Introduction. Peter J. Paris

Transcription

1 Introduction Peter J. Paris The Riverside Church is often thought of as a Protestant cathedral, a national institution, a megachurch, and a multicultural congregation that continues to nurture a distinctively liberal theological tradition. Housed in a magnificent building on the Upper West Side of New York City, this church has consistently proclaimed a gospel that is both prophetic and pastoral. The former has been enabled by the church s resolve to give the senior minister complete freedom to preach as he sees fit. The church s pastoral ministry has been supported by well-trained personnel and relevant programs. The Riverside Church is the world s most prominent institutionalization of Protestant liberalism. Most important, it is a church that was built in the midst of the fundamentalist-modernist debate over the infallible inspiration of the Bible, a debate that engulfed the Protestant churches from the early 1920s until the present day. This church emerged out of the mutual vision of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Harry Emerson Fosdick, a collaborative venture between one of America s greatest philanthropists and its most renowned liberal preacher. For more than seven decades, the Riverside Church has developed a progressive ministry to the universities, colleges, and racial/ethnic communities in the Morningside Heights area of New York City. In its early years, the church concentrated on developing an effective campus ministry to the neighborhood s academic institutions. Later, in response to the demographical changes in the area that were intensified by the turbulent events of the 1960s, Riverside turned more of its attention to the area s racial and ethnic issues. 1

2 2 PETER J. HARIS Riverside Church s magnificent architecture, sizable endowment, liberal theology, progressive thought, exceptional preaching, and courageous practices have marked its uniqueness and importance from the beginning of its history to the present day. In deference to its founders, all succeeding generations of members have envisioned the Riverside Church as the premier model of Protestant liberalism in the United States. The chapter by James Hudnut-Beumler in this book is a historical analysis of this church s place in the history of Protestant liberalism. Similarly, the other authors describe how the church s traditions have changed over the years. This church s self-understanding has always been guided by its efforts to institutionalize a liberal form of Protestantism that would not be limited by the dictates of doctrine, race, or denominational loyalty. Accordingly, the Riverside Church publicly declared itself to be interdenominational, international, and interracial and immediately began to introduce those aims in the formation and expansion of alliances and partnerships across denominational and racial lines. In its endeavor to become genuinely interdenominational, Riverside has welcomed new members from a variety of denominations by allowing them to retain their membership in their previous denominations. In addition, the church has made several attempts to form official alliances with a number of denominations. These efforts, however, succeeded only with the American Baptist Convention and the United Church of Christ. Nonetheless, Riverside s interdenominational character, coupled with its vigorous opposition to biblical fundamentalism, soon established its place in the vanguard of Protestant liberalism. Although Riverside s liberal beliefs concerning membership, theology, and the Bible were prominent at the beginning of its history, issues of church governance, racial equality, and sexual inclusiveness eventually caused considerable internal conflict and trauma beginning in the late 1960s. It is interesting that in each of these congregational conflicts, the church grounded its moral and theological arguments in the liberal tradition that it has always embraced. Foremost among the marks of that tradition are freedom of thought and expression, as well as the inclusiveness of all peoples regardless of belief, race, or national origin. Although this church has always embraced the principle of racial inclusiveness, sizable numbers of African Americans, Hispanics, and others did not begin joining the church until the late 1960s. The chapters in this book by Judith Weisenfeld, Lawrence Mamiya, and Peter Paris identify and discuss some of the dilemmas and contradictions between the church s tolerant spirit and its internal practices. For the most part, the congregation

3 Introduction 3 has tried to resolve conflicts through study, discussion, debate, position papers, prayer, and meditation. As several of the chapters in this book attest, Riverside s liberal tradition has always promoted a spirit of toleration that has permeated the church s life and mission and, most important, is reflected in the changes in the current composition of the congregation. All the senior ministers then and now have affirmed this principle of toleration with respect to theological understandings and beliefs while advocating social justice for racial and ethnic minorities. In fact, the steadily changing racial and ethnic diversity of the church s present membership reflects its institutional practice catching up with its public rhetoric. In the 1920s, the church s aim to be interdenominational, interracial, and international was augmented in the second half of the twentieth century by various social and theological movements demanding equal rights for African Americans, women, Native and ethnic Americans, and gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Although the church s teaching on some of these issues was in the forefront of popular opinion, concerned constituencies among some of the church s diverse groups often highlighted various ambiguities in the church s practices which, in turn, specified certain injustices in its midst. That the Riverside Church has been viewed widely as a public space open to all the peoples of the city has been made evident in many and various ways. For example, most people in the city and elsewhere assume that this church is the proper place to host major public celebratory events, and the following dignitaries have been honored at the church: Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Olaf Palme, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr., Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, and Coretta Scott King, to mention only a few. Furthermore, no one was surprised to learn that in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Public Broadcasting Corporation decided to film a documentary entitled America in Healing at the Riverside Church. It was a special service of mourning in which Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist clergy and laity united in proclaiming messages of comfort and hope to a grieving city. An overflow audience of thousands witnessed this memorable interreligious event. The Riverside Church s superb architecture and outstanding preaching have always been its two most prominent visible features and were viewed by its chief benefactor as a fitting contribution to the glorification of God. John Wesley Cook and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale analyze and assess the

