https://thefederalist.com/2025/11/18/why-christians-should-build-cathedrals/
Nathanael Blake, the author of this piece was recently on LPR's Issues Etc., in order to promote this article and its ideology. I was disappointed with Todd Wilken that he was willing to give voice to this, but given some of the other voices and ideas he promotes, I guess I'm not too surprised.
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) is clearly fighting its own internal battles. They're struggling with Far Right and Nazi-esque revisionists on the one hand and a still vibrant Evangelical-style movement that wants to take them into a low-church direction. Having examined and even visited some of the LCMS congregations in my area, the battle lines are clear. We have everything from High Church practice with statues of Jesus, the sign of the cross, and chanting to (at the opposite end of the spectrum), low-church Evangelical-style worship with pop music, screens, and the rest.
Ironically (at least in my region) it would seem that many of the ultra-conservative High-leaning congregations meet in ugly modernist-inspired buildings. I'm sure there's a story there in connection with LCMS history and obviously the High Church movement within it would like to see that change. I wonder if this is what Blake is referring to by his reference to 1970's architectural monstrosities?
While it's unlikely the LCMS is going to invest in cathedral building (in this case we're simply referring to large ornate church buildings), I'm sure they'd like to see a shift toward more historically rooted and oriented forms of architecture.
I have been in many European cathedrals and basilicas and they're impressive. There's no doubt about it. In terms of the flesh, it draws and impresses. You can see why people (in terms of fleshly thinking) would find such architecture (and thus the institutions) alluring and offering everything from wonder and transcendence to solace and stability. I remember on more than occasion standing outside St. John Lateran and gazing up at those grand and looming statues - they're all but beckoning to you, and leave you thinking 'wow', I could almost be convinced. But then I look across the square and think about the Scala Santa and the kind of idolatry and deception it represents - I am quickly grounded once more.
Today's Evangelicals and Confessionalists are looking for cultural grounding and unfortunately they think they can find it in theatrical props and symbols of power. Don't be fooled, that's what cathedrals are all about. The idea of course is tied to the seat (or cathedra-throne) of a bishop and in turn this is why they wanted these large buildings. Ostensibly for the glory of God, they're really about power and prestige and always have been. Later they became romantic symbols, tokens of locality and cultural pride, and ultimately tourist attractions and sources of revenue.
Men like Blake fall for the false spirituality they represent - again, in the flesh one is almost 'converted' when walking in to St. Peter's Basilica, Milan Cathedral, or the York Minster. But I think Blake is also driven by (and seduced by) the power and prestige they represent.
I've written about it more than once, but driving through our area there's a small town settled by German Catholics in the 1800's. They built a large Roman Catholic church on top of the hill that overlooks the town and as you drive toward it, the steeple looms on the horizon. It's impressive. Not nearly as impressive as driving across the Alsatian plain toward Strasbourg from modern Germany, but the idea is the same. It's a common motif that conveys identity and is laden with sacral symbolism - born not of Scripture but of the same kind of thinking that drove the Egyptians to produce obelisks and the like. The steeple imagery represents a heaven-earth axis, the presence of God. Ironically the Biblical examples are not found in the New Testament or the testimonies of the apostles but in Genesis and the tale of Babel.
But sacralism, the ideology that emerged with the Constantinian Shift baptises such efforts and appropriates them and thus Blake's thinking is completely shaped by this kind of thinking. It does represent a kind of philosophical coherence, especially in the context of a what might be called a cultural ideology, but it has nothing to do with New Testament Christianity. And as I have often argued, the architectural tradition was not something medieval dissenting Christians appreciated. For them that looming dark tower of Strasbourg Cathedral would have seemed more like Sauron's Dark Tower than a beacon of truth and hope. It's especially ironic as Strasbourg was such a centre of dissenter activity - the Waldensian leader Friedrich Reiser and some of his companions were burned there by the Inquisition in 1458 and others were burned in previous centuries under its shadow.
One need not be a fan of Joyce Carol Oates to agree with her sentiments (quoted by Blake). She's right, the cathedral ethos is in fact antithetical to Christ and His teachings and I agree he (and the apostles) would view such edifices with contempt. They are in fact symbols of the False Church of Antichrist.
We can be impressed by the tenacity of the builders and yet they are monuments to vanity as all such things are. They make the world more interesting, but we should not be seduced by the bad doctrine and spirituality they represent.
