The
Corner Where You Are:
A
Sesquicentennial History of
Sixth Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh.
by David W. Miller
with research assistance from
Barbara Koedel and Craig Koedel
Understanding Ourselves in Space
From its
very beginnings Sixth Presbyterian has been an urban church. To understand how
it has developed over time we need to imagine how its members conducted their
lives in space -- urban space. When Sixth was founded in 1850 most
Pittsburghers got around by walking; between 1860 and 1900 a system of
horsedrawn and then electrified streetcars was developed; by 1934 approximately
half of the families in Allegheny County owned automobiles.[1]
Much of the story of Sixth Church has to do with its successes and failures in
ministering to a city divided by ethnicity and social class through the
transitions from the walking city to the streetcar city and then to the
automobile city.
Beginnings
In 1835
Pittsburgh was undergoing one of those waves of revivalism which had become
common in American Protestantism over the previous several decades. While few
Protestant clergy opposed this ÒSecond Great Awakening,Ó many Presbyterians
preferred their revivals to be carried out decently and in order. The epicenter
of the Pittsburgh revival was the newly established Third Presbyterian Church,
where a Rev. James Gallaher from Cincinnati Òpreached enough of truthÓ
according to a subsequent First Church minister, Òto produce real genuine
conversion, and enough of error to awaken enthusiastic extravagancies.Ó[2]
One of the converts, Robert Curling, seems to have been in the former category.
Curling, who had emigrated from England in 1806, had become a very successful
glass manufacturer. Early in life he had been influenced by Rowland Hill, a
celebrated London evangelical preacher, and in Pittsburgh he attended the
Episcopal church until the marriage of one of his daughters to George Albree,
an active participant in First Presbyterian ChurchÕs program of providing
Sunday schools for poor children.[3]
Curling began attending First Church and then, after its foundation in 1833,
Third Church. During the revival Òhe made a public profession of religion and
took upon him covenant vowsÓ.[4] This would have been no casual
undertaking, for the Third Church Session required new members to assent to a
unusually verbose covenant which stressed evangelical doctrines and avoidance
of Òconformity with the world and fashionable amusementsÓ.[5]
Apparently in response to his conversion experience, Curling designated part of
a warehouse on the grounds of his glass factory Òfor the purposes of a Prayer‑meeting and a Sunday School,Ó of
which his son‑in‑law becamethe first superintendent.[6]
This ÒFort Pitt Sunday SchoolÓ which was organized in 1836 was to evolve into
Sixth Presbyterian Church over the next fourteen years.
Curling's glass factory
The
association of the foundation of a Sunday School with a revival is very much in
keeping with broader trends in American Protestantism.[7]
Sunday Schools had originated in England late in the previous century as a
means for providing basic literacy to children who worked in factories and
could only attend school on Sunday. In America from the 1820s, however,
leadership of the Sunday School movement was increasingly committed to the
Òvital religionÓ of the revivals. These individuals tended to see literacy as
primarily a means for salvation of the unchurched, but the target audience was
still poor children, not church membersÕ own children. CurlingÕs glass factory,
located just east of where Chatham Center now stands, was a propitious site for
such an enterprise. In Pittsburgh, the walking city, social classes were
distributed very differently from today. The wealthy tended to live at the
center of town ‑ Penn Avenue was lined with the
homes of PittsburghÕs established families ‑ and the newest arrivals had to find housing on the outskirts of town,
which is exactly where CurlingÕs factory was.
In truth,
however, the Sunday school as the primary agency for imparting literacy was
becoming an anachronism. First PresbyterianÕs network of Sunday schools began
to decline about the same time that the Fort Pitt Sunday School was founded. [8]
Throughout the northern states free weekday public schools were coming into
existence in the 1830s and 1840s. The Fort Pitt school had the advantage that
one superintendent who served all but four of the years from 1838 to 1853,
Laureston R. Livingston, was also deeply engaged in the formation of the Sixth
Ward public school. In 1847, Presbytery appointed a committee to oversee such
institutions as the Fort Pitt school, and that committee reorganized the
school, under LivingstonÕs superintendency. A worship service for adults as
well as the pupils was added to the Sunday routine, a Rev. James Smith was
retained to preach, and at some point the operation moved into the Sixth Ward
public school building, about two blocks east of the glass factory. By April
1850 attendance by non‑pupils had risen to thirty, and
steps were taken to erect this preaching‑station into the Sixth Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh.
How are we
to assess the events leading to the founding of our congregation? Some of us
might find the unaffected evangelical enthusiasm of our founders a bit
embarrassing. Most of us would probably be troubled by the blurring of the line
between church and state in LivingstonÕs appropriation of a public school
building for religious purposes. It is important, however, to see these folk in
the context of their own time. What we are witnessing is the close link between
revivalism and social reform in the antebellum North. Our perspective is shaped
by what historian George Marsden calls the ÒGreat ReversalÓ in American
Protestantism in the early twentieth century, when evangelicals generally
shifted from political liberalism to political conservatism. In the mid‑nineteenth century, however, a
great range of reform movements, from abolitionism to public education to
prison reform, were led by what we today call Òborn‑againÓ Christians?[9]
Some historians have seen reformers in such areas as education as essentially
motivated by a desire to exercise Òsocial controlÓ over their social inferiors.[10]
I think that an appreciation of the religious dimension of the lives of
reformers makes it harder to view their activities as quite so crassly
manipulative. Nevertheless, in the modern world social class is an ineluctable
component of religious experience, and we have not seen the last of it in this
story.
