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Liberal Protestants and Urban Renewal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Mark Wild
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Abstract

This article examines the liberal Protestant encounter with the urban renewal programs that remade U.S. cities after World War II. Suburbanization had punishing consequences for cities and threatened the already tenuous presence of liberal Protestants there. The concept of renewal—in both its religious and secular dimensions—promised a solution to these problems. Many renewalists, those clergy and laypeople who viewed deteriorating urban neighborhoods as an opportunity to restore Church unity, initially embraced urban renewal as a secular corollary to their work. But the interaction among ecclesial organizations, government, and inner city parishioners over its implementation exacerbated tensions within liberal Protestantism. Many who initially supported urban renewal came to conclude that its results did not match their own objectives. By supporting challenges to redevelopment from African Americans, Latinos, and other urban residents, renewalists criticized the Church for what they believed to be complicity in the degradation of Christian culture and the urban environment.

This history demonstrates the mutual influence of culture and organizational structure within liberal Protestantism and the impact of those changes on secular society. Renewalists grappling with urban renewal programs interpreted both theological and secular concepts through their own experiences with city populations, Church bodies, government, and redevelopment agencies. Their subsequent actions prompted mainline denominational leaders to support, for a time, at least, ministries geared more towards to indigenous community development. Such ministries reflected a more pluralist conception of society and the Church's role in it. Eventually, renewalists' opponents turned this pluralist conception on its head, decentralizing the church bureaucracies that had funded their ministries. An analogous process took place in the urban renewal programs themselves, underscoring the ways in which religious and urban histories intersect.

Keywords

Liberal ProtestantismRenewalEcumenismUrban Renewal (and/or Redevelopment)Urban CrisisChurch and Social Problems
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Winter 2015 , pp. 110 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2015

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References

Notes

1. I will be using the admittedly problematic adjective “liberal” to describe my subjects rather than others—mainline, modernist, ecumenical, progressive, etc.—often deployed by scholars. In the context of the broad renewal movement centered in postwar American cities, each of these terms captures a key feature of the movement's theology without encapsulating the whole. I settled on liberal for its familiarity and breadth, following Dorrien, Gary, The Making of American Liberal The ology, 3 vols. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, 2003, 2006).Google Scholar

2. Demerath, N. J., “Snatching Defeat from Victory in the Decline of Liberal Protestantism: Culture vs. Structure in Institutional Analysis,” in Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations, ed. Demerath, N. J., Hall, Peter Dobkin, Schmidt, Terry, and Williams, Rhys H. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 154–71;Google Scholar Demerath, N. J., “Cultural Victory and Organizational Defeat in the Paradoxical Decline of Liberal Protestantism,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34 (March 1995): 458–69.Google Scholar

3. The term “the Church” refers to the imagined collective institutions of liberal Protestantism and follows the meaning of the term for liberal Protestants, particularly those involved in the renewal movement of the time.

4. See, for instance, Coffman, Elisha, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Findlay, James F., Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950–1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997);Google Scholar Gill, Jill K., Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hollinger, David, “After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Ecumenical Protestantism and the Modern American Encounter with Diversity,” Journal of American History 98 (June 2011): 21–48;Google Scholar Hudnut-Beumler, James, Looking for God in the Suburbs: The Religion of theAmericanDreamand ItsCritics, 1945–1965 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994);Google Scholar Rossinow, Doug, The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998);Google Scholar Schmidt, Leigh E. and Promey, Sally M., eds. American Religious Liberalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012);Google Scholar and Schuessler, Jennifer, “Religious Legacy, with Its Leftward Tilt, Is Reconsidered,” New York Times Google Scholar, July 24, 2013, C1.

5. On the relationship between self-criticism, repentence, and renewal in the liberal Christian tradition, see Kinnamon, Michael, The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and How It Has Been Impoverished by Its Friends (Atlanta: Chalice, 2003), esp. 65–74.Google Scholar

6. During the period under study, the term renewalist generally referred to the most strident critics of the institutional Church. I will employ a more capacious definition that includes those who embraced many of the same ideas even if their reforms were not as far reaching as others. For an example of the use of the term at the time, see Richard E. Moore, “The Missionary Structure of the United Presbyterian Church,” pamphlet reprint from McCormick Quarterly, March 1966, reprint in box 13, folder 9, Reuben Sheares Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana (hereafter referred to as Sheares Papers). On the twentieth-century ecumenical movement and its concept of Church renewal, see, in addition to Kinnamon, Tipton, Steven M., Public Pulpits: Methodists and the Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument for Public Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).Google Scholar Taylor, Charles might explain the renewalists as one iteration of the “nova” effect, where the advent of nonreligious options for belief have prompted new formulations of faith. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007).Google Scholar

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8. Richard White haswritten extensively, albeit on a very different subject than this one, about the ways in which workers’ knowledge about an environment follows from the work they do on it. See The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Macmillan, 1996).

