Riverside Church

Prediction:  This Church is big but insignificant.

At the Church:

Not being able to get a tour of the Apollo and a quick tour of Grant’s Tomb, provided some time to improvise.  Across the street from Grant’s Tomb sits Riverside Church.  I had read about and considered it for the itinerary but, despite having the highest church tower in NYC, it seemed like small potatoes historically.  But I’m glad that I ventured in because I was wrong. 

Interestingly, the Church was built in 1927 with Rockefeller money but, from what I saw, there was no celebration of that.  In the archives, much attention was given to the Priest who was influential in building the church and to the Church’s involvement in the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam movements.  I had no idea going in that Martin Luther King had spoken here six times and that he gave one of his most important and controversial speeches/sermons in his career, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” at Riverside.   I’ve heard excerpts from this speech many times and it is an impressive and powerful work.  It caused a backlash towards King from many angles for, in essence, unifying the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-War movement. King saw the War’s unjust impact on the black population as they were disproportionately killed in action, compared to the rest of the population.   Like W.E.B. DuBois before him, in this speech, King pointed to the irony of African-Americans being discriminated against at home while fighting for “freedom and democracy” abroad. 

One of the most impressive discoveries during my trip to New York, was the outreach, community involvement, activism, and programming of the three churches that I visited.  At Riverside for example, their newsletter highlighted programs in June such as Pride Month, Riverside Freedom School, Riverside Arts Camp, a Divestment workshop, and a program dedicated to celebrating the 50^th Anniversary of King’s “Beyond Vietnam” sermon.  The church also maintains a monthly initiative it calls Live Justice Now.  The program suggests “actions that both respond to current events and challenges of our day, and advocate[s] for greater justice for communities most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.” The outreach at Riverside is dealing with big issues and doing real things.  It seems lighter on the dogma and heavier on mission.  To be clear, the mission is not to spread Christianity, but to better society.  Growing up in a small town in Connecticut, the church that I attended as a kid was boring, dogmatic, and had little reach outside itself.  I wonder if I would be more interested in staying involved with the Christian church had my childhood church taken an approach more like Riverside.  My hunch is that these differences stem from the inherent contrasts of urban and suburban life in the U.S.