What our church buildings say about us – Sacred Space Symposium

What if our church buildings could talk? What if our temple walls could speak? What would they tell us about our faith?

Jeanne Halgren Kilde, the director of University of Minnesota's religious studies program, studies the sacred spaces people use for worship. She is like a \"horse whisperer\" for church buildings. She looks carefully at their designs and uses — and asks a simple question: \"What does a particular space and its use tell us about sacredness?\"

Kilde spoke at the \"Sacred Space Symposium,\" sponsored by the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding at BYU, on Wednesday, June 3. She said the buildings, churches, temples and other spaces used for religious purposes tell us much about the doctrine, attitudes and power structures of the people who use them.

The New Testament tells how the apostle Paul preached on the third floor of a Roman home. (Acts 20:5-12) Kilde said the room was a \"triclinium,\" the room used for dining that was lined with benches and couches along three sides so guests could recline to eat their food. \"A certain informality probably ensued,\" Kilde said. People sat where they could, including on the window sill. Paul, however, was most likely in a place of honor — the head couch. This position would help establish his authority in the space.

The basilica form, a long building with interior columns leading to an elevated space for the altar at one end, helped to establish the authority of the clergy. \"Such formalism in the use of space, that is, the creation of boundaries, forbidden areas and precise activities within religious space ... characterized Christian worship for centuries,\" Kilde said.

Some more changes came during the Reformation. The pulpit remained high but was placed to the side of the church in the center. \"The pulpit marks enormous authority when you are standing up above everybody and they have to all sit below and look up,\" Kilde said.

The altar was no longer isolated as it had been under the basilica form because the protestant theology toward the Eucharist, or what Mormons would call the sacrament, took away its mystery.

Some other changes occurred as well. Some churches eliminated the center aisle. But often the space put the authority of the speaker over the practicality of the congregation being able to see or even hear the him.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preached at Gwynnap Pit. The place was a former mining pit and made a perfect outdoor amphitheater. But Wesley wouldn't preach from the bottom of the pit even though that would have made it easy to hear him. Instead, he preached from the top and shouted down and across the pit. Authority trumped function.

Things began to change in the 1830s as people gained more power socially and culturally.