Houses of God:
Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States

Peter W. Williams

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. ISBN: 0-252-06917-X. Pp. 321, biblio, index, photos

Review © 2007 Branislav L. Slantchev

Houses of God is Professor Williams' exhaustive survey of religious architecture in America in which he attempts to defend the thesis that regional variations have important implications for how Americans conceived of their religious buildings and how they built them. Despite being a highly erudite and fascinating tour de force on the subject, the book mostly fails in its avowed purpose for what emerges from the survey is not so much about regional variation but about four driving forces: liturgical needs, immigration patterns, ethnicity, and wealth (political power). In other words, whereas sometimes the regional can be a useful short-hand that encapsulates all of these, as it arguably does in New England, for example, it is mostly an artificial concept whose limitation is revealed by the simple fact that the chapter on the Great Plains and the Mountains includes both a kitschy Las Vegas wedding chapel and the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City.

The book is divided into seven chapters, each dedicated to a particular region as defined by the author. Some of the regions would be instantly recognizable from vernacular usage---New England and the South---but others reflect the author's recognition that geography is not a very useful instrument for approximating the forces he's trying to capture---so we have chapters on the Spanish Borderlands and the Pacific Rim. Each chapter the deals with the dominant Protestant denominations and sects (or, if appropriate, Catholics and Jews) in the region, and then looks in detail at several prominent examples of their religious buildings. I do not use the term 'churches' because some of these groups, like the Puritans and the Quakers, for example, eschewed the term themselves in preference to the non-religious 'meetinghouse.' This in itself is an interesting notion that reveals how the liturgical differences between the various Christian groups drove their building activities.

The Puritans, like the Quakers, rejected the Catholic notion that the church is a sacred place. Hence, their emphasis on the plain, the ordinary, the utilitarian. Their buildings had no need of long aisles and ambulatory around the altar where consecrating processions could take place. The typically Protestant emphasis on the personal communion with God and Biblical exegesis diminished the role of the altar and elevated that of the speaking platform. Not surprisingly, since interpretation was verbal, there was to be no artwork, at least nowhere near the degree one would find in a Catholic church where the goal has always been to instruct the uneducated masses through images rather than words. Since the Protestantism developed essentially in opposition to Catholicism, it would have been valuable to have some sort of catalog of liturgical and doctrinal differences. A similar endeavor for the various denominations within Protestantism would have been even more valuable given the proliferation of these in America. Someone like me who has a rather limited knowledge of these particular strands is left wondering what makes a Baptist different from a Presbyterian, and a Congregationalist different from an Episcopalian. All I have is the vague notion that Presbyterians reject the pyramidal episcopal hierarchy in favor of some sort of oligarchy, that Congregationalists are even more democratic in their choice of priests, that Episcopalians are the richest of the lot, and Baptists not only the poorest but also most common among African Americans. But is this so? If yes, then why?

Admittedly, these are probably hard questions and this book is not about the sociology of religion in America. However, since religious buildings have to reflect liturgical peculiarities of the groups using them, a brief overview would have been appropriate. As such, the only two groups treated in some length in this manner are the Puritans and the Quakers. Given how marginal these have been for the last two centuries when most of the buildings were erected, this really is something of a puzzle.

Liturgy, however, is not the entire story, as Williams ably shows. For one, many groups changed their preference for architecture as they grew richer. The buildings became more elaborate, the decoration more ornate, and the previously despised Gothic made a triumphant revival. At this point it is useful to ask why liturgical demands are sometimes trumped by desire to display success, a propaganda goal that only visually impressive churches can achieve. If there really is little (or no) compromise with the demands of the faith, then why not start with elaborate buildings to begin with? Is the initial rejection of traditional form mostly driven by inability to afford one?

Given then liturgical necessities and money to erect the building the congregation wants, what models will it use for the design? This is where the idea of cultural hearth is intriguing for it appears that many later buildings heavily borrowed on styles established on the East Coast. That is, they imitated what was perceived as successful and fashionable at the time. Hence the Gothic and neo-Classical buildings that dot the nation's landscape from coast to coast. But sometimes the choice of a model was influenced by the group's ethnicity as various German, Norwegian, and Polish congregations amply demonstrate. In other words, what the group identifies as the object worthy of imitation depends on what they value, which in turn depends on their culture, which, during these first waves of immigration, largely depended on ethnicity. Hence, the need to talk about ethnicity, and from that, about immigration and migration patterns for many places in America have not remained static over the years.

It is a book that analyzes the interaction of these four forces that I wish Williams had written. Instead, one has to cull these insights from scattered references throughout. Another somewhat disappointing feature is that very little attention is paid to Catholic churches, especially ones built in the post Vatican II era. A comparison with the so-called Spanish borderlands and the original missions would have been quite revealing. After all, one only need to travel 20 minutes from Mission San Buenaventura to reach the ultra-modern Saint Basil's Catholic Church in downtown Los Angeles. Same faith, same denomination, and the buildings can hardly haven been more different.

One final complaint about the book is organizational. The black and white pictures are grouped at the end of each chapter, making it very hard to refer to. I can't understand why the photos were not placed in the text at the appropriate places, it's not like the author refers to them many times from different parts of the book. The photographs also vary in quality, and one is disappointed to see that some fairly interesting examples mentioned in the text are not illustrated (e.g., no German churches about which p. 165 has so much to say). Obviously, it's not possible to illustrate every building the author mentions but I do have to wonder whether textual descriptions help in that regard. What use is to us to read about this steeple and that tympanum without a picture to illustrate it?

If this review sounds harsh, this is not my intention. All of the above points can be found in this excellent book. My gripe is that they are not systematized and analyzed properly, which makes the book something of a primer, a foundation for future research, rather than a convincing defense of the author's regional thesis. In fact, Mr Williams seems to have developed doubts by the end of the enterprise and the book's final sentence should have been a cause for its wholesale revision: "Let us conclude, then, on a firm note of ambiguity: regionalism does persist in American religious architecture, but in a convoluted fashion that reflects the ambiguity and multifarious nature of American religion, society, and culture themselves." In other words, a total abdication of responsibility for making sense of it all. But as I suggested above, it's not at all impossible to imagine a framework that would discipline our thinking and provide some genuine insight into the fascinating and rich world that is American religious architecture.

January 13, 2007