Of Teepees and Tabernacles Biblical Principals of Church Architecture
We are building a new church in our parish, and to lead the effort I have been brushing up and thinking much about church architecture. Looking around at the dismal buildings which have been presented as Catholic churches over the last fifty years, one has to ask where on earth the architects, designers and liturgists have got their ideas.
We don’t have to look far. G.K.Chesterton said ‘Every argument is a theological argument’, and the modern churches clearly reflect the beliefs of their builders. First, the builders and their buildings are fundamentally utilitarian. Driven by the unquestioned modernist dogma that, “Form follows function” they have designed not churches, but auditoria. Everyone can see the altar. The sound system is excellent. The toilets are capacious and clean. The air conditioning works and the roof does not leak and (most important of all) the building was not expensive.
When it comes to whether the church should be beautiful or not, the building committee have adopted the doctrine of Judas: “Why should the money be spent on costly ointment when it could be given to the poor?” In other words, let’s cut out all that beautiful stuff. That’s expensive. We need a few statues and vestments, but cheap, mass produced stuff will do. However, too often, once the cheap choice is made they forget the idea that the money saved was to go to the poor, and they pocket the savings themselves.
Then we mustn’t forget the liturgists who tell us that the Mass is all about “gathering in the people of God for a fellowship meal.” Therefore everyone must sit around the altar as a family. I actually heard one trendy priest explain, “When I am celebrating Mass I am like the shaman telling stories around the campfire with the whole tribe gathered around me.” On this pretext, on Holy Saturday this priest brought the new fire into the sanctuary of the church itself. I suppose it was unsurprising therefore, when he built a church that resembled a large brick teepee.
In fact, the teepee has it’s own theology and some anthropologists theorize that the native Americans built teepees which they placed in a circle around the campfire because they understood life to be cyclical. They lived in circles because life was a circle: birth, death and re-incarnation. Round and round and round we go and where we stop nobody knows.
The Judeo Christian understanding of the cosmos, history and God’s providence, however, is not cyclical but linear. We believe in an intelligence behind all things which has purpose and meaning and intention. Therefore we believe in a beginning and an end; an Alpha and an Omega. Consequently, those other tent dwelling nomads, the Hebrews, worshipped God not in a teepee, but in a tabernacle. I have never understood why Christian architects agonize over the basic structure of a church when the Bible itself (which they are supposed to believe is inspired by God) has a whole section on church architecture. One only need read the twenty-fifth to thirtieth chapters of Exodus to see just how God wants his house to be built.
Of course we need not build with skins of sheep and goats, or try to re-produce the temple in Jerusalem like they built Hogwart’s at Harry Potter world, but the basic outline is there, and the temple in Jerusalem was simply a grand and permanent version of the tent like tabernacle in the wilderness that God prescribed. The basic outline is a rectangle with a large outer courtyard for the people, an inner courtyard for the clergy and a holy of holies where God’s presence was focused.
For two thousand years the vast majority of churches--whether they were Byzantine, or Romanesque or Gothic or Baroque or Neo Gothic or Neo Classical (or a mish mash of the above) were built in this same, simple, linear, three chambered fashion. These Christian churches conveyed a sense of direction from the entry through the great West door up the central aisle to the sanctuary with it’s altar and finally up to the tabernacle--the Holy of Holies and the presence of Christ. These Christian churches not only conveyed in architecture the linear view of salvation history, but they also evoked the hierarchical sense of the church. As you moved forward you also moved further up and further in.
All of this is lost in the modern teepee, circus tent sort of church. Tradition was trashed and innovation was in. The architects and designers and liturgists flailed about trying one new idea after another with the result that not only has tradition been trashed, but every new church had to express some trendy new idea or another, or be the vehicle for some architect or poorly trained parish priest to ‘express himself’ or some new idea or enthusiasm.
Another principle from the Book of Exodus corrects this modern mania for self expression. The structure of the tabernacle was given by God. Moses didn’t make it up. Along with the rectangular, three chambered structure, some other principles were also established. The tabernacle was not essentially a meeting place for the people of God. It was first and foremost the dwelling place of God. That the people went there to make sacrifice and worship was incidental. The focus, therefore, was to create a worthy and beautiful dwelling place for the deity. Do you see the difference? We moderns don’t intend to make a temple for God. We intend to make a meeting place for ourselves. No wonder we build auditoria and not temples.
The final principle established in the instructions for the tabernacle rests on the second. If this is the dwelling place for God, then nothing but the best is worthy of his house. We read that the children of Israel brought all the gold and silver that they had plundered in their escape from Egypt and used it to make the golden candlesticks, the gold plated tables, the sacred vessels and the Ark of the Covenant. The women brought their costly fabrics and threads and wove into the panels of the tabernacle exquisite portrayals of angels. The fabric walls themselves were not made from rough wool, but from expensive dolphin hide and rare linens dyed with precious purple and embedded with gems.
No base, utilitarian meeting place with a few tawdry trinkets and decoration thrown in. Instead the tabernacle was a glorious dwelling place for God--an awesome throne room for the Almighty into which his people came to offer their sacrifices of praise.
One of the happier consequences of the teepee churches is that because they were built cheaply and filled with trashy junk no one will feel too bad when they reach the end of their lifespan and are either torn down or turned into the parish meeting hall. They were fashionable buildings of their time--a time when the timeless was dismissed as boring. Consequently, like bell bottoms and double knit leisure suits, when their time is over these inconsequential buildings may be disposed of, and no one will grieve their going. No one will form a committee to petition the bishop to preserve the historic and important church. Instead everyone will breathe a sigh of relief and vote to bring in the demolition team.
Happily a new generation of church architects is even now arising who understand the impact and importance of timeless architecture. Young men and women who understand how tradition can be at once timeless and up to date. These young men and women are determined and intelligent and talented. Furthermore, they are fully Catholic. They are committed to their faith. Undaunted by an architectural establishment that ridicules them because they are threatened by them, they are working quietly and courageously to renew the tradition in our day and age. They wish to build churches that are beautiful tabernacles for God--not just gathering places for his people.
Fr Dwight Longenecker is parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. Visit his website at www.dwightlongenecker.com