New Building New Breed

By Robert Meyers

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     It was the third church of that denomination in the small town and the members were proud of it. They could now point to three buildings owned by their party, and one of them was the newest and most modernistic structure in the city. My wife and I decided to visit that Sunday and hear the dedication ceremonies. We hoped the architecture might be especially helpful to us in worshipping, as architecture may be. To be quite honest, we also hoped that the architecture might at least prove diverting in case the sermon should turn out to be unbearably partisan.

     We parked our own shiny new automobile beside dozens of others in the spacious parking lot. The sunlight glittered on enamel and chrome, dazzling the eyes. I thought briefly that each of these chariots represented far too much money for transportation purposes, but the thought soon vanished as my eyes began to take in the new building.

     On the corner stone, neatly engraved, were these words: Church of Christ, Established in Jerusalem, A.D. 33. Some passers-by doubtless saw that inscription without giving it thought. But as a lifelong member of that party, I recognized its full implications. It said in cold, deliberate stone letters that this group was the original church set up by Christ, that even though we may not be able to trace a direct descent through the centuries we are still exactly the institution established in Jerusalem.

     To anyone with a historical sense, such a view of one's sect is perhaps mildly amusing. To me, with a long immersion into the presumptions of many of that sect's ministers, it was a bit of an irritant that morning. I thought, What bad taste, even if they do believe this, to flaunt it so before men of equal sincerity and good will.

     But I was soothed by the building. It was lovely and functional. Perhaps I should say that it was intelligently functional, and therefore inevitably lovely. I sat down in the quiet to enjoy it.

     Looking about, I saw that it had no

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windows. It was air-conditioned artificially, throughout the year, and on this hot Sunday it was delightfully cool. I began to think that the auditorium reminded me of something. After a time, I knew what it was. The room was like a cave. It was a long, sweeping half circle from wall to wall, with bare wood showing everywhere overhead. And dark, with indirect lights hidden on the far side of the beams. Behind the pulpit was a stone wall. Cool, dark, snug--it was a cave, all right.

     But a well accoutred cave. Wall to wall carpet. This was an innovation, indeed. Not many of our churches had yet dared to go beyond a "runner" down the aisles. When I was younger, the runner was always of rubber, but now that our people were financially stronger it was usually of carpet. I stretched out my feet, under the pew ahead, and sensed material comfort like a tangible thing. The seat under me was solid, heavy, and designed with good taste.

     I began to remember my boyhood. I had heard many ministers of the Church of Christ excoriate the "denominational" luxuries. I was taught that lovely buildings were sinfully extravagant, that stained glass windows were relics of popery, that carpets were an unjustifiable expense, and that church kitchens were the devil's quickest way into the stronghold of pure faith. I had not known as a boy that my group was economically not able to afford these things; I really believed what was said, and thought that we denied ourselves all these pleasant things because our absolutely correct interpretations of Scripture would not permit them.

     Now I realized that we had simply rationalized our inability to have these things and with crabbed uncharitableness had condemned our religious neighbors for them, until such time as our economic status improved and permitted us to enjoy them for ourselves. When that time came, we took pride in hiring architects to design our buildings, we no longer apologized for stained glass, we luxuriated in carpets and kitchens, and we said with restrained triumph that God's house should be as beautiful and gracious as our means permit.

     It occurred to me in the midst of this reminiscing that I had learned an important principle of human conduct. That is, all of us tend to disparage what we cannot have and to find reasons (especially righteous ones) why our neighbors should not possess these things. It even seemed to me that some of the differences of opinion which were exercising my brothers at that moment would one day be seen to have grown out of economic and social factors, rather than out of some laboriously constructed Scriptural law.

     This brief reverie ended abruptly as ten men trooped in, self-consciously, from an anteroom at the front of the auditorium. I was not altogether unprepared for this, since it had become a habit in our new and big churches. But I observed again that most of the men were simply not accustomed yet to such ritual, and were rather graceless. They looked a bit like stiff, wooden Indians. They labored to achieve a kind of solemn and religious look, an effort which turned out well enough for a few but made others look as if they were grimacing.