9. The term urban renewal replaced redevelopment to describe this effort in the mid-1950s, supposedly to connote greater sensitivity to community concerns. Some critics termed the distinction more rhetorical than substantive; I use both terms interchangeably here. Klemek, Christopher, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal: Postwar Urbanism from New York to Berlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011);Google Scholar Teaford, Jon, Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940–1985 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Zipp, Samuel, Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010);Google Scholar Hartman, Chester, City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Caro, Robert, The Powerbroker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Vintage, 1975);Google Scholar Schwartz, Joel, The New York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liberals, and the Redevelopment of the Inner City (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1993);Google Scholar Gelfand, Mark I., A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933–1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

10. For some notable contributions to the now extensive literature on postwar urban decline, see Jackson, Kenneth, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987);Google Scholar Sugrue, Thomas, Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996);Google Scholar Parson, Don, Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005);Google Scholar Self, Robert, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005);Google Scholar Gordon, Colin, Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009);Google Scholar Seligman, Amanda, Block by Block: Neighborhoods and Public Policy on Chicago's West Side (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005);Google Scholar and Hirsch, Arnold, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. “Relocation of Churches,” Department of Research and Planning, Detroit Council of Churches, January 23, 1959, box 10, folder 21, Metropolitan Detroit Council of Churches Collection, Walter Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan (hereafter referred to as MDCC). An absence of systematic record keeping and classification across denominational bodies makes it impossible to quantify the number of urban churches that closed or moved during this period, but virtually every metropolitan-based survey from this period collected by the National Council of Churches describes a drop in the number of mainline churches in the study area. For a few other examples that explore these trends in particular depth, see Shippey, Frederick A., “Methodism in Los Angeles and Vicinity: Trends and Characteristics,” 1951, 11, 40,Google Scholar #1108, Harlan Paul Douglass Collection on the Church and Social Problems, microfilm collection (hereafter referred to as HPDC); Meryl Ruoss, Carolyn Odell, and Clara Orr, “Downtown Brooklyn: A Community Study,” June 1955, #2552, HPDC; and Leland Gartrell, “The Protestant Community in Flatbush, Brooklyn,” 1962, #2556, HDPC.

12. Hoge, Dean R., Johnson, Benton, and Luidens, Donald A., Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Baby Boomers (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 193–97;Google Scholar Lyle E. Schaller, “Euclid Avenue: Limiting the Church,” City Church (May–June 1962): 3–7.

13. McGreevy, John T., Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mission Neighborhood Center, “A Self-Report of the Greater Mission District in Southeastern San Francisco,” November 21, 1960, 14, “SF Districts—Mission” File, San Francisco Ephemera Collection, Special Collections, San Francisco Public Library (hereafter referred to as SFPL).

14. “Sees Protestant Flight from the City,” Christian Century, June 3, 1953, 670–71; McGreevy, Parish Boundaries.

15. Board of Directors of New York City Mission Society, “Proposal for a Cooperative Advance Missionary Program,” November 16, 1949, Box 1, Folder 1, and Path finding Service, “Protestant Church Planning in New York City,” December 1947, box 1, folder 1, City Council of Churches of New York: Church Planning and Research Collection, Burke Library, Union The ological Seminary Library (hereafter referred to as CCNY). See, too, O. M. Walton, “Survey Points Up Protestant Slump,” Christian Century, October 20, 1948, 117.