In the Lower Hill, 1850-1903
On the
22nd of August 1850 sixteen charter members signed a declaration consenting Òto
be enrolled & organized, by the Presbytery of Ohio, as a separate &
particular church, to be denominated ÔThe Sixth Presbyterian Church of
Pittsburgh,Õ & to remain forever an integral part of Ôthe General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America,Õ commonly
distinguished as the ÔOld SchoolÕ Assembly.Ó[11] Perhaps that clause calls for a bit of
exegesis. First, the Presbytery of Ohio was not in Ohio; it was, confusingly,
the local judicatory within the Synod of Pittsburgh which contained the city of
Pittsburgh (but not the city of Allegheny, which we now call Òthe North SideÓ),
Think of it as being named for the river, not the state.
The founding of Sixth Presbyterian Church, 1850
WhatÕs in a number?
Why
ÒSixthÓ Presbyterian Church? Those reformed churches in Europe which became
official established churches as a result of the Reformation and subsequent
religious conflicts ‑ e.g. the Church of Scotland
inherited church buildings in a landscape full of parishes and other places whose
names were associated with saints as well as shrines both Christian and pre‑Christian. However, when
Presbyterians and other reformed Protestants colonized new territory ‑ e.g. the North of Ireland and
North America they faced the problem of naming the new churches they founded.
Usually a settlement acquired a placename before the settlers got around to
establishing a church, but when a settlement grew large enough to have a second
congregation of the same denomination the most obvious option from prior
Christian experience ‑ a saintÕs name ‑ was excluded by association with
the Roman Catholic past. A very common solution, and the one adopted in
Pittsburgh, was to number the churches in the order of their formation. Sixth
Church was simply the next Presbyterian Church organized within the city
boundaries after the fifth one.[12]
What the practice tells us is that our forebears were determined not to
sacralize the landscape, a tendency whose consequences we shall see.
Old School/ New School
In 1837
the Presbyterian General Assembly had split into two Assemblies known as the
Old School and the New School. The dispute arose out of the Plan of Union which
had been adopted in 1801 by the two principal reformed churches of British
origin in the United States Congregationalist descendants of the English
Puritans who were most numerous in New England, New York and Ohio, and
Presbyterian descendants of the Scots and Scotch‑Irish whose strength lay in the other Mid‑Atlantic states and in parts of the
South. To avoid competition on the frontier between two denominations which
shared the Calvinist heritage, the Plan made it possible for Congregationalist
ministers to serve in Presbyterian pulpits without formal subscription to the
seventeenth‑century Westminster standards of
doctrine and polity which Presbyterianism required of its clergy.
In general
New School ministers were more comfortable with the revivalist tendency to
downplay denominational differences within Protestantism; for Old School men
the distinctive characteristics of Presbyterianism still had a higher priority
than efficiency in the pursuit of conversions. For the most part New England
migrants to the West were bypassing Western Pennsylvania, where Presbyterianism
remained solidly Scotch‑Irish and unsullied by New England
apostacy. Nearly all of Western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism opted for the Old
School. One of the very few exceptions was Third Church, which had already come
under suspicion for its highly unpresbyterian decision to install an organ in its
impressive new church building. As we have already seen, revivalism was closely
linked to reform, and the fact that the southern Presbyteries predominantly
adhered to the Old School no doubt sharpened New School advocacy of the most
crucial reform cause of the era: opposition to slavery. At the time of the
division, however, the slavery and sectional issues were subordinate to the
issues of doctrine and polity which cut along lines which we would today call
ethnic, between those of English and Scottish descent within the North.
