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| St Mary's Baptist Church 1811 build: The pulpit figures prominently |
The above picture shows the interior of the Regency chapel of St Mary's Baptist Church in the 19th century, a building whose foundation stone was laid in 1811 by its minister Joseph Kinghorn. What is notable about this interior is not just the overwhelming centrality of the pulpit, but that the pulpit is installed against a blank wall - well, almost blank: As if to relieve the starkness of this wall some memorial plaques have since been fixed to it. But the message is, I think, nevertheless clear: That is, it is intended one focuses on the pulpit ministry and not be distracted by extraneous details which may not be usefully edifying.
In those days I don't think the congregation had any instrumental accompaniment to their singing as there appears to be no space in the pew packed interior for a band, although I suspect the pews running perpendicular to the congregational pews were for a choir. It was only in 1863 after some years of resistance and three years after open communion had been won in a court battle that a small organ was gingerly introduced. Ideas were on the move and the fact that the church had presumed to adorn their pulpit wall with memorials to their esteemed forbears suggests to me they were becoming aware of themselves not just as sinful ears to be harangued from the pulpit, but also as a respectable sub-culture with a proud lineage.
As if to confirm that a revolution was slowly unfolding, in 1886 the chapel underwent a lavish Victorian refurbishment (See picture below). The pulpit wall was knocked out and extended into an apse-like chancel and this was then filled with an organ and choir stalls. In contrast to the coy introduction of the organ over twenty years earlier, the new organ was a sophisticated and grand piece of machinery. It served as a sensational centre-piece in the refurbished building, sending a signal about the wealth of the church and its social status. But the extravagant hedge of organ pipes and the richly carved surrounding polished woodwork were in danger of upstaging the pulpit. The pulpit however was still central, if rather lost in all the competing detail; unlike the Regency chapel where the pulpit stood out against the nothingness of a pallid wall.
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| St Mary's Baptist Church after the Victorian refurbishment of 1886 |
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| St Mary's daughter church; Dereham Road Baptist. |
Unfortunately, St Mary's elegant regency building with its rich Victorian interior was destroyed by a combination of fire in 1939 and a WWII bombing raid in 1942. But when St Mary’s congregation came to rebuild their post war church in the late 1940s and early 1950s something strange happened: The pulpit was shifted to the left of the communion table and stood in sentry at the mouth of a well-defined chancel; a configuration found in many C of E and Catholic churches. The pulpit was no longer vying for central attention as in days of old. Instead, we find only the communion table at the centre.... See the picture below:
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| St Mary's post war rebuild. |
This change may have come about because history was now telling these non-conformists they were no longer a persecuted sect, in fact quite the opposite: They had been sympathetic to the North American revolutionaries and were vocal in their opposition to slavery; history had come out on their side. Moreover, they were now respectable pillars of society and had behind them a history of knights, MPs, and successful businessmen. They would have therefore felt themselves to be on a par with the state church. In fact, the architecture of Dereham Road Baptist Church is evidence that they were already flirting with an establishment look as far back as 1905; that contrasted with the early days when non-conformists preferred a secular classical look as opposed to the state church gothic look; in those days classical architecture help set them apart from the state church. But there may be more to it than this: After two devastatingly destructive mega-death world wars the like of which were unprecedented in all human history there may have been a sneaky feeling that no rationale articulated in words alone could do justice to the human predicament.
In times of crisis & doubt there is a tendency for human beings to find consolation in mystery and the esoteric. During the first world war protestant soldiers would often resort to Catholicism's arcane rituals of death in order to derive some comfort in the face of mortality. In the first half of the 19th Century the Catholic architect Augustus Pugin tried to revive the flagging devotion of the industrialized masses with the architectural finery and romantic mysticism of the gothic revival.
But many protestants were also starting to behave as if words were not the only experience to be had in church. In the above picture of St Mary's Baptist Church, the centrality of the communion table may signify that there was a shift away from pulpit culture toward the mystery of communion with God. But this relatively mild change was a portent of more fundamental shifts that came in the second half of the 20th century when the ministry of words was to find itself jostling with the ministry of esoteric experience. This reached a crescendo in the 1960s onwards as sublime gnostic encounters with God were regarded as the acme of Christain experience..... in fact, when I once recommended a scholarly & intellectual Bible teacher of my acquaintance, I was told that his ministry was like going back to the dark ages! At that moment I knew I was now in a culturally alien landscape to which I could contribute little. In much contemporary Christian culture faith centers around the mystical "encounter" with God. "Encounter" is now a rather hackneyed buzz word, heard everywhere in today's passion centred Christian communities; it connotes a deep mystical tryst with the divine. Not that I think there is anything wrong with ecstasies and sublime encounters with God; the trouble comes when these experiences are used as a shibboleth of an underlying authoritarian "gnostic" philosophy (See here).
Today services at St. Mary's Baptist Church (Now called Norwich Central Baptist Church) look like this.....
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| Worship today in Norwich Central Baptist Church. |
The offset pulpit is now redundant and only used as a hideaway for sound equipment and other items; it no longer serves as a way to give non-conformist sermons some kind of cathedra authority; that may not be a bad thing. However, in its place one is likely to see the animated personable talking head who has plenty of personality; no longer confined to the few square feet of the pulpit they also have plenty of maneuvering room on a large stage. This stage may also be occupied by a band which is there to help the congregants lose themselves in the reverie of the worship experience, when they are not picking their way through the pith of the ministry of words. As it is at NCBC so it is with many other modern worship venues. At NCBC, however, there remains a healthy balance between Logos and Pneuma.
My theory is that these changes in Christian culture are driven by changes in the wider society where the church no longer has an authoritative voice in that society. The story told by the church as a sense making "cosmic mythology" no longer resonates in the wider world. I can understand that as a cultural (over) reaction to contemporary conditions (Although I, of course, beg to differ with that reaction). In this context to appear to practice some kind of pulpit-based cathedra authority may come over as presumption, even among church goers. When words cut less ice and their impact is exhausted there is a yearning for sublime encounters with the transcendent God. This yearning has upsides and downsides; by itself it is not entirely healthy as words are needed to regulate the potential excesses of gnosis.
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But in spite of these profound cultural changes, we don't have to go very far to find something that harks right back to the first half of the 19th century. Across the road from Norwich Central Baptist Church is a small Strict and Particular Baptist church which calls itself "Zoar Chapel". Inside the walls of its plain unfussy exterior, we find this:
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| Inside Zoar Chapel just across the road from NCBC |
In this small Christian dynastic cultural pocket, it is as if nothing has changed for the last two hundred years. It has a pulpit standing against a featureless wall, thus allowing nothing to upstage the ministry of words. The only concession seems to be the small organ on the right-hand side below the pulpit. Such groups jealousy guard their doctrines. Even though the congregants at the massive pile of NCBC across the road bill themselves as faithful evangelicals (a title which must nowadays be distinguished from today's North American far-right Trumpian evangelicalism) they are likely to be regarded by Zoar Chapel to be in the grip of compromise. To the members of Zoar Chapel the stasis of their practice and belief is evidence they are attuned to timeless and universal truths. They therefore pride themselves as being unaffected by the changes in modern culture which shapes the practices of Christians beyond their walls - if indeed they even think of them as Christians!
