To believe in something is a powerful thing. Some hold sacred their creative practices, families or worldly riches, or find it in nature's truths, and scented rituals of worship. Spirituality is subjective and the routes toward it are manifold. Many grow up with faith, and some grow into it. But there surely comes a time (or many) when this faith is questioned, its certainty profaned by doubt.

What is considered 'sacred' and is it so for all? What are its collective, creative or personal limits, and is its sanctity sovereign and invincible? Does it remain immaculate when probed? Would you consider it sacrilege, subversion or a sign of necessary evolution, when belief in dominant systems, objects or people is dismantled or revoked? This issue inquires through creative ventures, the results of viewing something once sacred from the perspective of the 'other'.

Danah Abdulla, a Palestinian-Canadian designer, educator and researcher speaks on the appropriation of the term 'decolonisation', and how 'good design' can aid in subverting institutions of power. Was the dramatic shift in church architecture across post-war Europe, built to the pragmatic ideals of Modernism, welcomed, or considered as sacrilege? Photographer Jamie McGregor Smith examines this in his monograph, 'Sacred Modernity: The Holy Embrace of Modernist Architecture.' We also reckon how well RIBA's show, 'Raise the Roof: Building for Change' fares in probing the prestigious institution's own racially and imperially charged history, and whether it confronts or corrects those ties for a better future.

Let's reconsider: Is challenging faith subversive or sacrilegious?