Sibling Assignment #146: "Travel Without Traveling": Churches in Eugene/Springfield

If I don't post this sibling assignment now, I'll never post it because I keep going out into Eugene and taking more pictures of churches and crosses.  I'll continue to build my folder of church and cross pictures, but, now, after months of delay, I am finally posting my response to this assignment, given to me and Silver Valley Girl by InlandEmpireGirl.  She got it from Chris Orwig and it goes like this:

"Travel Without Traveling".   Without going more than 15 miles, set out to photograph your geographic context like it has never been photographed before. Imagine you are a foreigner and only have a short time to capture what captivates you. Create a set of photos. Share your photos with writing about your geographic context. 

Using primarily her nostalgia setting on her Canon S95, IEG took her readers on a tour of Old Kettle Falls.  I just looked over those pictures again for the Nth time.  They evoke the past and IEG composed some really lovely shots.  Wanna see them?  Go here.

Maybe Eugene, Oregon has been photographed before as a city of churches.  I can't really say.  But, what I do know is that when people generally think of Eugene and when I read descriptions of Eugene, churches are never mentioned.


In fact, if you listen to some people in their adoration of Eugene and others as they rail about Eugene, you wouldn't think there was a church anywhere to be found.  In fact, Eugene's general reputation for being an unchurched town is epitomized in this picture of a window on the north side of the the Koinonia Center, the Presbyterian campus ministry house at the University of Oregon.  Many see Eugene as a town of Buddhists, Duck worshipers, or both:

I haven't tried to go to the most beautiful church buildings in Eugene.  I've just gone to the grounds of different churches and taken pictures so that a foreigner coming to Eugene might see that I am captivated as much by how modest and dignified many of Eugene's churches are and to see the various ways churches in Eugene display the cross.

That said, I'll begin this tour with a church that doesn't display a cross because it's a Unitarian/Universalist Church.  When I took this picture back in early March, I remember how much I enjoyed the late winter shaft of light cutting across this bench, almost seeing to light the universalist symbol of enlightenment depicted on it:

But not all Christian churches in the Eugene/Springfield area display the cross.  I'm not sure, but I think some congregations find display of the cross too iconic and these congregations eschew symbols or representations of biblical stories or of spiritual truths.  One such church is in Springfield:

 
I don't know much about the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.  For nearly thirty years, I have been reading and rereading a superb essay about writing by David Bradley entitled "The Faith".  Bradley writes about his father, a pastor in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.  His father was a cerebral man and delivered cerebral sermons, but one night, at a revival meeting, Bradley heard his father put the intellectual approach behind.  His father told a story about nearly being killed in a forest fire.  No congregation had ever heard him say anything personal about himself, let alone hear him tell a story of being in great peril, at great risk.  Bradley argues that it cost his father something of his invulnerability to tell that story and from his father's example he learned the ethic that he says guides him as a writer:  the ethic of cost.  He asks himself when he writes, "Did what I just wrote cost me?  Am I protecting myself?  Or am I willing to pay the cost to be self-revealing?"  Bradley is an African-American and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church is a traditionally black church --  in fact, in Bradley's essay, it's called the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.  Until last week, I hadn't been to this church, to St. Mark Methodist Episcopal Church.   I've still not been inside.  It's part of the geography of Eugene:

On south of St. Mark Methodist Episcopal Church is the campus of what used to be Eugene Bible College.  It's now New Hope Christian College.  Whereas the General Assembly and Church of the First Born in Springfield did not display the cross, at New Hope Christian College, the cross is prominent.  The cross flies on a flag, beneath the American flag.

The cross that sits atop the campus once sat atop Eugene's Skinner Butte on the north edge of downtown.  The cross was controversial.  Many Eugenians objected to having such a pointedly Christian symbol rise above the city and wanted the cross removed.  The controversy was settled when former Eugene Bible College moved the cross to its campus.   The cross shares a circle with flags from different nations.

I voted for William Jefferson Clinton for president in 1992 at the College Crest Wesleyan Church, the polling place in my precinct.  It's an unassuming building, with a humble cross and a most worthy basketball hoop:

 

 
For some reason, the New Life Apostolic Tabernacle in the Whitaker neighborhood has always had my attention.  I can't really explain it.  It's a Penecostal church located in a neighborhood more renowned for artists, breweries, hostels, wine tasting, and coffee than for speaking in tongues.  Maybe that's it.  It's an anomaly.   I took some pictures of the New Life Apostolic Tabernacle with my Nikon lenses and then turned to my Holga for a different perspective:

I was going to end with a few shots of the church where I've been confirmed a member and where I worship.  But, I have tons of pictures of St. Mary's Episcopal Church and I think I'll wait for another time and make pictures of St. Mary's a post all of its own.  

So, I'll close with a picture of three crosses.  They are on the east side of the Westside Christian Church's building: