The Diamond Stock Exchange and the Definition of the Church

Today, we visited Antwerp’s Our Lady’s Cathedral and climbed the Tower. It was 400 feet high and had an awesome view of the city. I also appreciated our tour guide’s demonstration of playing the bells on top of the tower. It definitely reminded me of the people who played Berkeley’s bell tower, The Campanile. 

Afterwards, we visited the Antwerp Diamond Stock Exchange and visited the old Sephardic Synagogue. We took a tour of the neighborhood surrounding the Diamond Stock Exchange as well, and it was interesting to see the attire of the Jewish community living around the area. They wore black hats and black suits, which definitely distinguished them from the rest of the people walking around the area. It was an interesting way to “fulfill” the Jewish male attire requirement by covering their heads with the black top hat. It made me think of them as magicians who did magic in the neighborhood by running the diamond business with everyone. The diamond business in Antwerp was said to be very successful due to the fact that business was done with everyone, making it open and easily accessible to people of every trait.

Figure 1: A mini shrine in Our Lady's Cathedral. Observe how they reserve sections of the church for prayer. It's a little silly from my point of view because anyone can pray wherever they want to pray.

The activity I reacted to the most was our visitation into the cathedral. After being in Europe for almost a month and having seen all these churches in the Low Countries, I finally came to the conclusion that even though these countries were very religious at one point in time, they were still very far off from the real definition of the church. It seems that whenever people think of a church, they think of this amazing building with all these different sculptures and paintings that give an image of Christ and other Biblical stories, when in Bible, the church is defined as a group of people who have been called out of the world because they have chosen live a life that expresses God’s nature and character. (The word “church” is derived from the Greek word ekklesia, meaning a gathering or assembly of people who have been called out.)  It has upset me every single time I entered a “church” with all these unnecessary images in paintings and sculptures that implant a man-made concept of God and the church into other peoples’ minds. An example of an unnecessary painting is that of Pieter Rubens, The Raising of the Cross, which was displayed in Our Lady’s Cathedral.  Looking at the image makes me feel uncomfortable because it makes Jesus look like this pathetic man who was nailed on the cross, which is why I chose not to show the painting here, but the work of art shows Pieter’s interpretation of the story of cross which gives his audience a concept of what the cross is all about. All these images in the “church” give people ideas about God, which influence people to think a certain way about religion and God. Perhaps it’s a good idea to be open-minded about the definition of the church because what people say is not necessarily what is, especially when the primary source is available to you.