Judson Memorial Church

The Judson Memorial Church is located in Greenwich Village of Manhattan on the south side of Washington Square Park. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and with the United Church of Christ.

History

The church was founded by Edward Judson, a distinguished preacher, with the backing of John D. Rockefeller and other prominent Baptists, in 1890, as a memorial to his father Adoniram Judson, one of the first Protestant missionaries to Burma. Edward Judson chose as the new location of his church the south side of Washington Square Park, because he wanted to reach out to the neighboring Italian community. He envisioned the church as an institution to serve the burgeoning immigrant population of Lower Manhattan through health, nutrition, education, and recreational programs.

In the 1890s, Edward Judson observed that "the intelligent, well-to-do, and church going people withdraw from "this part of the city"." "This part of the city" was a reference to lower Manhattan, where a wave of recent Italian immigrants had settled. The church building, erected in 1890, was designed in an Italianate style, in part to give a familiar feeling of beauty to these immigrants. As well as worship and religious education, the church offered healthcare and outreach ministries to non-members as well as members. However, the church was never able to attract support from its wealthy neighbors on the north side of Washington Square, and by 1912,the church found itself in financial difficulties. The Baptist City Society (metropolitan association of Baptist churches) was persuaded to take over the property and financial responsibility, which it ended up holding until the congregation was again able to resume ownership and control in 1973.

In the 1920s, under leadership of pastor A. Ray Petty, the church offered its parish house on Thompson Street to Dr. Eleanor Campbell, a pioneering female physician, who ran the Judson Health Center, a free medical/dental clinic, from the 1920s to 1950, when the Clinic moved to its present location in Soho. During the 1920s, the church, with aid from the national American Baptist denomination, also ran the Judson Neighborhood House, a settlement house, at 179 Sullivan Sreet.

During the Depression, Judson Church was pastored by Laurence Hosie. Although the congregation dwindled, the church remained active in various social causes, including allowing homeless men to sleep on the pews at times. In 1937, the Baptist City Society appointed Rev. Renato Giacomelli Alden as pastor, who ministered to a largely Italian-speaking congregation. After the Second World War, the former parish house/health center was turned into a residence for international and interracial students, led by the Baptist chaplain to NYU students, Dean R. Wright. At the same time, a new Judson pastor, Robert Spike, began theological explorations with veterans and the artists then working in Greenwich Village, which brought a new group of congregants and led to a change in the church's worship style to a more modern sensibility.

In 1957, Howard Moody became the senior minister, continuing the church's outspoken advocacy on issues of civil rights and free expression, as well as breaking with the confessedly evangelical understandings of the past by speaking out for issues once universally considered to be immoral by Christians (such as abortion and the decriminalization of prostitution), a policy that continues under the present leadership of the congregation. Rev. Al Carmines, associate pastor 1962-79, focussed his ministry on the arts (see below). The congregation expanded during this period, allowing the church to take back control of its property from the citywide Baptist organization that had been acting as trustee until 1973.

Following Dr. Moody's retirement in 1990, the Rev. Peter Laarman became senior pastor. Coming from a background in union organizing, Laarman led the church into ministries dealing with economic issues, while continuing work with the arts and other social issues, and starting a multi-year program of restoration and renovation of the church's aging buildings.

Current senior pastor Donna Schaper has created a pioneering program to train future clergy in how to do "public ministry" from a congregational base, by providing part-time apprenticeships to seminarians and recent graduates. Also under her leadership, Judson Church has taken a leadership role in the New Sanctuary Movement for immigrant rights.

