Proto-Protestantism: Sacralist Judaizing and Church Architecture

03 September 2022

Sacralist Judaizing and Church Architecture

https://mereorthodoxy.com/church-architecture/

This was another offering at The Aquila Report. A ridiculous article and all the more in that it's being promoted by a Reformed-affiliated website that ostensibly stands on historic and traditional principles such as the Sufficiency of Scripture and the Regulative Principle of Worship.

But this is common enough in Reformed circles these days. Between the crypto-Evangelical ethos and hermeneutics of New Calvinism to the Judaizing proclivities of Dominionism, there is paucity of knowledge when it comes to Redemptive-Historical categories and (for good or ill) much of the Reformed heritage.

While it's true that there are some difference between the Scholastics and the Vosians, and say, the Puritans and the Klineans, nevertheless even the older schools had a better understanding of these issues than what is exhibited today. Indeed, the arguments surrounding concepts like the Regulative principle were rooted in a Redemptive-Historical understanding – even if those exact terms were not in use.

The Jewish Temple is not the standard, it's not the model the Church looks to in terms of developing a theory of Church architecture. Indeed the very notion of Sacred Architecture is moot in the New Covenant – an extra-scriptural contrivance. The Puritans understood this. While they were in many cases happy enough to appropriate the sacral symbolism represented in the various buildings of the Established Church, a theology that produces 'meeting houses' will understand that the building itself is nothing and has no bearing on the nature and character of New Testament worship.

Not only is it redemptive-historical folly to turn back to the temple as some kind of blueprint for the Church's invention of sacred spaces and sanctuaries – the very concepts are loaded with false assumptions. Consequently we must ask why then don't we have a priesthood with robes or vestments, and while we're at it, an altar, a bronze sea and so forth.

Some might argue these 'sacrificial elements' are things that have been fulfilled and they would be right to say so but where they err is in failing to see that the entire Mosaic order has been fulfilled and there's no basis in either the Old or New Testament for going back to previously fulfilled redemptive-historical epochs and cherry picking elements to retain or repackage. The criteria employed are arbitrary at best.

This remains a flaw within the Westminster formula and heritage, this schema that divides Old Covenant law into artificial categories. Nevertheless the traditional Reformed view was very clear with regard to what elements were not to be brought forward or borrowed from and while they struggled with the forms of moral law, the polity and cult of Old Covenant Israel was understood as fulfilled and had no place in New Covenant ecclesiology or worship.

Additionally and in contrast to contemporary argument, the didactic aspects of the temple's adornment and accoutrement were not about questions of aesthetics – though indeed there are questions of beauty and glory at work in the imagery. Nevertheless they are primarily about typology – images and symbols anticipating and pointing to the coming of Christ and the nature of His Kingdom. Once He has come and fulfilled His holy task, the veil is rent and the order is effectively ended. To retain such typology is tantamount to saying the types have yet to be fulfilled. This is Judaizing on the order of the error being addressed in Hebrews.

And when is there ever an instance wherein the people of God take some and leave some of an order ordained by God? It's all or nothing. Either the temple order and all of its typology is to be retained (which is very much akin to what is seen the ecclesiology of Roman Catholicism and its theology surrounding church buildings and the Mass), or we reckon it fulfilled and thus no longer applicable.

Needless to say, there is no going back. And appeals to aesthetics are to divorce the imagery and import of these God-ordained elements from their purpose – a highly problematic notion at best.

The New Testament model is eschatological and as the Church is placed in an Already-Not Yet pilgrim status there is no temporal sacral order. As such there is no cultural mode or expression for the faith. There is no sacred music per se, and certainly no sacred architecture. Additionally the history of so-called Church Architecture is a tale of sacralism – a tale of folly and error. The architecture and its historical development are largely inseparable from the Church's relationship to culture. Prior to Constantine there was no sacred architecture and but a handful of dedicated buildings which appeared in the late third century – mostly converted houses. Church architecture is a product of the Constantinian Shift when the Church embraced Roman civilisation, the state, and the trappings of social standing. As such the buildings became wed to status and sought Babel-like to make a socio-cultural statement – an imposing presence in the public space, and often in the city centre, the public square. This is what is behind the steeple and the push for grandiosity. It makes sense culturally. It's a deeply rooted impulse literally as old as Babel but it has nothing to do with the theology of the New Testament and in fact represents a worldly counterfeit of it – and certainly a rejection of the pilgrim ethos and identity at the core of New Testament identity.

In our day, there's little hope of gothic towers and steeples dominating the skyline. While some still seek a form of grandiosity and institutional authority in the massive nature of an edifice, others pursue relevance in an approach to marketing and the consumer aesthetic. This has been rightly criticised, but the return to 'sacred' architecture is no remedy – but to turn away from one error to the embrace of another.

