from ‘chapel’ to ‘prayer room’: the production, use,...

FROM ‘CHAPEL’ TO ‘PRAYER ROOM’:

THE PRODUCTION, USE, AND

POLITICS OF SACRED SPACE

IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

Sophie Gilliat-Ray

Bringing together a decade of research on religion in prisons, hospitals, universities and,

more recently, at the Millennium Dome in 2000, in this paper I look at some of the ways

in which sacred spaces in public institutions have changed over time, particularly in

terms of how they are produced, designated, and used. The substance of these

transformations can be encapsulated in the phrase ‘from Chapel to Prayer Room. Behind

the various changes that I outline, I am particularly concerned to explore how the

changes in the way sacred space is used contributes to new political struggles,

particularly when it comes to issues of ownership, appropriation, and design. I also

explore the particular contests that lie behind the separate provision of religious spaces

for Muslims.

KEYWORDS chaplaincy; sacred space; religious diversity; muslims

Introduction

Over the past decade, new religious facilities have been provided in a

number of unusual public settings in Britain, such as out-of-town shopping malls

(e.g. the Lakeside Shopping Centre, Essex). The ‘Prayer Space’ and ‘Muslim Prayer

Room’ at the Millennium Dome1 in Greenwich, London, were distinctive for being

the first religious facilities to be accommodated in a major visitor attraction in

Britain (Wells 2000), although to the best of my knowledge they remain the only

instances of provision in such a setting.2 The terminology used to refer to such

‘sacred’ spaces is variable, but phrases such as ‘Prayer Room’, ‘Quiet Room’, ‘Place

of Worship’ or ‘Multi-faith Room’ are typical of the kind of facilities to which I am

referring.3 Most such spaces are indoors, but this is not always the case. The new

outdoor ‘Millennium Garden’ at the heart of the Nottingham University campus

was designed to provide ‘quiet space for reflection’ (Times Higher Education

Supplement, 7 July 2000).

Culture and Religion, Vol. 6, No. 2, July 2005ISSN 1475-5610 print/1475-5629 online/05/020287-308

q 2005 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/01438300500226448

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In addition to the creation of new rooms and facilities in shopping centres or

tourist venues such as the Dome, many hospitals, prisons, and even airports are

now either adapting or supplementing their existing worship facilities (usually

Christian Chapels) to create rooms that can be used by people of ‘all faiths, or

none’ (this phrase often being employed to convey positive messages about

inclusivity, but often also masking the virtual impossibility of providing a sacred

space for use by all faith groups that is free from on-going battles and politics).

In these cases, there is a re-distribution of space in progress, and often a re-naming

of the space itself (e.g. from ‘Chapel’ to ‘Prayer Room’).

Finally, some public institutions in Britain are now setting aside sacred space

for the use of Muslims in particular. There are a number of prisons, for example,

which contain within their boundaries a space that functions as a Mosque.

Similarly, a number of universities in Britain have provided a separate space for

Muslim prayer (Gilliat-Ray 2000). Sometimes such a facility is called a ‘Muslim

Prayer Room’, but it might also be quite explicitly called a ‘Mosque’. The fact that

Muslims in some instances have achieved their own exclusive space, but have also

had spaces provided for their sole use, is a poignant reminder of the fact that

sacred space is almost inevitably ‘entangled in politics’ (Chidester and Linenthal

1995, 15), and often also in economics, as we shall see.

This paper begins historically, by examining some of the ways in which the

use of Christian Chapels has changed in prisons and hospitals over time, and, with

it, the meanings such uses have had for their users. This is followed by an in-depth

evaluation of the way in which newly created sacred spaces are used in public

institutions, using the two main religious sites at the Millennium Dome as a case

study, namely the ‘Prayer Space’ and the ‘Muslim Prayer Room’. In the final

sections of the paper, I consider some of the politics of sacred space in public

institutions, both when space is re-produced or transformed (from ‘Chapel’ to

‘Prayer Room’), but also when it is newly produced, as at the Dome.

The Victorian Prison Chapel

Philip Priestly’s graphic account of life in Victorian prisons (Priestly 1985)

devotes an entire chapter to the subject of the ‘Chapel’. He begins by noting that

the ‘prison day proper began in earnest with the call to worship’ (Priestly 1985, 91).

The summons to daily Anglican communion was ‘experienced by prisoners as

unmistakably disciplinary’ (1985, 91). This was achieved by the strict rules

governing appropriate conduct on the way to, from, and within the Chapel.

The physical layout of some prison Chapels also emphasised the largely

disciplinary intentions of compulsory Chapel attendance. Chapel was ‘part of one’s

punishment’ (Priestly 1985, 91), and was integral to a complex process of

disciplinary measures, many of which involved the physical control of the body.

The chapel [at Pentonville, London] was arranged in rows of upright coffins (no

other word will so well convey an idea of their appearance to the reader), each

tier raised some two feet higher than the one in front, like the pit of a theatre,

288 SOPHIE GILLIAT-RAY

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thus allowing the prisoners to see the chaplain, governor, and chief warder, who

were placed in a gallery facing them, but quite preventing their seeing each

other, or indeed looking anywhere but straight to their front. (Priestly1985, 92)

The great Victorian prisons were designed to have religion at their core.

At the heart of most of them was a Chapel:

sometimes the size of a Cathedral . . . the Chapels remain an enduring reminder

of the original purpose of our prisons. They were designed, on a philosophical

basis of Christianity and Utilitarianism, as factories of virtue . . . [O]fficers carried

staves in one hand and bibles in the other. The chaplain was there to point the

finger of accusation, to call to repentance, to work on the vulnerable as a

technician of guilt. (Potter 1991, 67)

Corporate worship thus amounted in some prisons to an audience of isolated,

segregated individuals. However, some prisoners found ways of subverting the

disciplinary character of Chapel proceedings. For example, hearty hymn-singing

provided an opportunity for sharing news, with intending conversationalists

singing the first words in each line with gusto, before breaking out into illicit

conversational speech over the singing of others. Thus, sacred spaces in prisons

were (and remain today) sites for contesting power relations.

Over time, there was a transformation in the use of Victorian prison Chapels

through ‘a slow and unannounced retreat from the notion that . . . separation

could create the conditions in which wicked individuals would repent and reform’

(Priestly 1985, 98). As a result, the religious life of the Chapel moved away from

punishment towards education of the ignorant, admonition, and salvation. Priestly

cites several stories of conversion as a result of this transformation in the use of

sacred space in prison.

Gradually, presence in Chapel changed from being compulsory to voluntary.

After the First World War, prisoners could apply for permission to be excused

Chapel, but it was not until 1976 that compulsory attendance came to an end for

all inmates. But perhaps the most significant transformation has been in the use of

Chapel space itself, particularly in the past decade or so. In the research for Religion

in Prison: Equal Rites in a Multi-Faith Society (Beckford and Gilliat 1998), a number of

prisons were visited where the Chapel:

had shrivelled to the scale of a meeting room on the margins of more

mainstream activities such as education, health care, and sport in some places.