Sixth Presbyterian Church, Erected 1851
Crisis and Recovery
A mere
sixteen members constituted a somewhat risky basis for undertaking a church
building program. However Presbytery regarded the sixth ward as an important
mission field, and other churches were encouraged to contribute financially. By
the fall of 1851 the little congregation was able to occupy quite a handsome
building costing $11,000 on a $5500 lot at the corner of Franklin and Townsend
Streets (near the southern edge of the present Civic Arena parking lot). About
half the cost seems to have been raised by Presbytery, but the remaining debt
of almost $9000 was more than the congregation could service.[13]
Despite the fact that the congregation admitted another 184 members by March of
1858, Presbytery found itself frequently addressing SixthÕs financial problems
throughout the 1850s. Three different ministers served during the decade,
Daniel McKinley, December 1850 to April 1852, Thomas B. Wilson, October 1852 to
April 1855, and Samuel Findlay, May 1857 to June 1861. WilsonÕs stated reason
for leaving Òinsufficiency of supportÓ reflected a chronic problem throughout
the decade.[14]
Financial
pressures probably contributed to the serious internal conflicts which became
public in August 1860 when, following a congregational meeting at which there
was controversy over Rev. Findlay some members of Sixth asked Presbytery to
Òredress certain evils existing in the said Church.Ó[15]
What exactly these ÒevilsÓ were is unclear. A number of members, including
several elders, left the congregation, and in June of 1861 (two months after
the outbreak of the Civil War) Findlay requested dissolution of the pastoral
relationship, leaving a congregation of only 40 members. In concurring with his
request, Session resolved that Ò... our prayers shall go up ... that he may
never again have to encounter such troubles and vexations from any People
wherever his lot may be cast, as he has had to do from a few of those whom he
is now about to leave.Ó[16]
Rev. Samuel
J. Wilson, a young professor in Western Theological Seminary (one of the
antecedents of the present Pittsburgh Seminary) and brother of the Thomas
Wilson who was briefly minister of Sixth in the early 1850s, agreed to serve as
supply pastor. He made stirring public addresses in favor of the Union cause in
1862 and 1863, in the latter case offering an eloquent denunciation of
slavery (albeit after the Emancipation Proclamation).[17]
In 1866 the congregation called him to the pulpit, and he continued as pastor
until 1876 when a seminary policy against faculty holding pastorates forced him
to resign. In 1874 he served as moderator of the General Assembly. There are a
number of indications that Wilson was a remarkably charismatic figure who
continued to be revered by the congregation long after he left Sixth, and
indeed after his untimely death in 1883. During his 15 years at Sixth
(including five years as supply pastor) the membership increased from 40 to 431.[18]
Rev. Samuel J. Wilson October 1866 ‑ December 1876
In a sense
Wilson embodied the key emphases of both the Old School and the New School,
which were reunited in 1869 (although southern Presbyterianism, which had
withdrawn from the Old School at the start of the Civil War, remained a
separate denomination until 1983). He was deeply devoted to both Presbyterian
distinctiveness and revivalist spirituality. Appropriately, he was entrusted by
the General Assembly with the diplomatically sensitive task of delivering an
address on the history of American Presbyterianism during the first century of
American independence.[19]
We learn from his farewell sermon at Sixth that he cherished the lists of new
members admitted at each of the 62 communion services at which he had
officiated, and that he especially valued admissions by confession of faith (as
opposed to transfers from other congregations). ÒThe growth of the church under
his ministry was in the main steady and uniform,Ó writes his biographer, ÒThere
were two seasons of special religious interest followed by unusual accessions,
... but with this exception the ordinary conditions of spiritual husbandry seem
to have prevailed.Ó[20]
Decoded, this means that Wilson was genuinely committed to vital religion, but
rejected the theatricality of much contemporary revivalism.
To
understand how WilsonÕs pastoral style contributed to resolving the crisis
which he inherited in 1861 it is instructive to read the Session minutes.
During the years immediately before his ministry, Session seems continually
occupied with disciplinary cases ‑ passing judgment on church members accused of fornication, drunkenness
and other sins. The hearing of such cases declined during WilsonÕs ministry.
After 1868 there seem to have been only two disciplinary cases ‑ one in 1876 (the last year of WilsonÕs
ministry) and one in 1883 which was terminated after a Session committee
visited the alleged offenders and received a Òsatisfactory answer.Ó[21]
In general, better off churchgoers, such as those who dominated the downtown
Pittsburgh congregations, had long found it easier evade the potential
embarrassments of traditional church discipline. By this time Pittsburgh had
expanded further and Sixth ChurchÕs neighborhood was no longer the entrep™t for
the latest migrants, but Sixth was no doubt a much more socially diverse
congregation than some of the congregations with lower numbers. The persistence
of church discipline in a such a diverse congregation may well have contributed
to the contentions which marked FindlayÕs tenure. WilsonÕs pastoral genius seems
to have lain in his ability to adjust the balance between justice and mercy in
reformed theology to suit the particular vulnerabilities of his flock.
The Neighborhood
Wilson was
no doubt a hard act to follow, but his successor Rev, Harlan G. Mendenhall (1878‑80) was up to the challenge. During his
three‑year ministry, Mendenhall became
widely known for his sermons and lectures on social and moral conditions in
Pittsburgh slum housing, some of which, he reminded the congregation Òyou can
see in places not ten minutes walk from this church.Ó[22]
The sermons
address not only middle class members of Sixth, but a wider range of Pittsburgh
opinion-makers. Due to a throat condition which was exacerbated by PittsburghÕs
air pollution,[23] he left Sixth in late 1880 and accepted a pastorate in
Mercersburg. He went on to a distinguished career in the New York area, and
served as moderator of New York Presbytery from 1916 to 1922 and stated clerk from then until 1932,[24]
a period during
which that presbytery led the modernist side in the climactic phase of the
fundamentalist‑modernist conflict in the General
Assembly. The successive ministries of Wilson and Mendenhall reflect a turning
point in American Presbyterian history. WilsonÕs intellectual world was that of
the Old School/New School division and his task the reconciliation of
evangelicalism with confessionalism. Mendenhall points us forward to the social
gospel and the modernist theological outlook, in reaction to which
evangelicalism would harden into fundamentalism and jettison the social
reforming heritage of nineteenth‑century evangelicalism in favor of political and economic conservatism.
Three ministers at Sixth: Dr. Harlan G. Mendenhal,l January
1878 ‑ December 1880; Dr Henry T.
McClelland, March 1881 ‑ September
1886; Dr John F. Patterson, November 1886 ‑January
1894.
