points out the direction of Mecca and there are a number of prayer mats lying in a cabinet. But even these noble efforts make it hardly seem any better than an afterthought. This is what terrifies some American voters, I think. The Secular European State. Where the government will make your local church into dentist's’ offices.

The two paired images at least point out the relative continuing importance of religion and Christianity in America, and the withering of Christianity in Europe. There has been much (mostly Catholic) hand-wringing over the latter. As many of you know, a certain prominent European philosopher in the late nineteenth century pointed out that “God is dead.” I have always cheekily thought that he and we Christians agree, and have for two thousand years: our universal image, the central unifying symbol of our faith, is a cross, the means of torture by which we believe God suffered and died. We just extend the sentence with a semicolon: “God is dead; God is also alive.” And I suppose that’s the rub that got Herr N such trouble and such praise, depending on your perspective.

It would be fascinating to try to sleuth out some of the reasons why institutional Christianity has proved so resilient in America and has so precipitously declined in Europe. The 1960s seemed a pivotal moment in this regard, for both continent and nation. Was the European decline simply more abrupt? Had it been in development for longer and thus collapsed more quickly? What makes Americans so devout compared to other developed nations? Is the European collapse of Christianity making room for an Islamic rebirth of religion through migration and demographics? All intriguing questions.

Thoughts on this? Comments below!