Does it have to be said? The Church is not a building. Everyone knows that but few (it would seem) have properly reflected on that.

Such appeals to Church Architecture always fall back on the Old Testament as there is no case to be made from the New – which is the normative and governing canon for the Christian Church. Some in the furtherance of their hermeneutical error turn to the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation but as I've argued elsewhere this proves too much and if applied consistently the end result would probably be more akin to an Eastern Orthodox service.

The architecture argument appeals to the Old Testament but does not read it through the Christocentric eyes of the New. Rather it relies on Western philosophy and a great deal of speculation and contrived deduction.

Further, the arguments for the basilica, Romanesque style, and the eventual rise of the Gothic are rooted in cultural development. The irony is this – you can make the same kind of relativistic arguments that in the present context results in the movie theatre or shopping mall model of the mega-church. The traditionalist Church Architecture argument fails on all fronts. It fails the Biblical test and even the cultural and philosophical tests. It's arbitrary and indeed detrimental to the witness and purpose of the Church in this present evil age.

The debates are a waste of time as both sides (the traditional and contemporary) build their arguments on theological sand and bad hermeneutics – but very few seem to understand this basic point. In the end it's a distraction, and a colossal waste of time, money, and energy. These buildings, grand and historically interesting as they might be are works of men and as such will perish.

I've related the story before but I was particularly impressed as I approached Strasbourg by car many years ago. I am not alone. Many have commented on the kind of awe of seeing the shadow of the cathedral appear on the horizon as one crosses the Alsatian plain. It inspired not a few of the Romantics. For my part I always think of Friedrich Reiser, the Waldensian leader who was burned there by the Inquisition in 1458. To him and the other dissidents of the Middle Ages, the spire of Strasbourg Cathedral was not sacred architecture but an ominous symbol of Rome's bestial power – a tower of antichrist. To put it in Tolkienesque terms such architecture would have been akin to the Barad-Dur of Sauron. And indeed Reiser was martyred under its shadow.

In the end I'm not going reject a church because of their building. I may not share in the appreciation of what it is and I will not contribute to a building fund. I also have a rather ambivalent attitude toward 'work' days as I believe the ethos behind such events is rooted in the aberrant 'House of God' theology which is often vocalised on such 'days'. There's nothing wrong with a building per se (or keeping things in good repair) but then I start to get irritated when you have to turn to acrobatics to change a light bulb because someone thought it necessary to have a thirty foot ceiling. It's one thing if it's simply a building with a high ceiling, but the reasons behind it (in the Church context) are wrong. And this is but one small example.

In our present context of cultural disintegration, people are looking for solid foundations. This is especially true of those who have under bad theological influence confused and conflated the West with the Kingdom. The decline of culture is for them a sign the Church is in peril and often they seek to re-establish foundations on the basis of tradition and older understandings. It's understandable on one level, but just because something is old doesn't mean it's right.

I love history and I certainly treasure my years living in Europe and experiencing its cultural wonders. I would happily go back and forego visiting the United States ever again. Frequently moved by the architecture and even Church architecture I saw, I was nevertheless forced to think of it in different terms. Exploring Church history forced me to see it through different eyes and as I've long argued – for a medieval dissident, the castles and cathedrals that so enchant us today were not romantic and captivating testimonies to a profound culture or the glories of an earlier age but were ornate symbols of the totalitarian brutalism that characterised the Kingdom of Antichrist or Christendom that arose in the wake of the Gregorian Reform. These edifices were symbols of power and terror. They were moving to be sure but not in the sense of sublimity or transcendence but instead for the underground dissident Christians of the time, they inspired revulsion, fear, and even terror.

The Magisterial Reformation failed to address these issues and retained the sacralist impulses of Constantinianism and as such it's no surprise that the Piedmont Waldenses (who alone among the many Waldensian factions retained their identity after coming into contact with the Reformation) were compelled by the Reformers to erect buildings – something they had not done before.

I recently reflected on all these questions as I attended a small congregation meeting in a storefront. I thought of how many would be unhappy with the arrangement and yet for the wrong reasons. For some it lacks aesthetics and a sense of being 'at church'. Others see it as failing the market-test. Small and ad hoc in its nature, it lacks commercial and consumer appeal. For my part I found it rather cozy and somewhat refreshing. I rejoice that the Spirit can work mightily in such an innocuous space and yet be absent from the grand halls of spired buildings even with their turrets, arches, and stained glass. Spoiled by middle class sensibilities and Western affluence, the truth is the Church has always been a persecuted remnant. Barns, woods, basements, and abandoned buildings have been the scenes of the Spirit's outpouring and such settings are in fact far more glorious and potentially transcendent than the distraction and contrived glory of Church Architecture so-called. But this is only so if you have eyes to see.