Over the
next two decades SixthÕs location increasingly became an issue. During the
pastorate of Rev. Henry T. McClelland (1881‑86) the effects of migration
to the streetcar suburbs began to be noticed, though both he and his successor,
Rev. John F. Patterson (1886‑94), managed to sustain modest growth in
membership following some losses which had probably resulted from the departure
of Wilson.[25] When
Patterson left to accept a call to Orange, N.J. (and a career which included a
directorship at Princeton Seminary and membership on the Board of Foreign
Missions), McClelland, who had become a faculty member at Western Seminary
seems to have made a strategic decision. He set out to persuade the congregation
of Sixth to call a recent seminary graduate ‑ quite a comedown for a pulpit which only twenty years earlier had been
held by a moderator of General Assembly. The young man he had in mind, J. Shane
Nicholls, made a good impression and received a call. Before he accepted it he
spoke with Patterson and asked ÒDo you think this church can be held together
and kept efficient for five years?Ó to which he received a guardedly
affirmative reply. Nicholls asked the question, he recalled three decades
later, Òbecause I had a sneaking notion that by the end of that time the way
might be opened for removing the church to some more promising field.Ó[26]
It is not exactly
clear when his Òsneaking notionÓ became a settled plan, but in 1900 he shrewdly
used the semicentennial celebrations to build support for disposing of the
Franklin and Townsend building and moving to the streetcar suburbs.[27]
Evening rush hour in 1879, on upper Fifth Avenue. Below in
the haze is J&L's Second Avenue mill. On the horse‑car's inaugural run August 6, 1859, the
"Gazette" was pleased to observe interior straps which a passenger
could grasp and 'ride as pleasantly as though he were sitting.' The first cable
car, in 1889, cut the horse's traveling time, downtown‑to‑East End,
from as many as 100 minutes to a half hour But the cables could not switch from
main to branch lines and soon were supplanted by electric trolleys. Photo:
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
The
problem, as Nicholls defined it, was that Òthe Italian, the Russian Jew, and
the Negro ... were then beginning to appear in considerable numbers,Ó so that
by 1914, when he reflected on the decision to move, ÒA walk through the old
parish of the Sixth church to‑day, is
very like a walk through a foreign city.Ó There is no reason to doubt NichollsÕ
assertion that Òsix years of earnest work ... on the part of pastor and peopleÓ
failed to arrest the congregationÕs decline in membership. The adding of 300
members in those six years left the church with a net loss of 100.[28]
However, when he notes that ÒAt that time there were only a few families of the
substantial part of the membership living in the immediate region of the church
building,Ó he does not mention what happened to the less ÒsubstantialÓ members.[29]
Of course, there would have been few if any recruits to a Presbyterian church
from an Italian and Jewish population. Furthermore, although Sixth had had a
small number of African‑American members in in its early
years, the decision of Samuel Wilson to foster the establishment in 1868 of a
ÒFirst ColoredÓ Presbyterian Church (now Grace Memorial Church) tacitly
recognized that the ÒinterestingÓ spirituality of AfricanAmericans was very
different from mainstream Prebyterian practice.[30]
If Sixth had not followed NichollsÕ advice to move, it would, at best,
have reverted to the status of a
mission church dependent on Presbytery for financial solvency. One reflects on
the decision not to suggest an alternative, but to contemplate how captive
Presbyterianism was becoming to ethnicity and class. Our buildingÕs presence
for fifty years in the Lower Hill had not sacralized that landscape; it had
become Òforeign.Ó
Dr. Shane Nicholls February 1894 ‑ September 1918
In a mainly WASP Squirrel Hill, 1903‑1950
In 1901
the building was sold to the Beth Jacob Jewish congregation. Various locations
in the East End of Pittsburgh were considered; the present site at Forbes and
Murray, strategically located on a streetcar line through open fields, was
chosen despite the fact that not a single family of active members was then
living in Squirrel Hill. The Mount Olive Presbyterian Church, a struggling
country congregation whose building was located on the present site of Colfax
School (Beechwood Blvd. between Phillips and Douglas), was merged with Sixth.
When it emerged that Asbury Methodist Church was about to acquire the lot
across Murray from Sixth ChurchÕs new property an unsuccessful effort was made
to dissuade them. Sixth worshipped in temporary quarters on Wylie Avenue for
two years before dedicating its new building on 4 October 1903. Nicholls had
been relentless in soliciting funds not only from members but from others as
well, and he managed the remarkable feat of financing the building without
diverting SixthÕs mission giving. From a business standpoint the relocation was
a unqualified success. Middle‑class
families, some of them exceptionally affluent began pouring into Squirrel Hill,
Sixth was the fashionable choice for church shoppers, and within nine years the
$42,000 mortgage was burned.
ArchitectÕs conception of Sixth Church building. Completed
1903.
Fundamentalism/Modernism
Social
class, of course, is more than material condition; it is a collective identity
which members of a group who share common material circumstances construct for
themselves in a particular time and space. In twentieth century urban America,
to be middle class means, in part, being receptive to the findings of modern
science; it means not being a rube. So it was that as northern Presbyterianism
became increasingly a middle‑class
religion in the late nineteenth century, the issue which shaped its theological
discussion was whether, and if so how, to accommodate scientific thinking. In
the 1920s that discussion came to a head in a series of annual General Assembly
meetings dominated by conflict between fundamentalists and modernists. It
should not surprise us that the modernists won, for we understand that the role
of arch‑rube which Presbyterian elder
William Jennings Bryan played in the Scopes trial did not represent the
direction Presbyterianism was headed. The outcome was not so clear in advance,
however, to contemporaries.
