Pastor of Riverside church leaves

By Chris Herlinger, Religion News Service
NEW YORK — Make no mistake: Take the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. away from a pulpit and he is not himself.
Forbes's old friend, the late, eminent African-American church historian James Melvin Washington, used to kid the senior minister of Manhattan's Riverside Church by saying Forbes "would preach to clear his sinuses."

"He was right: If I don't preach, I won't be well," Forbes mused one morning recently in an office overlooking the church where he has presided, implored and, yes, preached for the better part of two decades.

But as Forbes reflected on his 18 years in one the country's most prestigious and visible pulpits, he hardly sounded wistful. In fact, Forbes, 71, who will officially retire in June, seems fully ready for what he calls a next great chapter — setting his sights on nothing less than the spiritual renewal of the nation.

"I'd like to contribute to another 'Great Awakening,' " Forbes said, recalling the cycles of religious and spiritual renewal in the United States.

"I want to use my energy, my voice, for spiritual revitalization.

Whatever I do next is designed to call the nation to moral sensitivity; to challenge the nation to address the gap between the haves and the have-nots."

If that sounds ambitious — even a little audacious — it won't surprise those who have observed Forbes at Riverside, a 2,500-member church with ties to the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Churches USA.

Forbes has been, by turns, viewed as a trailblazer (he is Riverside's first black senior minister), a figure of controversy (he freely admits his leadership has not always endeared to him to some in the congregation) and an angry prophet (he says the United States is in danger of being in thrall to the market and to "arrogant pride").

Forbes describes himself as a theological radical and political progressive, who, with his black Pentecostal roots, feels he can challenge theological conservatives and liberals alike and find ways to bring them together. He hopes to do that through an organization he recently formed, the Healing of the Nations Foundation, dedicated to the spiritual revitalization he believes is essential to a nation experiencing a pronounced "God gap."

Such a gap, he says, exists not so much between Democrats and Republicans as between the experiencing of God, or the sacred, and the living of everyday life.

"All of us in this culture have trouble sensing that which is sacred, which is fundamentally sacred," Forbes said. "We invest in a lot of nationalism, so the nation becomes a surrogate God."

On this, Forbes sounds like the political progressive he is — the man who has appeared regularly on liberal radio station Air America and supports gay marriage, a position that puts him at odds with many other black clergy.

Several times he says that "it's altar-call time" for the United States and that the country faces a crossroads: Venture further down a path laden with "greed, pride, imperialistic domination" or embrace "a sense of truth, of sacrifice, the ideas of justice, equality and environmental responsibility."

While many in the interracial, interdenominational Riverside Church applauded him for such views, others did not warm to Forbes' politics or his intense style of preaching, despite the church's well-earned reputation for political liberalism and racial comity. (Forbes' predecessors included such liberal stalwarts as Harry Emerson Fosdick and William Sloane Coffin.)

When Forbes announced his plans last September to leave Riverside, George Bynoe, a prominent Forbes critic within the congregation, said publicly he wished Forbes well but felt Forbes had little to show for his 18 years at Riverside. Bynoe also said that Forbes was too closely associated with members of the Democratic Party.

Bynoe was also among a faction that criticized Forbes' management and filed a lawsuit, which a New York State Supreme Court judge later dismissed, alleging financial mismanagement of Riverside's finances.

Geoffrey Martin, a member of the senior minister's committee, a church advisory group, and the search committee for Forbes' successor, said Forbes performed as well as any senior minister could within a complicated administrative structure and in a church that has a tradition of outspoken lay dissent.

"He's not perfect and nobody should be expected to be," Martin said.

He called Forbes an "extraordinarily conscientious" senior minister who not only displayed impressive oratorical gifts but also remained deeply committed to his pastoral duties. He also believes Forbes "was amazing in his ability to rise above" criticism leveled at him from the congregation.

Forbes said he is proud of his time at Riverside, saying membership increased and the church became a more energized "go-to venue." He is also philosophical about fractures and divisions within the congregation. They are part of a Riverside tradition: Fosdick and church benefactor John D. Rockefeller Jr. were often at odds, he notes.

He makes clear, however, that he did not always enjoy the vehement criticism, some of which he suggests was unfair. "There are mean people in all institutions," he said. The senior minister's position, he believes, "grants you a bully pulpit, but it doesn't protect you against dissent."

His advice for his successor?

"Don't accept the job," he said, "unless you have a deep sense of divine appointment to it."