Enlightenment Capitalism (the true religion of most American Christians) also has its own sacral architecture and to the chagrin of men like Blake, the skyscraper dwarfs even the grandest church buildings. The Manhattan skyline (when viewed through this lens) is making a bold and profound spiritual statement that can also be seen from miles away and undoubtedly produces a genuine awe in the contexts of both day and night. On that note, there is also something kind of ridiculous about a building like St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. It's a grand building and in other contexts would be really impressive but in Mid-Town Manhattan it's dwarfed by nearby structures (such as Trump Tower) and simply drowns in the context of the consumerist icons and retail outlets such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Dolce and Gabbana just a block down, not to mention the expanse of Rockefeller Center just a block to the west. In terms of high place worship, the lines of people waiting for the Top of the Rock experience (which produces a kind of awe, wonder, and transcendence) is every bit as impressive as the crowds looking to enter St, Patrick's.
The underlying issue here is one I keep to returning to - the question of Charism. Was the New Testament Church the model for the age? Are the Scriptures in fact sufficient for the Church for the entirety of this present evil age?
Or was the New Testament Church not the model but rather a proto-type for what would later emerge - a seed as it were. An argument can be made that the Church was certainly to expand beyond what we see in the New Testament in terms of numbers, scale, and scope - hence the seed imagery. But was it to expand to become a grand cultural institution?
Here's the problem, if that's the case then it (the Church) needed to move beyond the Bible and Protestants that wish to claim 'Sola Scriptura' have a problem. The Anglicans don't because they've never made such exacting claims. The Lutherans are ambiguous when it comes to how they define Scriptural authority and I would argue have really embraced more of a Prima Scriptura (Scripture First but not Scripture Alone) posture. In reality, the foundations for this larger 'Prima Scriptura' shift emerged in both Lutheran and Reformed circles with the rise and domination of Scholasticism and their Confessional movements. At that point, any kind of true Sola Scriptura models are denigrated as Biblicism - whether found in First Reformation groups like the Waldenses or in later Restorationist groups of the post-Magisterial Reformation context.
Sola Scriptura Biblicism rejects cathedrals and the various assumptions which even lead to their conception and advocacy.
A Prima Scriptura posture can heap on layers of philosophical-theological development and flesh out a larger cultural and social ethic. The question is - what are the boundaries for this approach and how does it relate to questions of authority? The Roman Catholics can answer this - I'm not sure the Magisterial Protestants can.
Blake resorts to a straw-man take-down of Oates' statement and anyone who might argue along those lines. One need not think Jesus was a hippy dude to reject the premise behind cathedral building. Blake doesn't even interact with the arguments and instead resorts to a glaring non-sequitir:
"And that is why we should build cathedrals — they are not memorials to an itinerant human teacher but triumphal monuments to the God who defeated sin and death that we might live. Christianity proclaims that Jesus is God, and so art, architecture, and engineering can have no higher purpose than creating magnificent churches where the people of God come together to worship, partake of the sacraments, and hear the preaching of God’s word."
I would argue (contra Blake) that the Word (and thus sacraments) are triumphal monuments to the God who defeated sin and death that we might live - and monuments that he ordained and are grounded in Scripture.
Do we need cathedrals to worship, hear the word, and partake of the sacraments? Clearly not.
If the apostles proclaimed Jesus is God, why then did they not make the connection and argue that art, architecture, and engineering can have no higher purpose than creating magnificent (a loaded term) buildings? Did they lay the groundwork for such thinking? I would argue they didn't and quite the contrary.
Further, the impulse is also driven by appeals to the Old Testament Temple order, but this was fulfilled. Is there any New Testament precedent for taking Old Testament types (which again are fulfilled in Christ) and then taking them ad hoc and re-dressing and re-purposing them to New Testament use? There's certainly no hermeneutical basis or pattern to be appealed to in the New Testament. I see plenty of condemnation of Judaizing practice in the New Testament and I would argue this is in fact no different than attempts to perpetuate (and perhaps modify) dietary laws or try to argue for a Levitical priesthood or elements of the sacrificial system. Rome at least on this point can be said to exhibit greater consistency - if erroneous and even blasphemous.