16. Hermann N. Morse, “Evangelizing a Procession,” Christian Century, November 21, 1951, 1337.

17. Carter, Paul Allen, The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel: Social and Political Liberalism in American Protestant Churches, 1920–1940 (Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956).Google Scholar On the influence of the war and European the ology on American laity movements, see Ayres, Francis O., The Ministry of the Laity: A Biblical Exposition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962);Google Scholar and Hollinger, “After Cloven Tongues of Fire,”

18. Cox, Harvey, “The ‘New Breed’ in American Churches: Sources of Social Activism in American Religion,” Daedalus 96 (Winter 1967): 135–50.Google Scholar On America's longer traditions of radical religious protest, see McKanan, Daniel, Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition (Boston: Beacon, 2011).Google Scholar

19. Winter, Gibson, The Suburban Captivity of the Churches: An Analysis of Protestant Responsibility in the Expanding Metropolis (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961);Google Scholar Kloetzli, Walter, The City Church—Death or Renewal: A Study of Eight Urban Lutheran Churches (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961), 1;Google Scholar Meryl Ruoss, “The Church's Viewpoint,” City Church (May–June 1957): 13–15. See, too, Cully, Kendig Brubaker, ed., Will the Church Lose the City? (New York: World Press, 1969).Google Scholar Ruoss was an early observer of the housing project issue, having written a bachelor’s thesis on the subject at Union Seminary. “The Challenge to Protestantism in the Developing Pattern of Large-Scale Housing in New York City” (Bachelor's of Divinity thesis, Union The ological Seminary, 1952).

20. For descriptions of the former, see Kincheloe, Samuel L., “The Behavior Sequence of a Dying Church,” Religious Education 24 (1929): 329–45;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Paul Hunsinger, “A Study of a Church in a Transition Area,” n.d., RG 6, box 46, folder 4, National Council of Churches Records, Presbyterian Archives, Philadelphia, Pa. (hereafter referred to as NCC). For examples of the latter, see G. Merrill Lenox, “Downtown Parish Votes to Stay On,” Christian Century, March 1, 1950, 285; Rice, Robert, “Church,” New Yorker Google Scholar, August 1, 1964, 41–60 and August 8, 1964, 37–73; Kloetzli, The City Church—Death or Renewal, 50–78; Jack, Homer A., “The Emergence of the Interracial Church,” Social Action 13 (January 1947): 31–38.Google Scholar

21. On the East Harlem Protestant Parish, see Alicea, Benjamin, “Christian Urban Colonizers: A History of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, 1948–68” (Ph.D. diss., Union The ological Seminary, 1989).Google Scholar For descriptions of other efforts, see Green, Clifford J., ed., Churches, Cities, and Human Community: Urban Ministry in the United States, 1945–1985 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1996);Google Scholar Younger, George D., From New Creation to Urban Crisis: A History of Action Training Ministries, 1962–1975 (Chicago: Center for Scientific Study of Religion, 1987);Google Scholar and Luecke, Richard, “Protestant Clergy: New Forms of Ministry, New Forms of Training,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 387 (January 1970): 86–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. On Douglass's life and writings, see Hadden, Jeffrey K., “H. Paul Douglass: His Perspective and His Work,” Review of Religious Research 22 (September 1980): 66–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other importantworks on church planning include Sanderson, Ross W., The Strategy of Church Planning (New York: Harper and Bros., 1932);Google Scholar Samuel C. Kincheloe, “Factors to Be Considered in the Founding ofNew Churches in City and Suburban Areas,” City Church 2 (September 1951): 20–22, and 2 (November 1951): 5–7; and Schaller, Lyle E., Planning for Protestantism in Urban America (Nashville: Abingdon, 1965).Google Scholar

23. See Smith, Philip, “Protestant Comity in Metropolitan Pittsburgh,” American Sociological Review 8 (August 1943): 425–32;CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Study Document for the Urban Church Consultation,” Greater Chicago Church Federation, 1960, #1984, HPDC; and “Pathfinding Service for the Churches,” March 10, 1947, box 1, folder 1, CCNY.

24. See, for instance, Kenneth Miller, “Protestant Strategy in New York,” April 27, 1950, p. 4, box 1, folder 2, CCNY; and Barry, David W., “Mortar and Mortals,” City Church 5 (December 1954): 7–9.Google Scholar

25. Shippey, Frederick A., “Methodism in Pittsburgh and Vicinity: Trends and Characteristics, 1900–1949,” Division of Research and Survey, Methodist Church [1951], 80,Google Scholar #1204, HPDC.