Nowhere is this mutation clearer than in one of South London’s largest prisons

where the formerly Cathedral-like Protestant chapel has undergone a process of

amputation. It has been reduced to about one third of its former size in order to

provide for a gymnasium which, in turn, has been adapted to create space for a

mosque . . . In keeping with recent architectural fashions and financial

stringency, chapels in the prisons built in the past thirty years or so tend to

be more utilitarian and ‘domestic’ in scale than their Victorian predecessors.

Seating is rarely provided for congregations of more than about 150. The style

SACRED SPACE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 289

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of furniture and fittings has to be neutral . . . [and] many of these newer chapels

were also designed to be used occasionally for musical concerts, drama

productions or committee meetings, so some of the religious fittings are

moveable. (Beckford and Gilliat 1998, 53–54)

In some cases, Chapels have been re-named—as ‘Multi-faith Room’, ‘Prayer Room’,

or some such similar designation—but the gradual ‘neutralising’ of the space and

the multi-purpose (and multi-faith) usage of many such spaces indicates that

religion in prisons now ‘operates alongside other activities, not in ascendancy over

them’ (Beckford and Gilliat 1998, 53; original emphasis) and, when it comes to the

use of such spaces, one size must usually fit all, except, sometimes, Muslims.

Towards the end of this paper, the supposedly ‘neutral’ character of ‘Prayer

Rooms’ or ‘Multi-Faith Rooms’ is questioned in more depth, along with the politics

of provision of separate space for Muslims.

These transformations in the use of sacred space in prisons have come

about as a result of a number of social changes. Increasing religious diversity has

been an important catalyst for change, and the kinds of pressures upon

institutional religion in wider society have also had an impact within prisons.4

However, ‘a whole army of technicians’ (Foucault 1991, 11) is now engaged in the

discipline, reform, and management of inmates. Psychologists, psychiatrists,

probation officers, and educationalists have in many cases supplanted the former

role of the chaplain, and religion has gradually been squeezed to the margins,

alongside the space in which the chaplain used to operate.5 However, this has not

changed the contested character of those rooms and spaces that are given over to

religion (Beckford 2001). Questions of usage and access (who, when, how) remain

controversial in many gaols, and I shall be exploring these issues in more depth

towards the end of the paper.

In summary, then, the way in which religious spaces in prisons are used has

changed over time, and thus the meaning of these sites has also undergone

transformation. From a time when Chapel attendance was part of the disciplinary

mechanism of the institution, the religious spaces in today’s prisons have a

multiplicity of meanings for inmates. For example, they are places where inmates

might find the privacy for tears, or counselling with the chaplain. But religious

spaces have not lost their capacity for manipulation either, and some prisoners still

see religious activities as an opportunity—to share news or contraband, or to

simply to ‘escape’ from their cell.

The Hospital Chapel

Like prisons, many older hospitals in Britain have (or once had) a sizeable

Chapel. A handbook for hospital chaplains prepared by the Church of England

Hospital Chaplains’ Fellowship in 1955 exhorts the chaplain to make the Chapel

the ‘centre of his life and work’ (Cox 1955, 174). This was easier to accomplish at a

time when periods of hospitalisation were longer, and when patients were less

encumbered by wall-mounted high-tech equipment on the ward. Patients were


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easier to transport, and their more lengthy admittance provided more

opportunities for corporate worship. A photograph in Cox’s handbook pictures

a large Chapel where at least one-half of the large congregation are still in their

beds.

This was a time when Chapels were more patient-focused. By the mid-1990s,

many of the chaplains surveyed or interviewed for the research undertaken by

Sophie Gilliat and James Beckford (Beckford and Gilliat 1996) reported that where

they were used, religious spaces, regardless of what they were called, were used

less by patients and increasingly by staff, and more especially by hospital visitors.

This change suggests a transformation in the use of such spaces—from largely

corporate and shared to increasingly private and individual, from regular formal

acts of worship to more occasional use of the space for silence and personal

prayer.

As in prisons, some hospitals have been engaged in the transformation of

their religious spaces, and some chaplains working in older hospitals have been

surprisingly flexible about the transformation ‘from Chapel to Prayer Space’. After

all, such a re-naming is a clear indicator that times have changed for institutional

Christianity in Britain (Bruce 2001). One interviewee for the Beckford and Gilliat

research noted: ‘we have opted for a worship/quiet room or centre and hope to

lose the title chapel’ (Beckford and Gilliat 1996, 291).

So far, I have been considering the changes in the way religious spaces have

been used in public institutions, especially prisons and hospitals. We have seen a

decline in corporate worship, and often a reduction in the quantity of space given

over to religion. In some prisons and hospitals, there has been a ‘neutralising’ of

the space, so that it can be used ‘by people of all faiths, and none’, and alongside

this process some Chapels have been re-named. Where sacred spaces are re-

named, ‘neutralised’ or ‘amputated’ (see Beckford and Gilliat 1998, p. 53–4), the

space is in some sense being re-produced as it becomes subject to new interests

and competing politics.

However, over the past decade or so, religious spaces have also been newly

produced in institutions that have no history of accommodating religious activity.

Shopping centres are a good example, and there are now several large ‘out-of-

town’ shopping complexes in the United Kingdom with sacred space contained

within them. However, in some ways the most intriguing recent instance of the

new production of religious space was the creation of a ‘Prayer Space’ and a

‘Muslim Prayer Room’ at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich. This is because, for

the first time in Britain, a facility for sacred space was accommodated within a

major leisure attraction. The decision to create a shared ‘Prayer Space’ and a

separate ‘Muslim Prayer Room’ also raised new and interesting questions about

sacred space in contemporary society. It is to the use of these two sites at the

Dome that I now turn, for a discussion of their origins, location, furnishing, and

use. This description will form the canvas against which some of my arguments

about the contested nature of sacred space in public institutions can be

illustrated.


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The Millennium Dome

The Millennium Dome was an architectural monument built in Greenwich,

London to celebrate the year 2000. The Dome was not built with bricks and

mortar, and indeed:

it was not a building. It was not even a dome. It had the profile of a shallow

dome, but none of its structural properties. It looked something like a tent, but it

was not a tent either. It was soft and hard, round and spiky; it hugged the

ground and reached for the sky. A simple idea, achieved in a complex way, its

elegance concealed the depth of analysis required to achieve it. A knitted web, a

network, an envelope, its structural tensions made explicit the turning point of

time it was designed to mark. (Wilhide 1999, dust cover)

The Domewas designed to explore and reflect ‘who we are, what we do, and

what the future may have in store for us’ (Tony Blair, cited in Wilhide 1999,

foreword) through the construction of 14 ‘Zones’. ‘Who we are’ was captured

in Zones devoted to ‘Body’, ‘Mind’, ‘Faith’, and ‘Self-Portrait’. ‘What we do’ was

reflected in Zones concerned with ‘Work’, ‘Learning’, ‘Rest’, ‘Play’, ‘Talk’, ‘Money’,

and ‘Journey’. Finally, ‘Where we live’ was explored in Zones entitled ‘Shared

Ground’, ‘Living Island’, and ‘Home Planet’. The Domewas open for 12months, and

cost an estimated £628 million, of which £4 million was spent on the ‘Faith Zone’.

