Manhattan

The 'secular city'? The religious marketplace in New York has grown more complex

The 'secular city'? The religious marketplace in New York has grown more complex

Early in his church-planting work in New York City, the Rev. Tim Keller focused on what he called the Center City, which started in lower Manhattan, near Wall Street, and extended past Central Park.

The Presbyterian Church in America seminary professor camped in the old Tramway Diner under the 59th Street Bridge at 2nd Avenue, asking New Yorkers probing questions about their lives. He dug into the socialist Dissent Magazine to learn the city's secular lingo.

But New York was already evolving in 1989, when Redeemer Presbyterian Church opened its doors two weeks after Easter, said Tony Carnes, leader of the "A Journey through NYC Religions" website.

Changes began in the 1970s in the city's boroughs "with more internationals arriving from all over," including Global South cultures in which "no one doubts that faith is an important part of life," he said, reached by telephone. "It took time to see these changes affect Manhattan, but they did."

In 2000, Carnes' team found -- through a face-to-face census with church leaders -- 120 evangelical congregations in the Manhattan Center City. That number reached 197 a decade later, 251 in 2014, 308 in 2019 and are expected to near 370 in 2024.

"We know there are others, because we hear things all the time," said Carnes. "We just haven't found them all -- yet."

For decades, researchers considered New York City a lab for the brand of secularism defined by Harvard Divinity School historian Harvey Cox, author of the influential "The Secular City" in 1965. In a famous quotation, he noted: "Secular Humanism is opposed to other religions; it actively rejects, excludes, and attempts to eliminate traditional theism from meaningful participation in the American culture."

However, at sidewalk level it's obvious that there are "two New Yorks," noted Carnes. While secularism remains dominant in mass media, academia and other parts of the cultural establishment, the reality is more complex in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island and now parts of Manhattan.

It's hard to consider the Big Apple a truly "secular city," when considering the rising number of New Yorkers who are Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Hindus and evangelical and Pentecostal believers in Latino, Black, Asian, white and interracial flocks.

What if New York City became a community? Tim Keller came to the city to stay

What if New York City became a community? Tim Keller came to the city to stay

On the Sunday after 9/11, thousands of New Yorkers went to church, with many joining a line stretching outside the Redeemer Presbyterian services in a Hunter College auditorium.

The Rev. Tim Keller asked his staff if they could manage a second service -- doubling the day's attendance to 5,300. Keller's sermon, "Truth, Tears, Anger and Grace," began with Jesus weeping before raising Lazarus from the dead.

Many Americans were "coming to New York to fix things," he noted. "We are glad for them. They will try to fix the buildings. We need that. And eventually they will leave. But when Jesus weeps, we see that he doesn't believe that the ministry of truth -- telling people how they should believe and turn to God -- or the ministry of fixing things is enough, does he? He also is a proponent of the ministry of tears. The ministry of truth and power without tears isn't Jesus."

This sermon contained major themes from the life and work of Keller, who died on May 19 death at age 72, after a three-year battle with Pancreatic cancer. Instead of seeking quick fixes, especially through politics, he kept urging conservative Protestants to stress compassion and face-to-face ministry, while continuing to defend centuries of Christian doctrine.

In Keller's case, that meant building a church for New Yorkers that addressed their blunt, exhausting, even cynical, concerns about life.

In that first sermon after 9/11, Keller noted that everyone had an opinion about New York City and America as a whole. Some were claiming that "God is punishing us" because of rampant immorality. Others said America had been judged because of social injustice and greed. Instead of blaming the victims, Keller said it was time to ask who would stand their ground and love their neighbors.

Union seminary holds another interfaith rite, causing an explosion that rocked Twitter-verse

Union seminary holds another interfaith rite, causing an explosion that rocked Twitter-verse

When describing the life and work of St. Francis of Assisi, his admirers -- environmentalists as well as theologians -- usually quote his "Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon."

It begins with the Catholic mystic stressing that to God alone belong "all glory, all honor and all blessings."

Then St. Francis, who died in 1226, proclaims: "Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun. … Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air."

This famous hymn teaches that God is Creator and that Francis is thankful for all of creation -- rain, wind, fire, plants, humanity and even "Sister Death."

That wasn't the doctrinal equation many Twitter users saw in a recent message from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The seminary tweet described a chapel service linked to a class -- "Extractivism: A Ritual/Liturgical Response" -- taught by the Rev. Claudio Carvalhaes, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) theologian from Brazil.

"Today in chapel, we confessed to plants," said the seminary statement. "Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life?" The tweet showed a student facing potted ferns, palms, cattails, a lily and other houseplants.

"The prayers were said to the plants," confirmed Carvalhaes, reached by telephone. "The way we understand this, we are not praying to the plants as God. … We were seeing the plants in a way that the indigenous peoples see them -- as living things with lives of their own. …

"We were speaking to the plants as part of the 'we' of God. We are all part of God's creation -- both mankind and the rest of creation."

The Rev. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary heard a different message. "If you do not worship the Creator, you will inevitably worship the creation, in one way or another. That is the primal form of idolatry," he said, in a podcast from the Louisville campus, which has 1,731 full-time students.

The Union rite created a furor because of this seminary's fame as a center for progressive theology and its academic association with nearby Columbia University on Manhattan's West Side.