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HISTORY of the Manhattan Church of Christ
http://www.manhattanchurch.org
July, 1920
Nearly 80 years ago-several small groups of Christians of diverse backgrounds
but similar religious heritage found each other in the great metropolis of New
York and began meeting together in Manhattan. The first meetings of this combined
group, which became the Manhattan Church of Christ, took place evidently in Woods
Memorial Chapel (237 West 69th Street). This year marks a great anniversary in
the long history of the "Restoration Movement" in New York City, a major step
that parallels developments in other parts of the country. A consciousness of
our history helps us to understand the great gifts that we have received from
men and women of faith who have gone before us. It also helps us to understand
the origins of many of the issues we continue to wrestle with to this day.
October 10, 1810
190 years ago-the Church of Christ in New York City was first established. A group
of recent immigrants, influenced by the views of Robert Sandeman and sometimes
called Scotch Baptists, broke away from the Ebenezer Baptist Church and organized
a separate congregation. Sandeman was a Scottish reformer who had immigrated to
America in 1764 and worked primarily in New England. An early letter from the
church describes them as "the Church of Christ at New York, meeting in Sullivan
Street." It was signed by the two elders of the congregation, William Ovington
and Henry Errett, the father of Isaac Errett, who became one of the most prominent
leaders of the Restoration Movement in later years.
Early Events in Restoration History
To get our bearings in time compared to other major events at the beginning of
our movement, notice that this New York founding occurred just one year and 33
days after Thomas Campbell, one of the patriarchs of the movement, published his
"Declaration and Address," often considered the founding document of the American
Restoration Movement. It occurred a year and 11 days after Alexander Campbell,
the undisputed leader of the movement before the Civil War, arrived in New York
City from Scotland on his way to meet his father Thomas in Pennsylvania. It occurred
nine years after the exhilarating Cane Ridge revival in Kentucky set Barton W.
Stone firmly on his path toward reform. In the United States, only two congregations
of Churches of Christ, congregations dating from the early days of Barton Stone's
work (1805 and 1807), can show that they were established before "the Church of
Christ at New York." In March of 1818, the church here sent out a circular letter
to churches in Europe and America trying to identify others who shared the restorationist
principles that the church in New York followed. They asserted that they strove
to follow the New Testament alone as their authority and that their fellowship
consisted of those who "believe in their heart, and confess with their mouth,
that Jesus is the Christ; that he died for our sins, according to the scriptures;
and that upon such confession, and such alone, they should be baptized." The group
was very punctilious in its stress on a precise order of worship derived from
the New Testament, its rejection of clerical privileges, its practice of weekly
communion, its giving to the poor, and various other items. The letter was preserved
for later generations because Alexander Campbell republished it several years
later in his periodical called The Christian Baptist (5/4).
From 1810 to 1920
Between the founding of the Church of Christ at New York in 1810 and the beginning
of the Manhattan Church of Christ in 1920 lies 110 years of the checkered history
of our Restoration Movement, a history that has too often been marked by controversies
over minor matters and often by division. Though the church in New York was established
independently of either the work of the Campbells or of Stone, it soon merged
into the movement created by the uniting of these two streams of reform. In 1820
a young man named Walter Scott, who was later to be the most famous evangelist
of the early movement, came to New York to visit the congregation of 80 members
for three months. He was drawn by a published treatise on baptism written by Henry
Errett. The work taught baptism by immersion for the remission of sins and presented
an understanding of the design of baptism that Scott and Campbell later followed
[reprinted in City Life, May, 1996]. In 1831 Alexander Campbell visited the church
in New York and found it troubled by divisions over church order. He labored to
bring the divided parties within the church together in unity while at the same
time speaking to large audiences of non-Christians and skeptics in the famous
Tammany Hall and in Concert Hall. Over the course of the 19th century, the church
met in several different locations, gradually moving northward in Manhattan. The
first building that the church owned was purchased in 1850 at 70-72 West 17th
Street. CampbellÕs influence was clear in the fact that the inscription over the
door read "Disciples' Meeting House" a designation preferred by Campbell. During
the Civil War the church took an active stance in opposition to slavery, and a
womenÕs group called the "Dorcas Society" was active in ministering to wounded
soldiers who were returned to the city from the battle front.
Divisions After the Civil War
In spite of its tendencies toward contentiousness and division, the church managed
to overcome its faults and remain united till near the end of the 19th century.
It was a period when the deep rifts in the fabric of American society caused by
the Civil War were finally wreaking havoc in the Restoration movement-transmuted
into doctrinal disputes that tended to divide along the Mason-Dixon line between
north and south. The church in New York evidently went into a period of some turmoil
beginning in about 1895, from which not even a consistent record of the names
of ministers of the church survives. There are strong indications of disputes
over liberalism and the hiring of more or less liberal ministers, moral standards,
ways of collecting money, etc. This is the period when all across the nation the
movement was dividing into groups with substantially different emphases-a strongly
restorationist side that became the Churches of Christ and a more liberal, ecumenically
oriented side that became the Disciples of Christ. This division took place in
New York as in other places. Here, as in most other regions of the north, the
Disciples side of the division dominated, but the identity of the church continued
to be in question until about 1906. As in about 90 per cent of the local divisions
that took place across the nation, the Disciples side was able to maintain ownership
of the church's real estate, then located on West 56th Street and called the Central
Christian Church (later to move to the east side and become the Park Avenue Christian
Church). The small groups that broke away from the Disciples group met in homes
and rented spaces (including an Odd-Fellows Lodge Hall) until 1920.