My interest in religion at the Dome began in 1999 when I discovered that it

was to have a team of chaplains, and a ‘Prayer Space’. By Spring 2000, I had

secured sufficient funding that I could begin negotiating research ‘access’ to the

Dome with the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) and the chaplaincy

team.6 As a result, I spent two weeks conducting fieldwork at the Dome during

November 2000. Data for the project on the work of the chaplaincy, and the sacred

spaces, was gathered from unstructured interviews with a number of chaplains at

the Dome (including the Dome ‘Imam’) and a semi-structured questionnaire

distributed to all the members of the Dome chaplaincy team. An analysis was

made of the chaplaincy team diary.7 On-site ethnographic observation was carried

out in the ‘Prayer Space’, and in the ‘Muslim Prayer Room’. Finally, detailed analysis

was made of entries in the notebooks left in the Prayer Space in which visitors

could write down requests for prayer, although I discuss the findings from this

elsewhere (Gilliat-Ray 2004a). A similar book was also deposited in the Muslim

Prayer Room, although it was not accompanied by any suggestion as to how it

should be used. The books from both sites were sent to me for copying for

research purposes when the Dome closed at the start of 2001.

The Production and Use of the ‘Muslim Prayer Room’ and the‘Prayer Space’

The idea that there should be a facility for prayer was on the agenda for the

Dome from its very earliest inception (Lynas 2001). However, there was


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considerable discussion at one point as to whether the space allocated by NMEC

should be divided in two, one-half for exclusive ‘Christian’ use and the other for

multi-faith/shared use. Eventually, the limitations of space meant that the entire

area allocated for religious activity would have to be shared by people of ‘all faiths,

and none’. Before the Dome opened, decision-making about the Prayer Space was

largely in the hands of the Lambeth Group, a committee formed to advise NMEC

and the Government about the religious dimensions of the Millennium

celebrations.8

However, during the negotiations, the Muslim community expressed

objections to their use of the shared Prayer Space. Funding for the Dome came

from the National Lottery, and its resulting association (and thus ‘pollution’) with

gambling made it an unsuitable site for Muslim ritual prayer (salat). In the words of

the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Iqbal Sacranie, one of the

Muslim representatives on the Lambeth Group, ‘we cannot accept a place of

prayer which is funded by money from gambling’ (Combe 1999). Eventually,

a compromise was reached, and NMEC provided a separate space for a Muslim

Prayer Room. It was located outside the Dome itself, but within the site as whole,

at the request of the ‘representatives’ from the Muslim community who advised

the Lambeth Group.9 In effect, however, ‘the Muslim community’ and its interests

were ‘represented’ by just two people—Iqbal Sacranie, and later by Dr Manazir

Ahsan from the Islamic Foundation in Leicester—and although each consulted

scholars and other ‘leaders’ in the community about their decisions and choices, it

is almost inevitable that the diversity of religious thought and opinion within the

Muslim community in Britain could not be reflected in the kind of discussions that

eventually led to the provision of the Muslim Prayer Room. At least some evidence

for this comes from the fact that there were Muslim visitors to the Dome who

chose (for whatever reason) to use the shared Prayer Space rather than the

separate Muslim Prayer Room for their ritual prayers, and thus did not regard the

former space as sufficiently ‘polluted’ to prevent the performance of a religiously

‘acceptable’ salat. The politics behind the Muslim Prayer Room thus blurred into

and reflected the complex politics involved in minority faith community

representation in the public sphere, which in turn reflected the specific context

and situation of Islam in late-twentieth-century Britain.

The Muslim Prayer Room encompassed within it purpose-built, gender-

segregated washing facilities for men and women, racks for shoes, and a screen

separating male and female worshippers in the main prayer area itself. The walls of

the Muslim Prayer Room were beautifully decorated with pictures of Islamic

calligraphy, and a portable wooden mihrab (niche) indicated the direction for

prayer. The space could accommodate about 70 worshippers. An Islamic arts

company called ‘VITA’ was consulted regarding the design of the space. NMEC

supplied the facilities for washing and shoes, while the embassy of Saudi Arabia

loaned the prayer carpet. A local Imam from a nearby Mosque was associated with

the space, in a part-time capacity.


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During my research at the Dome, I spent several hours sitting in the Muslim

Prayer Room, watching school groups, family groups, and individuals come in to

wash and to pray. I was also told by the Imam, whom I interviewed, that the

Muslim Prayer Room at the Dome was a place where politicians could bring

visiting Muslim dignitaries from abroad. It was a place where a number of

interested parties could feel a sense of pride.

A blank notebook was left in the Muslim Prayer Room. At the time of my

research it was in the male section of the space, and the majority of the written

entries appear to be authored by men, suggesting that the book remained within

the male ‘half’ of the space for much of the year. About one-third of the entries

were in Arabic or Urdu, and many entries were accompanied by a name and

date.10 The overwhelming themes of the entries (at least those in English) were

surprise, gratitude, and appreciation for the provision of a ‘mosque’ on the site.

Some of the following entries were typical:

I really appreciate the UK government to make [sic ] this arrangement for Muslim

prayer.

As a British Muslim of Asian descent this room makes me proud. Whilst the West

has a lot to answer for in its treatment of Muslims, in other respects we should

also recognise and applaud when they do the right thing.

Thank you for thinking ahead and providing this essential facility. Also very well

thought out and designed.

These comments reflect the feelings of a community that in the past has often felt

excluded and unrecognised in the public domain. The expressions of thanks are as

much about having a facility for prayer as they are about feeling a sense of

inclusion in society, and a recognition of the religious needs of Muslims in public.

But although these appreciative comments convey gratitude and ‘inclusion’, there

is another sense in which the provision of a separate space for Muslims actually

had an ‘excluding’ effect, and this is discussed in more depth later in the paper.

The other sacred space at the Dome was the shared ‘Prayer Space’, located

about two minutes walk from the main entrance to the Dome. Entry was via a

heavy glass door into a small lobby, then a further set of doors into the space itself.

The room was sound-proofed, and apart from the hum of the air-conditioning

system the space was virtually silent. The space had a comfortable, airy feeling

with a warmly-coloured richly carpeted floor, gentle lighting, and ‘neutral’ blue

and green cloth wall hangings. There was seating for approximately 50, the chairs

being arranged in a semi-circle with a central aisle. A table draped in a white cloth

formed the central focus in the room. There were sometimes flowers on the table.

