CBU professor receives $1 million grant to study responses to sacred architecture

Riverside, Calif. (July 23, 2024) – Dr. Matthew Niermann, professor of architecture at California Baptist University, was recently awarded a Templeton Religion Trust research grant for more than $1 million. The research grant will fund a study that will explore how sacred architecture communicates spiritual information to both religious and non-religious people.

Niermann and Dr. Julio Bermudez, a professor formerly at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., are leading the research team. The group includes researchers from other universities and six CBU students as research assistants.

The study will include 180 participants — 60 Evangelical Protestants, 60 Catholics and 60 non-religious people — visiting three buildings — a Catholic church, an Evangelical Protestant church and a secular structure.  Using biometrics, such as eye tracking, skin temperature and heart rate, the study will record the participants’ responses to the buildings. The study started in June and run for three years.

“We are exploring sacred space's role in providing religious knowledge for differing populations,” Niermann said.

The title of the research is “Spiritual Understanding and Architecture: A Multi-method, Empirical Investigation Across Religious and Non-religious Populations.”  

An intent of the research is to help build a new field of study called experimental theological aesthetics, which combines theology, aesthetics and empirical research to examine how beauty and artistry in religious contexts influence spiritual experiences and beliefs.

“We are asking questions about how one senses God through beauty and the arts — and examining how this happens within individuals,” Niermann said.

The Templeton Religion Trust seeks to find the value in art. It does this through aesthetic cognitivism, the idea “that art is a method of communication, understanding, and truth,” according to the website.

Related to the study, CBU will host a symposium in spring 2026 bringing together top global scholars to develop the field of experimental theological aesthetics and publish a series of scholarly articles on the project.