The Deaths of a Church

For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

--II Corinthians 3:6

The hamlet of Marble, high up on the Crystal River in the mountains of central Colorado, has a population of eight that is swelled by summer residents to 58, plus tourists. To the summer citizens, their tiny, white-frame church seemed last week to be a set-piece proof of Paul's point about the letter and the spirit.

St. Paul's Church was built in Aspen, 60 miles across the mountains, when Aspen was a booming mine town instead of the ski-and-culture resort it is today. In 1908, after the boom's collapse had emptied it, the church was moved to Marble, which was having a boom of its own. St. Paul's belonged to the Episcopalians, but after Marble's once famous quarries*closed down, in 1941, the Episcopal Church stopped using it, and other denominations -- Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, United Brethren, Dutch Reformed, Mor mons -- worshiped there from time to time because it was the only church in town. But no group was maintaining it, and St. Paul's was falling apart.

Humming Along. Nine years ago, two teen-age girls -- Kareen and Raquel Lou-dermilk -- began to hold nondenominational prayer meetings in the church, and things looked up again for St. Paul's. The summer people turned to and put it in shape: a Denver store owner contributed paint and paid for painting, a doctor spent his vacation repairing the steps, a man from Columbus put in two weeks repairing the organ. Bats and rats were ousted; a new roof was put on; broken windows were replaced; the interior was replastered; and more than 50 people began showing up for Sunday services.

In 1960, the congregation appealed to the Colorado Congregational Conference for a minister. To Marble came former Rhodes Scholar George Drake, 27, a divinity student at Chicago Theological Seminary; he held services at 10 a.m. each Sunday, and Wednesday-evening songs and games for teenagers. A sign in the ground outside the building identified it as Marble Community Church, and this summer Pastor Drake and his congregation had things humming along so smartly that a reporter wrote a feature story about it in the weekly Sage of Glenwood Springs, Colo., 40 miles away.

Coming to a Halt. One interested reader was the Rev. William O. Richards, rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church of Glenwood Springs. Reproachfully, he wrote Drake: Why had his permission not been asked to use St. Paul's? Drake replied that he thought it had. Up turned Rector Richards with a letter from the Bishop of Colorado, the Rt. Rev. Joseph S. Minnis: the Episcopalians were taking over again. "I was advised that nondenominational services were being held in the church, and that it was being referred to as a community church," said the bishop. "This I could not allow according to canon law."

Drake moved his services to the high school, said there were "no hard feelings." But Marble was mad. At the first Sunday's Episcopal services, only two people turned up besides the brothers who serve as sextons. Next week there were only the sextons. Next week there was no service at all. For the third time in its history, St. Paul's seemed to have died.

But not the Marble Community Church. Said George Drake last week: "I am writing Bishop Minnis a letter asking if the diocese will sell St. Paul's to us, and if so, for what price. If we cannot buy it, then we will proceed to build. We already have offers from people who will donate the land and labor for building."

* Which produced the largest piece of marble ever cut by man--a zoo-ton hunk that was trimmed to make the 56-ton topping of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va. Other structures made of Marble marble: the Lincoln Memorial, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the San Francisco, Cleveland and Denver city halls, Manhattan's Municipal Building, and Chicago's telephone building.

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