4 4 PETER J. HARIS meaning, relevance, and impact of the church s architectural achievement and its practice of preaching. The true meaning of the church s life and mission is in neither the grandeur of its aesthetic form nor the eloquence of its preaching alone but in the substance of its combined activities, as set forth in its 1992 mission statement: To serve God through word and witness; by treating all human beings as sisters and brothers; and by fostering responsible stewardship of all God s creation. More specifically, this same mission statement embraces the church s present tradition of Protestant liberalism by affirming the following: The Riverside Church commits itself to welcoming all persons, celebrating the diversity found in a congregation broadly inclusive of persons from different backgrounds of race, religion, culture, ethnicity, gender, age and sexual orientation. Members are called to a spiritual quality of life individually and collectively and to personal and social transformation that witness to God s saving purposes for all creation. Therefore, the Riverside Church pledges itself to action, reflection and education for peace and justice, the realization of the vision of the heavenly banquet where all are loved and blessed. This mission statement represents the consensus of the congregation concerning its ongoing life and mission. The church s capacity to change its structure, programs, and membership while maintaining its identity is commensurate with its liberal ethos of openness and inclusiveness of all peoples in the city, the nation, and the world at large. Methods and Procedures Used in This Book In the area of religion, this book belongs to the nascent genre of congregational studies, a field that is rapidly gaining ascendancy in contemporary church scholarship. Because congregations are complex, it is fitting that this book is both interdisciplinary and collaborative. In 1996 the Riverside Historical Committee proposed that a group of scholars be authorized to write a critical history of the church as it approached its diamond jubilee anniversary. The committee s objectives were as follows: to chronicle significant moments in the life of the congregation, to investigate and interpret Riverside s cultural impact as a lead-

5 Introduction 5 ing liberal Protestant institution, and to provide scholars and church people with introspective examinations of the shifting fortunes of religious progressivism in the twentieth century. 1 Clearly, the historical committee hoped that this history would help the church set its goals for the opening decade of the twenty-first century. Through this project, we seek to reexamine the Riverside experience and present members and scholars alike with perspectives on the intersections of theology, wealth, race, and politics in this and other mainline congregations. 2 After accepting the invitation to serve as the senior editor of this project and after consulting with the Historical Committee, I assembled a team of religious scholars. Each had demonstrated that he or she had the knowledge, skills, and experience needed for the successful completion of this project. Most important, each one readily accepted the challenge to work with the others for three years exploring the church s archives, interviewing persons, submitting progress reports twice a year to both one another and the Historical Committee, and preparing the chapters for this book. We all accepted that we had to learn the church s history from the time its cornerstone was laid in 1927 until today. As time went on, we gradually became familiar enough with the church s history that we were able to engage one another intelligibly and critically on the broad range of subjects that comprises this book. Such an approach enabled each of our academic perspectives to be enriched by those of our colleagues, and we hope that our readers will discern our collegiality in the cross-referencing of the chapters. In sum, this book demonstrates how different methodological perspectives can be used to enhance the quality of the entire story. After we had written drafts of our chapters, we exchanged them with one another for a critical review, to detect any misperceptions, redundancies, and oversights. Of course, we addressed each of them. Many helpful suggestions were made by William B. Kennedy, professor emeritus at Union Theological Seminary and an adviser to this project, who read the chapters and met for a day with the authors. One problem with a collaborative work like this is losing internal coherence, which each of us tried to avoid. Thus, we agreed that each chapter in this book should be able to be read both independently of the others and together with them as a part of a larger whole. Each chapter offers one perspective of the common subject matter, namely, the Riverside Church. I also should note that none of the chapters contradicts any of the others.

6 6 PETER J. HARIS Rather, like a patched quilt, each harmonizes with the whole and therein is found the richness of the project. New challenges continue to confront this progressive church in the heart of the nation s most spectacular city: the challenge of preserving its openness to other peoples and their cultures despite the numerical dominance of one particular racial or ethnic group in its membership; the challenge of attracting and retaining larger numbers of young people; the challenge of bringing justice and empowerment to the poor of the city, nation, and world; and the challenge of enabling conflicting spiritualities to thrive in a public church that has long been committed to being international, interracial, and interdenominational. notes 1. See A Proposal for a Research Project at the Riverside Church in the City of New York, Ibid., 2.