Since when is the Riverside Church a black church? I haven't been there in ages, but I'd always thought of it as the essence of liberal Protestantism in its multiethnic incarnation, endowed originally by John D. Rockefeller.
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Yup.
I know next to nothing about Riverside so I decided to visit their website to come up to speed.
A look see here --
http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/index.asp?id=200
revealed this biographical info about the church's "Senior Minister", The Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes:
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The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. Senior Minister of The Riverside Church
On June 1, 1989, The Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, Jr. was installed as the fifth Senior Minister of The Riverside Church.
The Riverside Church is an interdenominational, interracial, and international church built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1927. The 2,400-member church is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.
Forbes is the first African-American to serve as Senior Minister of one of the largest multicultural congregations in the nation. He is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches and the Original United Holy Church of America.
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It seems, well, a bit inaccurate to call a church that, only relatively recently, installed an African American at the helm as being a "black church".
.d.