Changing of the Guard -- Riverside Church

Certain churches have a sense of importance to them that transcends their locality. Washington National Cathedral, for instance, and New York's Riverside Church. Built by John D. Rockefeller for Harry Emerson Fosdick, this has been a preeminent liberal pulpit for many decades. It's most recent pastor, and it's first person of color, Rev. Dr. James Forbes, is retiring and this liberal bastion is looking for a new pastor.

Riverside Church is affiliated with the American Baptists and the United Church of Christ, but has a much broader constituency. Filling the pulpit won't be an easy task. In fact, from the New York Times article, it appears that this will be an arduous process -- but really filling any pulpit is arduous.

Riverside Church is an important pulpit, but apparently it's also difficult to pastor -- too many cooks, apparently. But this is nonetheless an important pulpit and whoever fills it will be coming in at an important time in our history.

In the wider world, events having nothing overtly to do with mainline Protestantism present Riverside’s next leader with a propitious opportunity. The increasing unpopularity of the Iraq war, combined with the Democrats’ recapture of Congress, has restored energy to American liberal groups that had been on the defensive for much of the last quarter-century. In more specifically Christian terms, evangelical conservatives last fall found themselves uncharacteristically on the losing side of a major election

And thus, these thoughts by Randy Balmer are important:

“Riverside’s next minister needs to make a coherent case for liberal Protestantism, and that’s been missing for a long time,” said Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College and an ordained Episcopal minister. “You need someone who has solid theological understanding and can articulate it speaking to a popular audience.

“The standard conservative criticism,” Professor Balmer said, “is that the mainline Protestants lost their theological moorings, that they got too far out ahead of the people in the pews. But I think the larger issue is that they were not communicating to the masses.”

Indeed, the key is connecting with the people! Perhaps the time is ripe.