The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Liturgical Space: Christian Worship and Church Buildings in Western Europe, 1500–2000
Nigel Yates
Ashgate (2008). 199 pp.
In their busy attention to so many things – church administration, budgets, sermon preparation, committee meetings, needy individuals, let alone their own families – pastors often overlook one of the most basic aspects of congregational life, namely the place and space wherein they gather for worship and ministry. Sometimes meeting places are matters of expediency. A new church plant meets where it can afford to or perceived to be strategically located. These are of course legitimate concerns. But beyond matters of expediency, questions remain: does the meeting place facilitate the kind of ministry that is desired? How does it do so? And beyond such functional questions, what kind of message does the place and space communicate?
Contemporary Christian worship often focuses on the effective facilitation of the worship experience. Here, multimedia technology assumes a central role (projectors, film screens, flat screens, lighting, sound systems). Again, these are legitimate concerns, but they carry their own implicit value system. In many ways, the technology is an extension of the Protestant emphasis on the Word, a Word now often communicated in song and image as well as the sermon. It has little to do with a sacramental dimension to corporate worship, unless one wishes to argue that the worship experience is itself sacramental or even iconographic.
In his survey of the styles and strategies of church space through time, Nigel Yates shows how implicit and explicit theological values shaped the construction and use of church buildings. As the subtitle indicates, the focus of Yates’ survey is that of Western Europe from 1500 to the present. The American church story is not included in this survey, although the reader can easily perceive analogous dynamics in American church architecture. This is an account of Western European church architecture, with a particular emphasis on the church experience in the British Isles, with its mixture of Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Independent Church traditions. The major questions that such a survey focuses on are the respective roles of the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist and that of preaching. How different theologies placed differing emphases on these areas of corporate worship went a long way in determining the ordering, reordering, destruction and construction of church buildings.
For those new to the study of church architecture, the first chapter is a solid and illuminating introduction. The first worship spaces were homes (see Acts 12:12, 16:40, 18:7) and borrowed buildings such as lecture halls for evangelistic purposes (Acts 19:9–10). The legalization of Christianity presented the need for larger worship spaces, which introduced the adoption of the basilica, a secular building untainted with pagan associations and useable as a place for the non-sacrificial (of animals that is), preaching-oriented character of Christian worship. The basilica becomes the standard model of Church architecture for a millennium. Closely related to the Roman basilica is the style known as Romanesque, with its characteristic curved arches and domes. This became the standard style of Eastern Orthodox architecture to this day, and found in Western church architecture throughout the Christian era into the present. Early medieval technology largely determined what was possible in terms of large architecture, and the Romanesque reflects that technology and engineering. The centralized planning and the large domes also provided the opportunity to express heaven on earth; the dome, with the image of Christ the Almighty in its center, surrounded by mosaics and icons of Old and New Testament saints, presents to worshipers a palpable image of the Heavenly Kingdom.
In the Western Church Yates identifies two developments that had a profound impact on the design and construction of church buildings. First was the rise of different types of celebrations of the mass – High Mass and Low Mass, and the development of private masses especially for the dead. Transepts were added to afford the addition of chapels and altars, giving rise to the characteristic cross-shaped churches still existing today. Secondly was the importance of the sermon as a means of encouraging lay piety. Yates portrays the typical medieval mass as that of the clergy in the chancel and the laity in the pews with little contact outside of certain moments in the mass and the preaching. This gave rise to the development of the basilica outline, now subdivided in naves, chancels, transepts and chapels.
“It is not possible to understand the attitude of the Reformers to public worship and its architectural setting without also understanding their objections to the theology, liturgical practice and private devotions of the late medieval western church” (p. 7). Thus begins Yates’ account of the Reformation and its contribution to Western church architecture, a familiar account told from a Protestant perspective but informed by and sympathetic to Roman theology and practice. Protestant church design in the ensuing years becomes a tale of the relative value placed on the Word and Sacrament. Early Lutheran and Anglican churches sought a balance. Calvinist and Independent churches placed the emphasis on the Word and this on accessibility to preaching. Within Protestant bodies Yates accounts for the relative impact of rationalist and pietist influences, and documents how these historical communions navigated these differences and how church liturgy and design reflects these influences. The book contains outlines and comparisons of liturgical developments as well as images, photographs and illustrations of church design.
More than a mere architectural history, however, Yates advances two of his own theses. The first is that the Tractarian or Oxford Movement that would so shape the Anglican Communion in the second half of the nineteenth century had liturgical and architectural predecessors; the “ecclesiologists” as he calls them did not invent their re-appropriation of medieval practices whole cloth. This of course has a lot to do with the rise of neo-Gothic architecture with its characteristic pointed designs, expansive space, increased use of stained glass, and the prominence of the altar. Secondly and related to this is Yates’ contention that the Gothic revival took much longer to gain ground in Britain and beyond than is usually argued. Both are somewhat in-house scholarly debates of church and architectural historians, but for those interested in church history are interesting matters to consider.
The book pursues church design innovations into the present, but as indicated above, because of its European focus the book has little direct bearing on American church design except as this is imported from the Old World. For anyone considering a visit to Great Britain or the Continent this book would serve as a wonderful guide for visits to various sites.
For those new to the subject, the value of this book would have been enhanced with a glossary. Architectural and liturgical terminologies are employed without definition, which may detract from full engagement with the arguments of the text. Church floor plans are provided with some labeling, but a basic model of Romanesque, Classical, and Gothic building designed clearly labeled would be helpful for the novice. A Guide for Further Reading is provided, and this is a very helpful resource for those who want to pursue these matters further. The books listed under “General Survey,” “The Legacy of the Pre-Reformation Church,” and “Liturgical Renewal and Church Design in the Twentieth Century” are particularly relevant. To these texts I might add the following. Jon M. Sweeney, Beauty Awakening Belief: How the Medieval Worldview Inspires Faith Today (Morehouse, 2009), a brief introduction to Gothic architecture that also explains how church design engenders a particular experience of God. Peter and Linda Murray, The Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art (Oxford, 2004), an inexpensive resource for understanding all aspects of Christian art and architecture. William A. Dyrness, Senses of the Soul: Art and the Visual in Christian Worship (Cascade, 2008), another brief and non-technical book which focuses on how contemporary Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox styles of worship are expressed and how style and substance are integrally related. Finally, David Brown, God and Enchantment of Place (Oxford, 2004), a more scholarly but nonetheless readable survey of different styles of design and practice both reflect and shape Christian spirituality. The fifth chapter, “Competing Styles: Architectural Aims and Wider Setting” is most relevant to this discussion, but the whole book sets out to expand the scope of contemporary theological consideration.
Reading Yates’ text or any of the others mentioned here would help pastors and worship leaders give more considered thought to the matter of how space affects experience and how function and form are inter related and can enhance each other.
James McCullough (PhD, St. Andrews University)
