Iowa is the home of Grant Wood the artist who painted "American Gothic." This painting features a farmer holding a pitch-fork next to his wife, with a farmhouse behind them. The second story of that house includes a window designed in the style of gothic architecture from the 12th century hence how the picture received its name.

As Americans, we truly are a melting pot of ideas and cultures, having brought many bits and pieces of culture, language and the arts from around the world. American Gothic illustrates that amalgamation of the arts from around the world.

This gathering together of heirlooms from times and places past, is something that is both American and Lutheran. One can particularly see this evident in our Lutheran hymnody. Our hymnal contains hymns from a number of different languages, countries, continents, and ages past. The majority are of German and British origin, reflecting our roots in Germany through Martin Luther and the German immigrants from Saxony in 1839. However, the hymnal also contains hymns with roots in other languages and cultures such as Greek, Latin, Scandinavian, Slovak, Welsh, French, Italian, Finnish, Dutch, American, and Canadian. These hymns span many centuries with the oldest going back to Clement of Alexandria who wrote Shepherd of Tender youth Hymn #628 1800 years ago. Our church The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is a church of history.

We do not forget the blessings that God has bestowed upon us through the saints of old who have provided a rich heritage in the arts particularly that of music, hymnody, and architecture. We build upon the good works and practices of the past. We learn and study from that history so that we do not make the same mistakes that others have made in various Lutheran church bodies over the years.

One of the challenges we have seen in the Lutheran Church in America is the continual attempt to rid ourselves of our confessional past. This was the impetus of many Lutheran church bodies over the last two centuries which caused many to remain separate from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. To this day, doctrinal issues, particularly that of subscription to the Lutheran Confessions, remain a major stumbling point in unity amongst Lutherans in America.

We as Lutherans cannot and will not compromise on what we confess and believe because the truth of God’s Word—the Gospel is as stake. We are a confessing church. (Romans 10:9-10,1 Timothy 6:12, Hebrews 10:23, 1 John 1:9) We therefore in these times do not compromise when challenged by the society and the predominant post-modern culture to accept beliefs and practices which militate against God’s Word. We as Christians remain steadfast in believing in the one true God who we come to know through His Word. We firmly cling to the one true faith that He has created in us through the waters of Holy Baptism that makes each of us as members of the one true holy and apostolic church.

We confess and express that faith in our worship practices and in the appointments and construction of our houses of worship. In our sanctuaries which are dedicated to God, we proclaim the Word in preaching, we confess that faith in the words of our hymnody, and we see the centrality of the cross in very layout of many of the sanctuaries in which we worship.

Many of the old churches and cathedrals of the Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Reformation, and Baroque/Rococo periods, were fashioned in the shape of a cross. A sanctuary shaped this way, speaks a message that proclaims the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ in the teaching and practice of the congregation. Non-Christian churches in contrast, would purposefully not be laid out in the shape of a cross often betraying their emphasis on something else.

If you look at the majority of Protestant, non-denominational, and reformed churches built in recent years, you will notice some trends that reflect their theology. We in the Lutheran Church recognize the close tie between belief and practice. The practice will follow the belief, and the belief will follow the practice. Therefore, in these churches of other denominations and religions, we are not surprised to see an architectural shift away from worship where God serves man, and towards an entertainment oriented practice where man tries to serve God. The contrast, which has its basis in belief and practice, can be shown as follows.

With Lutheran Worship, the focus is on God and what he has done, with Him serving us His gifts of His Word, Sacraments, forgiveness, life, and salvation. Contrast this with the generic Christian churches which tend toward focus on the participant and how he feels, and he is there to serve God by His works of song, and to "experience" God. This is characteristic of a man-centered and law-oriented religion. This gap is quite wide.

Since we as Lutherans practice a gospel-orient and God-centered religion, our worship practices, hymnody, and church design, will be rightfully and radically different from those who teach and practice otherwise. Our churches—our sanctuaries reflect and proclaim the centrality of Jesus Christ and the Word of God in our teaching, practices, and worship.

As with any created thing, there is always the risk of idolatry. This has been a challenge for God’s people for some time all the way back to the days of Moses and beyond. An example from the history of our church can be found in the Iconoclast controversy of 725-787AD. Near the heart of that doctrinal controversy was a commandment from God that we should not make any graven images (Exodus 20:4) How one understood this commandment and other verses of scripture served as the basis for the argument of that day. Some thought that any statue or picture was idolatrous, while others saw them as effective teaching tools and they could directed ones attention towards the person behind the image or Icon. Some saw the Icon or statue as good as or better than that which you could not see or touch.

As Lutherans, we do not succumb to either of the extremes that came out of the Iconoclast controversy. Like Luther, we renounce those like the reformed Zwingli and Carlstadt, who would strip the churches of all crosses, statues, organs, and ornamentation leaving a bare naked church in their wake. At the same time we would renounce those who like the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches today, would venerate statues and icons as if they were the object that they represent. The challenge is to stay in the middle between either excess as Luther did in 1521.

