If there is a decline in church attendance abroad, it’s hardly noticeable in Europe’s tourist-jammed houses of worship. The upward-looking crowds viewing Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are so thick and the air so humid that one slips through the throng aided by his own perspiration. Notre Dame de Paris draws capacity crowds also. Worshipers and attendants in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral sometimes resort to rudeness as they endeavor to halt the gawking for evensong. Flash bulbs earn pastoral rebukes in Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, while miniskirts and sleeveless dresses meet with stern-eyed rejection from the wiry little nun standing guard at the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Still the crowds pour in, but few of them hear The Message.
How priests and communicants can concentrate on the mass at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice while the hordes of tourists move up and down the side aisles is baffling. Men of the cloth in Salzburg see their churches turned into concert halls: mobs of Mozart-lovers lean on medieval statuary as a rehearsing choir surrounds the main altar with an orchestra squeezed in front.
The Greeks have a prayer for it. They ask, “Have mercy on the cities, the islands, and the villages of our Orthodox Fatherland, as well as the holy monasteries, which are scourged by the world touristic wave.” They continue their supplication, “Grace us with a solution of this dramatic problem and protect our brethren who are sorely tried by the modernistic spirit of these contemporary western invaders.” And they do not wait passively for an answer to this prayer. Except during service hours, doors are locked to cathedrals, the jewellike and tiny Byzantine churches of the Athens Plaka, and the other Orthodox churches in the principal cities. That’s a pretty effective way to keep out the scourge of contemporary western invaders. It’s also an excellent way to ignore a responsibility.
The Mormons capitalize on their architectural prizes in Salt Lake City. Non-Mormons are locked out of the Temple, to be sure, but the Tabernacle and the Visitors’ Center and the other buildings of Temple Square welcome visitors. The Mormons seize the opportunity to tell their story dramatically, counsel with the interested, and in other ways further their cause. They accept their opportunity. When Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” he certainly did not mean to imply that when nations come to you they should be ignored. He said we are to be his “witnesses” starting at home.
In recent European tours, I made it my business to visit as many churches as I could. Many were ancient houses of worship filled with valuable collections of art, beautiful stained glass, awesome vaulting, and marble congregations of statues. A few of the churches were excitingly new. Some had an entrance fee, which I happily paid to help maintain these marvelous houses of worship as places where future generations could hear God’s message to man. But time after time I found that the European churches’ great opportunity to evangelize the world coming to their doors is largely neglected. The guardians of these spiritual masterpieces have all but succumbed to the communist formula that church structures are merely museums.
Isn’t the original intent of these handsomely spired and buttressed edifices still worth carrying out today? Why not communicate the Gospel to visitors as well as regular attenders?
At Westminster Abbey, the visitor hears about the notable dead memorialized all around, a practice repeated at other churchly burial spots from Denmark’s Roskilde Cathedral, where Danish noblemen sleep, to Les Invalides in Paris, where Napoleon and a coterie of other famed Frenchmen are entombed. Tourists are made very aware of these dead men of historic significance. But the Living Christ is seldom mentioned. While art and architecture proclaim the Resurrection, guides spew out easily forgotten names of the buried and of the sculptors who carved their monuments. There is hardly a hint of the one Message that still gives hope.
European churches are not alone in this neglect. Too few well-known religious edifices in the United States attempt to underscore their reason for being to strangers who enter. More is said about marble and stone than about the Chief Cornerstone.
There have been some bright spots, however. A young priest at the Santa Barbara Mission did more than escort our party through the lovely gardens and tiled cloisters several years back. He shared his faith. It wasn’t pushed upon us, but was offered naturally, sincerely. I’ve forgotten the dates he rattled off, but I can’t forget The Message he offered. A kindred spirit of his who was an attendant at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco escorted our group through that golden-domed tiara of Geary Street. He explained many facts. Then he became personal. He was a former Protestant who first heard the Gospel clearly within Orthodoxy. Evangelism took place in an unusual quarter, and he was continuing the “soft sell” witness. We all were moved, and it is that gospel message, more than the church’s architecture or art, that we remember from our visit.
Certainly European churches provide spiritual nourishment in a countless array of worship services. Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church beckons tourists and shoppers alike from Berlin’s Kurfurstendam into its blue-glass nave for brief and inspiring midday services. Roman Catholics can nearly always find a chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the most beloved cathedrals serving mass throughout the day. In America, Chapel in the Hills, the Rapid City, South Dakota, replica of the aged Borgund Stave Kirke, goes its Norwegian counterpart one better. Visitors hear a taped history and are invited to stay for a vesper service. Radio broadcasts aid that new tourist attraction in echoing the gospel message. Yet one-language services are insufficient to share the Word adequately.
Churches at home and abroad where tourists flock might consider these suggestions if they want to present the Gospel to the world coming to their doors:
1. Choose as guides persons who see the work as a ministry, not just as a job. The clear echoing of the Gospel in simple, personal terms will prevent persons from missing The Message the structure stands to proclaim.
2. Offer brief worship services in varying languages several times each day. Persons traveling with a tour group are seldom given a chance to attend Sunday services, but they all can take in a ten-minute devotional service during their visit to a church.
3. Post signs in several languages, not only the explanations of art and architecture, but also the rules for entrance and conduct. Few churches make provision for visitors who do not know the prevailing language.
4. Give every visitor a tract that contains not only facts about the structure but also some Scripture quotations and directions for obtaining spiritual counsel.
5. Never close a house of worship until early evening, at least. Open it early. And God’s House should not be shut up for lunch breaks.
This final suggestion applies to all churches that are near a hotel, and not just those churches whose art or history draws tourists: leave a schedule of services at the hotel desk. Our flight had arrived in time for Sunday-morning services in London, but the hotel clerk knew of no nearby church. That evening I found four churches within three blocks of the hotel.
How encouraging it would be if tourist-attracting churches were to get back to the business they’re supposed to be in: witnessing of the Lord of Love, Jesus!
Incarnation
I was expecting a snow
spectacular, not like this
but sloping up roof tops to stars
or else it would go
clean up to candled windows
clear, seep thresholds at least
but its level imposes nothing
except perhaps how
its only real intent
is the meeting of stones
bald as the ground
and the brown grass
bent on a small exchange
the snow is flush with it all
penetrates only as April
and shares the impression of tracks
SANDRA R. DUGUID
Richard Andersen is pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Master in La Habra, California. He has the B.D. from Trinity Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, and is working toward a Ph.D. at California Graduate School of Theology.
