The Bible and Book It characterized my childhood, so I have an affinity for the church and Pizza Hut.1 As a result, I always appreciate seeing these types of memes regularly pop up on social media. While I disagree with the premise, I enjoy the nostalgia.
Unfortunately, Pizza Hut, like so many other restaurants, shifted away from its iconic architecture and abandoned many of its buildings. Those distinctive roof lines now cover various types of restaurants from Mexican to Chinese, Korean to seafood. Other tenants include pawn shops, title loan lenders, funeral homes, and various houses of worship.
I recognize the seeming disunity in worshiping the omnipotent Creator where college students used to play Ms. Pac-Man arcade tabletops. For the record, I’ve never been a member of a church that gathered inside a renovated Pizza Hut or any other type of non-traditional church space. That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t see the utilitarian value of those repurposed church buildings but also the truth they communicate.
No one out plants the church
For low-church Protestants, the ambition is to quickly plant churches where they’re needed. Is there a town without a church or one where the current churches aren’t reaching a significant portion of the residents? Find a building that can serve as a gathering place for the local believers. That may be a temporary rented location like a school or movie theater, or it could be a permanent purchased building in a strip mall or a shuttered Pizza Hut.
Contrary to the meme, actual research doesn’t support their explanation. Besides all the other numerous cultural factors at play with church attendance trends, the congregations meeting in revamped commercial spaces are often the ones growing and gaining new worshipers, while those stunning cathedrals frequently sit empty or fail to draw enough attendees to pay for the upkeep. Pizza Huts becoming churches are often offset by traditional church buildings becoming apartments or even nightclubs.
That’s not to say churches should never build gorgeous places of worship or leave those behind to fill in shuttered Walmarts or Long John Silvers. The global church has room and need for churches in both types of buildings to reach different people.
In the preface to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis compares Christianity to a house filled with many rooms. He wants to advocate for basic Christian beliefs that can be shared by all of those in the halls of the home, but he nonetheless encourages people to find and choose a room to belong.
It is in the rooms, not the halls, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose, the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable.
While I doubt the Church of England member Lewis would feel at home in a Pizza Hut church, he would clearly rather someone who felt at home there have a place to worship—not because they have a personal preference for such a place but because they believe that church is good, right, and true. The place where they gather with other saints to serve and worship God just happens to be the place where kids in the ’80s enjoyed a pizza buffet.
For those who find such a room in the shared house of Christianity disdainful, Lewis would offer a piece of advice.
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.
Gather ‘round the God stuff
The defender of high church architecture and critic of the Pizza Hut church would no doubt argue that beautiful church buildings communicate truth about God. I would absolutely agree. The high ceilings serve as a reminder of God’s transcendence. Such buildings evoke a sense of awe and reverence that is fitting for a place in which people seek to worship God. That is an important aspect of God’s person, but that is not the whole of God’s person.
In an essay on the need for new Bible translations,2 C.S. Lewis defends newer versions that lose some of the classic beauty found in the King James. “The Incarnation is in that sense an irreverent doctrine: Christianity, in that sense, an incurably irreverent religion,” he writes.
When we expect that it should have come before the World in all the beauty that we now feel in the Authorized Version we are as wide of the mark as the Jews were in expecting that the Messiah would come as a great earthly King.
A congregation meeting inside a Pizza Hut is far less irreverent than the eternal Son of God lowering Himself to be born to a poor woman and placed in a feeding trough.
Additionally, the grandeur of the cathedral also has its own inherent problem. Later in the essay, Lewis observes, “Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls.” The sheer majesty presented in those buildings can obscure some truths about God.
Christianity doesn’t only teach that God is transcendent but also that He is imminent. He not only rules and reigns from His throne in heaven, but He came down to earth and walked among us. Scripture says He is near the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18).
In a way, those Pizza Hut churches remind us of God’s nearness. He’s not only with us while we worship Him in traditional steepled sanctuaries or grand cathedrals. His presence goes with His followers as we eat a stuffed crust pizza with our family or worship Him in that same place. Churches that repurpose old restaurants and abandoned box stores remind us that God can redeem and restore any life turned over to Him.
A church in a strip mall may have to work to remind people that God is transcendent. They could easily have a view of God that is too casual and dismissive of His holiness. But those gathered in the lofty structures may need to be reminded that God can use their ordinary lives. It’s possible they’ve forgotten that God dwells in them and not in houses made by human hands, no matter how glorious those buildings may appear.
God can and does use all types of buildings, just like He can and does use all types of people. I’m thankful for cathedrals, Pizza Hut churches, and everything in between.
Not Safe But Good
C.S. Lewis quote of the week
Of all the awkward people in your house or job, there is only one whom you can improve very much.
“The Trouble With ‘X’ …” God in the Dock
Door Jam
Interesting articles from others
The truth about CS Lewis and John Betjeman’s long-lasting feud — The Guardian
This is an interesting story about a feud between Lewis and a student of his who became a poet laureate. It’s worth noting that they met before Lewis became a Christian and perhaps Betjeman as well. In C.S. Lewis: The Companion & Guide, Walter Hooper says in later years the two were “reconciled, but they never became close friends.” When Owen Barfield met Betjeman in the 1950s, he said, “I hear you don’t like Lewis.” Betjeman replied, “Oh, I do now!”
Lamp Post
Additional recent articles from me
Southern Baptists More Historic Than Nationalist in Their Political Posture — Lifeway Research
In The Wardrobe Door Archives
I’m sure during one of those summers, I read some Narnia books to earn a free personal pan pizza.
“Modern Translations of the Bible,” God in the Dock. All book links are Amazon affiliate links. The price remains the same for you, but I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.
Far better to hear the Word of God faithfully delivered in a garret than the claptrap of men in a cathedral. The reverse is equally true. Homes and catacombs have been blessed spaces.