There were no fixed religious symbols in the room, although a portable cross,

candles, and other religious paraphernalia could easily be brought into the room

from the adjacent vestry, used as the chaplaincy office. Although there was a

separate Muslim Prayer Space on the site, a number of Islamic prayer mats were


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stored in the Prayer Space, and were occasionally used by Muslim visitors.11

The furnishings for the room as a whole were supplied by NMEC, while artefacts,

videos, and free copies of biblical literature (e.g. St Luke’s Gospel) were donated by

the churches. Each day there were two short acts of Christian worship, this being a

simple, informal service lasting about 15–20 minutes. There were separate Roman

Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist services on a Sunday, some of which involved a

Eucharist celebration.

Observation of activity within the Prayer Space suggested that it had myriad

functions and meanings for visitors and Dome staff. Many came into the space as a

refuge from the considerable noise and excitement in the rest of the Dome.

For them, it seemed to provide a ‘breathing space’ and an escape from the bustle

of the Dome’s many ‘Zones’. At particular times of the year, some Christian staff

regarded the Prayer Space as a refuge of a more active kind. During Halloween,

a group of evangelical Christian staff used the space to pray against the ‘forces of

evil’ that they perceived as stirred up by the ‘celebration’ of Halloween taking

place in the Dome. For local people in and around Greenwich, the Dome provided

a considerable number of employment opportunities, and NMEC deliberately

recruited a number of people with disabilities, and the long-term unemployed.

It was evident that their work in the Dome was significant for some staff, and some

chose the Prayer Space as a venue for the baptism of their children, although it

was simply a ‘commissioned’ rather than ‘consecrated’ space.12

The informality of visitor behaviour evident in other parts of the Dome was

to some extent replicated in the Prayer Space, and visitors appeared to feel free to

wander in and out, sometimes while worship was taking place. On many

occasions, I watched visitors enter, sit for a while, join in with part of the worship,

and then leave. The way they approached the Prayer Space suggested ‘tourist’

rather than ‘pilgrim’, perhaps as we might expect in such informal surroundings.

The Prayer Space often functioned as a place for personal quiet (and sometimes

solitude), and as a contact point with the chaplaincy team. It was also a place

where visitors could write down requests for prayer, although in reality they also

wrote down more general thoughts and reflections, exhortations, and comments.

Contained within these acts of writing were many other processes and actions,

such as remembering loved ones, asking for intercession, recording the visit,

expressing thanks, and ‘talking’ to other visitors, God, and the deceased.

The open book was placed on a lectern, just inside the Prayer Space,

accompanied by a pen and a leaflet/notice inviting contributions to the book.

Requests for prayer were offered at the daily morning or afternoon act of Christian

worship. I attended a number of these services as a semi-participant observer.

The size of the congregation varied, from perhaps as few as two or three, up to

about 15. The chaplaincy team advised me that sometimes there was no

congregation (particularly at evening worship in the winter months), and

sometimes the space was full (perhaps with a school group).

During the course of the year, eight A5-size notebooks were filled with

written requests for prayer, thoughts, comments, and questions. Visitors to the


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Dome surprised the chaplaincy team in the rapidity with which they filled the

books. But what did they ask for in their requests for prayer? What kind of

interpretive ritual work was going on when they recorded their visit? It is to the

content of these books that I now turn, since this provides some evidence for

the way that sacred space, even when it is predominantly used by individuals, is

nevertheless a shared, collective act, and thus part of a social process of sacralising

sacred space. A fuller discussion of the content of the books can be found in a

different article (Gilliat-Ray 2004a).

A Brief Analysis of ‘Prayer Books’ in the Prayer Space13

Perhaps not surprisingly, the largest group of entries related to a category I

called ‘family, friends and self’ (41.9%). Prayers were often for specific, named

individuals. The themes in these prayers related to health and sickness, death and

bereavement, happiness and life-transitions (e.g. births), and relationships.

A particularly interesting group of entries in this category were what I have called

‘remembrance prayers’ where visitors appeared to be using the opportunity to

write in the book as a way of remembering loved ones. Some entries began

‘In memory of . . .’ or ‘Remembering . . .’. Curiously, a number of visitors sent

birthday wishes to the deceased. The next significant group of entries related to

what I have categorised as ‘general hopes and aspirations’ (35.4%). Here were the

prayers for world peace, less environmental damage, and better relationships

between people of different faiths. Some visitors had particular categories of

people in mind when they recorded their prayer, such as for ‘people suffering

depression’ or ‘for all who are bereaved’. Some visitors directed their prayers

towards other readers of the book: ‘I pray that you may also realise the peace of

God in your heart . . .’. My analysis of prayer books revealed another distinctive

group of entries, which I collected together for they all related to what we might

broadly call ‘mission and faith’ (11%). Some visitors to the Prayer Space, instead of

requesting prayer, left instead an evangelical exhortation, of which the following is

an example: ‘Thank you Jesus!’. Finally, the last significant category of ‘prayers’

related to the Dome itself, and within this category were many expressions of

thanks and appreciation for the Prayer Space (9%). ‘What a lovely place of calm

and tranquillity amid the excitement outside’. Many of these entries were

stylistically similar to the kinds of comments that might be recorded in a ‘Visitors

Book’, perhaps at an historic building or guest house.

As a whole, many entries were strikingly free from the typical language and

terminology of prayer (e.g. ‘. . . through Jesus Christ’, ‘. . . in the name of Jesus’).

It was also evident that some contributors influenced each other, and some

copied the style or theme of the previous entry, especially children who, based

on my observations, often visited the Prayer Space in pairs or small groups. This

‘copying’ makes the books distinctive compared with many other public contexts

in which people can make requests for prayer, usually on slips of paper deposited

in a sealed box (e.g. in churches or cathedrals).


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The significance of these prayer book entries for my discussion of sacred

space relates to the capacity of the authors to inject a wide range of meanings into

the Prayer Space, thus adding to the symbolic complexity of the space. ‘Sacred

meaning and significance, holy awe and desire, can coalesce in any place that

becomes, even if only temporarily, a site for intensive interpretation’ (Chidester

and Linenthal 1995, 14). Contributors were performing a ritual act—and although

this was often a private, individual performance, it was nonetheless social, as the

nature of the entries makes clear. The public act of writing in a book used by

others, the common concerns found therein, and the transactional nature of the

requests suggest that the use andmeaning of the space was shared and collective.

So even the most apparently ‘privatised’ behaviour can, from another perspective,

also been seen as social. ‘[T]he fact that certain religious beliefs and practices are

largely outside the control of formal religious institutions does not, ipso facto,

render those beliefs and practices as individualistic’ (Beckford 2003, 58).