Mission

The church's mission has long been self-described as being devoted to social outreach, and establishing programs designed to help those perceived to be in need, despite the controversial or sometimes, unpopular, nature of that help. In the 1950s, the church was the first institution in Greenwich Village to create a counseling program for [drug addicts] ; in the 1960s, the church led in helping to found a nationwide network network of Protestant and Jewish clergy who aided women who needed abortions before they were legal; in the 1970s, it operated a residence for runaway teens, established a Professional Women's Clinic for women engaged in prostitution, and in the 1980s, helped provide medical resources for people with AIDS. In the 2000s, Judson clergy operated a relief fund for the families of restaurant workers who were killed on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. Now, the church is active in the New Sanctuary Movement for immigrant rights.

ponsorship of the arts

Beginning in the 1950s, the Judson Memorial Church has supported a radical arts ministry, first led by associate pastor Bernard Scott and subsequently by associate pastor Al Carmines. The church made space available to artists for art exhibitions, rehearsals, and performances. The church also assured that this space was to be a place where these artists could have the freedom to experiment in their work without fear of censorship. In 1957, the Judson Memorial Church offered gallery space to Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, and Robert Rauschenberg, who were then unknown artists. In 1959, the Judson Gallery showed work by pop artists, Tom Wesselmann, Daniel Spoerri, and Red Grooms. Yoko Ono also had her work exhibited at the Judson gallery.

The Judson Dance Theater, which began in 1962, provided a venue for dancers and choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Steve Paxton, David Gordon (dance), and Yvonne Rainer to create and show their work. Among others, these dancers and choreographers shaped dance history by creating postmodern dance, the first avant-garde movement in dance theater since the modern dance of the 1930s and 1940s. For the past 20 years or so, Movement Research has presented concerts of experimental dance at Judson on Monday evenings during the academic year.

In the 1970s, the Judson Memorial Church hosted various art shows and multimedia events. Most notable among these multimedia events was the People's Flag Show of November 1970, a six-day exhibition of painting and sculpture on the theme of the American flag. The exhibit and the accompanying symposium, featuring speeches by Abbie Hoffman and Kate Millet, attracted widespread attention from the public, the press, and the police. During the final days of the exhibit, three of the contributing artists were arrested, both pastors (Moody and Carmines) were given summons (not followed up), and the District Attorney closed the exhibit on charges of desecration of the American flag.

The Judson Poets' Theatre began in the 1960s as one of three off-off-Broadway venues (the others were Cafe Cino and La Mama). Experimental plays and musicals by later-famous authors and directors, including Sam Shepherd, Lanford Wilson and Tom O'Horgan, were presented in the church's main Meeting Room. Starting in the late 1960s, Al Carmines began writing and producing his own musicals, and later, "oratorios" that used large volunteer choruses. Especially notable were several shows using texts by Gertrude Stein, music by Carmines, with direction by the Judson Poets Theatre director Lawrence Kornfeld.

In the 1980s, the Judson Memorial Church sponsored various political theater performances, such as those by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater. These performances included Insurrection Opera and Oratorio, performed in February and March 1984. In this performance, the Bread and Puppet Theater, under the direction of founder, Peter Schumann, used opera and the company's now signature oversized puppets to convey an anti-nuclear message.

The Judson Memorial Church celebrated its Centennial in 1990 with performances and symposia involving many of the artists who had been involved with the arts ministry in the 1960s and 1970s.

More recently, the church hosted a five-night stand by Montreal band Arcade Fire from February 13th through 17th, 2007.

The Judson Memorial Church continues both its support of the arts and its social outreach to the community today.

Building

Judson Memorial Church is a particularly stately edifice, at the south side of Washington Square. The church building, designed by renowned architect Stanford White, and stained glass master John La Farge, features Italian Renaissance influences wedded to a basic Italianate form. It features notable examples of scagliola, a very convincing handcrafted imitation of marble made of highly polished pigmented plaster. Sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens designed a marble frieze in the baptistry. Overall, the exterior and shape of Judson Memorial is said to resemble Santa Maria, a basilica in Rome, while the entrance is said to be inspired by the Renaissance church San Alessandro, built in Lucca in 1480. The 14 stained glass windows in the church's main sanctuary are the largest collection of major LaFarge windows in any one place in the United States. The church is a national landmark.

