We need to guard against the notion that church is something we go to. Church, biblical church, is something Christians are. It is true that the church gathers to be built up, but the church is just as much the church when it scatters to bless.

One of my geeky hobbies is going to thrift stores to discover new books. Well, I recently uncovered a gem. Jeanne Halgren Kilde’s book, Sacred Power, Sacred Space, has been fascinating.

(As always, we should read, like we eat chicken. Mindful of the bones. There are some things I disagree with, of course, but there have been a lot of insights.)

I’ve had a growing awareness of the impact of spaces, especially connected to religion. I, however, had not read a book that outlines the evolution of sacred spaces. So I had not fully realized the impact that those spaces have on the structure and theology of the church. I am now more convinced than ever. Spaces, seating arrangements, and the design of spaces have an unarticulated impact beyond what is acknowledged or realized.

Religious Spaces Communicate

As I have said elsewhere, “The medium is the message.” This phrase emphasizes that the communication channel plays a significant role in shaping how a message is perceived and understood. This concept was popularized by media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who argued that the medium by which the message is delivered influences our perceptions, thoughts, and social structures more profoundly than the information it conveys.

The medium isn’t just a neutral container for information; it actively shapes the message and its impact. McLuhan argued that the medium’s effects are more significant than the specific content it transmits. The medium by which something is communicated is not neutral. The medium itself has an impact beyond the specific content it conveys.

Likewise, religious spaces communicate and reinforce practical theology. This is very rarely realized and hardly ever articulated, but it’s true. “Religious spaces… do far more than simply provide the setting within which ritual takes place. They contribute in important ways to the very meaning of ritual practices and to the shape and content of religious systems themselves.”^[1]

Like it or not, “Church spaces foster certain relationships and encourage certain behaviors.”^[2] Buildings provide “information about the beliefs and practices of a religious group.”^[3] The spaces which churches occupy are not unimportant. They are carriers of practical theology, even if unarticulated. Buildings are not benign. Even the change from pews to individual chairs has an impact.

From Simplicity to Fantastic Structures: The Wonder of the Building and Hamstringing of the Body

How and why did the church go from gathering in homes to cathedrals? And what was the impact on the church body?

An Explanation of “Hamstringing”

The hamstring consists of five tendons in the back of a person’s knee. To be hamstrung means to sustain an injury or severing of one or more of those tendons. This severely restricts effectiveness. And this, of course, is not the design of the knee. A tendon is small and may not seem very significant. But it is. If it is hindered, your movement will be constrained.

Churches before Constantine and cathedrals were much more domestic and organic. It was supple and oriented towards movement, quickly spreading from house to house. Now it is much more formal and institutional, and more motionless. This shift has also limited the interactions, relationships, and roles of the people within the church body. In this way, I believe Christ’s body has been crippled in some ways. A seemingly small change can have a big impact, especially over time.

Homes

Christians first gathered in homes, in part, because that is where they had to gather. But I believe it was strategic, too. Of course, even in the New Testament, we see other locations too; outdoors, synagogues, and the Hall of Tyrannus come to mind.^[4] But it was certainly the early church’s practice to meet in homes.

Over time, homes were even remodeled or built for the purpose of hosting the church.^[5] Eventually, however, structures were made known as domus ecclesiae, which means “house of the church” or “house of the assembly.” These buildings were similar to other houses but were more restricted to the purpose of hosting the gathering of the church. When people were there, they were insulated from “the intrusions of everyday concerns and thoughts.”^[6]

Thus, in these early church buildings, we have a slight shift towards a sacred/secular divide. However, that’s not all. There was also a shift towards institutionalization and a clergy/laity divide.^[7] In addition, there was a move from shared meals to a more ritualistic eucharistic meal, a move from more fellowship to more formal. These relational meals were crucial to the formation, theology, and beliefs of the early church.^[8]

The shift from more of a domestic space associated with household operations and a certain level of informality to a formal ecclesiastical space over a period of at least a century, not surprisingly, had certain social ramifications.^[9] Sadly, “Christian space began to function to delineate and maintain distinctions of power and influence among Christians.”^[10]

The early church went from gathering around a table as Jesus did with His disciples (and soon to be disciples), to listening to someone stand on some type of stage. These were some of the changes that were taking place before Constantine and the Edict of Milan.

The shift that was beginning to happen for some from the basic equality of all the gathered believers in Christian fellowship around a shared meal,^[11] to the hierarchical rules and spatial separation is a considerable one.^[12] But the changes were about to get a lot more drastic.

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