     The first man to speak told us of some new tracts in a wall-holder at the back. He named some of them. "The Five Steps to Salvation." "Why Methodism is Wrong." "Why I Left The Baptist Church." "Why I Left The Catholic Church." "Why I Left The Adventists."

     I got to thinking again. I remembered Bill, an industrious student in the church college I attended, and an ardent young minister. He had left the Church of Christ, and was preaching for the Christian church. I wondered if they were displaying copies of a tract entitled, "Why I Left The Church of Christ."

     And I thought of many, many others. Hundreds and thousands, in fact, who grew up in the Church of Christ but found its partisan spirit finally impossible to take. Some were indifferent, it was true, and rarely went to worship God in any church. But many others were in-

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telligent and enthusiastic students of Scripture, and deeply concerned about religion. They had become leaders in other religious groups. I wondered for a moment whether it would profit us if we were to display some tracts dealing with why these people left us.

     But at that moment, the songleader stepped out from his fellows on the platform. He announced each number twice, with a flat, just-right blend of efficiency and piety. "No.343," he said. "No.343." He waited a polite moment for all of us to find our pages. Then, patiently, he raised his hand and began to sing and beat time together. His mouth looked just a little as if it might normally be petulant, but was being forced in this officially religious moment to look holy. I immediately chided myself strongly for such thoughts realizing that the appearance of petulance might be merely a physical defect rather than an indication of character.

     We sang familiar songs, with peppy rhythms or funereal lamentations. Knowing how often I had sung melodies without paying attention to the quality of the poem, or to its depth of thought, I was not surprised to detect an almost completely sensuous reaction to the exercise. I felt a little thrill of pride at the great volume of sound, and permitted myself to reflect that no mechanical instrument could add anything to that particular moment. It was uplifting.

     Unfortunately, thought of an instrument led me down another path. I knew that my religious neighbors who employed an instrument in their worship were outcasts from my party. Yet oddly, I reflected, all the songs we were singing so lustily were composed by men who held religious views different from ours, and who soundly sanctioned the use of instruments in worship. Not a one was of our party, nor could have been called upon to lead a song or pray had he been present, but here we were singing sentiments which inspired us even though they had arisen in hearts not blessed with our measure of knowledge. There seemed to be a kind of inconsistency in it all somewhere, but I could not quite put my finger on it.

     The first prayer (it is sometimes called "the little prayer" in contrast to "the main prayer," which comes later and is longer) was spoken by another of the men on the platform. He was young, as all of them were, and I remembered our pride in putting our young, energetic men in command so that things could move along crisply. He looked at us for a long moment, provoking us into complete silence. Then he lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head and asked, sonorously, "Shall we pray?" A negative reply from someone in the audience would have thrown him into consternation. He expected no answer; the question was idle and formal.

     He prayed for a long time. He thanked God for what God had given, and for what God had not given. He prayed for the sick to recover, but agreed to acquiesce peacefully if they did not get well. He thanked God for the sunshine, which we were laboring manfully to defeat at that moment in the big auditorium. It seemed to me that he accommodated himself to whatever facts were facing him at the moment. He asked for nothing specific; there was no passionate urgency in his speaking. It had not been a plea, I realized, but a performance.

     After another song, a new face read the annual budget to us. It called for $27,500 for minister's salary and building costs, $4,000 for advertising, $1500 for two gospel meetings, $300 for charity and benevolence. I was still trying very hard not to think about this when the minister arose to preach his sermon.

     He was a young man, and his sermon was not bad. His voice was natural and unaffected, his material was not offensive to decency. At times he sounded like a very young person, as if his intellectual voice were changing and uncertain, the way a boy's voice sometimes is, but he was never vicious, arrogant, nor overly confident. I especially liked it that he sometimes paused as if searching for the right word. Most of my ministerial friends are so fluent that I keep remem-

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bering, at the wrong times, these words of Dean Swift:

     "The common fluency of speech in many men...is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words: for whoever is a master of language and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth; so people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door."