What Blake calls bland, others might deem as simple - the Spirit and Truth worship Christ spoke of. Simplicity and obedience to the New Testament is also liberating, freeing worshippers from the weight of tradition and other forms of conscience binding legalistic tyranny. I'm not defending the pop-culture movie-theatre ethos and style of Evangelicalism. That is as equally worldly and repugnant as the ethos of the high altar in St. Peter's Basilica. Rather, the problem here is divergent ecclesiologies and contrasting conceptions of what the Church is.
Blake's view results in a kind of denigrated worship for those who don't have a grand building. How foreign is this thinking to the Church of the first three centuries and the generations of nonconformists both before and after the Reformation who experienced the glories of New Testament worship in wood, barn, field, and cave.
We can reject both Evangelicalism and the High Church assumptions of Blake. They're both wrong and rooted in unbiblical thinking and misguided motivations. This is clear in his appeal to culture, community, and the glory of the city, etc. It's all vanity, worldliness, and sacral thinking - resulting in a fixation on pride and power. This can all be disguised by arguments and references to beauty and the like but the student of Scripture can see right through it and isn't fooled.
Again, I have been in many of these buildings and know the awe they produce. My feelings about them as simply buildings are mixed - as it is with many of the artistic tokens of Christendom. There's a Roman Catholic building in Buffalo that's often in the news. The diocese wants to close it and tear it down, but the community wants to save it - even though numbers are down etc. It's a symbol of the old neighbourhood and there's a lot of sentimentality associated with it. They're engaged in a fight with the bishop. The community wants to preserve the building and turn it into a community centre. Catholics are kind of mixed about this as they don't like their 'sacred' buildings turned into secular spaces. The real estate won't sell with the building and as they're often trying to generate revenue (often to pay off paedophile abuse settlements) they want to turn these properties into a liquid asset. In other cases, they have torn down old buildings arguing that they were just too expensive to fix. At one time the Vatican II ethos pushed this as well - they wanted modern buildings, which are now becoming more and more empty as the years pass. Ironically it's the old buildings (and old liturgy) that at this point are likely to draw in the big numbers.
On one level I'm not sorry to see them torn down as they represent doctrinal error. But on another level, they can be appreciated in terms of history and culture but if so, I'm happy to see them secularized. I cannot agree with Blake on any level.
The 'beautiful places' argument is also problematic. As I have previously touched on, when one travels around Europe (and perhaps Italy in particular) one encounters numerous scenic vistas - often accompanied by a little shrine. I recall driving down country roads and seeing old ladies praying at them and even being moved by their piety - which is admittedly misguided and yet I often thought if I were Roman Catholic I would love to visit such places. Further, when hiking in the Dolomites it was interesting after traversing several miles to emerge on to an overlook and find a shrine. My flesh cried out. There's a real satisfaction in the idea of kneeling, lighting a candle, and putting a kind of religious stamp on that moment. But there's a danger in such high place ideology that places greater attachment and worth on prayer and devotion through such self-imposed religion, will worship, and tradition. The act and context is being venerated and actually become a distraction. My prayer and worship would be just as effective a quarter mile back in the woods or in a living room, or a warehouse. Sure, looking out over a grand valley, standing on the seashore, or encountering an architectural wonder can generate feelings of transcendence, but we must be careful. It is what I call the temptation of the tactile. It can easily deceive us and cloud our judgment.
Unfortunately it's all Blake has to stand on. For all his talk of elevating the Word and Sacrament - they are (it would seem) not enough. We need more.
If he's right, if I tread that path he wants me to walk, all I can say is this - the road doesn't end at the LCMS I occasionally attend in a nearby town, or even in one of the remnant groups such as the ACNA that come out of the Canterbury tradition. No, it ends in Rome or Constantinople. That's the logical, emotional, and spiritual destination of that road. Once you abandon the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, that's where it leads. Some stop along the way and try to convince others to do the same, but apart from denominational loyalties and enticements (which have no attraction to me), there's no reason to heed them and stop at that pull off or turnout. Why not keep going? Blake wants to appeal to history? An examination of that road doesn't lead to Wittenberg, let alone Nashville or Colorado Springs.
And thus in the end, his argument (in addition to being unbiblical) is self-defeating.
See also:
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2022/09/sacralist-judaizing-and-church.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2011/04/temptation-of-tactile.html