A point has now been reached when we can begin to form some

impressions about the way sacred space is used in public institutions today. It is

largely, but not exclusively, private and individual rather than shared and

corporate, although no less social. It is still subject to ritual carried out by

individuals, and groups, and my research at the Dome, in prisons, in hospitals, and

in universities indicates that sacred spaces are subject ‘to a variety of subjectivities’

(Nye 2000, 43). This being the case, they are also therefore subject to a complex

range of politics, and it is to the contested nature of sacred space in public

institutions that I now turn. The issues at stake appear to be especially about

‘ownership’ and appropriation, shared usage, and furnishing.

The Politics of Sacred Space

Regardless of how sacred spaces have come into being, they have qualities

and characteristics that make them in some ways quite different to conventional

places of worship. Although space is a resource wherever it is located—and is thus

subject to the politics of property and ownership—sacred spaces in public

institutions are slightly different on account of the fact that they are ‘housed’

within another institution that has its own politics. This can significantly affect the

kind of negotiations and contests that surround the space.

Most religious buildings in the landscape often make clear their ‘belonging’

to a particular faith community. A building with a dome and minaret is

unmistakably a Mosque, signifying ‘ownership’ by a Muslim community. Faith

traditions can engage in a range of architectural and ritual strategies to convey

ownership, identity, inclusion and exclusion.14 In contrast to religious buildings,

the ownership of ‘prayer spaces’, or ‘quiet rooms’ in shopping centres, hospitals,

or the Dome is often ambiguous. Even in the case of the ‘Muslim Prayer Room’ at

the Dome, NMEC owned the space even though the activities that took place

within it to some extent conveyed ‘ownership’ by Muslims. But sacred spaces in

public institutions are by no means without ownership, even if that ownership


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is less explicit than a church building, or a temple. Decisions are made by real

people about how much space will be allocated for religion, where that space will

be located within the boundaries of the institution,what it will look like, how it can

be used, what it will be called, and who can exercise power over the space.

From the days of the Victorian prison Chapel to the ‘Prayer Space’ at the

Dome, there has been an observable shift in terms of a sense of ownership and

power in decision-making when it comes to sacred spaces in public institutions.

This shift has been away from Christian churches, and towards the owners and

managers of the institutions in which such spaces are located. This does not mean

to say that there is no input from religious specialists, but these specialists are now

more likely to be drawn from a variety of religious backgrounds, and Christian

specialists must often be prepared to negotiate. However, my research in prisons,

hospitals, and especially the Dome, indicated that there are various ways in which

Christian churches nevertheless still try to assert and maintain some sense of

ownership over sacred space, even where the space might be called a ‘Prayer

Room’ ‘for the use of people of all faiths, or none’ and where it has been newly

produced, rather than adapted from a Christian Chapel.

For example, the short daily acts of Christian worship at the Dome signified

ownership of the ‘intellectual property’ of a ritual, and with it, the space in which

the rite was performed. If only temporarily, the Christians who negotiated

‘permission’ for the act of daily worship from NMEC successfully asserted their own

claim to, and appropriation of, the space, making it at fixed points of the day a

little less ‘shared’. Interestingly however, on several occasions during Christian

worship I observed a Buddhist member of staff simultaneously use the ‘Prayer

Space’ for his (quiet) chanting and meditation. This struck me as a significant, if

uncomfortable, ‘reminder’ to some Christians that the space was meant to be

‘shared’. When two rituals were in progress at the same time, there was a

necessary ‘contraction’ and jostling in the space available for each party to enact

their symbolic performance, and each had to find an unspoken modus vivendi.

Sometimes, therefore, the politics of space can result in a noisy silence, and a

communication of bodies and gestures as the relations among the people

involved are negotiated and worked out.

Another means by which Christian chaplains at the Dome tried to assert

temporary ownership (consciously or unconsciously) of the shared ‘Prayer Space’

involved the artefacts and religious objects that were stored in the adjacent

‘vestry’. Although the paraphernalia used for Christian worship, such as a wooden

cross and service sheets, were meant to be removed and taken back to the vestry

at the end of worship, sometimes this act of re-neutralising was ‘forgotten’. When

I questioned a chaplain about this, the response was casual and almost jokey,

as if it did not really matter that much.15 However, material objects can sometimes

be used in a politics of resistance and exclusion, and it is arguable that some of the

chaplains who ‘forgot’ to remove Christian symbols were using the symbolic

power of material objects as a way of challenging assumptions about the shared


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nature of the ‘Prayer Space’, and thereby also contesting power relations about

the use of the space.

The provision of space for religious activity in a public institution is, as noted

earlier, a question of allocating what is often a scarce resource. The owners of this

resource thus have to make a range of decisions concerned with the location, size,

furnishing, and usage of the space. ‘Sacred space is inevitably entangled with the

entrepreneurial, the social, the political, and other “profane” forces’ (Chidester and

Linenthal 1995, 17). In the case of the sacred spaces at the Dome, a range of

negotiations took place that resulted in a shared ‘Prayer Room’, and a separate

‘Muslim Prayer Room’. My interviews with members of the Lambeth Group

revealed that considerable argument took place as a result of the decision to

allocate a specific space for Muslims, but not for any other faith community. One

of the representatives from another religious community represented on the

Lambeth Group was particularly resentful about this, and the argument ran

something like this: ‘if they have a prayer room, we must have one too’.

This deliberate ‘othering’ of Muslims has been used in a number of public

institutions as a strategic ploy to try to advance the interests of a competing

group; these interests have sometimes been concerned with trying to achieve

some kind of ‘equality’ with Muslims, but on occasion the ‘interest’ has been in

relegating Muslims somewhere else. An example of this kind of inter-religious

rivalry was found during research for Religion in Higher Education when one

London university chaplain reported that pressure from the Islamic Society to

have rooms reserved for their prayers led to a Jewish member of staff saying that

he would then request kosher kitchen/meals on campus (Gilliat-Ray 2000, 90).

Thus, in some situations, concessions made to one faith group may be used as

political capital by another, to win their own rights or advantages.16

So, as a result of increasing religious diversity, public institutions now

sometimes find themselves in the complex position of having to arbitrate

between the needs, rivalries and politics between two (or more) religious

traditions. This is an unenviable position to be in, especially given the kind of

assumptions about multiculturalism and equality that often prevail in public life.

In a range of contexts, the specific requests of Muslims have been accommodated,

sometimes to the detriment and annoyance of other traditions, and thus public

institutions are sometimes also implicated in the process of worsening relations

between faiths.

My research over the past decade has indicated a number of reasons why

public institutions have made special effort to accommodate Muslim sacred space

in particular. Over time, the Muslim community in Britain has increased its profile

on account of a number of crises (the Rushdie affair, the Gulf war), and on account

of its rapid growth. The religious and political leaders of the community have

become more adept at voicing the concerns of Muslims in the public sphere,

not least through the Muslim Council of Britain, founded in 1997. Sometimes, the

particular nature of Muslim prayer is used as a reason to justify separate space,

although when it comes to space the only essential requirement for the


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performance of salat is cleanliness. However, the growing size, profile, influence,

or religious needs of Muslims are not the only reasons why they have been

provided with a separate prayer space in some public institutions. The following

paragraphs explore some of the processes behind the production of separate

Muslim space in prisons, hospitals, and universities—as a way of highlighting

some of the complex and subtle religious, social, and economic politics that are

sometimes at work.

