This post will continue our look at the HIGH ROAD style of architecture as defined in a previous post and how it relates to environments Christians set up to experience God. I had written in an earlier post that HIGH ROAD buildings tend to move toward becoming a museum or a monument. In an email, one of the readers of 100W Lightbulb wrote, "I like your thoughts and the parallels drawn - but I am also a sentimental person who likes to remember the past and enjoy my time in museums. I think there is a good tension there but not sure how to articulate it."
Thanks for writing in, and I think you articulated it well. HIGH ROAD architecture is inviting, it is complex, it is rich, it forces us to pay attention to detail and tradition. I love museums and institutions as well. It gives a permanence and place that allows me to put my life in the context of something larger.
Please hear me, HIGH ROAD is not a bad thing. As we will see in this post, there are clear instances of HIGH ROAD architecture in the Bible and it had an intended affect on how people related to God. My intent with these early posts is not to say that HIGH ROAD spiritual environments have no place in Christianity, but only to ask the question - is a complex and more rigid HIGH ROAD environment the best to foster multiplying spiritual Movements?
Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Israel. Awesome trip, and the journey there was as informative as any of the sites I visited. NOTE TO TRAVELERS: if you are flying on El Al airlines arrive to the airport VERY EARLY! If not, they will take a great interest in you. Let's just say my suitcase was dumped into a bin, and I was down to my underwear for a strip search. Hello!
Anyway, I made it and while there had the chance to stop in at a full scale replica of the Tabernacle at Timna Park in the Negev desert. They do a good job with the resources that they have. When I thought about Biblical examples of HIGH ROAD architecture, the Tabernacle came to mind as a good example.
Let's see if it meets our HIGH ROAD test:
Beautiful - from Exodus 25 we can see that the people gave to the LORD "gold, silver, and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, goat's hair, tanned rams' skins, goatskins, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyz stones." Check.
Complex - from 25:34 we read, "and on the lampstand itself there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms, with their calyxes and flowers, and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand. Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold." Uh... complex? Check.
Carefully crafted - from Ex. 36:2,8 we read, "and Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the LORD had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. And all the craftsmen among the workmen made the tabernacle with ten curtains. They were made of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns, with cherubim skillfully worked." Twice in the narrative, God makes a point to remind Moses to construct the Tabernacle "exactly as I show you concerning the pattern".
Why was God so concerned with the minute detail that He was requiring? I mean, we're talking down to the pomegranate tassels on the hem of the robe of the High Priest! I think the environment that God mandated in order to dwell with them reinforced the relationship that God had with them - present but separate. Only through the Law and rituals were the people (through a mediator none-the-less) able to approach God.
Alright, I think at this point some of you might be asking "so what?"
The so what is this. Why did I have to go visit a replica of the Tabernacle last year? It is because that incredibly beautiful structure doesn't exist. Why didn't I choose to write about my trip to the Temple while I was in Jerusalem? No temple. Just some stone and shrines to mark where it (probably) used to stand.
The book of Hebrews makes the point most articulately when the author writes, "for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, 'See that yo make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain'. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second." (8:5-7)
The structures don't exist because the purpose they served is no longer needed. The HIGH ROAD veil of separation was ripped top to bottom. In Ephesians, Paul writes that the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile was torn down. All this was done through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the victorious Jesus Christ.
Since that day, however, Christians have been temmpted (intentionally or ignorantly) to rebuilding, separating, and isolating.
- Paul to Peter and the Apostles in Acts 15 and Galatians 2 who had become a stumbling block to Gentile faith.
- Plague of the judiasers on the early Church.
- Descent of the Catholic Church into Papal Infallibility and gross excesses that isolated the people from Scripture.
- Cultural moralizing that confused the place of real life change.
- Over emphasis on seminary training to be fit for service.
- The legalist that conditions relationship to rules and confuses actions with heart.
HIGH ROAD structures - both physical and metaphysical in nature - have their places. There are times when we need stable structure and clear policies. Those serve to support entities that are meant to be in one place serving a singular purpose for a long time.
There is an ugly side to the HIGH ROAD, however. It is one where the weight of history mandates certain rigid processes that serve to protect legacy. It is the 150 year old church on Main Street that has multiple committees (any time you have to use a word that repeats three letter twice you know you are in HIGH ROAD territory) to manage the details for running the church. It is the religious organization that has an HR manual as thick as a phone book so as to protect itself from any and every possible threatening situation. it is the top down leadership style that puts knowledge, resources, and mandates of ministry into the hands of a select few specialists while everyone else sits and watches.
Before we get to the LOW ROAD environment, which I will argue is the most conducive to multiplying spiritual movements, we will take a detour into what Stewart Brand calls the NO ROAD or Magazine architecture - those beautiful buildings full of glass and steel that totally exist for themselves and are completely inhospitable to those that inhabit it.
As we pull the plug on this one, a question to consider: as you observe your current spiritual spaces, how much do they reflect a HIGH ROAD atmosphere? How does that help or hinder bringing others with you into that space to experience Christ?
100W
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