The Tragic Irony of Brad Braxton and Riverside Church

Liberal Protestantism has pretty much vanished from the American religious landscape. But in its few remaining enclaves, its bitter clingers staunchly resist the inevitable. New York's Riverside Church, where such giants of liberalism as Harry Emerson Fosdick and William Sloan Coffin once held court, has long been the holy of holies for what might now be appropriately called the Church of Yesterday's Progress. Any who would occupy its pulpit must learn quickly not to trample upon Riverside's most sacred traditions. Unfortunately, the Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton was a slow learner. He resigned this week after only nine months as Riverside's pastor.

In a letter sent by e-mail to members of the congregation late Monday night, Dr. Braxton, 40, said that pre-existing tensions among members had overwhelmed his freshman-year efforts to lead the church, where William Sloane Coffin once presided and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

“The consistent discord has made it virtually impossible to establish a fruitful covenant between the congregation and me,” he said.

Jean L. Schmidt, chairwoman of the church council, said Dr. Braxton’s decision “came as a great shock” when she learned of it several days ago. She said he had the support of the board and the majority of the church congregation.

Dr. Braxton’s selection followed a yearlong nationwide search and was endorsed by an overwhelming vote of congregants in September, but longstanding disagreements over the church’s mission found a lightning rod in him, she said.

“Very hurtful things were said about him and his family,” she said. She added, with a sigh, “This is a very difficult congregation to pastor.”

The disagreements are described differently by each of the many factions at the church, a nondenominational congregation on Riverside Drive in Manhattan that has traditionally embraced a broad-spectrum interfaith style of Christian theology for all comers, whether Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, gay, lesbian, transgender or none of the above.

In an interview, Dr. Braxton, an ordained Baptist minister, said he saw his mandate as helping the congregation decide “how to bring an interfaith, interracial, progressive religious institution from the 20th century into the 21st century.”

According to dissidents, Dr. Braxton went about that by bringing elements of evangelical tradition into church services. They said he called on worshipers to come forward and bear witness to their faith, favored the gospel choir over the church’s traditional choir, and preached at times what they considered a Riverside heresy: that Jesus and only Jesus was the way to salvation.

Some members of the congregation may believe that, said Constance Guice-Mills, a member of the church. “But his focus on personal salvation, on the individual, was diametrically opposed to the tradition of Riverside. Here, we believe you achieve salvation by doing social justice. Out in the world. And we have people from all backgrounds. Buddhists.”

According to supporters like Ms. Schmidt, the council chairwoman, Dr. Braxton’s theological views were consistent with the Riverside culture. But he also recognized the great challenge facing liberal Protestants — the extraordinary growth of evangelical churches for 30 years.

The African American tradition out of which Braxton comes is one which apparently never forgot the importance of personal salvation. This is, in fact, the very tradition which birthed the civil rights movement. Liberal Protestantism, immersed in the tradition of the progressive "Social Gospel," embraced the cause of civil rights but never understood or appreciated the true inspiration behind the movement. For the African American church, a commitment to "social justice" was the fruit of salvation; a witness and testimony to the work of Christ and an identification with him in his suffering. For the liberal Protestant church, however, "social justice" was, in and of itself, a means of achieving salvation. It is a contrast drawn very starkly in the telling comment of Riverside's Constance Guice-Mills.

The tragic irony here is inescapable. The prestigious church which was, in its heyday, at the very center of the struggle for the rights of African Americans has turned away from its pulpit an African American preacher whose message of salvation through Jesus Christ alone proved intolerable to their sensitive, liberal ears.