My perspective on the states that were once the Northwest Territories has changed since moving to Michigan and discovering the university town of Ann Arbor to be an urban oasis. So I don’t want to sound snotty about Cleveland. But a recent story (thanks) about the National Council of Churches closing its New York City facilities reminded me of the schadenfreude I experienced upon the news that the United Churches of Christ was moving its national offices from New York City to Cleveland. Now comes word of a similar downsizing. The once celebrated outcome of postbellum Protestant ecumenism, the Federal Council of Churches, founded in 1908, and morphed in 1951 into the National Council of Churches, is shuttering its New York offices and relocating to the basement of a Methodist congregation in Washington, D.C. (Okay, it is not the basement of a church but a national office building for the Methodists. Still, the idea that one of the denominations belonging to the NCC could house all of the NCC’s staff would have in 1960 been incredible.)
In addition to the difficulties of teaching millennials that anti-Catholicism used to exist, I also have trouble convincing college students that mainline Protestants were once formidable. The NCC’s offices were even called the “Protestant Vatican on the Hudson.” But with the rise of the religious right (evangelicals and Roman Catholics together), no one has the slightest idea that mainline Protestants have a central agency.
Such demise for the NCC could not have been foreseen in 1960 when the Interchurch Center, once called the “Protestant Vatican on the Hudson,” first opened on the upper west side of Manhattan next to Grant’s Tomb and Columbia University. More specifically the “God Box,” which originally housed dozens of denominational offices, is next door to architecturally magnificent Riverside Church, also built by the Rockefellers, and Union Seminary, collectively representing the once formidable but now faded power of Mainline Protestantism.
At the Interchurch Center’s 1960 dedication, a German Lutheran bishop presciently warned against the “institutionalization” of churches, noting that a beautiful building and organization were of “no avail without true faith.” Initially the NCC occupied four floors of the 19 story, $21 million imposing midrise that overlooks the Hudson River. The Methodists, Presbyterians, American Baptists, and Reformed Church in America, among others, also based their offices there.
His father having recently died, John D. Rockefeller III was present at the dedication to honor the Interchurch Center as the fulfillment of his father’s dream of a new Christianity without denominational distinctions. Although he didn’t then specify it, the Rockefellers also dreamed of a uniformly liberal Protestantism devoted to good works instead of doctrine. The elder Rockefeller donated the land for the Interchurch Center plus over $2.6 million for costs.
Ironically, nearly all the Mainline denominations housed there would begin their nearly 50-year membership decline just a few years later. A sanitized Protestantism without doctrine or distinctions simply became too boring to sustain. In the early 1960s, about one of every six Americans belonged to the seven largest Mainline denominations. Today, it’s one out of every 15.
Likely unable to conceive of such a dramatic spiral, the NCC’s chief pronounced at the Interfaith Center’s 1960 dedication: “It is the prayer of all who worked toward its creation that this will become more than a symbol of the growing spiritual unity of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Churches in America.” Those days were heady times for the Mainline denominations, who were flush with members, money and influence. Church offices in the God Box then claimed to represent 40 million church members.About 30,000 attended the Interchurch Center’s cornerstone ceremony in 1958 with President Eisenhower. He marched with 300 religious leaders under banners representing 37 participating denominations. David Rockefeller was present. So too was Charles Malik, the Lebanese Christian president of the United Nations. And Harry Emerson Fosdick, the dean of liberal Protestantism who built Riverside Church, was there also. In his brief speech, Ike condemned the recent bombing of a synagogue in Atlanta. Quoting George Washington, he hailed religious liberty and the importance of religion in sustaining morality.
Influence fades.
Old Life 
From our local paper:
Jonathan Page: A place for liberal theology
Liberal Christianity occupies a precarious place in American society today. Since 1962, every mainline denomination — Methodists, Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Episcopalians, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterians and American Baptists — has been losing members and influence in our culture.
The theologically conservative side of mainline denominations and the modern evangelical movement have long laid the blame for this decline on watered-down Christian theology. Liberal theology is too afraid to talk about sin, they claim. It downplays or neglects the power of the cross and looks to secularism for its ethics and moral compass.
As a result, people hungering for a real experience of the divine seek out more conservative voices, while liberals prefer to sleep in on Sundays because there is nothing of value in church. These critiques are so common that many, both inside and outside the church, take them as gospel truth.
Yet, there is another side to the story. Liberals have a response.
In spite of modern scientific insights and the increasingly loud voice of atheists, people stubbornly cling to the notion that there is a spiritual dimension to the world. A purely materialist worldview just does not seem to win converts. There is an innate sense of something more.
The entire liberal theological project is about giving substance to those deep stirrings. Yes, you can believe in God and science. Yes, you can rely on the insights of the great spiritual figures of the past without being slavishly attached to their pre-scientific world.
Just as the Apostle Paul tried to translate a Jewish notion of the messiah to the Greek world, liberal theologians attempt to translate the truths of Christianity for our postmodern American society.
The problem, according to liberals, is not weak or meaningless theology. The problem is that over time, our great theologians have become distanced from those in the pews. All too often, our clergy have not taken their task as public theologians seriously enough.