Reestablishing Restoration
In the meantime Christians from the south, connected with the newly independent
Churches of Christ (first recognized as a separate group in the 1906 US census)
came to New York. One small group met in the apartment of Edna Lovell at 125th
and Broadway (just a couple of blocks from where I and my family used to live).
George M. McKee and his wife and daughter moved from Georgia to Manhattan and
worshipped in their home with a small group including William Boone and his family.
Unknown to them was a family living across the Hudson in New Jersey who had immigrated
from England in 1906. This large family named Johnson, including parents and three
married sons and their wives, had left Birmingham, England where they had been
part of the church meeting at Summer Lane at Geach Street (still an active congregation-Jim
Petty has preached for them). They established a small church in their home. Eventually,
through correspondence and the mediation of E. E. Joynes of Philadelphia, the
Johnson group and the McKee group became known to each other and decided to unite
their efforts in a church in Manhattan. Though various sources give the date of
their first meeting as July of 1920 or 1921, the 1920 date seems better supported,
since it comes from a historian of the Restoration Movement who lived in the metropolitan
area in the 1930's: Marvin W. Hastings, Saga of a Movement: Story of the Restoration
Movement, 1981.
Soon the fledgling Manhattan Church of Christ incorporated the families from England,
those from the south, and the groups that had left the Central Christian Church
because of its doctrines. The first minister was named Morgan Carter, and the
first two baptized in the group were children from two of the English families.
Millennium Celebration
There is much to explore about the history of the Manhattan Church of Christ,
but this narrative is enough for us to see the complexity of our roots. During
this millennial year 2000, we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the new beginning
that was made in 1920 and that marked the reemergence of the restorationist side
of our movement in New York and the beginning of the Manhattan Church of Christ.
In October we will also celebrate the 190th anniversary of the original founding
of the Church of Christ in New York, a history of which we are heirs along with
our friends in the Park Avenue Christian Church. We are heirs of a great tradition
and of many people of faith through the ages. Ultimately, of course, neither the
date of our 80th anniversary nor our 190th anniversary is of greatest importance.
As we celebrate each and every Sunday, the truly great date, the one that gives
all the others meaning, is the founding of our faith in Jesus' sacrifice 1,970
years ago-more than 102,000 Sundays ago. Now there's a number to remember.
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Early Highlights of the Manhattan Church Story
July, 1920
Several families that had been meeting separately for worship came together to
form a new congregation in Manhattan. The fledgling church met in Wood's Memorial
Chapel, 237 West 69th Street. The large Johnson family, originally from Birmingham,
England, and the families of William Boone and George McKee from Georgia formed
the core of the group. They were soon joined by families that had left the Central
Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ. Their first minister was Morgan Carter.
About 1924
The church moves into new quarters on 58th Street on the edge of the section known
as Hell's Kitchen.
1924
The church of about 50 members holds a large evangelistic meeting with G. C. Brewer
as preacher. The sessions were attended by 150-200 people each night.
About 1927
The Congregation moved to 70th Street on the West Side to the George Washington
room of the Pythian Temple. The church was allowed to place a sign outdoors only
on Sunday morning and could have no phone or other office facilities.
About 1928
The church began enlisting help from congregations throughout the nation to purchase
a place of meeting of their own. The response was good and the building fund grew
substantially.
April, 1929
The church divides its building fund in order for several of the founding families
of the church to establish a new congregation in Cliffside Park, NJ. This development
delayed the purchase of a permanent home for the church in Manhattan.
1933
The congregation ordained their first elders: Granville L. Beasley, Thomas L.
Cain Jr., Earl Petty, and George McKee, one of the original founders of the congregation.
1933
The church moved back to the Woods Memorial Chapel, where it had begun. Again
the building had no indication of the presence of the church during the week.
They could put out a sign only on Sunday mornings.
1935
For reasons unknown, the eldership of the church discontinued. No new eldership
was ordained for about 20 years. The congregation continued to have a board of
deacons who served as officers of the church throughout the years.
1939
The Hillsboro Church of Christ in Nashville, TN took in hand to aid the work in
Manhattan. They made it possible to hire a full-time minister, Homer P. Reeves,
and brought him to New York to begin his work in January, 1940.
1940
The congregation aided in establishing a mission church in Harlem.
1941
H. P. Reeves located a suitable property for a permanent location of the congregation,
and the A. M. Burton family of Hillsboro made a very large donation toward the
purchase of the brick town house at 48 East 80th Street. Without the generosity
of the Hillsboro congregation and the Burton family, much of the present history
of this congregation could never have developed.
August 3, 1941
The Manhattan Church of Christ began meeting in its new home on the upper east
side.
May, 1955
Soon after becoming minister of the Manhattan Church, Burton Coffman appointed
Cy Young and Ralph Damp as elders of the congregation. A few months later Stanley
Soule was also ordained. An eldership has led church since that time.
1955
The church began an intensive building fund project to build a new facility for
its ministries in Manhattan.
October 1960
The building fund had successfully raised money to pay for the property from 48
East 80th to the corner of Madison Avenue. The Church held a ceremonial mortgage
burning.
1964-1965
The World's Fair was held in New York, and the Churches of Christ had an effective
display booth at the fair. The work there drew many visitors and inquirers to
the church. Lloyd Rutledge came to New York to direct the ministry at the fair
and remained in New York as the longest serving elder of the Manhattan church.
The Rutledge chapel, used by our Spanish congregation, is named in his honor.
August, 1966
The Congregation moved its worship services to the Campbell Funeral Home on Madison
Avenue at 81st Street while the construction of a new building took place. Wednesday
evening meetings were held in the rooms of a former French restaurant on the corner
of Madison and 80th.
May 19, 1968
The Congregation met for the first time in the new building.
June 30, 1968
Formal dedication of the new building at 48 East 80th Street.