The Christian church over the ages has built houses of Worship of various designs and sizes over the years. The most dramatic and imposing was that of the Gothic cathedral with its amazing engineering beginning in the 11^th century. The new design allowed churches to be taller and have more windows. This height, (theologically speaking,) directed ones gaze and attention heavenward away from the troubles and difficulties found in this world of sin. This redirection gave the parishioner a foretaste of the feast to come in heaven where Jesus the light of the World will fill his temple.(Revelation 22:5) In this way the architect was able to use his craft for the support of teaching the faith. Gifted people of God use their talents to create a special place different from all others on earth. A visitor to that place by observing the design and the appointments and by having a knowledgeable person explain the gospel message presented in that sacred space has opportunity to hear the Word of God and grow in the faith.

The foremost point of ecclesiastical art is to convey the Word of God—what we believe as Christians in its truth and purity to the believers and non-believers alike that are present. The Christian church sanctuary is God’s house not a pagan temple. So to those outsiders, the visitors, the unbelievers, the unrepentant, the lost, and the pagan, God’s house should look different than anything that they have seen and do see in the common culture and the place from which they come. The church becomes for them and is for the believer, a place which is a refuge from the trials, tribulations, darkness, and sin of this world. There is a difference between what we see in church and what we se in the world and common culture around us. This shows up in how we design and appoint our houses of worship.

How we express that difference can be challenging. There needs to be maintained a tension between beauty and simplicity. One needs to avoid the excesses of sentimentality and ornamentalism, on the one hand, and the empty darkness and banality of iconoclasm or iconophobia on the other. One can see these excesses in the myriad of candles, statues, and icons in some older Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches as well as the bland emptiness found in Calvinist and non-denominational American Protestant churches.

So we as Lutheran go about appointing the sanctuary where we worship knowing that it is God’s house. The quality of whatever we use in the service carried out there must therefore be the best we can do. This is not the place for the cheap, the inferior, the broken, the unfinished, or the haphazard. Our God created a world of order out of chaos, and his house should reflect that orderly quality. A biblical example can be found in the design specifications of the tabernacle in the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy). One can also see the contrast between the movable temporary tabernacle and the permanent temple that God directed Solomon to build.

A sanctuary communicates and demonstrates the beauty of God, his holiness, and life. This is in direct contrast to the ugliness and darkness of sin, the devil’s corruption, and death that comes by sin and is all too common in this world. So when you enter into a place set apart of the worship of God there should be a sense of awe, beauty, majesty. One should say to oneself, "This is nothing like what I see in my sin-filled world." This contrast helps foster in the mind of the believer the desire to come to this special place of refuge. The believer knows of that special place where one will receive the gifts that God serves there and only there in the form of Word and Sacrament. That is what makes our Lutheran sanctuaries so special.

We rightly then see a contrast in orientation between the world and a true house of worship. With the world, the focus will of course be constantly on the self which is law-oriented. In contrast, in God’s sanctuary, the focus is 180 degrees opposite—a Gospel orientation that is Christocentric, centering on what Jesus has done through His bloody death and glorious resurrection.

Churches do not always have the money to put everything into a sanctuary when it is built. Compromises are often made in the design and building process in order to fit within a certain budget and for functional considerations. This always gives future generations opportunity to build upon the foundation that was laid in the past, and to proclaim the Word of God to those present in God’s house.

That Gospel teaching and proclamation begins in the sanctuary. The Good News is that rich teaching of Jesus and the apostles that God has given us as a trust which we find preserved in our Bible. As church—a body of believers, we proclaim that Word of God as found in the Bible.

The proclamation of the Word of God begins in the pulpit. That proclamation extends out through the sacraments and the teaching ministry. We as a body of believers all have a part in that spreading of the Word of God to our families at home and to the people that we meet—our neighbors, relatives and coworkers so that sinners would be saved. As a natural outgrowth of the faith God has given us, we proclaim that Word to others.

Salvation is dependent on God’s Living Word. That Word is the means by which people come to faith. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17) So with the arts in our sanctuary, we should see and hear the gospel message—the story of how God has saved us through the death and resurrection of His Son. We should hear that clear message in the hymns that we sing and we should see God’s Word expressed in the architecture and appointments of a Lutheran sanctuary.

Look around your church and ask the question, what does your church say about what you believe? How clear is that message? Then take that extra bold step and ask, What might we do to more clearly proclaim the Word of God in its truth and purity through the arts in God’s House of Worship? Answering that question should lead you to the study of God’s Word and a greater understanding of how the arts should rightly be used to clearly proclaim the Word of God in Lutheran sanctuaries.