Why do Christians meet in churches, in the NT, most of the teachings seem to be given in people's houses, or in the open... some were given in the synagogue, but it didn't seem a necessity.
Churches today are what the homes which Christians met in the first few centuries. The meeting in homes doesn't mean it was just a social visit, they were doing liturgy there. Also, these homes were typically the property of an individual member of the congregation. We know what these house churches looked like because we have archeological examples.
One of the oldest of these is the house church discovered in Dura-Eurapos in Syria. It was a villa that had been refurbished to function as a church, it had a built-in baptismal font, an open space for worshipers to stand and gather in to pray, sing hymns, and hear the preacher read from the Scriptures and preach his homily. It was also decorated with frescoes of scenes from the Bible, such as this one which depicts the paralyzed man carrying his bed after Jesus heals him,
These are the prototype of later churches built or repurposed from other buildings in centuries to come. Christian architecture began to install more symbolic elements, such as constructing buildings in the shape of the cross, or as an octagon (baptismal fonts are also historically octagonal).
Are buildings necessary for the liturgy? No, but they certainly help.
Owning property and the accumulated wealth (or debt) that that entails seems to be a source of potential corruption.
I would prefer church buildings be held as the public and corporately owned property of the Church, rather than belonging to specific individuals. And the Church ought to be a redistributer of wealth, not a hoarder of wealth. I maintain that when we enter into the church building we are entering into sacred, shared space--
God owns that space. This is also why I reject having nationalistic symbols in what I believe to be an outpost of God's kingdom. Our crowns come off in that space.
Would churches function better if they avoided owning buildings and land?
I don't think buildings are going to play much a role in matters addressing ecclesiastical corruption.
It also seems more natural and human to meet together in the home...
Wouldn't it be better to do it that way?
Is it more natural? My general study into human history has shown that human beings seem to naturally gravitate toward designating certain spaces as sacred, and thus having a shared sacred space for the community. That's why people have been erecting shrines, temples, tabernacles, etc for a designated sacred space for millennia.
The spiritual role of the home still exists in Christianity. In the Lutheran tradition we say that a child's first pastor is their parents. Church happens in the home too, just differently than what happens in our meeting places. Church in the home is a family loving each other, serving each other, feeding one another, cleaning for one another.
-CryptoLutheran
