'The Chancels shall remain as they have done in times past': on reading Article XIX with - not against - the Homilies, Prayer Book, and Hooker

In a recent post on the Church of England's attractive and fitting logo 'A Christian presence in every community', Psephizo offers a theological rationale for the logo, declaring "Presence is people, not plant". In this theological rationale the church building is merely a functional "tool" - indeed, no theological meaning for church buildings is provided. This view, we are told, is "the New Testament answer":

My contention is that the phrase is a good one, but only if we recover the New Testament answer to the question: what is the presence of God in a community? The answer is not, in the first place, a building, or a PCC (!) or a vicar. It is a people.

It is, Psephizo contends, the Formularies of the Church of England, and Article XIX in particular, which teach that "Presence is people, not plant":

If we take Article XIX, the New Testament temple theology and our own ordinal seriously, then the question is not whether the Church of England should aspire to be a Christian presence in every community. It should. The question is what we mean by presence. 

Article XIX defines "what we mean by presence":

The Church of England does, in fact, have an official definition of what the church is. Article XIX states:

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

The Latin antecedents of this speak of a coetus fidelium—a gathering, an assembly of the faithful. Following the Augsburg Confession (Article VII), this Article identifies the church by its marks—a gathered people, the Word preached, the sacraments administered.

Notice what is absent. There is nothing here about territory, buildings or the presence of an ordained minister as such ...

This, it is said, is the outworking of "New Testament temple theology". No mention is made, mind you, of the significant role of the Jerusalem Temple in Luke-Acts or in the Olivet Discourse: in other words, the role of the Jerusalem Temple in the life of the early Christian community is entirely overlooked. 

What I want to focus on, however, is the suggestion that Article XXIX and the Formularies teach that 'church' does not mean 'building'. Put bluntly, this is quite simply wrong. The Formularies have a rich and significant theology of church buildings as 'church'.

Entirely overlooked by Psephizo is that the Book of Homilies - which Article XXXV declares "doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine" - applies the significant term 'temple' to the church building. This is immediately obvious from the title given to 'An Homily of the Right Use of the Church or Temple of God, And of the Reverence Due Unto the Same'. This homily is well aware that "the chief and special Temples of God ... are the Bodies and Minds of true Christians, and the chosen People of God". It goes on to explicitly state, however, that 'temple' can also be applied to the church building:

Yet all this notwithstanding, the material Church or Temple is a place appointed as well by the usage and continual Examples expressed in the Old Testament, as in the New, for the People of God to resort together unto, there to hear Gods Holy Word, to call upon his Holy Name, to give him thanks for his innumerable and unspeakable benefits bestowed upon us, and duly and truly to celebrate his Holy Sacraments, (in the unfeigned doing and accomplishing of the which, standeth that True and Right Worshipping of God aforementioned,) and the same Church or Temple, is by the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old Testament and New, called the House and Temple of the Lord, for the peculiar service there done to his Majesty by his People, and for the effectuous presence of his Heavenly Grace, wherewith he by his said Holy Word endueth his People so there assembled. And to the said House or Temple of God, at all times, by common order appointed, are all People that be godly indeed, bound with all diligence to resort, unless by sickness, or other most urgent causes they be letted therefore.

The usage "Churches and Temples" is heard 31 times in 'An Homily Against Peril of Idolatry, and Superfluous Decking of Churches'. Likewise, in 'An Homily for Repairing and Keeping Clean, and Comely Adorning of Churches', it is stated:

Why then ought not Christian People to build them Temples and Churches, having as great promises of the presence of God, as ever had Solomon for the material Temple which he did build? ...  So Al∣mighty God will have his House and Place whither the whole Parish and Congregation shall resort, which is called the Church and Temple of God, for that the Church, which is the company of Gods People, doth there assemble and come together to serve him. Not meaning hereby, that the Lord, whom the Heaven of heavens is not able to hold or comprise, doth dwell in the Church of Lime and Stone, made with mans hands, as wholly and only contained there within, and no where else, for so he never dwelt in Solomon's Temple. 

