The experience of the sacred in buildings is an aesthetic one, given through the senses. Classic phenomenologists of religion such as Mircea Eliade and Rudolf Otto emphasize the sacred's power and verticality, while critics like Jonathan Z. Smith and Erika Fischer-Lichte stress its performance and horizontality. Neither approach alone is sufficient. The sacred is both construed through repeated performances and manifests as a surplus of power within those performances. A more concrete phenomenology of numinous buildings is needed, one that attends to the actual materiality of buildings and the nuances of multisensory experience.
A survey of parish websites in the diocese of Stockholm found that, alongside traditional services and concerts, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden now offers a wide range of new activities that have emerged over the past fifty years. Many focus on community building, and 15 percent are holistic practices such as meditation groups, yoga classes, and dance, present in eight out of ten parishes. The church appears to serve quadruple functions: theological, life cycle related, ordinary community building, and holistic everyday spiritual practices. These holistic practices, initially offered in exclusive retreat settings, have moved into ordinary parish life and, though some like zen meditation and yoga were once contested, are now broadly accepted.