At the same time, theologians have been content writing for other theologians and not for the average church-goer. Thankfully, over the past 20 years this pattern has begun to shift. Writers such as Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, John Shelby Spong, and my own mentor, Peter Gomes, have made compelling theological arguments that speak to people where they are.
Denominations like the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian-Universalists have become unapologetic in their liberal and progressive theological views. The UCC’s most recent campaign proclaims, “God is still speaking,” and “Never place a period where God has put a comma.” The UU’s adorn their gathering spaces with “Standing on the side of love.”
One thing that makes me proud in the church I serve here in Ames is our Theologian in Residence program. Ames UCC has invested significant resources to attract people such as Borg, Crossan, Spong and many others to speak to the continued power of liberal theology. This year, on Feb. 23 and 24, Gary Dorrien, a professor at one of the leading seminaries in the nation, will be in Ames to share his insights about the vitality of liberal theology.
Dorrien has spent his career writing about the development of the American liberal tradition. It is no exaggeration to say that he is the leading scholar of the history of liberal theology, as well as being an ordained Episcopal priest.
Ames UCC sees the Theologian in Residence program as an important part of our communal thinking about morality and faith. The doors are wide open for all.
I have always believed that our contemporary world needs liberal theological voices. Traditionalists, like many Roman Catholic theologians, remind us of the importance of history for Christianity. Evangelicals constantly re-inject spiritual vigor into the life of the American church. Atheists and Humanists raise important critiques that prevent the church from becoming too self-satisfied or intolerant.
And it is the theological liberals of many denominations who insist that science and faith can be reconciled, who strive to interpret the faith for our postmodern world, and who claim that society, and not just the individual, is integral to our salvation.
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The mentions of Ann Arbor and Rockefeller makes me think about the University of Chicago and the Seminary Cooperative Bookstore. Who says liberal Baptists are all bad.
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Erik, in other words, liberals believe you can have it all — easypeasy.
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A local example of what you are talking about:
Back when I was in college in the early 90s there was a conservative Baptist student ministry at Iowa State University called “The Salt Company” that met in the basement of a large Methodist church near the campus. Over the last 20 years that student ministry’s weekly meetings have grown from probably 50 kids a week to at least 500. The leaders of that ministry went on to start Cornerstone Church, which is probably the largest church in Ames. They have a new auditorium/worship center that seats over 1,000. I play basketball in their gym each week. The Methodist church that they use to meet in is the same (or smaller) member-wise than it was in the 90s as far as I can tell.
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I have yet to figure out the theologically liberal mind. My atheist friend gets together with Rev. Page and likes him. Maybe I should try to get to know him, too.
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I go to some of the rummage sales that these churches put on and one thing I notice is that their membership is for the most part pretty old. Baby boomers and older. If it weren’t for their valuable real estate portfolios I wonder if they will even be around in 1-2 generations.
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In other words, they’re a lot like Sears.
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“Ames UCC sees the Theologian in Residence program as an important part of our communal thinking about morality and faith. The doors are wide open for all.”
GW: “Wide open for all”. Translation of this liberalspeak: “wide open for all who think like us” (that is to say, all who are theologically-oriented toward modernism and religious pluralism). Trust me, the door would not be so “wide open” for orthodox confessionalists (unless they were willing to just shut up, smile, and keep their views to themselves).
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Hi Erik,
Reading this blog and your comments had me think of this (channeling some old life ethos here, I think):
“Overstrictness demands and begets laxity in performance; while a truly liberal but conservative formula binds all essentially sound men together against laxity. In pleading for a liberal formula, therefore, we wish it distinctly understood that we do not plead either for a lax formula, or much less for a lax administration of any formula — within which an essential dishonesty lurks.”
So, “a truly liberal yet conservative formula,” is advocated, in from this writing about confession subscription? I was first introduced to this line from Warfield when our presbytery was debating subscription confession, and science v. faith topic was certainly there too (I noticed the mention in the article you copied).
I often wonder, as ordained, what that exactly looks like, in day to day life.
Or as someone recently ended a blog post, “Turns out life in this world is difficult.”
At least, I think, as CPAs, we identify with one another.
easypeasy…
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Erik Charter wrote: “I have yet to figure out the theologically liberal mind.”
GW: Here’s a hint: The theologically liberal mind is muddled, confused, irrational, and easily manipulated by emotional argumentation and propagandistic slogans (“Standing on the side of love”; “God is still speaking”; etc.; doesn’t that just tug at your heart strings?). It also tends to be arrogantly high brow (after all, theological liberals tend to lump all who hold conservative or orthodox views together under the label of “fundamentalism” and to look down their noses at such “fundamentalists” with an air of intellectual superiority; “We’re smart and educated, they’re stupid and ignorant” seems to be the typical mindset one detects amongst them, in my opinion).
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*debating subscription confession
Me? Muddled? Never…
Peace
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Erik, battles over the valuable property is a battle ground when a decent congregation is trying to break away from their liberal easypeasy denomination.
