Protestant Theologies and the Problem of Sacred Space

Abstract

The phrase sacred space, suggesting a spiritually evocative environment infused with divine or transcendent presence, is currently applied to almost all religious places, including almost all Christian churches and chapels. Yet Protestant leaders from the Reformation onward vigorously opposed such an understanding of God’s relationship to humanly created worship space. For them, God was not immanent in specific spaces or buildings. How is it that Protestants came to embrace the idea of sacred space and apply it to their own churches? This essay explores the concept of sacred space and its relationship to Protestant architecture, focusing on the second half of the 20th century, a period that brought significant transformation to this relationship. The essay asserts that cultural, theological, and academic transformations occurring in the United States in the post-World War II period, resulted in the development of a universalized view of the sacred that came to undergird new religious spaces, particularly chapels meant to accommodate several faith traditions, which in turn helped to advance that view. Both the ideas and the buildings reflected a growing interest in personal spirituality and new understandings of the relative immanence and transcendence of God.