Why are Many Church Doors Painted Red?
Samantha H. asks: “Why is it that so many church doors are painted red?”
What a great question, Sammy; it is true that it seems like a lot of churches have red doors. In addition, some of the members of the congregation who have been around for a while will remember that Burry’s had red doors at one time.
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There are a lot of traditions surrounding the use of the color red, here are some of the more significant ones:
- Entering the church through red doors symbolizes that our entrance into the body of Christ and into eternal salvation is through Christ’s blood.
- Similarly, it was the blood of a lamb (which symbolized Christ) which was painted on the doorposts and lintels of the door as God preserved his people during the 10th plague.
- Red doors are also meant to symbolize the blood of the martyrs
- Red also symbolizes the work of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (hence we have Red cloths on the altar and pulpit at Pentecost) and is meant to symbolize the Christian church universal.
- There is also an interesting tradition that seems to have been practiced in certain Anglican communities in that the church doors were painted red to indicate that the mortgage had been paid in full.
As you can see, there is more tradition behind the choice of door colors than one might suspect. An interesting thing to note is that the colors posted in the Jewish temple at the time of Christ were red, white, and blue — which is the basis behind the color scheme not only of the Christian flag, but of the British and the American flags as well, colors these nations chose to signify their allegiance to the God of the Bible.