Dr.
Nicholls left Sixth Church in 1918 to accept a call to a church in Cincinnati.
It is interesting that one of the candidates seriously considered by the
pastoral nominating committee to fill the vacancy was Rev. Clarence Macartney
of Arch Street Church, Philadelphia. A few years later Macartney would emerge
as one of the most outspoken leaders of the fundamentalist side in the
Assembly.[31] In 1918,
however, he was known principally for his success in building an active
congregation in a rundown neighborhood. In soliciting information on candidates
the Sixth Church nominating committee used a questionnaire which explicitly
asked ÒIs he progressive or conservative?Ó but the answers it received on
Macartney were contradictory. What seems to have ruled him out was a report
from three people in Philadelphia who went to hear him preach at the request of
Charles Ridinger of Sixth Church: ÒFull of theology and cold and fails to hold
his audience or stir up any degree of enthusiasm.Ó[32]
The
candidate chosen for the vacancy was Rev. Benjamin F. Farber of Detroit. When
he left in 1926 to accept a call to Fourth Presbyterian Church in New York, he
was replaced by Rev. Henry H. Forsyth of St. Louis who served until his
retirement in 1933. The few surviving sermons by these two ministers contain
evidence that both these ministers paid serious attention to science and the
issues it raised for believers. One of FarberÕs sermons, on the text ÒHe
hangeth the earth upon nothingÓ (Job 26:7) demonstrates familiarity with at
least popular scientific literature and an ability to link scientific thinking
intelligently with theological speculation‑[33] A sermon by Forsyth on the text ÒI
believe: help thou mine unbeliefÓ (Mark 9:24) deals with the relationship
between faith and doubt in a way which, while less subtle than the classic
treatment of the same issue by the great modern theologian Paul Tillich,
reflects a clear determination to connect with folks for whom belief itself is
increasingly difficult.[34]
Two ministers at Sixth: Dr Benjamin F. Farber, February
1919‑ March 1926; Dr Henry H.
Forsyth November 1926 ‑ September
1933
Worship
Another
component of the transformation of Presbyterianism from an eighteenth‑century ethnic religion to a
twentieth‑century middle‑class religion was development
toward more ÒrespectableÓ modes of celebrating communion. The outdoor Scottish
festal communion service which had evolved into the revivalist camp meeting had
largely been abandoned by the time Sixth was founded.[35]
We still possess most of the original Sixth Presbyterian communion service,
which seems to have consisted of four silverplate chalices and matching plates.[36]
The inscription on the chalices reflects an engaging frugality: ÒSixth P.
Church.Ó A more elaborate silverplate pitcher appears to have been acquired
separately. Ordinary wine was used until 1895, when Session decided to switch
to unfermented wine.[37]
We do not know whether communicants came forward to a communion table or were
served individually in the pews at the Franklin and Townsend site, but the use
of common cups is strongly indicated by the multiple chalices. Of course the
new sanctuary itself was a much more fashionable space for worship than the
austere Franklin and Townsend Òlecture room,Ó and the topic of Òthe individual
Communion serviceÓ was discussed at length in one of the last Session meetings
before the Squirrel Hill building was completed, and in 1906 Session decided to
obtain such a service.[38]
The choir in 1866
We know
that a choir existed as early as 1866; we have a splendid photograph of the
singers who performed at the thirtieth anniversary of the Sunday School. In the
1890s about $600 per annum seems to have been expended to retain an
choirmaster! organist, one professional singer, and an Òorgan pumper,Ó though a
financial crisis in 1899 prompted the Trustees to lay off Òthe Soprano.Ó
Nevertheless, twenty‑one voices, apparently all
volunteers, remained.[39]
By 1906 the music budget was $2500,[40]
though the detailed application of those funds is not clear. At least from 1915
when a new organ was dedicated, however (presumably ending the need for an
organ pumper), a paid quartet of vocalists seems to have been maintained until
the mid‑1970s. Another step to more
formality was the decision, also in 1915, that the choir (and minister) should
wear robes.[41] The extent
to which nonprofessional singers participated with the paid quartet is not
clear until 1933 when a volunteer choir under the name of ÒThe Sixth Church
SingersÓ began singing one Sunday a month and on special occasions. The
configuration of the present chancel, a 1938 memorial gift from a member,
reflects this distinction between professional and volunteer singers, as do the
different style of vestments worn by the two groups in period photographs.
Undated photo (c. 1934) of choir, with paid singers in
center of front row.
Women and Mission
Photographs
of the Church boards in this period remind us that one feature of
Presbyterianism was not changing: men were still in charge. Women had, however,
created for themselves within the congregationÕs life a distinct sphere of
advocacy and support for mission causes, especially those which entailed female
agency. The WomenÕs Missionary Society, organized in 1873 Òto help sustain
female missionaries to be Bible readers and teachers serving among heathen
women and children.Ó In 1894 eleven young women organized the Margaret
McCandless Missionary Society (named for the only living charter member of
Sixth), initially to support Òa Bible‑woman in India.Ó In 1922 another group of young women formed the Sarah
A. Bryant Missionary Society, which met in the evening since many of its
members were employed during the day. Remarkably, each of these generationally
defined groups was still active at the time of the centennial celebrations in
1950. In 1954 they were merged into a single WomenÕs Association[42]
which sustained a lively sense of autonomy from the male sphere of Session,
Trustees and Diaconate, as the present writer discovered in the late 1970s
when, as Clerk of Session, he incautiously sought financial details from the
Association to complete a General Assembly questionnaire.