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Dr. Hart: Now that’s just plain mean, picking on Cleveland the way you do by the title of your post. 🙂
The “mistake on the lake” (as Cleveland is sometimes called) actually isn’t such a bad place. In fact, the city has been blessed with a high degree of common grace, and offers much in the way of music, the arts and culture (though admittedly our sports teams leave something to be desired), as well as world class medical care (for example, the Cleveland Clinic). Plus, I can attest that it’s a very decent place to live (except for certain parts, as is the case of any major city). Believe it or not, one can even find a confessional Presbyterian church in the area. 🙂
Regards,
Geoff Willour
Pastor, Lake OPC
Cleveland, Ohio area
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Not to mention, a book written by one of Warfield’s students. The name escapes me…on the tip of my tongue.
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Pr. Goeff – according to some of my co-workers several decades ago, the term “mistake on the lake” applied to Erie, PA, not Cleveland. In fact, the entire rhyme they used was, “dreary Erie, mistake on the lake.”
Beyond that I’m still trying to come to grips with “… discovering the university town of Ann Arbor to be an urban oasis …” Those certainly aren’t my memories of that bastion of radical social liberalism. Sure, it’s not just any college town, it’s home of a prestigious Big Ten university that has several expansive libraries (grad and undergrad) and all of the other amenities associated with the institution’s size and presence. Beyond that it’s just another decaying Michigan town with bad roads and streets in a state that’s economically depressed and has drab Winters.
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George, but compare Ann Arbor to Hillsdale.
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Wait until you experience Des Moines first hand. We give Fargo a run for its money.
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George wrote: “Pr. Goeff – according to some of my co-workers several decades ago, the term “mistake on the lake” applied to Erie, PA, not Cleveland. In fact, the entire rhyme they used was, “dreary Erie, mistake on the lake.””
GW: The phrase may have originally been applied to Erie, PA. I’m relatively new to the Cleveland area, but I’ve heard the phrase “mistake on the lake” applied to Cleveland as well. And Cleveland is, after all, located on the southern shore of Lake Erie.
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Hey, Charter, not so fast. I say we’re a Triple A city. First, we actually have a AAA baseball team. It’s not a major league team but it’s good baseball. And we have a symphony. I’m sure it doesn’t rank with the great symphonies but it’s a symphony. And we have rock acts come through – not Radiohead or U2, mind you, but, you know, AAA types of acts. We have Drake – not a great school but, yeah, a AAA school maybe. We have the State Fair, with its butter sculpture, big bull, big boar, and big pumpkin. Our Capitol Building is pretty cool. We have excellent bike trails. Good Vietnamese and Thai food. And when you say “Fargo” I can only assume you mean “Wells Fargo,” a solid local employer.
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George, that’s a bit cynical. But I have to admit that I still have nightmares about my living arrangements at 904 Packard twenty-two years ago.
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MM – not to mention home of the chief sponsor for the RABRAI! So help me, I’m gonna ride in one of those sooner or later before I get too old to even drive to the starting point.
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MM, so, what you’re saying is; …….’she has a really good personality’. Btw, if you’re ever looking for a little extra ‘edge’ at the starting line, Mellow Johnny’s is having some clearance sales. Just keeping it on the level.
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George, I enjoy riding and riding frequently, but I’m a bit of a feral cylcist. Which is to say I avoid crowds, special events, and travelling cyclist parties (Why do people combine alcohol and cycling?) Of course, that’s just what RAGBRAI is. But this year a guy at the office is trash talking me pretty severely so I think I’m going to join him and some others on the day of RAGBRAI that comes near Des Moines this year.
But there are great trails year-round here. I can do a 70 mile loop west, a fifty mile round tripper south, and about the same round trip in a NE direction, all on trails. If you’re an avid cyclist, you ought to give it a try some weekend. If you can average at least 16 mph, I’ll go with.
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Pretty pricey, Sean. I get stuff from Nashbar.
As for Des Moines, she’s a nice woman with a kind face.
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MM – yeah I agree about the RAGBRAI. That’s why I left the “G” out the first time, because I’m not so sure it is so great. It’s one of those so-called brevets where people often go to see and be seen and to party. Now, the REAL event over there is the Trans-Iowa, but that would be out of the question for my aging bones.
But I’m afraid you may have me out classed on the second suggestion. I haven’t ridden at that kind of pace for that distance since the 1996 Hotter’n Hell Hundred. (which I completed in about 5 1/2 hours by latching onto the rear wheel of anyone going by faster, especially tandems) I might be able to work up to that level again by mid-Summer, given the right circumstances and weather.
BTW, for excellent pricing and availability I like to by from Harris Cycles, Lickton’s, Peter White, Bikeman, and sometimes Rivendell as well as Nashbar.
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George, that’s an excellent time for 100. This will be my third season of biking, and I plan on doing my first 100 this season (high of 70 thus far).
My cycling buddy from the office does a Downwind Century every year in which a group gets dropped off 100 miles from Des Moines and does the whole trip with the wind at their back. He’s invited me, but they bike in a pretty tight formation and I just haven’t done enough enough tight drafting to feel comfortable doing that for 100 miles.
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MM – here’s one for ya:
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