In the prison context, a number of gaols have taken the decision to appoint

a full-time Imam. The reasons for such an appointment usually depend on the

number of Muslim inmates, but appointments such as this are not only about

sufficient manpower to service the pastoral care needs of Muslim inmates.

As I noted earlier, the privileges that sometimes stem from particular religious

identities is sometimes manipulated in highly charged contexts such as prisons,

and the Beckford and Gilliat research found evidence for the abuse of such

privileges in order to secure those resources that are most highly valued in a

prison, such as extra (or different) food, a different form of work, or free time when

others are working. Religion in Prison cites a number of instances when prison

inmates have enquired about becoming Muslim in order that they can have a

regular diet of curry (Beckford and Gilliat 1998, 74). Sometimes, unexpected and

alleged ‘conversions’ take place just before Eid celebrations, when Muslim

prisoners are sometimes provided with special celebratory dishes, often supplied

by a local Muslim community. The appointment of an Imam is a way for prison

authorities to bring such ‘abuse’ under some sort of legitimate control. However, a

result of this is that Imams have sometimes gone on to exert pressure for a Muslim

prayer room. Where the number of Muslim inmates might warrant such provision,

this is a concession that prison authorities will make, especially where this might

help to secure the continued services of an effective Imam.

In both the prison and health care context, a number of disputes have arisen

when members of other faiths, often Muslims, have used Christian chapels for

their Friday prayer. Some Christians have felt the chapel to have been ritually

polluted as a result.

When chapels or other rooms have to be shared by members of different faith

communities, issues of pollution may arise. For example, in their concern to

preserve the sacred character of their meeting places, the practitioners of some

religions object to sharing accommodation with others. Their objections may be

based on fears of ritual defilement if one group’s practices are seen directly to

violate another group’s ideas about ritual propriety or cleanliness. (Beckford

2001, 378)

Some of the following quotes from health care chaplains convey the

resentment that is sometimes felt: ‘Christians have felt that the presence of other

faith members detracted from the “holiness” of the chapel’ (Beckford and Gilliat

1996, 292). Another chaplain reported that Christians saw the use of the Chapel by

members of other faiths as ‘a denial of the Christian message and opening the way


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for the work of the devil’ (Beckford and Gilliat 1996, 292). In the early 1990s, there

was a dispute at a North West London hospital that had the potential for major

controversy:

a group of Christian members of staff gathered for prayers at lunchtime on

Fridays at precisely the same time as Muslim prayers. There was talk among the

Christians of ‘out-praying’ the Muslims. But the chaplain intervened on the side

of the Muslims and negotiated a satisfactory settlement of the dispute. (Beckford

and Gilliat 1996, 335)

This research uncovered evidence that, in some cases, Christian chaplains have

sometimes been the most successful agents in securing an alternative space for

Muslims (Beckford and Gilliat 1996, 293), sometimes on the back of inter-faith

rivalries. Their motivations as agents in this process are likely to be varied, and may

reflect personal and institutional politics, as well as the long-term resolution of an

otherwise time-consuming conflict. Where Muslim health care staff have

themselves entered into the negotiation process with heath care trusts, they

are perhaps most successful whenmanagers are most reliant upon overseas (often

Muslim) medical staff.

Universities, concerned with attracting the sizeable fees of overseas

students, are increasingly realising the strategic value of having (and advertising) a

Muslim prayer room as a way of attracting foreign students. The economics of fee

income and space are such that the potential cost of providing the space is

outweighed by the benefit of increased recruitment.

the provision of Muslim prayer rooms in a secular institution may be easily lost in

a resource-conscious university. However, there is one economic argument

which might persuade institutions to make efforts to improve services and

facilities for ethnic minorities. A number of universities compete to increase their

overseas student admissions, with markets particularly buoyant in countries

with Muslim populations. Provision of such facilities, accurately advertised, could

result in increased overseas admissions. (Ackland and Azmi 1998, 84)

The research for Religion in Higher Education (Gilliat-Ray 2000) found evidence that

at least one-third of institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom were

providing a separate prayer facility for the exclusive use of Muslim students, and

although there appears to have been no further research on this subject,

anecdotal evidence suggests that provision of Muslim prayer rooms is increasing

in many universities.

What these past few paragraphs demonstrate is that, in many public

contexts, sacred space has been produced for the exclusive use of Muslims, and

often the ‘economics of people’ are at issue. However, there is also a sense in

which Muslims are sometimes being constructively ‘relegated’ to their own

separate spheres, setting up a dichotomy between Muslims, and all other faith

groups. Sometimes they are relatively passive subjects of this relegation, and


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sometimes, perhaps as a result of prejudice, they understandably become more

active agents in their own separation.

There was no reason why the shared ‘Prayer Space’ at the Dome could not

have been situated where the ‘separate’ ‘Muslim Prayer Room’ was located.

Muslim representatives on the Lambeth Group had no objection to the used of

shared space; their only objection was to worshipping in the Dome itself. Thus, it

would have been quite possible for there to be a single sacred space on the Dome

site. The reasons why Muslims in particular are being potentially and unwittingly

‘relegated’ are complex, but when they are provided with separate facilities, this

makes it easier for them to be then excluded from all other ‘shared’ activity and

space.

A telling insight into the kind of subtle politics at work was made by one of

the chaplains at the Dome. He noted to me that some evangelical Christian

members of the chaplaincy team had objected to the use of the Prayer Space by

Muslims. The argument that he relayed to me was along the lines of ‘since they

have their own space, they should use it’. I was told that several chaplains had

‘helpfully’ re-directed Muslims from the Prayer Space to the Muslim Prayer Room,

when they had enquired about using the Prayer Space for their prayers (even

though prayer mats were stored in the Prayer Space). Among the many reasons

why these Christians may have felt challenged by Muslim use of the space, at least

one is likely to be a sense that their own efforts to ‘appropriate’ the Prayer Space

were undermined in some way by Muslim use of the space. Bad enough to have a

Buddhist chanting quietly in the corner; far worse to have a group of Muslims

performing their ritual prayer in the space. The particular sense of challenge may

lie in the very physicality of salat itself. If ‘the human body plays a crucial role in the

ritual production of sacred space . . . manipulating basic spatial dimensions

between up and down, left and right, inside and outside, that necessarily revolve

around the axis of the living body’ (Chidester and Linenthal 1995, 10), the physical

expression of salat, and its implicitly corporate nature (even when performed by a

single individual), is potentially regarded as much more threatening.

