Bring me back my pulpit
When I was young I was mesmerised
by the huge and gigantic contours of our church. The church built during the
British Raj was a symbol of British pride and culture and had all the
engravings of a true British routine. Church music used to filter onto the outside
during morning mass and the organ player used to play hymns as a prelude to
morning mass.
As a child I would tug at the
coat tail of my dad and meekly follow him and my mom to church. As I grew
older, we were provided bicycles to pedal all the way to church. So every
Sunday morning we would be in our Sunday best and cycle all the way to the
church a distance of around 4 to 5 kms. Special care was taken to fix a
stretchable ring at the bell bottom of our full pants so that the edge did not
get entangled to the bicycle chain.
Once in church, the majesty and
magnanimity of the place overtook us and as kids we were more engrossed in the
vastness than the moral that resounded out of the pulpit. Yes, the pulpit used
to be a round circled raised stand fixed in a place around some corner in such
a way that the preacher could be seen from all angles no matter where you found
a place in church or irrespective of the height and manner of the person
sitting in front.
Sunday after Sunday the preacher
would climb onto this circular raised formation and render his version of the
interpretation from the scripture. The pulpit was synonymous with teachings,
with wisdom being served, with sermons that had the power to even convert the
converted. We kids used to love the moment the preacher stepped into the
pulpit, because that gave us a chance to be seated and rest our weary legs.
In the old British made churches
it was always a formation made of stone, marble or such material till the
modern churches started to introduce the wood work that we see on the pulpits.
The sermons remained the same, always the word of God. As kids we often used to
wonder whether the clergy have been instructed not to smile. Such was the
deliverance that any meaningful message could only be delivered with a straight
face. It was unholy to crack a joke from the pulpit.
Times have changed, the preachers
have added humour to their discourse, congregations have started to debate the
sermons, and more attention is paid to the voice from the pulpit than the
hoarse sales call of vendors on the streets outside. Intermittent cry of a baby
is scorned upon, such is the meaning one tries to decipher from modern day
sermons. But even as all this was happening around us the pulpit remained the
same and stuck to its familiar position in church.
Modern day preachers have started
to be in the midst of the masses and therefore the pulpit has lost its sheen,
its importance. Like the great church buildings of Europe that are now being
lent out to malls and shop owners because of the stupendous rise in maintenance
and a correspondingly steep fall in the number of church goers, the focus of
attention has changed from the pulpit to the preacher. Nowadays preachers roam
around in front of the congregation to keep the attention of the congregation
going. Speeches and sermons are more gesticulate in substance helping to bring
out the chore of the message and preachers seem more animated while spreading
the word of God.
Has this brought about a change
in the position of the pulpit? I think so, because slowly but steadily preachers
prefer to discard the famous pulpit for even ground. No surprise then that last
Sunday I found my church pulpit missing and what stared me back was a blank
wall designed to match its twin on the other side, so much for the pulpit and
fond memories that surround it.
Don’t know if other emotional
strands in my church building will stay put, will they be able to stand the
test of time, or will the church turn out in the future to be a place as bland
as an ailing persons breakfast or still, are we on course to rent out our
majestic buildings for want of church goers attention? Only time will tell.
Robin Varghese
robin_vargh@yahoo.com
11th November 2015
