By Jay Moore

In the early 1960s, Abilene Lutherans boldly pushed the envelope of local architecture. Twice. 

Since the early ‘50s, Abilene has had three Lutheran congregations. They are Grace Evangelical, on S. Pioneer Drive; Our Savior Lutheran, at S. 7th and the Winters Freeway, and the granddaddy of Lutheran churches here, Zion Lutheran on Antilley Road, organized way back in 1894. 

Just as the eponymous Martin Luther defied established church dogma in the 1500s, likewise two local Lutheran congregations challenged conventional church design in the early 1960s. One built a circular church that is nearly all roof, while the other built a sanctuary with no roof at all, omitting any 90-degree exterior walls.

In 1952, Zion helped to start a new church known as Southside Lutheran which first met in a house before settling into a proper church building at the corner of Hunt Avenue and Woodard Street. (The building is still there, just home to a different flavor nowadays.) The next year, Southside changed its name to Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church and in 1961 up and moved to what was described by the newspaper as “Abilene’s most unusual church building.” Under the leadership of new pastor Fred Mattil, Our Savior constructed a modernist church-in-the-round with the marble-topped altar set beneath a suspended cross in the center of the sanctuary. The twelve rafters — supporting an expansive roof — extend past the church’s exterior walls, reaching all the way to the ground outside and giving the whole thing the look of an alien spacecraft set down in west Abilene. (But that could just be my interpretation.) The mid-century design was the work of the venerable Abilene firm, Tittle and Luther Architects. Today, the church remains much as it was when it was finished 64 years ago. 

Then, in 1963, the good folks at Zion Lutheran dared to make their own architectural statement as they moved west from N. 10th and Cypress to N. 10th and Briarwood. (They had been located on the Cypress corner since 1925; their old church is still there but, again, now home to a different ilk.) Two longtime Zion members, John Bontke and Glen Wilhite, had a design idea for a new church which they modeled using popsicle sticks and tongue depressors, then they showed it to pastor Leon Birnbaum. The pair envisioned a building of seven inverted “V” shaped spaces with each one rising higher than the previous one. At the entrance, on the west end, it would be the lowest, just over 40 feet, “symbolizing the humility which should characterize our lives.” The vast interior would then stair step to a height of 70 feet, because “the thoughts of man should be directed heavenward.” 

Architect Jim Shelton of Odessa took Bontke and Wilhite’s idea and replaced the tongue depressors with 28 pre-stressed concrete panels tilted at an elevation angle of 68 degrees and which had to be raised in place by a special crane brought to town. The design offered the added benefit of never needing to be re-roofed since there isn’t a roof. (And, it wasn’t lost on too many that, a block over on Mockingbird, the now-closed Whataburger strongly resembled a scaled-down version of the church, albeit one painted orange and white.) The new church was finished in the fall of 1963 and Zion Lutheran would remain there for 37 years before relocating to Antilley Road in 2000. (Of course, the distinctive church remains on Briarwood and is now home to a Baptist congregation.)

Meanwhile, the third Lutheran congregation, Grace Evangelical, having never felt the need to dare architectural convention, has remained content in its original — and quite traditional — sanctuary on S. Pioneer. 

I purposely left off any exterior pictures; so now, you have three churches to go and drive by.  (And if you don’t live in Abilene, you will need to go to Google Earth.) Oh, and be sure you notice the ultra-minimalist bell tower at the corner of Our Savior Lutheran’s property. 

Jay Moore is a retired Abilene High School history teacher and creator of the History in Plain Sight DVD series