Bring me back my pulpit

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

11^th November 2015