The medieval Church was mindful of an important truth that far too many modern Evangelicals have long forgotten, namely, that church architecture is theology in stone. The massive cathedrals that dominated the urban landscape across Western Europe and that literally took centuries to build were, in part, monuments to the unspeakable greatness and glory of God. Once built, these architectural marvels also shaped worship for generations. Placing the altar as the architectural centrepiece at the front of the cathedral interior captured the medieval conviction of the centrality of the mass in worship. When the Protestant Reformation began in the early sixteenth century, one of the key issues on the docket was the nature of true biblical worship. Despite their differing socio-cultural contexts, the Reformers across Europe were convinced that the heart of biblical worship was not the celebration of the Lord’s Table but the preaching of the Word of God. As the English preacher Hugh Latimer (c.1485–1555), put it:
[P]reaching is necessary; for take away preaching, and take away salvation. I told you of Scala coeli [the ladder of heaven], and I made it a preaching matter, not a massing matter. Christ is the preacher of all preachers, the pattern and the exemplar that all preachers ought to follow. For it was he by whom the Father of heaven said, Hic est Filius meus dilectus, ipsum audite, “This is my well-beloved Son, hear him.”[1]
The medieval Church had majored on the drama of the mass as well as symbols and images in the great cathedrals and parish churches as the central means of teaching. The Reformation, coming as it did hard on the heels of the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, turned back to the biblical emphasis on “words,” both spoken and written, as the primary vehicle for cultivating faith and expressing worship. As John Calvin (1509‒1564) aptly put it, “the Word is the instrument by which the Lord dispenses the illumination of his Spirit to believers.”[2] In the minds of the Reformers, there could be neither true Reformation nor genuine worship apart from the preaching of the Scriptures.[3] Indeed, for the Reformers, the preaching of the Scriptures was a key mark of a true church. As Martin Luther (1483‒1546) put it in 1523: “the certain mark of the Christian congregation is the preaching of the gospel in its purity.”[4] Sixteen years later he made the same point when he maintained: “Whenever you hear or see this Word preached, believed, confessed, and acted on, there do not doubt that there must be a true holy catholic church, a Christian, holy people.”[5]
Not surprisingly, the Reformers often retooled the interior design of their churches to reinforce this theological conviction about the Word of God. Instead of the Lord’s table (which the medieval church had termed an “altar”) occupying the central focus in the sight of God’s people, that was now replaced by the pulpit being front and central. In the attached painting by Jean Perrissin of the Calvinist church at Lyon in France, known as the Paradis Temple, the centrality of the pulpit is quite evident. The benches were built around the pulpit so as to enable all of the congregation to hear the preached Word easily. This church was constructed in 1564, though, sadly, in the Second War of Religion in France, it was torn down by Roman Catholics in 1567. But the painting, which Perrissin painted probably not long after the church’s construction, bears eloquent witness to one of the great legacies of the Protestant Reformation, namely, the centrality of what D. A. Carson has called the “spirituality of the Word.”[6]
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Michael Haykin is Director of The Andrew Fuller Center for Biblical Studies and Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY. Dr. Haykin has taught Church History at different institutions in North America and abroad for over 40 years. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society and Evangelical Theological Society among others. Haykin is married to Alison and they have two children.
[1] Hugh Latimer, The Fourth Sermon preached before King Edward, March 29, 1549,in The Works of Hugh Latimer, ed. George Elwes Corrie(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844), 1:155.
[2] John Calvin, Institutes 1.9.3, trans. Ford Lewis Battles in Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. Ford Lewis Battles and John T. McNeill, The Library of Christian Classics, vol.20 (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960), 1:96.
[3] Cited Otto Grundler, “John Calvin: Ingrafting in Christ” in The Spirituality of Western Christendom, ed.E. Rozanne Elder (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, Inc., 1976), 175.
[4] Cited Sam Chan, Preaching as the Word of God: Answering an Old Question with Speech-Act Theory (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016), 62. I am indebted to Dr Chan for drawing my attention to his work and then making it available to me.
[5] Cited Chan, Preaching as the Word of God, 63.
[6] Don Carson, personal conversation with the author, June 17, 1991.