26. Douglass built his reputation in Protestant circles during the 1920s and 1930s by working for and directing the Institute on Social and Religious Research, an important organization in the development of certain social science methodologies. See Igo, Sarah, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 30–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Shope, John H., “In the Initial Stages of Housing Developments,” City Church 2 (September 1951): 12, 14;Google Scholar Shope, John H., “A Strategy of Planning,” City Church (September–October 1955): 12.Google Scholar

28. See, for instance, the special issue “New Shape of the Church,” Church in Metropolis (Spring 1966): esp. 4–12; Norton, Perry, ed., “Search: A National Consultation on Personnel Needs in Church Planning and Research,” National Council of Churches, Bureau of Homes Missions, New York, 1960;Google Scholar and Younger, George, The Church and Urban Renewal (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1965),Google Scholar a book adapted from a study commissioned by the United Presbyterian Church.

29. “The Church's Stake in Urban Renewal, a City Church Study Kit,” [c.1957], RG 7, box 17, folder 21, NCC.

30. Perry L. Norton, “Churches and Renewal,” City Church (May–June 1957): 16–17; Joseph W. Baus, “Pittsburgh Planning/Churches Reassess,” Christian Century, June 1, 1960, 674.

31. Hutchinson, William R., The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

32. “Mission Field U.S.A.,” Christian Century, January 4, 1956, 6. Matthew Pehl has argued that race supplanted class as the organizing framework of religious consciousness among the working classes in Detroit during the 1950s. “Power in the Blood: Class, Culture, and Christianity in Industrial Detroit, 1910–1969” (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 2009).

33. Tyson, Ruel, “Urban Renewal in the Holy City,” reprinted in The Secular City Debate, ed. Daniel Callahan (New York: MacMillan, 1966).Google Scholar The Ecumenical Institute was created by the World Council of Churches, once more based on a European model. Stephen C. Rose, “The Ecumenical Institute: Ode to a Dying Church,” Christianity and Crisis, September 11, 1968, 266.

34. Schaller, Lyle E., “Urban Renewal and the Church,” Cleveland Regional Church Planning Office, 1961, 4,Google Scholar #2637, HPDC.

35. See, for instance, “Statement on the Church's Concern for Housing,” Department of Social Welfare, National Council of Churches, New York, 1953, RG 6, box 38, folder 15, NCC.

36. Quoted in Howell S. Foste, “Pittsburgh Lutheran Planning Study,” Office of Urban Church Planning, National Lutheran Council, January 1964, sect. IX, 22, #2803, HPDC. For other incidents of outsiders soliciting Church participation, see David Barry, “Report of the Pathfinding Service for the Churches to the Board of Directors of the New York City Mission Society,” March 16, 1948, box 1, folder 1, CCNY; “Planning for City Churches,” City Church (March–April 1955): 17–18; Wagner, John, “The Los Angeles Region Goals Project Interreligious Committee,” Church in Metropolis (Spring 1967): 25;Google Scholar and “Housing and Urban Renewal Plans of Council Near Full Operation,” Protestant Church Life 41 (August 17, 1968): 1.

37. Pratt, William David, “The Church in City Planning,” City Church (March–April): 1959, 5.Google Scholar See, too, Alfred B. Starratt, “The City of God in the City of Man,” City Church (September–October 1960): 14–16.

38. National Council of Churches, “Background Statement on Proposed Department of Urban Affairs,” July 1961, RG 7, box 17, folder 8, NCC. See as well John H. Shope, “Survey Report on Chicago Housing Authority Projects Currently Being Planned with Special Attention to Needed Church Facilities for The se Communities,” June 6, 1951, #1992, HPDC; Lyle E. Schaller, “The Challenge of Urban Renewal, to the Churches of America,” 1961, #1206, HPDC; “Denominational Executives Conference,” Church Federation of Greater Chicago, 1950, #1969, HPDC; and William J. Villaume, “The Church and the City Planners,” June 10, 1954, RG 7, Box 16, folder 13, NCC.

39. “Proposal for a Cooperative Advance Missionary Program,” 4.

40. Kenneth D. Miller, “The Status of Public and Private Large- Scale Housing in NewYork City as It Relates to the Churches,” Pathfinding Service, Protestant Council of the City of New York, October 1, 1947, #2499, HPDC, 1. Lewis Mumford citation from “Mass Production and the Modern House, Part II,” Architectural Record, February 1930, http://archrecord.construction.com/inthecause/onTheState/0312mumford.asp (accessed August 10, 2012). See, too, Miller, “Protestant Church Strategy in New York,” 6–7; Pathfinding Service, “Proposal for Survey and Evangelization of Housing Projects,” April 23, 1952, box 1, folder 3, CCNY; and Meryl Ruoss, “Skyscraper Parishes,” City Church (January–February 1953): 10–12.

