This trend has come for a number of reasons. It is part of a revolt against the uniformly bad architecture of the nineteenth century, in favor of buildings which would be truly sanctuaries rather than auditoriums. And it so happened that the architectural leaders of that revolt were most sympathetic to Anglo-Catholicism. Of these Dr. Cram is the best known, through his buildings and his books.
The general acceptance of this leadership by non-liturgical churches has been prompted by "practical" considerations rather than by an understanding of the historical and liturgical factors involved. This is apparent, for example, in the recent book by Scotford, The Church Beautiful, in which the following arguments are proposed in favor of the introduction of the chancel arrangement:
A chancel renders the minister less conspicuous, thus raising the service above the personal plane;
It permits placing at the center objects of beauty and meaning;
It introduces movement into the worship;
It is suited to ceremonial and dramatic events; It adds to the apparent length of the church;
It encourages congregations to sit further forward.
You will observe that no mention is made of the ritualistic function of the chancel beyond saying that it permits movement and substitutes meaningful objects of attention in place of the preacher.
Protestants ought to know that there is a sound religious reason for placing, not the preacher as an individual, but the pulpit in the center. What is exalted in such a plan is not the man, nor even the sermon, but the Word of God, which is the supreme guide of faith and life. This is entirely proper in a church which is primarily evangelical and only secondarily sacramentarian. It is a true expression of the ethos of Protestantism.
The introduction of a chancel changes this traditional arrangement in favor of one in which the choir is divided, pulpit and lectern are separate, and the centre of attention is taken by an altar against the far wall, usually on a higher level. There is no denying that this often makes for a pleasing "worship centre," but I disagree with the claim that it is any more meaningful.
The Question of the Altar
It is questionable whether an altar has any place in an evangelical church. Symbolizing the sacrifice of life to appease the wrath of God, the altar is appropriate in communions in which it is held that the actual sacrifice of Christ is re-enacted in the service. In such churches it is proper to keep the altar remote from the people in sacred isolation, and to have it in a high and central position. But in churches where the service is not so much sacrifice as Communion, a re-enactment of the Last Supper, the altar is fittingly abandoned for the Table, and this Table, being an expression of fellowship with Christ, is appropriately placed close to the congregation.
Historically this is well supported. In the early centuries of the Christian era it was customary to have the Holy Table on a low platform or bema in the body of the church, while clergy and elders sat around an apse beyond the Table. Then in the churches of the Reformation in Switzerland, which of course were formerly Roman Catholic buildings, the altar was removed, and a Communion Table placed at the front of the chancel, i. e. close to the people.
Early Christianity was notable for its fellowship. The people met to pray and sing together, to hear the Word read and expounded, and to share in the sacred meal. There was intimacy and joy in their fellowship with God and with one another. The elaboration of worship and church organization in succeeding centuries gradually obscured this original fellowship. The people came to have less and less part in the activity of worship. The mysteries were removed from them into a screened apse, and they became spectators of a transcendental drama instead of participants in a living and enlightened communion.
The Origin of Chancels
In this development the chancel was evolved. In the form most familiar to us its origin is to be found in the English abbey churches. Even before the appearance of Gothic architecture English churches tended to be long and narrow, in contrast to those of France and other countries. And this tendency was exaggerated during the Gothic period, the abbeys being divided into a nave where the common people might stand, and a choir, hidden by a carved screen, in which the monks participated in the elaborate liturgies of the mass and the hours. This pattern had its effect on the parish church, the abbey choir being modified into the deep chancel, where trained choristers•and clergy chanted the worship on behalf of the people.
The chancel thus represents mediaeval Christianity of the monastic type. As such it was an extraordinarily successful combination of meaning and function. One feels in regard to such a classic example as Chester Cathedral as he does toward Dante's Divine Comedy that the closer one studies the structure as a whole or in detail the more coherent and significant will it be discovered to be. That is not true of most of our modern chancel churches, simply because our kind of Christianity is so far removed from mediaeval monasticism. It belongs to another world, and it is far less at home in mediaeval housing than it would be in that of the third century.
The adoption of the chancel would therefore seem to be an importation into the evangelical churches of a style which is alien to their genius. And it is probable that to adopt it generally would contribute to a decline in the Protestant witness. By its very nature a chancel hinders common worship, congregational participation, the sense of fellowship which the early Church had and which the Reformation sought to recover. It is hard for a congregation to sing in a long building, aided by a divided choir whose voices are diminished by doubtful acoustics.
Preaching and the Bible
Furthermore, it is perhaps not accidental that with the chancel trend there is a separation between pulpit and lectern. In a large church this may indicate only a distribution of leadership between two or more ministers. But where the same minister reads the Scripture from one desk and preaches from another, the suggestion seems to be that the preaching no longer springs from the Bible.
Perhaps we have here an unconscious motive for modern trend. Perhaps the sixty troubled years of Biblical scholarship through which we have been passing, with the confusion they have brought into the Protestant pulpit, have made us so much less confident of the Word we have been ordained to preach that we have sought refuge in a return to a kind of worship in which fewer questions are asked and mysteries are accepted as such. Maybe we have lost confidence in the centrality of the Gospel, and so have pushed the pulpit aside in favor of the altar. But then, neither do we believe in the altar.
And so one fears that the dignity which is commonly invoked in justification for our newly centred worship may after all turn out to be the dignity of the dead.
The only true alternatives are either to become truly sacramentarian, or to recover the authoritative note of the Word of God. The advent of the New Life Movement is one of the several indications that a recovery of the evangelical spirit is under way. If this proves to be an enduring movement in the life of the church, many of our chancels will seem to be superfluous. The Protestant churches need to look further to find the true and satisfying solution of their housing problem.—The Presbyterian Tribune, February, 1948. (Reprinted by permission.)
