Corporate Christian worship has always been both personal and social. Even Jesus uttered the formula "when two or three are gathered in my name........".
The early Church when persecuted would come to meet, if even briefly, in the catacombs beneath the city of Rome. We hear similar stories today of house churches in communist China meeting for corporate worship under the threat of prosecution for such activities.
A very lofty type of phrase which is often thrown around in Christian circles is something to the effect that "the Church is not a building, it is the people". Or a similar phrase that alludes to the non-necessity of buildings is "Jesus did not build any Churches", ignoring the fact that His followers did after His death in order to carry out the very clear command of "do this in remembrance of me".
And now in early 2020, a large percentage of the Church globally has shuttered, locked, and even forbidden anyone to enter into its buildings for any purpose, including the purposes of worship, devotion, prayer, and mediation. We are assured this is a good thing because it is for our safety and the safety of those around us. Yes, we worship an almighty God who has providence and dominion over all forms of evil, but we don't want to put Him to the test by gathering for worship; especially when the civil authorities tell us we cannot do that.
We are assured by the highest Ecclesiastical authorities that this is all well and fine and streaming worship services, streaming The Eucharistic Liturgy, online is a suitable accomodation given current circumstances. Putting aside the discussion of how viewing a Eucharistic Liturgy on an LCD screen somehow carries any sacramental value whatsoever, another question that begs some thought is whether we even need to worry about having Church buildings going forward. Afterall, maybe we have discovered a new way to do church!
The Honorable Associate Judge Clarence Thomas recently spoke at the dedication of the new, $28.5 million Christ Chapel on the campus of Hillsdale College [Oct. 3, 2019]. Here is some of what he had to say about church buildings.
The primary purpose of a chapel is to provide a place where man can enter the presence of God. It provides a sanctuary in which man can withdraw from the chaos of our world and seek a sacred stillness. For as Elijah learned on Mount Horeb, God so often comes to us not in the storms, not in the earthquakes or fires of life, but in stillness—in a “gentle whisper.”
Accordingly, men and women have long sought respite from the noise and commotion of daily life, where they can “be still, and know that [He is] God,” where they can seek an inner calm and a transcendent peace. Beautiful chapels, such as this one, provide that sacred space for stillness, a place for an encounter with the Divine. As the architect of this Chapel has written, “When you enter a church, it is as if you are entering through a gateway from the profane toward the sacred.”
John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He recognized that the preservation of liberty is not guaranteed. Without the guardrails supplied by religious conviction, popular sovereignty can devolve into mob rule, unmoored from any conception of objective truth.
Many will argue that all this will be over soon and then we will go back to the normal ways and no damage will have been done in the life of the Church.
I am not so sure this is true for two reasons:
1. We are now very much open to criticism of not practicing what we preach. When the world needed you most, where were you? When people in spiritual distress had nowhere to go, where were we? And when you had the opportunity to worship outdoors in public to proclaim the light of Christ through your actions, where were you?
2. And don't think for a moment the evil one is not watching, learning, and working on new ways to use our timidity against us in the future. No need to speculate how; that is not important. That it WILL happen is what is most important. And we made that possible by our timid actions. The salvation of souls is not a business for timid hearts. How many souls have sacrificed to the evil one for our safety?
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