41. Robert Lee, “Cities and Councils of Churches,” City Church (March–April 1959): 6; David W. Barry and Everett L. Perry, “Presbyterian Church Extension in Greater Chicago,” Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of the USA, July 1947, esp. 2425, #1967, HPDC.

42. C. P. Rasmussen, “The Lutheran Church in the City: A Study of Logan Square and Humboldt Park Areas,” National Lutheran Council, November 1951, #1987, HPDC.

43. “Opportunity Negro,” Church Federation of Greater Chicago, October 17, 1950, in “Chicago Area Studies,” #1980, HPDC.

44. William C. Robinson, “Third Annual Report of the United Church of Altgeld Gardens,” March 3, 1948, addendum to Everette Walker, “Summary of Altgeld Gardens Religious Survey,” 1944–45, Church Federation of Greater Chicago, #1955, HPDC. See, as well, Schaller, , “Urban Renewal and the Church,” 65.Google Scholar

45. “Housing Projects and Protestant Churches,” Department of Church Planning and Research, Protestant Council of the City of New York, 1955, box 56, folder 6, CCNY; Pathfinding Service, “Proposal for Survey and Evangelization,” 2; “Reconnaissance Study of Dorchester Park Apartments,” April 18, 1951, #1988, HPDC; Val Clear, “Study of Frances Cabrini Homes,” Church Federation of Greater Chicago, January 30, 1946, #1970, HPDC; Anne V. Larson, “A Look at Two Public Housing Projects in the Central Area,” report 8, in Walter Kloetzli, “Lutheran Central Area Study of Chicago,” August 1960, #1973, HPDC. See, too, Ruoss, “The Challenge to Protestantism,” 29–30.

46. H. Richard Siciliano, “The Church of the Open Door” (Master's thesis, New School for Social Research, 1953); “Build Church of the Open Door,” Christian Century, July 1, 1953, 778; “Church Will Rise in Housing Project,” New York Times, January 8, 1953, 29; “Church of 5 Faiths Started in Brooklyn,” New York Times, April 27, 1953, 20; Ernest May, “Parable in the Methodist Church: Bethany House, Pittsburgh,” City Church (November–December 1964) 20–21.

47. Grace Ann Goodman, “The Church and the Apartment House: Preliminary Findings,” United Presbyterian Central Service, 1965, box 57, folder 3, CCNY. The document includes information on Church ministries to private housing developments as well.

48. “Working Papers for Conference on Protestant Strategy in New York City,” part 6, 2, box 1, folder 2, CCNY.

49. Klemek, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal, 133–42. For an example of a middle-class church disrupted by freeway construction, see Douglas W. Johnson, “The Mayfair Methodist Church,” Chicago Home Missionary and Church Extension Society, June 1966, #1053, HPDC.

50. Ravitz, Mel Jerome, “Re-Evaluating Urban Renewal,” City Church (May–June 1959): 12;Google Scholar Pratt, Henry, “The Churches and Renewal in New York City,” City Church (November–December 1959): 10, 11.Google Scholar See, too, David W. Barry to P. K. Shelton, September 13, 1950, box 55, folder 13, CCNY.

51. “Church Mobility Asked,” NewYork Times, January 30, 1956, 30.

52. Kenneth Miller, “New York's Displaced—and Replaced—Churches,” n.d., box 55, folder 13, CCNY.

53. “Glimpse of a Wider City Parish,” n.d., “Wider City Parish” folder, box 12; Inner City Protestant Parish, “Minutes of Board of Trustees,” September 16, 1957, box 12, “Inner City Protestant Parish” folder, East Harlem Protestant Parish Records, Burke Library, Union The ological Seminary, New York City (hereafter referred to as EHPP); “WCSP Newsletter,” December 1960, box 14, folder 238; West Side Christian Parish, “Twenty Years of Creative Service,” [1972], box 14, folder 245; “Inner City Protestant Parish Newsletter,” October 1959, box 15, folder 259, Institute on the Church and Industrial Society Records, Special Collection, University of Illinois-Chicago Library, Chicago (hereafter referred to as ICUIS).

