Dark Roasted Blend has published a wonderful collection of photographs of pulpits. As a retired pastor, you'll forgive me for finding them very interesting! Here are a few examples.
Pulpit in St. Stephan's Cathedral, Passau, Germany
Baroque pulpit in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels, Belgium
There are many more at the link. Interesting and recommended viewing. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort our forefathers in faith put into decorating and beautifying their places and artifacts of worship. It puts our modernistic simplicity to shame.
Here's one more, not included by Dark Roasted Blend, but I've seen it and was very impressed. It's the pulpit in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, in France.
I must admit, in all my years as a pastor, I never did manage to preach from so artistic a perch. I wonder if it would have improved my sermons if I'd delivered them surrounded by such elegance?
Peter
10 comments:
Probably the opposite, Peter.
I can't imagine sermons on Humility, Envy, Avarice, Pride, or many other subjects of worthy reflection being delivered from such opulent stages!
Antibubba
As a longtime blog reader, I have nothing but respect for you, so I hope you don't take this as a personal affront.
To be completely honest however, whenever I see ostentatious displays of "piety" like this - and I seem to see them to varying degree in every church I visit - I can't help but be put off.
It seems that every holy man out there is exhorting me to contribute to their particular mission to bring religiosity to the fuzzy-wuzzies, all while preaching from a gold plated pulpit whilst periodically checking their Rolex so as to avoid missing tee off.
I'm not one that doesn't believe that you can do well by doing good, but even as a child I was mystified by the seeming disparity between value and action.
Somehow, at the age of 11, I had gotten on Oral Roberts' mailing list. At least once a week, a bulk mail envelope arrived containing some supposed holy artifact - a piece of Jesus' fishing net, or holy anointing oil, or some other similar hoo-haw - along with a breathless missive declaiming the urgent need for donations in 24 point Courier. As a pre-teen, I had no disposable income to give, but felt guilty nonetheless.
Imagine my shock and surprise when we visited my aunt in Tulsa and I saw the seemingly gold plated skyscrapers at ORU.
I realize now that the buildings weren't that tall, and it was film on the glass not gold, but still... Can't one spread the word of God from a quonset hut just as efficiently as from a gilded palace?
Years later, I found myself in Mexico as the local catholic church made a point of parading its collection of golden statues and whatnot in front of dirt poor villagers that hadn't had a decent meal in living memory. I can't say as that did anything to endear his papal majesty to me either.
I also cannot see you in
one of those pulpits. The
Lord I see in you is in your
heart not in the golden soap
box.
Funded by money extracted from the ignorant poor, upon threat of eternal damnation.
Art? Perhaps, of a sort.
Piety? Hardly.
Artists and architects always build monuments their own brillance using others' money.
If in the process they flatter the owner-here, the Church-by flattery, they are assured of future, grander commissions.
Nothing has changed since Biblical times, except that today, the monuments are glass and steel towers.
wow, tough crowd. comments are tough.
Forget for a moment the distrust you have for religions (they are not all bad you know)Peter's point about modern-basic vrs. these intricate pieces defines culture and aims.
I don't have the ability to decide what is better, only that I'm kind of glad culture has had the development at some time to build such things.
Its an ill wind that blows no good, as my dad reminds me.
Yeah, those are not the kind of thing I find aesthetically pleasing. Actually, they make me cringe. Fortunately, there are people like you who do appreciate them.
Though, I don't see how they show that people back then were any more pious than today. I expect it would be pretty hard to justify to your congregation why you spent $10,000 on a pulpit when that money could have gone to build a hospital in Haiti.
Anyway, could you expand on why you think all the art back then is so much better than focusing on spreading the gospel?
Jerrac, back then, art was a means of spreading the gospel - don't forget most people were illiterate! That's why church art came to occupy such an important place, in terms of stained glass windows, tapestries, the Stations of the Cross, etc. It was a way of visually representing what the Church taught. Those who couldn't read could see it, and understand.
I don't think such art is better than spreading the Gospel, but you can't judge the standards of a former age by those of our own. It was a different world then. For example, people killed those with whom they disagreed about matters of faith - oh, wait a moment . . . :-(
Impressive. As a current preacher, while something that ornate would sure be nice (I've always admired the cruciform style cathedrals with the marble floors, paneled walls, and sculptures aplenty), I doubt it would help with my delivery.
Modern sermonic delivery is less "from on high" (although there's an element of that power of the gospel) and more a "friend to friend" style. The pulpit has gone from being a work of art to being purely functional, and in many cases is done away with entirely (I prefer to have one, but more and more I come out from behind it at various times).
But every now and then, there's a sermon that would lend itself to such a pulpit...
Remember that much of what you see in these churches was given as gifts by wealthy patrons, not necessarily bought or commissioned by the churches themselves. Anybody who's ever had to rely on donations from the public knows that sometimes you just have to smile and say "thank you" even when the gift may seem inappropriate.
I'm not arguing against the beauty or artistry of those pulpits, Peter. But even when I try to picture you during the ages when those edifices were built, I picture you in a cassock, not fine robes; with your priestly tools set on a horse blanket draped over a crate in a muddy field, not surrounded by gilt and marble. A man of God among the people, in other words.
Antibubba
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