     I was glad, therefore, when my young friend paused now and then as if considering which word would most accurately say what he wanted said. And glad, too, that he was not quite so positive and authoritarian as some I had heard. The words of Samuel Butler had long been etched upon my mind: "A clergyman...can hardly ever allow himself to look facts fairly in the face. It is his profession to support one side; it is impossible, therefore, for him to make an unbiased examination of the other" Perhaps, I reflected ruefully, my mother was right and I had been corrupted from the pure and simple ways by too much reading.

     But no, I argued back, it is by wide reading that one learns how to judge his own performance and the performance of his group. One simply had to admit that Trollope was right in Barchester Towers when he remarked that "No one but a preaching clergyman has in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silently, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms and untruisms, and yet receive as his undisputed privilege the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips."

     I could almost hear my beloved mother saying, "But son, have you lost your love for God and for His church?" And I felt that Trollope could answer that, too. "We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for escape which is the common consequence of common sermons."

     It may be hard to believe that one could think these thoughts, and still hear all that was in the sermon, but it is true. I cannot do what one of my friends on the faculty of a Christian college says he can do, that is, simply shut off the mind when the sermon gets dull or excessively legalistic. I confess that I have sometimes yearned for the ability, but it lies beyond my temperament--forever, I think.

     So I listened to the young man, and was delighted when two responded to his invitation. (All sermons end with a formal invitation, in which the five steps are outlined, just as it was done in New Testament time.) Both responding persons were young girls, slightly overweight and about 15 years old. They made a response to that beautifully simple and lovely question, Do you believe in Jesus as the Son of God?

     While the preacher left to put on his rubber baptizing suit, we had the Lord's Supper. The lighting effect was spectacular. A spotlight played upon the faces of the men who stood at the table, and another bathed the bread and wine containers in a soft rose color. It was impressive and I deeply regretted that I fell to wondering where the master controls were for this production, and how much training one had to have to operate it correctly.

     The velvet curtain on the baptistry was operated by an invisible person. When he pulled it back, a yellow light played upon the background mural and it appeared as if the waters in the painting were actually moving. Because the machinery was new, he had trouble with the second girl. He pulled the curtain open too soon and had to jerk it back quickly. All of us wondered what had gone wrong. Had the young preacher not yet completed his instructions to the girl? Had she forgotten her rubber cap? Had he neglected the handkerchief which was to go over her

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nose? Was she frightened suddenly? Or cold, and trembling? (I could not believe the last, because all modern baptistries are heated.)

     We never knew, of course, and in a moment the curtain opened again. We watched as, for the second time, the young minister lifted his head and his right arm to intone the baptismal formula. It was a simple one and might well have come down from the earliest Christian baptisms.

     As the service came to a close, a thin little man, very old, broke up the parade of young and earnest faces. He stepped to the microphone to make some announcements. His first words almost blew us all out of the building. HRGGRURGGG! We jumped in our seats, and he jumped backward, startled out of his wits for a second. Then all of us realized together what had happened. The man operating the public address system controls had turned that particular mike up high for the remote words of the baptismal ceremony, and had then forgotten to turn it back down. I had visions of him somewhere in the recesses of the building in agony, dialing frantically to get things right. He succeeded. The man's next words were intelligible, even through a hit of high electronic whining as the controls man fiddled with his system. Where was he, I kept wondering. Hidden in an anteroom? Under the baptistry in a special control center? Elevated, in some small room, at the back?

     As we left the cool cave I saw Dennis Hart, the man who repairs my shiny automobile. I asked him what had been wrong the other day. He told me that I needed points and plugs. I shook hands with his wife. They were both neat and clean people. I told the young preacher, who was ensconced at the door and whom you simply had to pass if you were going out, that I enjoyed his remarks. Then my wife and I went out into the steaming heat to the spacious parking lot and drove home, bumper to bumper with other splendid cars.

     I wondered at one of the stop signs what a simple Carpenter might have made of it.