A Sunday School photo, c. 1912.
The
WomenÕs Guild, organized in 1903 as a continuation of an Aid Society which had
functioned in the original church building, carried out sewing projects such as
making surgical dressings for the Red Cross and Presbyterian Hospital. (One
reads with disappointment that another of their functions was to Òprepare the
dinners for the MenÕs Brotherhood.Ó[43])
The Guild joined with the Missionary Societies for what is perhaps the most
interesting female initiative of the period, a group of women organized by Mrs.
Nicholls in 1908 as the Greenfield Mission Committee to become involved in one
of PresbyteryÕs initiatives, a mission to aid recent immigrant steel workers
and their families which was part of Òsettlement house movementÓ in various
part of urban America. This project took more concrete form in 1927 with the
erection of a building known as Hope House. Sixth ChurchÕs involvement in the
mission seems to have ended in 1950 when Hope House was razed to make way for
construction of the Parkway East.[44]
The first cars passed through the Squirrel Hill Tunnel in
1953. Photo: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
The
demolition of a mission facility to make way for a freeway was only one small
consequence of the automobile for Sixth Church, but the year 1950 can be viewed
as a major turning point in the congregationÕs history. Although most member
families no doubt had owned automobiles since at least the early 1930s, the
depression, the war, and continued dependence on streets built for horse
carriages and laced with streetcar tracks meant that the full impact of the new
technology awaited the construction of freeways. At the end of ForsythÕs
ministry the membership had stood at 1082, and during the first half of the
ministry of his successor, Dr. Joseph Morledge, the Church continued to
prosper, with membership peaking at 1216 in 1945. Centennial festivity in 1950,
however, was tempered by the realization that many members were moving from the
former streetcar suburb to the new automobile suburbs.[45]
Dr. Joseph S. Morledge October 1934 ‑April 1966
In a cosmopolitan Squirrel Hill, 1950‑2000
By the
late 1950s the congregational leadership began seriously considering measures
to address its problem of declining membership. In 1957, perhaps prompted by
the pending merger of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., with the separate United
Presbyterian Church in North America, Sixth began merger discussions with the
Third United Presbyterian Church, located on the site of what is now the
ChildrenÕs Institute (Northumberland Street between Shady Avenue and Dennison
Street.). Both congregations, however, voted to defer the matter, and Sixth
moved toward an alternative policy of retrenchment in its physical plant. In
the 1920s a substantial Christian Education facility, the Dunbar Building, had
been erected, facing Forbes, on the lot adjacent to the Church building. An
aging membership meant fewer and fewer children in Sunday School, and in 1961
the apse was
remodelled into the present Celtic Cross chapel and upstairs Sunday School
rooms.[46]
The Dunbar Building was demolished and the land on which it stood was
(appropriately) turned into a parking lot.
Burdens and Resources
Dr.
Morledge retired in 1966 at the end of the longest ministry in SixthÕs history. His
considerable pastoral gifts were attested by the intense devotion of his substantially
diminished flock. For many he had been their shepherd through their entire
adult lives ‑ the depression, a world war, and
then bewildering changes in the neighborhood in which they had grown up and
which had become the center of the Pittsburgh Jewish community over the
preceding generation. A few may have, quite wrongly, read into his steadfast
support for them in their anxious moments the message that nothing had to
change. It was a very difficult situation for his successor, Dr. Carl E.
Ericson, an energetic and socially‑conscious former journalist who had recently made a mid‑life career change. The opposition
which he encountered was perhaps typified in a session resolution
countermanding his decision to include a printed prayer of confession as a
regular component of the Sunday morning worship service.[47]
In the spring of 1969 Ericson announced his decision to accept a call to a
church in Illinois.
Dr Carl E. Ericson January 1967‑June 1969
During the
interim following EricsonÕs departure Sixth was offered the opportunity to
purchase the adjoining house and lot on Murray Avenue. Despite the quite
favorable price, the decision to take advantage of this opportunity virtually
eliminated the churchÕs remaining cash reserves. The house was named the Morledge
Center, and Rev. John McCall who was installed in January, 1970, following
service as Assistant Minister at Third Church, led the congregation to a
decision to make it available to a Community Mental Health Team for use in work
with youth of the neighborhood. This decision, along with a more modest earlier
initiative under Dr. EricsonÕs leadership to establish a Friday evening coffee‑house ministry (The Hobbit Hutch)
to neighborhood youth were important steps toward engagement with our
neighbors. Alas, on 16 March 1971 the Morledge Center was destroyed by fire.
Although
McCallÕs ministry was beginning to attract younger members, overall numbers
continued to fall. In the absence of significant endowment funds, the
maintenance of a 70‑year‑old building designed to accommodate a much larger
congregation seemed likely to absorb all available financial and human
resources, to the exclusion of mission initiatives and benevolent causes. In
1972 the congregation initiated a planning process which led to seed funding
from Presbytery and, in 1975, a detailed proposal for the future use of the
ChurchÕs property, including the corner lot and the two adjacent lots on which
the Dunbar Building and the Morledge Center had stood. The proposal called for
razing the Church building and erecting a new high‑rise structure which would contain
subsidized housing for the elderly, a new church facility, and commercial
space.
