Sin City Exit?

A generation ago, mainstream Protestant churches began clustering their national agencies in New York City. With such institutions as the U.N. and the National Council of Churches already in place, Manhattan seemed the ideal base for forward-looking church leaders. Now, for various reasons, four major denominations are simultaneously pondering whether to pull up stakes. The underlying trouble is not New York's reputation as Sin City--except insofar as liberalism is counted a sin. Churchgoers on Main Street are increasingly concerned that the left-of-center New York bureaucracies are out of step with heartland beliefs.

"There's been a massive reaction by people in the pews against the very well-meaning New York boards that they never see," says Martin Marty, religion historian at the University of Chicago. A westward shift, he thinks, would be aimed at putting "the leadership in close touch with the way people are actually thinking." The Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Episcopal bishop of New York, counters that it is vital to be where "urban issues, poverty issues and the intensity of the social problems are right there under your nose."

The Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ have each scheduled formal discussions this year on the site problem; in each case, however, the national staff and Eastern establishment probably have the clout to forestall any move. The newly merged Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will decide next year where to locate denominational headquarters, and some believe the majority will be against New York. Three Lutheran branches are also merging, and in September a committee will probably recommend a midwestern city for the new headquarters.

Various cities are already lobbying to land the potential New York refugees. No one is doing so more actively than the persuasive mayor of Indianapolis, William Hudnut III, a Presbyterian clergyman who helped engineer the nighttime raid of Baltimore's Colts last year. His city is already home to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and Hudnut is quietly but insistently hymning the praises of Indianapolis to various Protestant officials. Some church staffers, accustomed to the cosmopolitan lures of New York, are shuddering at the prospect of a town that once kiddingly called itself Dullsville. Even if none of the restive churches wind up in Indianapolis, Protestant laity throughout the country may well agree with Mayor Hudnut when he says, "Some of the very, very liberal people who seem to dominate the bureaucracies and organizational structures of these denominations might learn something from us."