AFTER a long time away, the Rev. Robert Castle visited his old church last year ”” St. John’s Episcopal, the hilltop Gothic with a panoramic view out over the world he did his best to change in the 1960s ”” and the state of its decline left him thinking of another sublime fortress once also thought to be impregnable.
“It was like the Titanic going down, and it was sad to see,” said Father Castle, who was rector at St. John’s from 1960 to 1968. “It’s been almost 40 years, and my heart still aches over that church.”
Other hearts have also been aching over St. John’s, a grand but moldering granite church in the Bergen Hill neighborhood that is at the center of perhaps the only ecclesiastical preservation battle that features cameo appearances by the Black Panthers and a Hollywood filmmaker.
New Jersey’s cities are filled with abandoned monuments to God, the churches and synagogues whose congregations have long since departed for more modern buildings girdled by parking lots in the suburbs. Some of the vacant shells left behind have been reincarnated with new denominations; some have been converted to housing or offices; some have been demolished. And some, like St. John’s, sit empty and await their fate, as each blast of winter, each soaking rain, brings them ever nearer to the afterlife.
“It’s like a fire hose when the rain comes, just a deluge,” said Dennis Doran, a neighbor and a former senior warden of the church, pointing up toward a drainpipe that was once attached to copper gutters that were long ago stolen and sold for scrap. The roof beneath it, over the front section of the south nave, collapsed last winter.
Not one mention in the article of the reason for the demise of this church and many others in the diocese of Newark…John Spong. What a sad, ignoble legacy.
Bp. Spong proudly regards himself as prophet and herald of a new post-Christianity. This view is largely self-deception, as Spong’s theology consists of warmed-over detritus from theologically liberal seminaries of the 1960s.
But in the wreckage he made of the Diocese of Newark, Spong has left us a pointed reminder of where ECUSA’s reigning ideologies will lead. You shall know them by their fruit.
Although the non-gospel of the last 30 or 40 years bears much of the responsibility for the demise of this congregation and the decay of its building, it a difficult thing to support such an edifice with the huge demographic changes in the area. If the Gospel had been preached fully and enthusiastically, there would be a good crowd attending, but they would not be millionaires….
There is a thriving urban congregation in the Diocese of Newark — St. Anthony of Padua — but it is a Forward in Faith congregation, so I suppose the diocese will not try to emulate its ministry anywhere else
Many urban congregations, regardless of the diocesan theological inclination, are suffering. Here in Detroit, there are only 3 or 4 viable parishes in the city limits of 16 parishes. Those viable are endowed, near freeway exits for easy access for suburbanites to come, and have ample parking. The old ‘neighborhood’ churches don’t have those advantages, no longer appeal to the neighbors, and are frequently surrounded by multiple bustling Missionary Baptist and Church of God in Christ storefront churches.
Only one of the parishes that are surviving or growing this theologically traditional – St. John’s (1928 BCP, parish member of the AAC, clergy are members of FIFNA and the Society of the Holy Cross, and quadrupled attendance since 2001). St. John’s has also in that time seen two new sports stadiums open next door, hundreds of new housing units built/renovated, and a general renewal of its neighborhood. Theology is important but in urban areas there are multiple factors intermingled!
St.Johnsrector–Can you be more specific? I have just done a rather extensive websearch for the parish you describe, and cannot find a St. John’s, Episcopal or Anglican, or indeed any FIFNA or AAC parish, in Jersey City. (Though I notice that there is now an REC parish there, and if they are flourishing–well, God be praised!)
In Newark, I think St John’s Rector is talking about Detroit…
Thanks, elves– I was afraid this was some kind of weird hoax, and am so glad to find it’s the true story of another faithful parish!.
http://www.stjohnsdetroit.org