The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York

4: Universal in Spirit, Local in Character: The Riverside Church and New York City

4 Universal in Spirit, Local in Character The Riverside Church and New York City Judith Weisenfeld History may run to universals but it is essentially local in character. The local church is equipped through its ties with a particular community to relate the gospel of Jesus Christ to history in a way that matters. All churches have the same mission. Every church has its own mission. —”Report of the Program Staff to the Board of Deacons,” June  In the fall of , Robert J. McCracken, then pastor of the Riverside Church, met with a representative of The Christian Century as the magazine was preparing a portrait of the church for its “gallery of great churches.” At one point McCracken led the reporter to a window in a room in the church’s distinctive tower, and the two looked southward, taking in a view of New Jersey across the Hudson River and the expanse of Manhattan down to the Empire State Building. The visitor looked at the spectacle beyond the window and then at the silent man beside him. “How,” he finally ventured to ask, “can a man preach to that?” The answer came instantly, yet in a voice so low one scarcely heard it. “What right has any man to preach to that?”1 The reporter concluded that McCracken might indeed be up to the task precisely because he dared to ask this question and attempted to measure his own suitability to preach and minister to “this city where the power of a continent comes to focus.”2 In many ways, the men’s exchange encapsulates the long history of challenges and expectations inherent in the life of  this prominent and privileged congregation. For the Christian Century reporter , the task of preaching from Riverside to New York City perhaps would be a burden, and so his question focuses on how. How could anyone manage a job of this magnitude? Surely this city, rendered so often, as Robert A. Orsi noted, “as the site of moral depravity, lascivious allure, and the terrain of necessary Christian intervention,” presents an impossible task for a Christian minister.3 McCracken’s interrogative response dramatically shifts the perspective on the relationship of the church, its minister, and the city. The challenge for Riverside’s ministry, McCracken insisted, is not merely approaching the city as a problem but also understanding the power and promise of the urban context to the church. What individual merits the position that Riverside offers for tapping into the city’s possibilities , McCracken asked, turning us away from envisioning the city as a site of unrelenting peril. Riverside has always been a church that turned its gaze, ear, and prophetic voice toward the nation and the world. In some ways, it appears to be in but not of New York City, and one wonders whether its significance should be marked only in these sweeping terms. As the Christian Century reporter noted in ,“Everybody knows Riverside. That is to say, everybody who knows anything about American churches knows the cathedral-like fane [sanctuary] with its soaring massive tower that crowns New York’s Manhattan island.” The reporter continued, “Just as the commanding physical location makes it one of the sights of New York, so the fame of its pulpit and the projection of its ministries make it a beacon in American Protestantism.”4 William Sloane Coffin, Riverside’s fourth senior minister, remarked that from the minister’s perspective, there were two great kinds of churches, the small-town church, where the minister can know and call on everyone, and the very large church with a national profile, “where you can get anyone you want.”5 Figures of national and international significance come to Riverside, Coffin implied, because throughout its history Christians and non-Christians alike have listened to the words preached from the church’s pulpit and watched the actions its congregation has taken in its campaigns for social justice grounded in Christian principle. This chapter focuses on the Riverside Church as a local religious institution , charting major themes in the interactions between the congregation and the unique urban environment of New York City. As we shall see, the Riverside Church is unquestionably both in and of the city of New York, and its urban sensibility suffuses the life of the congregation in ways                  that contribute to its distinctiveness. The importance of the city to the church’s identity...