Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T21:00:33.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Ethics of the Empty Church: Anglicanism’s Need for a Theology of Architecture1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2015

William Whyte
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this polemical paper, produced for the Churches, Communities, and Society conference at the Lincoln Theological Institute, University of Manchester, I argue that the Church of England has failed to develop a coherent or convincing theology of architecture. Such a failure raises practical problems for an institution responsible for the care of 16,000 buildings, a quarter of which are of national or international importance. But it has also, I contend, produced an impoverished understanding of architecture’s role as an instrument of mission and a tool for spiritual development. Following a historical survey of attitudes towards church buildings, this paper explores and criticizes the Church of England’s current engagement with its architecture. It raises questions about what has been done and what has been said about churches. It argues that the Church of England lacks a theology of church building and church closing, and calls for work to develop just such a thing.

Keywords

architectureChurch of Englandemotionestablishmentheritagemission
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 172 - 188
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

Delivered as part of the colloquium ‘Church, Communities and Society’ held to mark the tenth anniversary of the Lincoln Theological Institute, 25–26 October 2013, at the University of Manchester.

2.

William Whyte is Professor of Social and Architectural History at St John’s College, University of Oxford, and associate priest in the benefice of Kidlington with Hampton Poyle.

References

3. Motion, Andrew, Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life (London: Faber & Faber, 1993), pp. 485–486Google Scholar.

4. Larkin, Philip, Collected Poems (ed. Anthony Thwaite; London: Marvell and Faber & Faber, 1990), pp. 96–97Google Scholar.

5. Motion, Philip Larkin, p. 485; Spectator, 14 September 2013.

6. http://www.churchofengland.org/media/59475/report.pdf (accessed 21 January 2014).

7. Carr, Wesley, ‘A Developing Establishment’, Theology 102 (1999), pp. 2–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Taylor, Simon J., ‘Disestablished Establishment: High and Earthed Establishment in the Church in Wales’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 18.2 (2003), pp. 227–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Davie, Grace, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 86–88Google Scholar.

10. Thurley, Simon, Men from the Ministry: How Britain Saved its Heritage (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 226–229Google Scholar.

11. Hall, Melanie (ed.), Towards World Heritage: Preservation in an Age of Empire (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011)Google Scholar provides a good account of these differences.

12. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/77372/OPSEEguidance.pdf (accessed 18 October 2013).

13. Lyon, Sarah Wynard, ‘Balancing Values of Outstanding Universality with Conservation and Management at Three United Kingdom Cultural World Heritage Sites’, Journal of Heritage Tourism 2 (2007), pp. 53–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Whyte, William, ‘The Architecture of Belief’, in Jane Garnett, Matthew Grimley, Alana Harris, William Whyte and Sarah Williams (eds.), Redefining Christian Britain: Post-1945 Perspectives (London: SCM Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

15. Whyte, William, ‘Religion in the 20th Century’, in Kate Tiller (ed.), An Historical Atlas of Oxfordshire (Oxford: Oxfordshire Records Society, 2011), p. 162Google Scholar.

16. Comedia, , Spirit of Place: Redundant Churches as Urban Resources (Stroud: Comedia, 1995), p. 15Google Scholar.

17. Quoted in Davies, Douglas, A Study of the Development and Work of the Rural Clergy in Five English Dioceses. I. The Rural Church: Staff and Buildings (Cirencester: Centre for Rural Studies, Royal Agricultural College and Department of Theology, University of Nottingham, 1990), p. 130Google Scholar.

18. For a clear articulation of this Anglican sensibility, see Inge, John, A Christian Sense of Place (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)Google Scholar.

19. Fincham, Kenneth and Tyacke, Nicholas, Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547–c.1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. Whyte, William, ‘Shaping Material Reform: Pressure Groups in Great Britain and Ireland, 1780–1920’, in Peter Jan Margry and Jan de Maeyer (eds.), The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Church, State and Society in Northern Europe, c. 1780–c.1920. VI. Material Reform (Leuven: Leuven University Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

21. Torgerson, Mark A., An Architecture of Immanence: Architecture for Worship and Ministry Today (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007), provides a good general surveyGoogle Scholar. Specifically on Britain, see Stamp, Gavin, ‘Sacred Architecture in a Secular Century’, Twentieth Century Architecture 3 (1998), pp. 7–16Google Scholar.

22. Chadwick, Owen, Victorian Miniature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

23. Morgan, David (ed.), Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief (London and New York: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

24. Skinner, James, Why Do We Prize Externals in the Service of God? (London: J.T. Hayes, 1855), p. 15Google Scholar.

25. Poole, George Ayliffe, The Appropriate Character of Church Architecture (Leeds: T.W. Green, 1842), p. 6Google Scholar.

