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

Hawkins, Merrill M., Jr.

The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York. By Peter J. Paris, John W. Cook, James Hudnut-Beumler, Lawrence H. Mamiya, Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, and Judith Weisenfeld. New York: New York University Press, 2004. 350 pp.

Many readers of this journal will be familiar with Harry Emerson Fosdick, especially his role as a voice for modernist Christianity and an opponent of fundamentalism. While many will also be somewhat familiar with his role in founding the Riverside Church of New York, I suspect that they will know less about the history of that congregation after the Fosdick era. This multi-authored study of Riverside covers the story of the church from Fosdick to the present, setting that story in the context of American religious history.

The book grew out of Riverside's desire to have a history on the anniversary of its diamond jubilee. The congregation commissioned six distinguished and accomplished religious studies scholars to produce that history. However, they did not follow the standard celebratory approach of commemorative church histories. Instead, these writers put their study squarely in the genre of congregational studies, taking an interdisciplinary and topical, rather than linear, approach to Riverside's history.

After a detailed and helpful introduction by Peter Paris, the book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1, by James Hudnut-Beumler, tells the story of Riverside Church as the mother church of American Protestant liberalism. The twentieth century, especially the first half of the twentieth century, was dominated by the conflict of modernism and fundamentalism, as well as the challenge liberals and conservatives faced in living up to the ethical ideals of their faiths.

This chapter gives a succinct analysis of liberalism and conservatism and the connection of Riverside to those ideologies. Hudnut-Beumler gives a particularly strong analysis of Fosdick's reaction to fundamentalism. Fosdick in many ways embodied modernism's identity as a rejection of fundamentalism. His interest in a church that transcended denominational lines grew out of his particular embrace of modernism. The arguments of fundamentalists were no longer relevant, he believed. Far too many modernists wanted to continue to dialogue with fundamentalists, albeit by argument. Fosdick wanted to move on.

The many divisions of Protestant Christianity were vestiges of long-dead arguments that had no relevance for the modern world. A congregation that was formed out of this reality could lead the way for modernist Christianity, and this chapter shows the manner in which Riverside attempted to be a relevant voice of faith.

Leonora Tubbs Tisdale explores Riverside's pulpit, giving the biography of each of the pastors of the church through the present minister, James Forbes. Preaching has always been central to the congregation_ Pastors of Riverside have been preaching pastors. Their different styles and theological emphases have both guided the congregation and reflected where the congregation stood at a particular time.

One emphasis, though, was shared by all the ministers: the preaching of the "word" is central to the mission of the congregation. Yet, different pastors understood what the preached word meant in different ways. Fosdick's vision of preaching was classically modernist. He started with his own struggles or those of his congregation and worked from there.

This "life situation" preaching continued under Fosdick's successor, fellow Baptist Jim McCracken. William Sloane Coffin brought social activism to the pulpit, addressing the nation's social issues in a firm and direct manner. James Forbes brought the metaphor of holiness spirituality to the pulpit, believing that spiritual formation was the unique need of his tenure. He also focused his preaching on the actual members of the congregation who were present week after week, rather than the larger national audience (which had decreased considerably).

The story of the preachers of Riverside is touched on in other chapters, as well. The authors do not avoid stories of conflict and struggle, especially in describing power dynamics in the church. Particularly strong struggles between the pastor and various factions came during the ministries of Ernest Campbell in the 1960s and 1970s, William Sloane Coffin in the 1980s, and James Forbes in recent years. The tensions were over race, mission, and theology, as well as political control.

This book has some minor limitations, perhaps unavoidable. At times, the reader can be well aware that the book is a collaborative work of multiple authors. There is some repetition of stories in various chapters, which has a certain redundancy. Undoubtedly, each chapter is exploring a different topic about Riverside, which necessitates some repetition. But at times, it became unclear to me how a story in one chapter was being used differently than it had been used in previous chapters. Particularly overlapping were the chapters on the pulpit and on congregations within a congregation.

These limitations may simply be the necessary characteristics of a multi-authored book. Moreover, strengths of the book far outweigh any limitations. The history of Riverside is valuable for its story of this particular congregation, as well as the summary the book gives on American Protestant liberalism. The authors of the book also give a valuable model for others to follow in writing the history of local congregations. They utilize primary documents and interviews, and they place Riverside in the context of American religious history.

Finally, of particular interest to readers of this journal will be the "Baptistness" of Riverside, something dearly explored in the early chapters on its history and on its preachers.--Reviewed by Merrill M. Hawkins, Jr., associate professor of religion, Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, Tennessee