American Christians are generally a happy lot – but don’t act very holy. Surveys indicate American believers behave about as badly as those who don’t attend church. There are all sorts of contributors to this calamity, but how many consider architecture’s role?
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God is omnipresent – everywhere – but everything and everywhere is not holy in a fallen world. God’s presence is more vivified in particular places, less so in others. The Jews symbolized this in constructing the Holy of Holies in the temple. This sacred place vivified God’s holy presence. It was supposed to vivify holiness in believers. For centuries the church erected these kinds of sacred places, distinct settings necessary for shaping deep desires for holiness. People still experience this when visiting older cathedrals. They become reflective, solemn.
These sacred places took a backseat beginning in the European Reformation. According to McGilchrist, the Reformers “were keen to do away with the concrete instantiations of holiness in any one place or object.” Reacting to Roman formalism, the Reformers said the church existed literally everywhere, so “actual churches became less significant: every place was as good as any other in which to hold a service. The force of this was that every place was as holy as any other, provided the word of God could be proclaimed there, which by definition it could.”
Preaching is important, but as the sermon replaced the Eucharist as centerpiece of the service, “sacred centres gave way to centres of attention,” writes American art historian Joseph Koerner.3 He was referring to the physical layout of churches. The focus was no longer the altar and the sacraments, but the pulpit and the sermon. Spiritual formation became nothing more than information, writes Calvin College professor James K. A. Smith. And that information isn’t usually dispensed until midway through the service.
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Civism and Cities / Christopher C. Miller, Ph.D. 