The
concept seemed to resolve the ChurchÕs dilemma by using the commercial
potential of the corner lot, together with public funding then available for
such initiatives, to achieve the two objects which had been in competition for
the ChurchÕs resources: (1) a socially useful mission (in particular,
affordable housing for the elderly of the neighborhood) and (2) a viable, low
maintenance, facility for worship and other internal church functions. Reaction
to the proposal beyond the congregation was mixed. Opinion among Squirrel Hill
community leaders was strongly positive; the Church had attained a kind of solidarity
with the larger community in addressing social problems which would have been
hard to imagine a decade earlier. On the other hand, reaction from some
immediate residential neighbors of the Church unwilling to accept any
significant zoning change and distrustful of assurances that the housing would
be occupied only by elderly (as opposed to poor) tenants was extremely hostile.
Funding commitments were obtained from both federal and state agencies, and
zoning approvals were granted by the City of Pittsburgh. However, opponents of
the proposal managed to tie the project up in litigation until public funding
allocations were revoked.
Rev. John S. Mc Call January 1970‑ present (Photo by Jonas)
During the
late 1970s several less ambitious ideas for redeveloping the ChurchÕs property
were discussed. By the early 1980s members of Session began reluctantly to
conclude that Sixth lacked not only financial, but also human and political,
resources to implement such plans. Instead, steps were taken to find a buyer
for the vacant portion of the property with a view to creating an endowment
fund to maintain the existing building. A real estate developer willing to take
an option on the property was found, and although the actual sale did not occur
until 1990, option payments during the 1980s made it possible to carry out a
number of deferred maintenance projects while refocusing congregational efforts
on mission. Nearly another decade elapsed before the buyer resold the vacant
land to another developer who, in return for SixthÕs cooperation on certain
zoning issues, agreed to clean and point the exterior stone of the Church
building and make a significant financial contribution which, fittingly,
Session decided to apply toward the goal of promoting affordable housing. A
process for deciding how exactly to apply these resources, under the leadership
of the Church and Community Committee, is part of the same sesquicentennial
observances that have occasioned this essay.
Because
the cleaning of the pollution‑encrusted
stonework during the past year is such a visible and obvious candidate to
symbolize the congregationÕs recovery, there is a danger of jumping to the
conclusion that the process of solving the property problem recounted in the
previous section completely explains its renewal. While it is true that the
availability of funds to maintain the building has made it easier during the
past decade and a half for congregational leaders to focus on issues other than
the latest structural calamity, solvency in itself was no guarantee that that
opportunity would be used creatively.
Congregational Life
We get an
interesting picture of the congregation in 1980 from an ethnographic study of
Sixth conducted a Japanese graduate student in anthropology at the University
of Pittsburgh, Izumi Sato. She discerned very clearly that the congregation was
divided into two social groupings: an older generation whose members had joined
before 1950 and a younger generation which had joined since the mid‑1960s. Although the two groups were
easily distinguishable not only by age but by their different patterns of
involvement in church activities, she found very little conflict between them.
On the contrary, one of her informants from the older generation went so far as
to credit Òthe Professors and their childrenÓ for rescuing the Church from
decline.[48] Older
members perhaps understood the importance of the younger group (who included a
good deal more than just ÒprofessorsÓ) more clearly than the latter understood
the importance of the older generation (until a few years later when some
generous bequests began to come in). Although Sato found some traces of
opposition to the property proposal among older members, in general she saw
that initiative as a source of ÒrevitalizationÓ[49]
in the congregation despite the fact that by the time she wrote the project
itself had collapsed. On balance the initiative probably did strengthen bonds
across generations if only because it was an effort by the younger generation
to Òdo somethingÓ where their older counterparts had felt powerless for so
long.
The credit
for this cross-generational comity must go to John McCall. Clearly McCallÕs
progressive theological and social message appealed more to new members than to
old ones. Throughout his ministry he has displayed, however, an ability to
balance the prophetic with the pastoral, ensuring that even in times of great
stress the congregation never became destructively polarized. At the same time
Sixth has steadily developed a distinctive character by the recruitment of new
members who share McCallÕs passion for social justice, or his quest for an
intellectually honest faith, or both. Increasingly a recognized leader among the Squirrel
Hill clergy, McCall has played an important role in relations between the
Christian and Jewish communities; those attracted by his ministry have tended
to find the diversity of the neighborhood enriching rather than troubling. Once
Sixth had put behind it the trauma of seeing so many of its members driving
away to suburbia, the automobile culture became an asset for the congregation:
a number of the newer members drive past several Presbyterian churches on
Sunday to reach one whose ministry they perceive as addressing their individual
needs and values. Another reflection of automobile-based religious geography
was the use of our building from 1966 to 1989 by the Pittsburgh Korean Church,
whose membersÕ residences were scattered throughout Allegheny County. Under
McCallÕs leadership Sixth moved toward a less formal and more participatory style
of worship. The termination of the paid quartet in the mid-1970s (like the replacement of the 1915 organ with an electronic organ a
few years later) was driven by financial constraint, but in fact it opened up
new possibilities for the congregation. There was essentially no volunteer
choir at that point, and the process of building one was not a treat for the
auditory nerves of the congregation. In the long run, however, a reasonably
skilled and very enthusiastic choir has been developed, and it plays an important
role in building the congregationÕs sense of community.