54. Robinson, “Third Annual Report of the United Church of Altgeld Gardens.”

55. Ransom Hammond, “Ways in Which the East Harlem Protestant Parish Serves and Fails to Serve the Local Community,” March 21, 1951, box 26, no folder, EHPP; Norman Eddy, “The Plan for the 100th Street Church,” March 15, 1953, box 5, “100th Street Church” folder, EHPP; “Survey and Recommendations to the 1953 Conference of the Three Parishes,” August 31–September 3, 12, box 13, folder “Inner City Parish Conference 1952, 1953, 1954,” EHPP.

56. On civil rights and black power outside the South, see Theoharis, Jeanne F. and Woodard, Komozi, eds., Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles outside the South, 1940–80 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sugrue, Thomas J., Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2009).Google Scholar On Saul Alinsky and Industrial Area Foundation organizations, see Horwitt, Sanford D., Let The m Call MeRebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy (NewYork: Vintage, 1992);Google Scholar and Fish, John Hall, Black Power/White Control: The Struggle for the Woodlawn Organization in Chicago (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

57. For analyses of the racist slant of many redevelopment projects, see especially Hirsch, Arnold R., Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bauman, John, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920–1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

58. J. ArchieHargraves, “Stop Pussyfooting through a Revolution: Some Churches That Did,” Stewardship Council of United Church of Christ, 1966, 19–22; Angela Denise Dillard, Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 202–3; Pehl, “Power in the Blood,” 451–52.

59. Porter, Arlie, “The Church and Housing Needs in Detroit,” Social Action 34 (October 1967): 36–41;Google Scholar “Policy Statement Regarding Church and Urban Renewal,” n.d., Department of Church Renewal, Metropolitan Detroit Council of Churches, box 10, folder 21, MDCC.

60. Everett C. Parker, “How Chelsea Was Torn Apart,” Christian Century, February 3, 1960, 130–33; “Chelsea Council Dissolves Itself,” New York Times, February 18, 1960, 25; “Open or Closed Cities?” Christian Century, May 10, 1961, 579–80; “Woodlawn—Open or Closed?” Christian Century, May 31, 1961, 685–88; Harold Fey, “Open or Closed Cities—A Reply to Replies,” Christian Century, June 7, 1961, 711.

61. Lyle E. Schaller, “Urban Renewal: A Moral Challenge,” Christian Century, June 27, 1961, 805–7.

62. “Committee Relevancy for 1963–1964,” Manhattan Church Planning Committee, September 16, 1963, box 12, folder 10, CCNY.

63. Donald L. Benedict, “Elements of an Urban Strategy,” Christian Century, August 15, 1962, 989. Schaller developed a broader analysis of urban renewal and its relationship to church planning in Planning for Protestantism in Urban America.

64. Rawlings, Charles W., “A Changing Church Voice in Urban Renewal,” City Church (May–June 1962): 7.Google Scholar

65. Mel Jerome Ravitz, “The Church's Stake in Conserving Communities,” City Church (May–June 1961): 10–12; Norton, “Churches and Renewal.”

66. Tillich, Paul, The Protestant Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948);Google Scholar Kinnamon, The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement, esp. 65–68.

67. Robert H. Bonthius, “Pastoral Care for Structures—As Well as Persons,” Pastoral Psychology 18 (May 1967): 10–19; Minutes, Urban Training Center Planning Committee, June 25, 1963, box 43A, folder 678, ICUIS; Minutes, Urban Training Center Board of Directors, April 30, 1964, box 43A, folder 679, ICUIS; J. Archie Hargraves to Urban Training Center, April 5, 1965, box 43A, folder 679, ICUIS; Karl H. Hertz, Politics Is a Way of Helping People: A Christian Perspective for Times of Crisis (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974), 37–66.

68. This language is taken from Steven Tipton's analysis of the same problem in a contemporary national and international context. See Public Pulpits, esp. 405–12.

69. Benedict, , “Elements of an Urban Stategy,” 983.Google Scholar

70. Hallett, Stanley, “Urbanism Revisited,” Social Action 30 (February 1964): 11.Google Scholar

71. Norton, Perry L., Church and Metropolis: A City Planner’s Viewpoint of the Slow-Changing Church in the Fast-Changing Metropolis (New York: Seabury, 1964), 89–90.Google Scholar See, as well, Leland E. Gartrell, “Church Planning in Council of Churches,” August 15, 1964, RG 7, box 16, folder 10, NCC.

