My denomination, The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, is having our triennial convention in Houston, TX this week. This afternoon I watched the opening Divine Service (worship service with Holy Communion) online.
The altar being used for the entire convention is very strange. I’ve never seen anything like it. It actually has a T.V. in it which, if you’ve seen the number of ancient Christian altars in Europe like I have, many of which contain the remains of Christian saints, the altar is–well, I’m nonplussed.
Anyway, here is a picture of the convention altar shamelessly “borrowed” from Rev. Heath Curtis at the Gottesdienst blog.
See, I told you it is very strange.
Here’s a picture of the altar at which I served at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer (LCMS) in Vero Beach, Florida, for five years. With the help of an art glass company, I designed the round Christ Enthroned piece above the crucifix. The sanctuary was renovated during my tenure at Redeemer. In addition to the art glass, we installed a beautiful crucifix and new sanctuary furniture. The baptismal font was moved to the back of the nave. Upon entering, one would have to walk by the font in order to get a seat in one of the pews.
Anyway, here’s the convention altar again:
And here are just some random altar images I found on the Web by googling “goddess altar” and “goddess statue”:
Another view of the convention altar from the LCMS Web site:
While there is an abstract crucifix nearby, I think that it is important that we clearly convey our beliefs in our words and in the aesthetics of our worship spaces, don’t you? The image that is on the convention altar is too dissimilar to a representation of our Lord, God made human flesh, and too similar to the symbol of women’s spirituality–for my taste.
Houston, we have a problem.
