[D]Evolution of the Pulpit

Maybe it’s a small thing. Maybe it’s me. But I’ve been thinking about the significance of pulpits in the churches I’ve attended.
I’ve seen all shapes and sizes, styles and locations. But I haven’t seen any on the platform of my current church. Since everything else in our assembly seems thoughtfully intentional, I began to ponder why such a staple of traditional religion would be missing.
The Baptist fundamentalist movement in which I was reared would object to being classified as traditional religion; but apart from a Gospel of grace, the infrastructure of faith is very similarly activity- and exterior-based. The conservative services demand ceremonial garb, uniform response, and piano- or organ-led music. Even if you agree with none of that, you will agree that for the most part, my current church’s services look and sound and feel significantly different than those of any church we’ve shared in common.
To be fair, I ask myself, “Why have a pulpit?” If it’s been so ingrained into multiple cultures through multiple millennia, it had to start from a premise that would be readily accepted and passed all the way to our current generation.
Most assemblies have a predominant leader, the dispenser of knowledge and application. In ancient cultures, this person probably led the community in some integral capacity as well and had his hand on the local law and/or its enforcement. So, it makes sense that his charges would give him a place of prominence to help him stand out from his peers— maybe a throne-like structure or just a crude forerunner of our modern podium.
We know the Pharisees in Jesus’ time even had elevated seats on the listener side of the altar. He condemned that; and the church has since, for the most part, refrained from recreating that. So, I assume, if there were elevated positions on the listener side of the setup, that the speaker side probably set him similarly apart.
A pulpit helps focus the listener’s attention to one place and gives the speaker a place to hold his holy book, his notes, and his water. (I’ve even seen some that hold the controlling mechanisms for the sound and recording systems.) For preachers like Billy Sunday, it upholds the speaker physically during peripatetic moments.
The traditional pulpit bears a cross and/or banner, signifying it as a special place—the “sacred desk.” Like other parts of the church, it uses religious imagery to “sanctify” it for its holy use.
I think there is the point of separation. Most of the churches in which I was reared have a man or a hierarchal oligarchy of men who occupy this place. They are the leaders, the examples, the ones who know better and are helping you know better. They have a special place, one which (to their credit) they usually reverence—and one they expect the congregation to esteem. They’re the guys in the suits, the shepherds teaching the aimless sheep. Sermons are powerful speeches to be heeded with the credence of “thus saith the Lord.”
That pulpit , then, becomes the wall between a certain spiritual have and the have nots. I remember the spiritual place I felt attained by the times my dad lent me his pulpit, a sense of worthiness either doled or earned—sadly the antithesis of what that place should generate.
Fast forward.
In my church, the leaders believe the greatest percentage of spiritual influence happens within a distance of 3 feet. Like other modern and more prevalent evangelical assemblies, they emphasize empowering lay leaders, multiplying small group studies, and making the church experience one in which people far from God will feel comfortable with everything but the conviction of the Holy Spirit. So, our pastors and elders remove barriers of business-presentation dress and clanging offering plates and nineteenth century music.
And pulpits.
Because they’re real, authentic—exposing their junk in an attempt to relate to ours. By being vulnerable in public, they take away the excuse we have not to be vulnerable to God. It also protects them a bit more from the double life, the “suited up” version of themselves that contrasts the “dressed down,” golf side of them. And it challenges us away from a 007 Christianity, too.
So, the lack of a pulpit—ironically enough—exudes an intrinsic credence above a suit and tie and verbs that end in “eth.” The fire side chat style, while just as fervent (though not as sweaty and loud) as its brimstone or mass counterparts, turns all of us believers into equal haves, joint journeymen. Grace extends directly, instead of through a perceived (even if not intended) conduit.
And the only sanctified wood in the church is the cross.