Indeed, this homily goes on to condemn those who do not maintain the church building, "God's Temple":

Wherefore all they that have little mind or devotion to repair and build Gods Temple, are to be counted People of much ungodliness, spurning against good Order in Christs Church, despising the true honour of God, with evil examples, offending and hindring their Neighbours otherwise well and godlily disposed.

Placing Articles XIX and XXXV alongside one another, therefore, it is, to say the very least, a very odd interpretation of Article XIX to regard it as requiring us not to view a church building as 'church' or 'temple'. Article XXXV makes it very clear that such was not the intention of the Articles of Religion. 

Psephizo rightly notes that Article XIX is derived from Article VII of the Augsburg Confession. Omitted, however, is the defence, in The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, of traditions and ceremonies which are "for tranquility and good order ... in order to cherish harmony":

But we cheerfully maintain the old traditions made in the Church for the sake of usefulness and tranquillity; and we interpret them in a more moderate way ...  it may be judged that we diligently maintain church discipline and godly ceremonies and good church-customs.

Any idea that Article VII resulted in the Churches of the Augsburg Confession dismissing the significance of church buildings is, quite frankly, not a serious proposition. It was the maintenance of church buildings with altars, fonts, vestments, paintings, images, and candles which became the most visible and immediate difference between the Churches of the Augsburg Confession and the Calvinist Churches. This was most obvious in the debates in the late 16th century Electorate of Saxony. The Saxony controversies regarding the form and attire of church buildings also had many similarities with the debates between defenders and critics of the Elizabethan Settlement. 

This brings us to another of the Formularies also not mentioned by Psephizo in his post - the Book of Common Prayer. The Prayer Book tells us that "the Chancels shall remain as they have done in times past", a statement of physical continuity, not rupture, in the design and use of the parish church. The rubric before the Holy Communion states that "the Table ... shall stand in the Body of the Church, or in the Chancel": 'Church', therefore, is used with reference to the building. The Publick Baptism of Infants opens with the rubric "And the Priest coming to the Font" - not a bowl, or a tub, or a pool, but the Font, in the parish church. In the Solemnization of Matrimony, the rubric directs that "the persons to be married shall come into the body of the Church". In the Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, "The Woman ... shall come into the Church". When meeting the mortal remains of the deceased for the Burial of the Dead, the priest goes before it "either into the Church, or towards the Grave". The notion, then, that Article XIX must mean that 'church' is "a gathering, an assembly of the faithful" and cannot be meaningfully and routinely applied to the church building is straightforwardly, consistently, and explicitly refuted by the Book of Common Prayer.

For Homilies and Prayer Book, 'presence' does significantly include the building as 'church'.

The Articles of Religion were, of course, the confessional statement of the Elizabethan Settlement. As such, it is appropriate that we also turn to the great apologist for that settlement, Richard Hooker. As with the Book of Homilies, Hooker uses the term 'Temples' to refer to Christian church buildings. Those who had begun to attack such usage, he asserts, were insulting "Christian people everie where":

when it pleased God to raise up kinges and Emperors favouring sincerelie the Christian truth, that which the Church before either could not, or durst not doe, was with all alacritie performed. Temples were in all places erected ... Theire actions till this daie allwaies accustomed to be spoken of with greate honor, are now called openlie into question  ... Our Churches ... they terme spitefullie the temples of Baal, idole synagogues, abominable sties (LEP V.11.2-3).

Hooker also defends "the hallowing and dedicatinge" of church buildings:

When therefore we sanctifie or hallowe Churches, that which we doe is onlie to testifie that we make places of publique resort, that wee invest God him selfe with them, that we sever them from common uses (V.12.6). 

Against those who condemned parish churches and cathedrals for being built after the fashion of the Temple, Hooker indulged in some sarcasm:

A falt no lesse grevous, if so be it were true, then if some kinge should build his mansion howse by the modell of Salomons palace. So far forthe as our Churches and theire Temple have one end, what should let but that they maie lawfullie have one forme? (V.14.1).

