One of the aspects of Christianity I’ve always found the most ironic is its obsession with death, hell and the destruction of the earth. On the one hand, subcultures that embrace such imagery and ideas are deemed “evil” by the Church, the work of the Devil, strange and unusual; but on the other hand, the Bible is filled with gory stories, and Christians are encouraged to warn “non-believers” of the fire, torture and terror awaiting them in the afterlife. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a lot more twisted to obsess over being chased by the Devil than it is to acknowledge that death, destruction and evil are very much human characteristics, and not some supernatural force or possession. Gargoyles are an early form of evil brought to life by the church. These twisted supernatural statues populated the walls of churches, perched on the edges, warning the faithful of the evils the church protected them from. Since they couldn’t warn people of the perils of non-belief with a big statue of Satan, instead they put up a bunch of little statues of weird, ugly, creepy creatures that medieval people would have found intimidating and terrifying. And even though hundreds of years have passed, these gargoyles are still capable of inspiring fear and revulsion. Check out some surviving medieval gargoyles below…