In 1999, facing financial difficulties, the Board of Trustees sold the Judson House parish building behind the church to New York University School of Law, which used the site for its new Furman Building. At eleven stories tall, the new building now towers over the church and Washington Square Park beyond, causing considerable controversy in the community at the time of its construction.Fact|date=July 2007 Judson Church's offices and a small Assembly Hall now occupy a condominium suite in one corner of the new building, adjacent to the main church, at 239 Thompson Street.

Over the 16 years from 1990 to 2006, the church building was repointed, repainted, reroofed; the stained glass windows were cleaned and reinstalled; an elevator was installed to make the building accessible, and air-conditioning was added. These projects used up all the proceeds from the sale of the back lots, plus about a million more, raised from contributions of arts-lovers and the congregation.

Sunday services are held at 11 a.m. weekly. See www.judson.org for more details on current events and other features.

Judson Ministers and Staff Through History
*Rev. Edward Judson (Judson minister, 1890-1914)
*Rev. A. Ray Petty (Judson minister, 1915-1926)
*Rev. Laurence T. Hosie (Judson minister, 1926-1937)
*Rev. Renato Giacomelli Alden (Judson minister to Italian-speaking congregation, 1937-1946, sole minister after Hosie's departure)
*Rev. Elbert R. Tingley (City Society's appointed executive director for Judson, 1946-1948)
*Rev. Dean Wright (Director, Judson House Student Program, 1948-1952)
*Rev. Robert W. Spike (Judson minister, 1949-1955)
*Bernard (Bud) Scott (Seminary Intern under Spike, Associate Minister under Moody, 1957-1960), serving as missionary to the surrounding artistic community
*Rev. Howard Moody (Judson minister, 1956-1992)
*Rev. Al Carmines (Judson associate minister, 1961-1981)
*Arthur A. Levin (Director of The Center for Medical Consumers, 1976-present - also, administration for many Judson-related projects since 1966, including the Judson Teenage Arts Workshop, Judson mobile health project, and Judson Runaway House)
*Arlene Carmen (Judson "Administrix" 1967-1994 - "Administrix" over those years encompassed first being Howard Moody's secretary, then Church Administrator, and finally, mid-1980s, Program Associate was added to the Administrator title)
*Roland Wiggins (Sexton, mid-1970s - present)
*Rev. Dr. Lee Hancock (Judson associate minister, 1981-1985)
*Rev. Dr. Bill Malcomson (Judson interim minister, 1992-94)
*Andrew Frantz (Sunday School Director, 1993-present)
*Rev. Peter Laarman (Judson minister, 1994-2004)
*Ryan Gillam (Special Program Associate for theatre, 1994-96)
*Aziza (Special Program Associate, 1993-2002) (producer for Licks 'n Licks, Single Mothers' Workshop, Dance of African Descent Downtown)
*Rev. Louise Green (Judson associate minister, 1996-1998)
*Rev. Karen Senecal (Judson associate minister, sole minister after Laarmen, 2000-2005)
*Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper (Judson minister, January 2006-present)
*Rev. Michael Ellick (Judson associate minister, 2008-present)

For additional details on some aspects of Judson's history, see:Remembering Judson House (E. & J. Dickason, eds., 1999). Copies are available from the church office, 239 Thompson St., New York, N.Y. 10012. Arlene Carmen and Howard Moody, Abortion Counseling and Social Change: From Illegal Act to Medical Practice (Judson Press, 1973)Carmen and Moody, Working Women: The Subterranean World of Street Prostitution (Harper & Row, 1985).

External links

* [http://judson.org Judson Memorial Church] Official website
* [http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/falesead/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=judson.xml&style=saxon01f2002.xsl Judson Memorial Church Archive] at Fales Library, New York University
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sr45UPsB5Y VIDEO] Interview of Reverend Donna Schaper on "The O'Reilly Factor" - 05/10/07
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnPZRD5LDN0 VIDEO] New Sanctuary Movement (Reverend Donna Schaper and Jean and his family) on "Geraldo at Large" - 05/13/07
* [http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/manuscripts/collections/ms057.dot Donna O. Schaper Papers at Gettysburg College]