72. Donald L. Benedict, “The Role of the Church in Urban Renewal,” City Church (January–February 1962): 2–4.

73. Douglas W. Johnson, “South Deering Methodist Church,” Chicago Home Missionary and Church Extension Society, #1054, HPDC; Siciliano, “The Church of the Open Door,” 8–10.

74. On the influence of the Christian press during this period, see Hedstrom, Matthew, The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75. Winter, Gibson, New Creation as Metropolis (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 6;Google Scholar Cox, Harvey G., The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in The ological Perspective (New York: Macmillan, 1965).Google Scholar For a broader discussion of Cox and his contemporaries, see McCarraher, Eugene, Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern American Social Thought (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 153–81.Google Scholar

76. “A Capsule History of the Joint Urban Program,” Church in Metropolis (Fall 1967): 5; Younger, From New Creation to Urban Crisis, 182–83; Cadigan, George L., “Revolution, Reform, Renewal,” Church in Metropolis (Summer 1965): 17, 34;Google Scholar Rose, Stephen C., The Grass Roots Church: A Manifesto for Protestant Renewal (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).Google Scholar The re were different variations of this argument, which I explore more fully in my manuscript in progress, “Renewal: Liberal Protestants and the American City after World War II.”

77. Stringfellow, William, Mine People Is the Enemy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 89.Google Scholar Stringfellow's objection to this argument constituted one of the more formidable internal criticisms of the urban missionary church, discussed below. For an elaboration of the urban environment as the crucible of new church forms, see Morton, James P., “The Church of the Future,” Church in Metropolis (Winter 1966): 8.Google Scholar

78. Hargraves, “Stop Pussyfooting.”

79. Address reprinted in Renewal, June 1969, 7–8. For the purposes of space, I am telescoping what was a more contested and uneven evolution. For an example of the debate as it occurred among the subjects of this paper, see Urban Training Center, “Curriculum Committee Meeting,” April 23–24, 1965, box 43, folder 680, ICUIS.

80. Nathan Wright, Jr., “The Colonial Mind and the Urban Condition,” Church in Metropolis (Spring 1967): 19–23.

81. Robert Nichol, “A Farewell Sermon,” 1967, clipping in box 5, “GM Personnel” folder, EHPP.

82. Stephen C. Rose, “Reparation Now!” Renewal, June 1969, 14–15. For another critique of urban missionary work from Protestant participants, see Lecky, Robert S. and Wright, Elliott, Can The se Bones Live? The Failure of Church Renewal (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969).Google Scholar

83. Norman Eddy, “Metro North: Demonstration Neighborhood,” August 1966, 1, box 12, folder 16, CCNY; Norman Eddy, “The Unfolding Drama of Metro North,” Renewal, January 1967, 6–11; Steven Roberts, “The ‘Worst Block’ Is No Longer That,” New York Times, May 10, 1967, 31; Norman Eddy, “A Movement of the Holy Spirit—Pentecostalism in Chile,” November 1963, box 2, folder 3, EHPP.

84. Hood, Nicholas, “The Sponsor and Its Goals,” Social Action 33 (December 1966): 8–13.Google Scholar See, for instance, the articles in the November 1972 issue of Social Action; Burt, Guy L., “When Churches Act on Housing,” Engage/Social Action 2 (April 1974): 49–53;Google Scholar “Housing Miracles,” JSAC Grapevine 10 (August 1978): n.p.; “Churches against Poverty,” New York Times, July 10, 1966, 150.

85. Denson, John Lane, “Incarnation: Key to Metropolis,” Church in Metropolis (Fall 1965): 5;Google Scholar Ranck, Lee, “We Too Are Somebody!” Engage 2 (May 1, 1970): 4–16;Google Scholar Brockway, Allan R., “Reconciliation for Freedom,” Engage 3 (August 1, 1971): 4–14;Google Scholar “What in the World … JSAC?” JSAC Grapevine 2 (July 1970): n.p.; Walker, Lucius, “Mass-Based Organization: A Style for Christian Mission,” Church in Metropolis (Summer 1968): 21;Google Scholar “The Church and Social Change,” Church in Metropolis (Fall 1965): 19–23; Simpkins, Julian A., Jr., “Can Community Organization Really Effect Change?” Church in Metropolis (Winter 1967): esp. 20;Google Scholar Rose, Stephen C., “Saul Alinsky and His Critics,” Christianity and Crisis 24 (July 20, 1964): 143–51;Google Scholar Ruoss, Meryl, Citizen Power and Social Change: The Challenge to Churches (New York: Seabury Press, 1968).Google Scholar

