If the Walls Be Black, Ye Best Turn Back: On American Church Dracula Religion

Dim church lights and concert vibes are definitely about preferences...but not those of God.

My pastor reads Insight to Incite, at least occasionally. And consider this a warning to him; the next time the weather because inclement, I expect him to get out the Moses stick, look up at the clouds, and call it off (the winter storm, that is).

Obviously, that’s tongue in cheek. Nobody can control the weather, unless they’re a charismatic prophet, at which point I’m pretty sure God does the opposite of whatever they decree and declare, as every hurricane that touches the East Coast seems to prove. Today’s rambling is brought to you by a church I’ll not name, where my family attended due to road conditions. I’ll not name it, because I’m aware of quite a number of lovely people who attend there.

As the lights turned dim for the sake of spiritual ambiance, my youngest son looked to me and mimed the words with his lips, that I’ll also not repeat, because of the aforementioned fact of my pastor likely reading this. But the sanitized translation was, “What is this garbage?”

And it’s that upon which I’ll opine. What is it with churches turning the lights down low to worship? Where did this practice come from? Who started it? When did we start doing this? As I shared what I believed to be the humorous reaction of my youngest son on X, some took great exception that I had apparently raised my children to be little malcontent curmudgeons, going around judging people because of their worship preferences.

But it’s exactly that which solicits this article. I don’t know that I’ve ever explained to the younglings the origins of this practice. In fact, readers to Insight to Incite will be some of the lucky few to have ever been explained where the practice in evangelicalism has come from. So how did he know it was contestable? From where was this truth derived? One could suggest it was mere unfamiliarity, but that does not explain his instinctual disdain for it. Had it only been newness, his response would have just been curiosity. But instead, it was contempt.

As much as I’d like to think him special, I believe one of two things - or both - was happening. The first is the that Holy Ghost gifts discernment discriminately, to those he wishes, and does so supernaturally. The second is that the Holy Ghost is working in the heart of American culture, which is largely turning away from what dim lights in our churches represent, also supernaturally.

THINGS WERE NOT ALWAYS SO DARK

As I explained in a thread on X (follow me here), for roughly two-thousand years the Christian Church has considered light - and lots of it - to be the Biblical ambiance for worship. It’s been fairly ubiquitous, nearly universal, in every corner of the world and throughout all ages, except for the Latin Tenebrae service of the Papists, and besides, we’re talking about actual Christians.

Although it seems crazy today, there was a time when church services were meticulously designed to conform to the preferences of God, and not of the worshippers. And having thought it out with a degree of Biblical insight, the conclusion had been come to for a very long time, that the God of light…likes light. This is crazy, I know. But it would seem that Savior who will one day light Heaven by the countenance of his own glory, has a thing for light. Because “in him, there is no darkness at all” (John 1:5).

Most of us are familiar with sights like you see above, despite many of us never having seen such a thing in person, especially if you were born on the correct side of the Atlantic. We’re familiar with the stained glass cathedrals, but there was a point to all of this besides the artistic showmanship. And in fact, the church’s infatuation with natural light is much older than stained glass.

From the earliest of days in the Byzantine Empire, buildings used as church meeting houses (Protestants try to avoid calling buildings “churches”), had a curious interest in windows. They always have. As you’ll see in the photo below (those of you listening to the audio version might be missing out), the windows in church houses were always way up high.

This wasn’t to keep distracted children from looking out the windows when they became bored by the preaching, although perhaps that helped. No, the high windows were designed to make the light beam downward, upon the congregation, from above. It was to symbolize God’s presence coming upon us from the heavens, the same way that the Son of Man came above.

Interestingly, the “light from above” motif was carried by Christians who never met, in cultures that never overlapped. It’s really quite a curious feature.

Around the 10th Century, churches started using stained glass. And by “started using,” I mean they invented it. It was a contribution of the Christian church, to the world. At first, it simply brought the light in different spectrums of color. But eventually, artistry became more apt, and started to depict Bible stories visually for the masses who had grown illiterate.

It’s here that Protestants start to feel a tad uncomfortable, as some used stained glass to depict images of God and angels. Nonetheless, my point is the church painted its interior with actual tapestries of natural light. It was a painting, made in the medium of sunlight. If there was no sunlight, no image could be seen. This was also metaphoric; with the light of God, the beauty of the artist’s design is beheld. Without the light of God, the beauty of the artist’s design is withheld. What made the difference between regular glass, and the scene of Moses splitting the Red Sea, was something of God’s own making; sunlight.

But the Protestants, lacking the resources of church made rich by springing hostaged souls from purgatory, weren’t left out because their coffers didn’t ring with the sound of dropped ransom. They too included lights - lots of it - in their meeting houses. Even if it was a mere candelabra, the church was to be known for good lighting.

When electricity was discovered and the power of lightning (you know what I mean) harnessed, church houses were the first public facilities prioritized for being lit. In fact, Thomas Edison gave the first bulb to a Presbyterian church in New Jersey. The significance of this should not be overlooked. When the lightbulb was invented, the first thought was, “this could be useful in the church meeting house.”

This is the actual church, where the bulb went.

