So, I'm at a ceremony at this church in the Hunter, and I get a strange feeling.
It reminds me of the first Borat movie. Sacha Baron Cohen goes to stay at the house of a nice elderly couple. He asks the lady of the house, "Why you have picture of Jew?" She responds, "Because I'm Jewish. I have lots of pictures of Jews." And then the camera crash-zooms on different pictures around the room, together with horror music screeching.
My experience was less dramatic. The question began to materialise in my brain, slowly at first, and then quickly: "What the hell type of church is this anyway?" On a first look, it seems like a church -- it has a church shape, and there are pews. But on closer inspection there's not a cross to be seen, no iconography, no Bibles, no pamphlets, no donation box, no drawings from earnest schoolkids -- nothing that says "religion" at all. In fact, the guy standing at the front is a civil celebrant, not a priest or minister.
The whole thing was just for appearances. It was about the romance of getting married in a country church, but not the substance. And the pattern could be extended to the complex as a whole. Yes, we're in the Hunter, we're in the country, but it's all modern buildings pretending to be older than they are, and explicitly designed for weddings.
It's like the gargoyles in the Main Quad at Sydney University -- "What a characterful old building" -- until you realise that the Gothic period ended in the 1500s, and the university was built in the late 1800s.
But who cares, right? What really is the difference between real and fake anyway? A $10 gemstone still sparkles, and the photos and video come out the same.