This leads Hooker to be unembarrassed about the "holines and vertue wee ascribe to the Church more then other places":

the verie majestie and holiness of the place, where God is worshipped, hath in regarde of us great vertue force and efficacie, for that it serveth as a sensible help to stirre up devotion ... As therefore wee everie where exhorte all men to worship God, even so for performance of this service by the people of God assembled we thinke not anie place so good as the Church (V.162.).

Hooker's defence of the place, structure, hallowing, and sanctity of church buildings was a response to the rejection of the Elizabethan Settlement - its Prayer Book, Articles, episcopal order, and churches - exemplified in A Brief Discovery of the False Church, published in 1590 by the Separatist Henry Barrow. Boasting of his preference for "a poore simple house to the Lord", Barrow condemned the parish churches of the Elizabethan Settlement:

These Synagogues are built altogether to the forme of the old Temple of the Iewes, in a long square East and west, with their holy Court walled round about, coomonly called the Churchyeard, which is holy ground, and serueth for Christen burial, being altogether exempt for ciuil vse ...

Againe they haue in the bodie of their Church their hallowed fonte, to keepe the holy water wherwith they baptise, al other vessels and waters to the vse of baptisme being by expresse law forbidden. They haue also their holiest of al, or chauncel, which peculiarly belongeth to the priest and quire, which help the priest to say & sing his seruice. They haue their roodloft as a partition betweene their holie and holiest of all. The priest also hath a peculiar dore into his chancel, through which none might passe but himself

Barrow's critique is centred around his rejection of 'Temple' language and symbolism for the parish church - language and symbolism affirmed by the Book of Homilies and by Hooker, but  rejected by Psephizo. This highlights why Psephizo's invocation of Article XIX is rather like Tract XC's reading of the Articles of Religion: it is ahistorical, a rejection of the historic meaning of the Articles, and more akin to the theologies of those who rejected the Elizabethan Settlement. 

The Homilies, Prayer Book, and Hooker reject the simplistic binary of people v. place. Instead, they recognise that people as embodied beings gather in a place. By contrast, "Presence is promised to a gathered people, not a particular place" suggests a disembodied, abstract view of 'gathered people', apart from place. This leads to a dismissive view of 'mere' church buildings, as if the offering of prayer, the reading of scripture, and the celebration of the sacraments in a particular place does not have a significance and meaning that rightly engenders reverence - and this place is therefore rightly termed 'church'.

Psephizo states of 'A Christian presence in every community', "Neither Synod nor any committee has never formally defined the phrase" - in other words, that the logo has lacked theological content. We can say the same about the Psephizo post and church buildings: no theological account of church buildings is provided, nor is any theological understanding offered for a reverence for church buildings. There is passing acknowledgement that "A building is a tool for that presence [of a Christian community], often a precious one". While the use of 'tool' is, to say the least, rather dismissive, we are not told why the building may be "precious"; no theological justification is offered for the statement. This, however, is only to be expected: insisting that church buildings are neither 'temple' nor 'church', and that "Presence is people, not plant", leaves one with very little means to provide a theological account of the significance of church buildings.

The critique of church buildings often heard from some contemporary Anglicans is summarised by the lazy mantra 'church is people, not a building' . It is a statement as misleading as 'Christianity is a relationship, not a religion' - a mantra contrary, by the way, to Cranmer's view of "the fellowship of Christ's religion" (from the collect of the Third Sunday after Easter). Likewise 'church is people, not a building' is contrary to the Book of Homilies, the Book of Common Prayer, and the thought of Richard Hooker - and it certainly is not, therefore, the concern of Article XIX. The Article, after all, was part of the confession of an Elizabethan Settlement which maintained church buildings, recognised them as 'churches' and 'temples', retained the font and stained glass, and declared "the Chancels shall remain as they have done in times past".

It is, then, fitting to conclude with words from Hooker:

Thus much it maie suffice to have written in defence of those Christian oratories, that overthrow and ruine whereof is desired, not now by infidels Pagans or Turkes, but by a speciall refined sect of Christian beleevers pretending them selves exceedinglie greived at our solemnities in erecting Churches, at the names we suffer them to hold, at theire forme and fashion, at the statliness of them and costlines, at the opinion which we have of them ... (V.17.6).