last month i visited seattle university, a jesuit school, with a friend who was considering one of their courses of study. while there i of course visited their famous chapel of st. ignatius. since then i have been thinking about what the architecture of the places in which we worship says about us as the people of god, the laity, which although we don't often think so, includes "ordained" people as well as "unordained" people.
consciously or unconsciously, our buildings are ourselves built large or the cosmos built small. indeed from ancient times they have been understood as describing our proper place in the cosmos. in israel the tent and then temple-on earth was a copy of the heavenly pattern, which jesus interpreted as a model for a church built with living stones, his body. christian architecture then has traditionally been as much a teaching method as merely a place to house worship. the teaching, however, has been in the interaction of the people within the space. it has been a theater space, where the liturgy is performed by all the people of god, and which at its best facilitates that performance, itself a practice for our lives when we leave the building. (indeed the word mass comes from a the same root as mission. it is the going forth to which the whole rite leads.)
this ancient understanding of the uses of buildings has been kept, at least until very recently, by most of the church. orthodox churches are still modeled in part on the pattern of the temple in jerusalem. in the west the anthropomorphic nature of the church building is widely recognized, with the building in plan replicating the form of the perfect man, christ crucified, his head in the sanctuary, outstretched arms forming the transepts, the nave his body. there have of course been many variations, but this essay could quickly become very long, so i won't begin to go into even those i do know, except to point out a quite wonderful one, the syrian and anglican two-room churches. it, whether consciously or not, replicates the two-room plan of the temple, with the whole people of god acting out the priestly function. a wonderful modern interpretation of that idea is san francisco's st. gregory of nyssa.
recently in the west, all this has changed. with the reformation's emphasis on the word in its mostly restrictive and literal sense, church buildings became auditoriums. even many of the older buildings were remodeled with a central pulpit. the unity of the whole people of god making up the body of christ, each in his own order, was replaced by the preaching pastor, the parson (person), with a congregation who listened and consumed.
with the emergency of post-modernism--whatever that means, it is certainly a reality in our lives--the singular role of the preaching pastor becomes a multi-media experience. indeed i know one young pastor of an "emerging" congregation who suggests that it is time for the sacred cow of the sermon to be killed off. in eureka springs there is a congregation whose building has no cross or other overtly christian "symbolism," nor a pulpit, nor a holy table, but a scattering of music stands on a stage, peveys, and a trap set. the pews for the audience are still firmly in place. most of the body of christ having reduced to "laity" who are entertained, the "minister" has now been deconstructed as well.
it seems, and here sadly is where the chapel of st. ignatius was helpful to me, is that we have reduced the church even further, and our buildings once again both represent and inform that reduction. on the seattle university campus there is this great piece of art. we as the church have become another consumer market. this fact was well pointed out to me this week by a friend of mine who described his discomfort with the various "evangelical" and "missional" portions of the church in bellingham who are trying to "minister" to him--i.e., sell him their product--for as he said, he is trying to remain only a potential consumer of religion.
alas, our buildings now have nothing to do with the kingdom of god, which jesus came proclaiming, which the early church understood quite immediately as they took over the basilicas (kingdom halls) of the empire and made them halls of the heavenly king, but are all about shopping in the market place of religion, in which as my same potential-consumer-of-religion friend said, we are comparing apples with apples. no longer are we encouraged to become christians. we are merely to buy chritian swag.
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5 comments:
I completely agree with your critique of "holy" architecture and its demise. I understand that large churches were a place in which people felt small yet part of God, in His presence. But, I have been disappointed equally by St. Peters in Rome as the new sanctuary at Hillcrest Chapel. When our wealth becomes so large that it must be shown by the size of our buildings to house nothing other than our "holy" wealth. I know that i have little reverence for "holy" spaces created by men. But I never have been a good actor.
yup. your comparison of st. pete's and hillcrest is right on, i think. the "new" st. peter's is after all the biggest and best of the new "humanitist" model of the world, in which man is the measure of all things, and "holy" spaces are "created by man" instead of being imitations of revealed patterns.
Dale, well you see I would say that modern church architecture models where we see ourselves in relationship to God and the universe EVERY bit as much as ancient church architecture, sometimes consciously, more often unconsciously. What has changed is not that... but our worldview. The question that needs to be asked is, what does this space say about our worldview? What positive and negative conclusions might be drawn? The protestant architectural style of pulpits elevated above alters and whitewashied walls with no icons says a lot about their view of sacrament and word. Consider what moving seats into a circle or haphazard assemblage or moving musicians to the centre could signal. Again, it signals a change of values and worldview.
oh, i agree with you entirely, matt. it is both the uncritical use of architecture, which can shape our world view as well as be shaped by it, and our acceptance of a world in which we function primarily as consumers, that i would hope to have pointed out.
Ah yes, agree with you there.
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