The Edifice Complex

As any good sociologist will tell you, there are always unintended consequences to any social "advancement." At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, people took their carpets out of the house in the spring and fall and beat them clean. Various techniques were used to sprinkle substances on the carpets to keep away a musty smell and preserve a fragrant household aroma. Not long after the widespread use of electricity came about, the "labor-saving" vacuum cleaner was invented. Of course, this led to more carpeting, wall-to-wall carpeting, and higher standards of carpet cleanliness. If you clean at least once a week, you soon realize you are spending more time cleaning carpets than people were before the invention of the vacuum cleaner. Technology has a way of biting back.

One of the most detrimental developments for the Church in America has to be the improvement in building codes and firefighting techniques. Most churches before the last century were simple meeting halls. Fires were not uncommon in American towns, and church buildings frequently perished. No matter. The congregation found a new place to meet or built another building. A strong attachment to buildings was likely to be a major disappointment.

Now buildings last for generations. They can be utterly unsuited for current needs, situated in inconvenient locations, and voracious in electricity and fuel consumption for climate control. The upkeep of the building can have a crippling effect on the congregation's resources. Conducting worship out of a sanctuary owned by another church, or renting a meeting hall, is often economically preferable to the dogged determination to stay in a building. Why the resistance to move?

The Early Church had no buildings that we know of for the first 300 years of its existence. Some of the earliest churches may have met in synagogues, but most met in households. There were no "sacred structures" to preserve or special rules for behaving when we are in "God's house." In fact, God tried the whole "God's House" thing with the Israelites. It didn't work out. He had the house demolished. Twice!

The gospel of John (2:19) records Jesus' claim that if the temple be torn down, he will raise it again in three days. This was taken later as a prophecy about his resurrection. But why would Jesus refer to himself as a temple? The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:19-22:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.  NRSV

Then in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, Corinthians Paul wrote:

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.  NRSV

Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:4-5:

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  NRSV

There are no more temples, sacred buildings, or "Houses of God!" There is only a living temple of which we each are living stones, and Jesus is the cornerstone. Wherever we are is holy because God, living in us, is holy. God intends that his living temple expand until it encompasses the whole earth. In my estimation, to speak of church buildings as sacred or as houses of God borders on idolatry. A building is inconsequential to being a church. The church existed without buildings in the beginning, and Christians all around the world do without it today. Am I saying that we should not have church buildings? Not at all. Building a building as a place to have corporate worship is a strategy. It is a means to an end. But we must ask to what end?

There is a wonderful line from the movie The Pirates of the Caribbean. Captain Jack Sparrow is stranded on an island with Elizabeth, and he talks of what he will do with his ship, the Black Pearl, once he recaptures it. He tells Elizabeth, "That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel, and a hull, and a deck, and sails. That's what a ship needs. No… What a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom!" Well, a church is not a sanctuary, an educational wing, a fellowship hall, and a spacious parking lot. Those are all things a church needs (maybe!) What a church is…what our congregation is… is....?

[Index]

Comments

[sherman]

This is good stuff. We truly need to recover the paradigm of being living stones, the Church of God in the world.

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks Shreman. I think the image of being the living temple is a powerful one, yet I rarely hear it articulated. I think sometimes we can learn as much from the biblcial metaphors we don't use as we do from those we do use.

[Richard LeComte]

This isn't the kind of message that you hear during Stewardship season, but it's a good one to remember when you're obsessing over a boiler that's eating up precious BTUs. Yes, worship happens in warehouses, homes and fields. But in the absence of Roman oppression, can't we make beautiful spaces that in themselves are an expression of the worship of God? Are warehouse churches themselves more holy than cathedrals just becase they're simpler? Or are we afraid to do the heavy lifting required to express our love of Jesus Christ with our time, talents and treasure through the symbols of 2,000 years of worship? I don't know. Great church buildings bring people to Christ and repel them. I think some people are called to warehouse churches, and some are called to cathedrals, and our mission is to make everywhere a temple to the Lord, out priest, prophet and king.

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks for these great observations Richard. My concern is that every decision we make emanates from the mission God calls us to. Building a structure for a set of activities is a strategy, not the essence of the mission itself. While many assent to understanding this, their actions betray an almost idolatrous over attachment to the strategy. Just as individuals there is great temptation for overattachment to our worldly possessions, I think their is great temptation for overattachment the most visible material expression our corporate life. I wonder if each year a congregation should not reaffirm its mission a rededicate there facillities to that mission. Of course all this assumes we are really ready to surrender all for the mission truly seek God'a call.