
As history progresses we see a more secular view of the world transposed into normalcy and traditional religion and religious practices slowly fading away. Phillip Larkin expresses how he sees this shift of religion through his poem “Church Going” from his book High Windows. Larkin uses the narrator to portray what he sees in the church as well the feelings and things he experiences while he’s there. Through the elements he observes and the thoughts he has we are able to understand why he is so sure religion will become a thing of the past.

The narrator walks into the church and based on what he sees he is able to validate his thoughts on the church and religion dying out. He describes the basic set up of being “Another church: matting, seats and stone, and little books” (Larkin 3-4). When he calls it another church he gives the impression that all churches are the same because they all have the same things which actually isn’t true. His only experience with religion has been with a church like this and that contributes to his outlook on religion and why he feels like it’s fading and pointless. Each church has its own personality so the ones he is in right now has a dull one. He has possibly never experienced a church where when he walks in he immediately feels that vibrant spirit and warmth around him. The narrator mentions the “sprawlings of flowers, cut for Sunday, brownish now” (Larkin 4-5). The flowers that have turned brown could represent the false religious façade the church goers who attend have put on. They wore it on Sunday but as the week goes on it has faded away and withered. But, of course, fresh flowers, just like new facades of religion, will be cut for church on Sunday again. 

As the poem continues Larkin begins to hit on the emotions the narrator is experiencing while he is standing in the church. As the narrator keeps taking in his surroundings he begins to get in touch with his spirituality and the magnetism of this building that makes him stop so many times. In the third stanza, lines 18-19, he questions why he even stops for the church because it wasn’t worth it but, he knows he stops often for some unknown reason. Something is drawing him to the church. While he is in there he “always ends much at a loss like this” (Larkin 20) and “wondering what to look for” (Larkin 21). What the narrator has not yet realized about why he stops is that he himself is searching for meaning. The need for a meaning in his life is what draws him back so many times and he says “though I have no idea/What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth it pleases me to stand in silence here” (Larkin 52-53). The narrator himself has to know in the back of his mind that somewhere in here, in this church that he keeps stopping at for some unknown reason, he will find the answers to his questions. He struggles with religion because there is no hard evidence for him to believe and in religion there is faith and faith is not certain. 

To have faith you have to believe in something you don’t see with your eyes, physically feel, or hear around you. It takes constant research and experience with what you are hoping to find the answers to, to finally make themselves clear.  So the question is why is he so indifferent about the church and why does he say it “was not worth stopping for” (Larkin 18) but continuously comes back in search of a meaning? The narrator mentions “letting the door thud shut” (Larkin 2). The thud of the door has some finality to it. He is here, in this sanctuary, looking for answers to his questions. It is kind of like he is making this the final time he will stop here in this church until he has a conclusion for why he keeps coming. The door closing is also representative of him closing himself off from the outside world. By closing himself off he is trying to maintain focus on details around him and what he is experiencing in the church. 

While the narrator is standing in the church, he reflects on what happens to the churches when religion is gone. He wonders “if we shall keep a few cathedrals chronically on show” (Larkin 23-24) almost like a museum of what religion used to be like and how people used to worship. Larkin also talks about “dubious women come to make their children touch a particular stone” (Larkin 28-29). These women are coming to touch the stones because somewhere inside of them they think they should have their children in the presence or have come into contact of something holy and sacred. For a while the “Power of some sort or other will go on/In games” (Larkin 32-33) keeping the taboo alive of a higher power. They fear the consequences of the “what if” and the impact it will have on their kids. He also mentions “superstition, like belief, must die” (Larkin 34) and when the superstition dies so will the power that he mentions. 

At this point in time the churches will then truly be left to the world and overgrown. He wonders when they reach this point “who will be the last, the very last, to seek/This place for what it was” (Larkin 39-40). Shortly after this, in the last stanza, the narrator comes to the conclusion that people will continue to come to the church with “A hunger in himself to be more serious/And gravitating with it to this ground” (Larkin 60-61) meaning someone will always seek the church to provide meaning to their lives and structure. For centuries it has been this way and for centuries after it will be this way. Someone will always question the “what if” and do things “just in case” there is a God.

Overall Larkin brings everything back to the singular point of meaning in life. Throughout the poem he has his narrator constantly contradicting himself with going back and forth about religion providing purpose to the lives of many and being pointless because inevitably, it will fade away. It is very unfortunate he doesn’t see things with a more positive lens and that he doesn’t feel that sense of meaning and spirituality when he walks into the church. Without meaning in life it becomes purposeless. From my own experience growing up in the church whenever there was a question I needed answered about my life and the things meant for me, I knew walking into the church and just being embraced, and feeling the love around me from my neighbors, provided those feelings of reassurance and hope I needed in that moment. The narrator himself does not feel that but he knows there will always be someone who searches for it in the church
