19 August 2026

In the seventeenth century ‘Directory for the Publick Worship of God’ which accompanied the ‘Westminster Confession of Faith’ there is an appendix entitled, ‘Touching Days and Places for Publick Worship’. The days are straightforward – the Sabbath is the only day ‘to be kept holy under the gospel’.

As for places for public worship, the authors begin, ‘As no place is capable of any holiness, under pretence of whatsoever dedication or consecration …’ They are making it quite clear that buildings have no holiness in themselves even if they have been subject to a prayer of dedication.

The seventeenth century reformers were making this claim as part of their argument for reusing buildings which had formerly been consecrated for Roman Catholic worship. They went on to argue that since buildings had no holiness in themselves any act of dedication could not confer holiness upon them.

As a result, they were not ‘polluted’ and therefore they concluded that ‘we hold it requisite, that the places of publick assembling for worship among us should be continued and employed to that use’. It was a clever argument which secured the future use of existing churches.

I am not so sure that our forebears would have been impressed with the way we have attached holiness to our buildings to such an extent that we cannot let them go readily. Since the ‘Radical Action Plan’, there has been so much  pain in accepting Presbytery decisions.

What has changed since these earlier days? We invest so much in the stone and glass. What is of ultimate value is the people of God who assemble in our buildings. When they meet in Christ’s name, they become a holy people because Christ is there in the midst of them.