86. “Western Addition Community Organization,” n.d., “Western Addition Community Organization” file, SFPL. WACO eventually “secured” an agreement that 10 percent of the units would be set aside for low-income tenants. Robert Chesnut, “San Francisco Bay Area Profile,” December 1969, 3, box 13, folder 53, Office of Strategic Services Records, RG 301.2, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the broader history of this redevelopment project, see Hartman, Chester, City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

87. See Klemek, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Rnewal, esp.143–74; Teaford, Rough Road to Renaissance, esp. 169–82; Hartmann, City for Sale.

88. Standard studies of urban renewal or community development during this period often overlook the role of renewalists because their work was channeled through nonchurch organizations. For examples of accounts that more fully chronicle their influence, see Ellis, William W., White Ethics and Black Power: The Emergence of the West Side Organization (Chicago: Aldine, 1969);Google Scholar “Toward Responsible Freedom: A People's Process for Community Development in Kenwood- Oakland, Chicago,” May 9, 1975, box 2, folder 3, Papers, Sheares; Don Benedict, Born Again Radical (New York: Pilgrim, 1982);Google Scholar Kay Longcope, “Hope in Houston,” Episcopalian, February 1969, 27–30; and “What in the World … JSAC?” n.p.

89. Hadden, Jeffrey, The Gathering Storm in the Churches (New York: Doubleday, 1969);Google Scholar Quinley, Harold E., The Prophetic Clergy: Social Activism among Protestant Ministers (New York: Wiley, 1974);Google Scholar Lee, Robert and Galloway, Russell, The Schizophrenic Church: Conflict over Community Organization (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969);Google Scholar “We Are Here to Stay,” Houston Post, October 10, 1970, clipping in box 22, folder “Urban Mission Planning Committee,” EDM Records; Tipton, Public Pulpits, 104–45.

90. For a general analysis of the economic trauma of the late 1960s and 1970s, see Matusow, Allen J., The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (1984; repr., Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009);Google Scholar and Schulman, Bruce, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (New York: Free Press, 2001).Google Scholar On the fiscal problems of Church housing developments, see [Reuben Sheares] “Community Renewal Foundation: A History in Review,” November 1972, box 1, folder 24, Sheares Papers; and Smith, David Lee, Community Renewal Society, 1882–1982: 100 Years of Service (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1982).Google Scholar

91. Norman Dewire, telephone interview with author, February 23, 2012. A full analysis of this process lies beyond the scope of this article, but, for a summary of that process and its consequences, see “Whither the Ecumenical Movement? An Interview with Norman Dewire,” JSAC Grapevine 7 (June 1975): n.p.; “Urban Mission: Entering a New Phase,” JSAC Grapevine 11 (October 1979): n.p.; and National Council of Churches/Joint Strategy and Action Committee, “Joint Analysis of Denominational Restructure,” box 37, folder 581, ICUIS.

92. See Landauer Associates, “Socio-Economic Analysis of Brownsville and New York for East Brooklyn Churches,” November 1982, box 23, folder 5, CCNY; and Norman Eddy, “Draft of an Interfaith Plan for Community Renewal in Metropolitan New York,” June 15, 1970, box 56, folder 11, CCNY. On Johnny Ray Youngblood, the pastor who spearheaded the Nehemiah Project, see Freedman, Samuel G., Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994).Google Scholar

93. D. Scott Cormode, “Does Institutional Isomorphism Imply Secularization?” in Demerath et al., Sacred Companies, 116–31.

94. Gartrell, Leland and Herman, Nick, “Participation of Religious Institutions in Non-Profit Housing Corporations,” Department of Church Planning and Research, Council of Churches of the City of New York, 1971,Google Scholar box 56, folder 13, CCNY.

95. See Kinnamon, The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement, esp. 23–36.

96. See Conzen's, Kathleen contribution to “Forum: The Place of Religion in Urban and Community Studies,” Religion and American Culture 6 (Summer 1996): 108–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For another, less urban-centric analysis of the gap between religious history and other kinds of histories, see Butler, Jon, “Jack-in-the-Box Faith: The Religion Problem in Modern American History,” Journal of American History 90 (2004): 1357–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar