First Lutheran "Cathedral" In the Americas Under Construction in Texas
By Rev. Jack Cascione

 

The Texas landscape may be dotted with LCEF funded contemporary mega-churches, but in this "Church Growth" wilderness there is a revolution taking place. From Dallas to Austin to San Antonio to Houston it is all the same story. Then, after a journey of five days, we arrived at the new location of Our Savior Lutheran Church and Pastor Laurence White. At first I thought I was in an under funded Concordia, San Antonio. There are multiple new buildings on forty six acres connected by dirt roads and asphalt. The roads have strange sounding names like Luther, Walther, Behnken, etc. Instead of a multimillion dollar administration building, the pastoral offices are in a double mobile home. It is plain to see there is no LCEF money here. We, Pastor Loeschman, my wife, and I, arrived just in time to watch the two pastors serve dinner in the field house to their volunteers for Volunteer Appreciation Day. Pastor White, dressed in his apron, served us, along with some 80 other people, a three course lunch. With just a few improvements needed on the pasta, it was excellent.

Pastor White invited us to his office to see the plans for the new church building going up on his property. I thought, here comes another one. When he unrolled the plans in his rather crowded quarters, I was speechless. Pastor White has spent a number of years studying "Lutheran" architecture. He is now the foremost authority on the subject in North America, perhaps the world. I didn't even know there was such a thing as "Lutheran " architecture.

The American public and seminary libraries don’t have books worth looking at on the subject. However, in the second and third generations after the Reformation, the Lutherans stopped copying the Catholic/Reformed style of church architecture and invented a new style. This new style was only copied in the most sparing manner in the first 50 years of the LCMS. So, what is it, you ask.

Our Savior Lutheran Church is spending well over $5,000,000.00 on erecting the first Lutheran cathedral in the Americas. It looks like no other church structure you have seen in this country. The entire church is in the shape of an octagon, taking much of its form from the Lutheran Church in Dresden that was bombed in World War II. The octagon structure copies the shape of the baptismal font. It will seat approximately 1,200 people. About 450 will sit on the main floor. There are two wrap around balconies, one on top of the other, each seating about 350 people. The church will be about 100 feet high in the interior. Why? Well, for of all things to move the people closer to the pulpit that comes out about 30 feet in the air over the altar. There is no lectern. The entire structure is designed to be centered around the preaching of the Word. This is a stark contrast to the long Catholic naves copied by most architects in this country, with no concern for what the people heard. After touring, studying, photographing, and videotaping many Lutheran churches in Germany, White contracted German and Italian artisans to complete the paintings, carvings, and sculpture. Our Savior is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just to reproduce the angels, paintings, ornamentation, carvings, and stained glass which White found in Germany

I was overwhelmed. Where is the stage, curtain, band pit, the roll away altar, the theater seats, the large projection screens to replace hymnals, the auditorium look? Can Americans worship without these things? While others rebuild Radio City Music Hall and Willow, Creek Our Savior is building a Lutheran cathedral designed around the Word and Sacraments instead of entertainment. My description here is too brief, inadequate, and inaccurate. White promises that a narrated videotape of the building will be made available after the building is completed at the end of 1999. I predict it will become the foremost educational "Lutheran" attraction in North America. Just a study of the building is a study of the Reformation. There is no LCEF money this building. If Our Savior would keep it open during the week for daily chapel services, I’m quite sure that visiting LCMS pastors would volunteer to conduct a morning or evening service for the Lutheran tourists. Pastor White, can I be on your list? Please put me down for a Friday.

This leads to my next point. President A.L. Barry is going to retire. I know of no other pastor and theologian more qualified to be Synodical President than Rev. Laurence White. White has consistently demonstrated his clear understanding and defense of the Reformation, Walther’s Church and Ministry, and desire for excellence in every aspect of the ministry. He is not a creature of institutions, a captive of the Synodical bureaucracy, or political solutions in place of God’s Word. White is our last chance to dismantle the Synodical bureaucracy. We should all pray that he is elected.

Make no mistake, if Laurence White is not elected LCMS President, the center of Lutheranism will shift from Minneapolis, Columbus, Chicago, and St. Louis to Houston. The construction of Our Savior is more than a land mark of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Reformation, it is a line in the sand.

I was so sure of the Church Growth/Leadership Training decadence I would find in Texas. I was going to catalogue and write about the collapse and decay, and expose the hypocrisy. The last thing I thought I would be writing about was a spontaneous true Lutheran revival in Texas. Our Savior is not a political solution but the layman’s witness of faith and unity in God Word expressed in architecture. When you visit one mega-church you have visited them all. But wait till you see Our Savior. Visitors from the mega-churches will quickly see how shallow their public witness to the Gospel is in their new facilities.

The construction of Our Savior Lutheran Church signals the death knell for everything the COP and their Pastoral Leadership Training Institute stands for. By the grace of God, in one move, a single LCMS congregation has outflanked them all. As mundane cookie cutter mega-church buildings struggle to help people discover themselves, Our Savior is about discovering another world, the Kingdom God in the Gospel and Sacraments of Jesus Christ. My advice, send a small donation just to say you had a hand in what the LCEF would never fund.


Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.

March 24, 1999