26. Yates, Nigel, Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain 1830–1910 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), ch. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Webster, Christopher and Elliott, John (eds.), ‘A Church as it Should Be’: The Cambridge Camden Society and its Influence (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000)Google Scholar.

27. Petit, J.L., ‘Remarks on Church Architecture’, Ecclesiologist VI-VII (April 1842), p. 98Google Scholar.

28. Lewis, G.R., Illustrations of Kilpeck Church, Hereford (London: G. R. Lewis, 1842), p. 35Google Scholar.

29. Christmas, Henry, ‘Of the Furniture and Ornaments of Churches’, in James Cottle (ed.), Some Account of the Church of St Mary Magdalene Taunton (London: Vizetelley Brothers, 1845), 127Google Scholar.

30. Whyte, William, ‘Sacred Space as Sacred Text: Church and Chapel Building in Victorian Britain’, in Joe Sterrett and Peter Thomas (eds.), Sacred Text-Sacred Space: Architectural, Literary, and Spiritual Convergences in England and Wales (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 247–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. Stock, Wolfgang Jean, Christliche Sakralbauten in Europa seit 1950 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2004), p. 188–201Google Scholar.

32. Moore, Rowan, ‘Bishop Edward King Chapel, Ripon College – Review’, The Observer, 27 April 2013Google Scholar.

33. http://www.rcc.ac.uk/downloads/edward-king-chapel-description.pdf; see also http://www.ribajournal.com/pages/critique_bishop_edward_king_chapel__july_2013_217466.cfm (accessed 18 January 2014).

34. Garnett, Jane and Harris, Alana, ‘Faith in the Home: Catholic Spirituality and Devotional Materiality in East London’, Material Religion 7 (2010), pp. 299–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Hejduk, Renata and Williamson, Jim (eds.), The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.

36. Kieckhefer, Richard, Theology in Stone: Church Architecture from Byzantium to Berkeley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 314CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Morgan, David, The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), p. 147CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks (ed. William H. Gilman et al.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 36Google Scholar.

39. Ofsted, , Religious Education: Realising the Potential (2013): http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/religious-education-realising-potential (accessed 18 October 2013)Google Scholar.

40. http://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/learning/school-visits/english-schools/ (accessed 25 January 2014).

41. http://www.smvheritage.co.uk/ (accessed 25 January 2014).

42. Davidson, Andrew and Milbank, Alison, For the Parish: A Critique of Fresh Expressions (London: SCM Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

43. Keeling, A., ‘Church Tourism – Providing a Ministry of Welcome to Visitors’, Insights (English Tourism Council), July 2000, A-13-22Google Scholar.

44. Whitehead, David, ‘The Architectural History of the Cathedral since the Reformation’, in G.E. Aylmer and John Tiller, Hereford Cathedral: A History (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2000), pp. 241–286Google Scholar.

45. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXcma9CDX3A (accessed 25 January 2014).

46. Gill, Robin, The ‘Empty’ Church Revisited (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 58Google Scholar.

47. Miele, Chris, ‘“Their Interest and their Habit”: Professionalism and the Restoration of Medieval Churches, 1837–77’, in Chris Brooks and Andrew Saint (eds.), The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 151–172Google Scholar, 170.

48. Giles, Richard, Re-pitching the Tent: The Definitive Guide to Reordering your Church (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2004), p. 146Google Scholar.

49. Payne, Becky, Churches for Communities: Adapting Oxfordshire’s Churches for Wider Use (Oxford: Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust, 2014), p. 76Google Scholar.

50. The Guardian, 27 December 2013.

51. Binney, Marcus, ‘England: Loss’, in Marcus Binney and Peter Burman (eds.), Change and Decay: The Future of our Churches (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1977), pp. 27–42Google Scholar, p. 37.

52. Williams, S.C., Religious Belief and Popular Culture in Southwark, c. 1880–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. Casey, Edward S., ‘How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time: Phenomenological Prolegomena’, in Steven Field and Keith H. Basso (eds.), Senses of Place (Santé Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996), pp. 13–52Google Scholar. See also Inge, , A Christian Sense of Place, pp. 117Google Scholar, 120.

54. Though see, for example, Doll, Peter, ‘The Temple of his Presence’, in Trevor Cooper and Sarah Brown (eds.), Pews, Benches, and Chairs: Church Seating in English Parish Churches from the Fourteenth Century to the Present (London: Ecclesiological Society, 2011), pp. 13–18Google Scholar.