Preaching from the Heights

Some religious leaders are mighty hard acts to follow. What Pope, for example, would seem charismatic after John XXIII? When Harry Emerson Fosdick retired as minister of Manhattan's interdenominational, cathedral-size Riverside Church in 1946, many Christian leaders wondered how its pulpit committee could possibly find the right man to succeed the nation's best-known liberal Protestant preacher. Last week, when Fosdick's successor announced his intention to retire in June because of a heart condition, the same kind of question was asked: Where could the committee find a proper successor to the Rev. Robert James McCracken?

Both Fosdick* and McCracken are Baptists--but there the similarity ends. A fiery orator and prolific writer who thrived on controversy, Fosdick became the focus of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the 1920s by questioning the Virgin Birth and the literal truth of Scripture, later gained a national following as a radio preacher. Theologically more conservative, McCracken, 63, seldom made the headlines despite his pulpit support for such causes as civil rights and peace in Viet Nam, but has a widespread reputation among the clergy as a preacher's preacher. Other ministers consider him a classic orator in the Scottish tradition who blends content and form in his low-keyed sermons, emphasizing Biblical texts rather than rhetorical flourish.

Wealth & Heresy. Even today, some of McCracken's old parishioners still refer to Riverside as "Fosdick's church," and with some reason: it was built for him by John D. Rockefeller Jr. After Fosdick, charged with heresy, had resigned from Manhattan's First Presbyterian Church in 1925, Rockefeller offered him the pulpit of the Park Avenue Baptist Church, of which he was a trustee. When Fosdick hesitated, Rockefeller asked him why. "Because I do not want to be known as the pastor of the richest man in the country," Fosdick said. Answered Rockefeller: "Do you think more people will criticize you on account of my wealth than will criticize me on account of your theology?" Fosdick finally agreed to accept a pulpit call, provided Rockefeller would find him a new and larger church building near Columbia University with a congregation open to all Christians.

At a cost of more than $5,000,000, Rockefeller happily created Riverside Church--a stately imitation of Chartres Cathedral, whose 22-story bell tower dominates Morningside Heights. During Fosdick's pastorate, the church ministered primarily to the intellectual community near Columbia. Under McCracken, Riverside has become involved in trying to solve the problems of a declining neighborhood. Membership--now at an alltime high of 3,500--includes Negro and Puerto Rican poor as well as university professors. The church's seven-man staff of ministers has helped sponsor integrated housing, runs a preschool program and adult-education classes. Its radio station, WRVR, airs some of the city's best jazz programs. Riverside spends 11% of its annual income supporting such projects as an agricultural institute in India, a Y.M.C.A. school in South America.

Trace of a Burr. A sprightly Scot who speaks with a trace of a burr, McCracken estimates that he has delivered more than 5,000 sermons since deciding to become a minister, at the age of 17, upon hearing a lecture by a visiting Congo missionary. McCracken, who held pastorates in Edinburgh and Glasgow and taught at Canada's McMaster University before coming to Riverside, firmly believes that "a theology that isn't preached has something lacking." He argues that the Biblical message has not lost its relevance and provides an antidote to what he calls "the new melancholy"--exemplified by the dropouts from life who seek salvation in LSD. The Christian faith, he says, echoing G. K. Chesterton, "has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."

*Now 88, he lives in Bronxville, N.Y.

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