Sixth Presbyterian Church congregational photo, September
2000
Perhaps
the most visible change in congregational life during McCallÕs ministry has
involved the role of women. To be sure, one of the first two women to graduate,
in 1938, from Western Seminary was a member of Sixth, Kathryn Rendleman. She
did manage to fill the Sixth pulpit on at least one occasion, but a career as a
Presbyterian parish minister was not an option for her under denominational
rules at that time.[50]
As late as 1965 the minutes of a congregational meeting at Sixth record that Òa
majority of those present were against the ideaÓ of Òour Church having women
officersÓ.[51] At the end
of Dr. EricsonÕs first year, however, two women were elected to Session. By the
1980s, when congregational nominating committees talked about Ògender balanceÓ
they were usually referring to the difficulty of finding enough male nominees
to balance the women on the Church boards. It was a striking change from the
time when women worked to carve out an autonomous role for themselves in one
aspect of the ChurchÕs business (mission) while the ChurchÕs business in
general was conducted exclusively by men.
Once women
were able to participate fully in governance at all levels, the nature of what
used to be called ÒWomenÕs WorkÓ in the Church was bound to change.
Significantly, the most dynamic womanÕs organization during the past decade or
so has been the WomenÕs Weekend group, which differs from the old womenÕs
missionary societies in focusing on the spirituality of the members themselves
and on efforts to minister collectively to one anotherÕs needs. Early in
McCallÕs ministry Session decided to create a student assistant minister
position, and from the early 1970s to the early 1990s that position was more
often filled by a female than a male seminarian. In 1992 a crisis in John
McCallÕs health prompted Session to ask Helen Nablo, a Vanderbilt Seminary
graduate who had been attending Sixth, to substitute for him on a temporary
basis. While McCall recovered from his illness, considerable support emerged
for continuing a twoperson, two‑gender
ministry. Although the specific personnel arrangements have varied, such a
ministry has indeed been maintained, with Nablo being succeeded by Rev. Deb
Gausmann; following GausmannÕs decision to change career direction the position
was held temporarily by len Fox and is now held by Bethany Rainey. Clearly
gender will be a significant issue when the time comes to replace McCall.
Charity / Chastity
No
satisfactory catchphrase comparable to ÒOld School/New SchoolÓ or
ÒFundamentalist/ModernistÓ has yet emerged to describe the divisions over
gender and sexuality which have wracked the denomination for the past two
decades, but Sixth is more directly engaged in this controversy than it was in
either of the preceding two. General AssemblyÕs action in 1967 of substituting
a collection of (sometimes contradictory) credal statements for the Westminster
Confession alone as a doctrinal standard for the denomination seemed a clear
break from the confessionalism of the Old School. Similarly, the AssemblyÕs
Confession of 1967 which was included in the collection, could be read as a
decisive break from the biblical literalism with which the denomination had
grappled in the early decades of the century. In an important sense there was
indeed such a break with the past; Òthe sanctity of (heterosexual) marriageÓ is
not included in the Five Points of Calvinism for which the Old School contended
nor in the Five Points of Fundamentalism which were disputed in the 1920s.[52]
However, the merger of the denomination with the (southern) Presbyterian
Church, U.S., in 1983 did significantly strengthen conservative forces on many
issues.
During the
1980s McCallÕs chairmanship of a Presbytery committee on ministry to
homosexuals helped to create awareness that Sixth was a congregation which
would welcome gays and lesbians, although no explicit policy to that effect
existed. By the mid‑ 1990s it was evident that to be
honest with ourselves we needed to confront this issue openly. Following
extensive discussions in the congregation, Session decided to affiliate Sixth
with the More Light Network, an action which signalled the ChurchÕs active
dissent from denominational policy against the ordination of sexually active
gays and lesbians to be church officers. SixthÕs policy of inclusiveness is
displayed each Sunday in the bulletin in the following words:
ÒEven as
the world seeks to divide us according to our economic, racial and ethnic
groups, ages, gender, abilities, theological position, marital status and
sexual orientation, we believe that in Christ there is no such division. Our
congregation is strengthened through its diversity. We welcome all to our
church community and its activities. Our membership is open to anyone who
confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The right and privilege to vote and
hold office is extended to all active church members.Ó
Understanding Ourselves in Time
Technological
innovations which changed how our predecessors managed their lives in space
posed serious challenges to Sixth Church at two periods in its history the
streetcar in the late nineteenth century and the automobile in the middle of
the twentieth. We live in another dizzying period of change induced by
information technology, which may make the spatial constraints of the past seem
antique but will surely pose new issues for Sixth Church. Even if the newest
technology renders distance in space meaningless, however, its sister
dimension, time, will remain. And in time we must still confront all those
divisions enumerated in our inclusion statement, and perhaps some others as
well. This essay has been an attempt to help us think seriously about how well
or poorly our congregation met such challenges in times past and thus inform
our stewardship of time to come.