The light motif is the most common and famous in Scripture, because it is the one used most often. Jesus called the church the light on the hill (Matthew 5:14), a city on a hill that can’t be hidden, a candle that doesn’t get crammed under a bushel (Luke 11:33). Luke 2:30 says the gospel is the light for the gentiles. The incarnation is said to have been the light coming into the world, and the darkness did not esteem it (John 1:4-9). Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). The darkness is gone, Romans 8:12 says, and Christians wear the armor of light.

I could go on. And on and on and on.

Early church aesthetics reflected this. A common feature on older churches is the “lantern tower,” which was a tower erected above the roof, and with a candle or lantern burning that never went out.

What I hope to convey in all this is that the church’s two-millennia old infatuation with light as a part of church house design was not one of mere preference. It’s not that they thought they ‘worshipped better’ in light. It’s an intentional decision that was made, steeped in deep and rich theology, with solid doctrinal reasons. If God is light, then wherever the church gathers should be flooded with it.

Even the direction that churches were positioned reflect this. Some are aware that Christian cemeteries all over the world place graves facing East, which is where the sun rises and from where Jesus will return to fetch us (Matthew 24:27). But fewer are aware that churches use to always face East, so that during the morning service, people would be looking toward the sun. The light should come from behind the preacher, signifying God being toward the written Word.

So what the heck happened to churches today? Why do they look like a Satanic seance? Why are so many evangelical churches so dark? Who decided to do this? The answer may surprise you.

But, it probably won’t.

The answer is that dimming the light in churches to ‘assist’ with worship ambiance came from the Church Growth and Seeker Friendly church movement, founded by C. Peter Wagner and popularized by his two prominent disciples, Rick Warren and Bill Hybles. Wagner’s approach to ministry, which has been adopted by thousands of churches - perhaps even tens of thousands - across the world, was an approach that doesn’t ask what God prefers, but what lost people prefer.

The logic was simple; Christians don’t forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and find supreme value in gathering together with the elect of God to worship God corporately. The believer worships constantly throughout the week privately. But on the Lord’s Day, we come together to observe the Means of Grace with fellow Christians, and enjoy their fellowship as we worship God with one, singular voice as one, singular body.

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Obviously, lost people don’t care about any of that. The book of 1st John makes clear that the desire to worship with other Christians is one of several marks of a genuine believer. But as Wagner discovered, lost people could be more easily coaxed inside the building by emphasizing instead a “personal” worship service where crowds of people worship privately, crammed together. This is in stark contrast to worshipping corporately.

In fact, it’s not uncommon to hear the worship leader in a Seeker Friendly church to speak softly over the crowd, “Just focus on you and Jesus in this moment…it’s just you and Jesus.” But for the Christian, that’s absurd. We have that six days a week. We want to be with fellow Christians. We want to see their faces. We want to hear their voices, and we want to harmonize with them. We want to feel a part of one organism, one body, one bride of Christ. We desire the collective of the Body of Christ.

Lost people, on the other hand, prefer to worship alone, in the dark, so they can tailor-make whatever personalized graven image of Jesus they manufacture in their head. Noticing the presence of others really ruins that personalized experience. And so, the lights are dimmed, and the speakers are raised high enough that people can’t hear the person next to them. They can only harmonize with the worship leader, and no one else.

It’s here, in the 1980s, that church worship services became performative rather than participatory. Suddenly, spotlights literally lit up the stage, and darkened everything else. “Artists” and “performers” were brought in to become spectacles, and the congregation became an audience. And just like that, the church ceased worshiping, and became observers of professional worshippers. And frankly, as the news from Contemporary Christian Music show us, many of those professional worshippers aren’t even believers.

In defense of this practice, which is not built upon theology but preference, some argue that lowering the lights helps facilitate worship. But what it facilitates is exactly the opposite. No longer are people worried about worship, but about vibing. They aren’t participating, they’re “soaking” in the experience. This falls far short of not only tradition, but Holy Scripture. All of that is, as they say, pure poppycock.

No longer are church buildings built to be beautiful, but to be ugly. The walls are painted black, like a nightclub. This is because the only thing that matters is the act on stage, and whatever celebrity or performer is doing their act. They are given a spotlight; everyone else must stay in the shadows.

But many people in America and Western Culture, like my youngest son, are looking at this sub-Christian practice and raising an eyebrow. The Seeker Friendly Movement only worked back when lost people felt compelled to go to church because the culture required it. Those days are long gone, mostly thanks to the Covid lockdowns, when churches already full of lost people took off the mask of irrelevancy, and agreed with the government that they were not essential.

Nobody is going to get up and go to church on their only day off, for something that isn’t essential.

And so largely what remains in American churches are actual Christians who want to be there. And yet, churches are still engaging in Seeker Friendly practices, despite the bulk of the lost people now staying home. The sad fact is not that we’re conforming the church to the preferences of lost people in the audience; the sad fact is that we’re conforming the church to the preferences of lost people who are no longer even there.

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PS I’m not blaming pastor for canceling church. Don’t think that. I trust his judgment. It’s not like it was for the flu, Super Bowl, or Christmas. And by the way, I expressed in the audio version, I’m aware of occasional typos, especially in this post. I’m writing between farm chores and while working a day job. Thanks for reading.