There are a number of ways in which faith traditions engage in the process

of making a space ‘sacred’. Van der Veeuw notes how the deliberate exclusion of

outsiders, the reinforcing of boundaries that keep some people out, can be an

important way of making a space sacred (1986, 52–53). This raises interesting

questions for the use of shared, and supposedly ‘neutral’ sacred space, ‘by people

of all faiths, and none’, in today’s public institutions. There are, technically

speaking, no ‘outsiders’ or ‘others’ who can be ‘left out, kept out, or forced out’

(Chidester and Linenthal 1995, 8). However, as the earlier discussions indicate,

there are subtle ways in which exclusion can be conveyed, and sometimes this is

accomplished by the provision of a separate space that actively relegates the

potentially most significant religious ‘competition’ to another place entirely.

The design and furnishing of sacred spaces is complex, even when the space

is being used by a single faith community. Decisions have to be made about

where furniture (if any) will be located, how artefacts will be stored, who can


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access them, how the space will be decorated (if at all), how much money will be

spent on design, and so on. However, in the case of the building and furnishing of

a new Temple or Mosque, there are usually at least some shared assumptions

about what kind of decoration or furnishing is appropriate. However, in the case of

sacred spaces in public institutions, an increasing number of which must be

shared ‘by people of all faiths, and none’, those involved in the decision-making

process probably bring a much wider range of assumptions and preferences to

questions of design and furnishing. In instances when sacred space is transformed,

‘from Chapel to Prayer Space’, the space has to be somehow ‘stripped’ of its

former name and perhaps also its furnishing, and rules have to be re-negotiated in

order to ‘make way’ for a new designation, new decoration, and new expectations

about the use of the space. The response of chaplains to this process has been

mixed, and the Beckford and Gilliat research uncovered a gamut of reactions, from

outright resistance, wearied resignation, obedient compliance, to wholehearted

enthusiasm (Beckford and Gilliat 1996).

A descriptive word that is frequently used, and seems to sum up the decor

of many shared sacred spaces in public institutions, is ‘neutral’. This seems to

mean that the furniture and decoration will not be suggestive of, or related to, any

one particular religious tradition. It will be ‘inoffensive’, devoid of any markers of

belonging or ownership by a faith community. But is there such a thing as ‘neutral’

when it comes to the decoration and design of sacred space? I believe not. Behind

every decision to place a table here (with or without a cloth over it), a chair there,

or a picture on the wall (even if simply a pleasant landscape), an environment is

inevitably ‘materialising’ and, with it, the particular preferences of individuals with

conscious or unconscious interests. It is not surprising then, that the process of

producing or transforming an existing sacred space is often fraught with difficulty,

more especially since many sacred spaces in public institutions are now

increasingly subject to the deliberations of a committee of people, and such

decision-making bodies are often multi-faith in composition. Long-gone are the

days when a chaplain could exercise almost complete individual authority over

‘his’ Chapel.

At first sight, it may seem odd that the designing and furnishing of a

‘neutral’ sacred space can become so contested; after all, if it ‘belongs’ to no faith

community in particular, all presumably have an interest in making it a mutually

pleasant space for prayer or worship? However, when a formerly Christian space

has to be ‘stripped’ of its markers of identity, it is understandable that chaplains,

and possibly others, will struggle to find ways of resisting that process, perhaps by

retaining, for example, a central table, with a cloth over it—in other words, an altar

of some kind, in all but name. Such furnishing might be familiar enough to other

religious traditions, perhaps to Jews, that the preferences and assumptions of

Christian lobbyists are approved by the committee (but of course, it all depends

who is on the committee, and perhaps who was absent on the crucial day of the

relevant meeting!). In this way, subtle processes of resistance and power relations

are at work, and there are almost inevitably ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the process.


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When it came to the Prayer Space at the Dome, although most of the

supposedly ‘bigger’ questions about the location and usages of sacred space were

battled out by the Lambeth Group, decisions about the supposedly ‘minor’ details

of the decor and furnishing was delegated to a much smaller group of people

fromwithin themembership of the Lambeth Group, all of whom ‘just happened to

be’ Christian. There was apparently no recognition by the Lambeth Group as a

whole of the considerable symbolic power that could be conveyed by the locating

and placing of material objects and furniture within the space. Thus, inadvertently,

no doubt, the Prayer Space at the Dome ‘just happened to have’ a central table,

covered with a cloth, and semi-circular rows of chairs, with a central aisle. Had the

decision-making about these details been in the hands of a group of Hindus, Sikhs,

or perhaps Muslims, it is probable that there would have been no table. There may

have only been a couple of chairs for the elderly/infirm, and there may have been

indicators of separate areas for males and females. There may have been a rack for

shoes at the entrance. Thus, the space may have looked quite different, and would

have carried with it different meaning: ‘the production of space also implies the

production of meaning, concepts and consciousness of space which are

inseparably linked to its physical production’ (Smith 1984, 77; emphasis added)

and ‘In its material production and practical reproduction, sacred space anchors a

worldview in the world’ (Chidester and Linenthal 1995, 12). Hence, the decor and

furnishing of ‘neutral’ sacred spaces in public institutions is rarely, if ever, entirely

‘neutral’, however well-meaning those who influence the ‘look’ of the space

might be.

Conclusion

Over the past 20 years there has been a significant conceptual shift when it

comes to the provision of sacred space in public institutions. What would have

once been called a ‘Chapel’ is now, increasingly, called something different.

The name given to such a space varies, but often the word ‘prayer’ is a part of it,

even though ‘prayer’ is not an activity to be found in some of the world religions

present in Britain (such as Theravada Buddhism). There are similar difficulties

where ‘worship’ is part of the name, since, again, not all faith traditions engage in

‘worship’. The designation ‘Multi-faith Room’ is problematic since this gives no

indication of function, and ‘Quiet Room’ is perhaps too prescriptive —after all, not

all religious worship is quiet, and tears may not necessarily fall in silence.

What this points to is the fact that moves towards shared multi-faith spaces

in public institutions ‘open to people of all faiths, and none’ are emerging out of a

religious history predominately shaped by Protestant Christianity, and with this

history come particular ideas and assumptions about what constitutes religion

and religious practice. In many facets of public religion, from civic ceremonies

to chaplaincy, minority faith traditions are struggling to achieve participation,

recognition, or ‘equality’ (sometimes very successfully), but these efforts take


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place within a framework created by a history and tradition of which they were not

a part. Thus, questions remain as to just how ‘equal’ they can be.

