the.com/pulpit
A raised stage where one person's words once moved kingdoms, mobs, and Sunday afternoons alike
means A raised platform or enclosed stand, typically in a church, from which a preacher delivers a sermon.
from From Latin 'pulpitum,' meaning a stage or scaffold — the raised platform where Roman actors and orators performed. The word stepped down from the theater into the church, where it became the elevated stand for the one whose voice carried over the congregation. The same Latin root gives us 'pulpitum' in the sense of a stage front, so the preacher and the actor were always, etymologically, working the same boards.
- origin
- From Latin pulpitum, meaning a stage or scaffold
- bully reference
- Bully pulpit was Teddy Roosevelt's term for the presidency
- height matters
- Elevated so the congregation literally looks up to preaching
- hourglass tool
- Some held timers to keep sermons mercifully short
- sounding board
- Overhead canopies projected the voice before microphones existed
westminster abbey pulpit — where preachers have delivered sermons since the 14th century in london
st paul's cathedral pulpit — john donne preached here in the 1620s, one of history's most famous preachers
mount carmel center pulpit — where thomas merton gave lectures on contemplative life in kentucky