It would be easy to assume that the increasing religious diversity of

contemporary Britain has been responsible for creating new dilemmas about

naming, decoration, and ownership, and thus a new ‘politics’ of sacred space, but

I do not believe this is the case. The presence of other faiths has certainly

complicated the production of sacred space in new ways, and the nature and

substance of the arguments have perhaps changed. But even in the older prisons

and hospitals in Britain, there have been tensions and politics about the way in

which space should be used and furnished. I would have enjoyed being a ‘fly-on-

the-wall’ when the decision was made in the nineteenth century to remove the

‘coffin-like’ seating arrangements from the Chapel at Pentonville!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank the funders of the research upon which this

paper is based. At the Dome, this is the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, and the Nuffield

Foundation. The research in prisons and hospitals was generously supported by

the Church of England and the Leverhulme Trust (1994--1996). Research

conducted in institutions of higher education was thanks to the offices of the

Inter Faith Network for the UK, and the University of Exeter Research Committee

(1998). The author would also like to thank the countless members of the public

whose prayers and thoughts recorded in the notebooks at the Dome provided

such rich data for analysis and discussion. I have sometimes wrestled with the

ethical implications of observing their actions and using their words for my

research given that they will not have known how they would be subsequently

used. But as the contributions to the books of prayer were anonymous, and have

been treated with respect, I hope that neither they, nor my fellow academics,

will find my work on them disagreeable or offensive. Thanks are extended to

Malory Nye for his helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper. Finally,

the author wishes to thank the NMEC for allowing research to be conducted at

the Dome, and for the members of the chaplaincy team who so generously

allowed the author to observe and interview them about their work.

NOTES

1. The Millennium Dome was an architectural monument built in Greenwich,

London to celebrate the year 2000, largely as a political initiative by the Labour

government to reflect, in the words of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on

‘who we are, what we do, and what the future may have in store for us’.

2. Although Expo2000 in Spain had a Christian ‘pavilion’.

3. The designation of a place as ‘sacred’ is not straightforward. In a separate paper I

explore in more depth how shared ‘sacred’ spaces in public institutions are

sacralised. When I use the word ‘sacred’, my usage is underpinned by a sense that

‘sacredness’ is not necessarily a taken-for-granted, once-and-for-all matter, but


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rather an on-going project involving the ‘cultural labor of ritual’ (Chidester and

Linenthal 1995, 6). I also understand that it is impossible to draw boundaries of

any kind around places that are ‘sacred’, and places that are not. For example,

although a hospital might provide a shared ‘sacred’ space, such as a ‘Prayer

Room’, ritually significant actions are also likely to be ‘sacralising’ other parts of

the hospital, perhaps in a mortuary or in a special care baby unit (in the case of

emergency baptism of an infant), for example.

4. However, as Beckford notes, patterns of religion in prison are not a ‘replication

of contemporary religion outside prison . . . the sacred is manifested in prisons

in forms rooted in claims to foundational truths, denominational differences

and personal seriousness . . . prison religion is relatively old-fashioned and rigid’

(2001, 376).

5. I am of course referring to a time when all chaplains were male. Now, many

women are involved in chaplaincy.

6. My initial interest in religion at the Dome lay principally in chaplaincy provision. I

made two applications for research funding in order to conduct a study of the

chaplaincy team, in the full expectation that at least one of them would be

unsuccessful. However, both my applications were met with approval, so I

negotiated with the ‘second’ funder to develop my research at the Dome

to include a study of the Faith Zone, and the work of the Lambeth Group (see

note 8 ). Thus, I effectively carried out two separate studies (on chaplaincy, funded

by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, and on the Faith Zone, funded by the

Nuffield Foundation). My work at the Faith Zone is covered in a separate paper

(Gilliat-Ray 2004b).

7. This was an A4, page-a-day ‘Year 2000 Diary’, and it was located in the ‘vestry’ of

the Prayer Space. Chaplains used it as a means of recording the numbers

attending worship, significant occasions of counselling, or simply to convey news

with each other.

8. For a discussion of the work of the Lambeth Group, see Lynas (2001). For insight

into some of the ‘politics’ of the Group, see Gilliat-Ray (2004b).

9. See also Gilliat-Ray (2004b) for a discussion about politics of ‘representation’ on

the Lambeth Group.

10. The Imam at the Dome kindly sent this book to me for analysis at the end of the

year 2000, and I made a photocopy of all the entries before returning the book to

him. Being unable to read Arabic and Urdu, I would be interested in working

collaboratively with readers of these languages, to translate and ascertain the

meaning of the entries in these languages.

11. I was informed by one of the chaplains that Muslim use of the Prayer Space

tended to occur when they chose not to use the Muslim Prayer Room—for

example, if it was raining (accessing the Muslim Prayer Room meant a two or

three minute walk from the Dome), or if they felt comfortable using the Prayer

Space instead—and some Muslim visitors were unaware of either the provision or

location of the Muslim Prayer Room.


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12. Consecration (in Christianity) is a rite performed by a Bishop that sets a particular

building or site aside for sacred use on a permanent basis. Given that the Prayer

Space was designed for temporary use by people of all faiths or none, this rite

would have been inappropriate. However, a simple act of worship that took place

in the Prayer Space when the Dome opened ‘committed’ it to the purpose for

which it was designed and in some senses transformed it from a ‘secular’ space to

a ‘sacred’ space.

13. Having read through the books, it was apparent that the entries could be

grouped into different analytical categories and subcategories. Entries with

multiple requests or themes were analysed on the basis of the dominant, or first

occurring, request. Entries that were not entirely legible, or were written in

foreign languages/scripts, were omitted from the analysis. Having established the

broad range of categories, the next task was to gain some sense of the number of

entries falling into these different categories. To count and code each and every

entry would have been a huge effort of labour, and it was clear that a detailed

analysis of entries made in one month would be a sufficient sample from which to

elucidate general patterns. The percentages in the paper therefore reflect the

number of entries in a particular category during January 2000.

14. Some religious buildings are, like historic sacred spaces in public institutions,

sometimes entirely transformed, for example when a church is converted into a

Temple, or a Synagogue is converted into a Mosque. A number of historic

religious buildings in the East End of London have been converted in this way.

However, although the architectural style may not be consonant with the new

ownership, a number of adaptations and rituals can be performed that help to re-

produce the space.

15. However, some chaplains were scrupulous about removing Christian symbols at

the end of worship.

16. See also the later section on provision of Muslim spaces in health care contexts.

REFERENCES

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London: Policy Studies Institute.

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International Review of Sociology 11 (3): 371–82.

BECKFORD, J. 2003. Social theory and religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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society. Report to the Leverhulme Trust. Coventry: University of Warwick.

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BRUCE, S. 2001. Christianity in Britain, R.I.P. Sociology of Religion 62 (2): 191–203.

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Prayer Space at the Millennium Dome. Accepted for forthcoming publication in

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GILLIAT-RAY, SOPHIE. 2004. The trouble with ‘inclusion’: a case study of the Faith Zone at

the Millennium Dome. The Sociological Reviews 52(4): 459–477.

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Sophie Gilliat-Ray (author to whom correspondence should be addressed),

School of Religious & Theological Studies, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10

3EU, UK. E-mail: [email protected]


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