This past week I was fortunate to visit New York City with my post-graduate Christian leadership program, The Falls Church Fellows. Walking through Wall Street, I pointed to a gorgeous church.
“That looks like the church from National Treasure!” I exclaimed
“That is the church from National Treasure,” was the response.
I was looking at Trinity Church Wall Street, an Episcopal parish founded in 1698. Completed in 1846 in a Gothic revival architecture, the current sanctuary was the tallest building in the United States until 1869, and the tallest building in New York City until 1890. Built from brownstone, brick, and terra cotta, I had never seen such a building. It delighted me to think that the building was created to worship the Lord.
I stared at the 281-foot church admiring the beauty and the ancient represented in the architectural style. Inside the building, my eyes and soul were lifted upward to heaven through the stained glass and grand arches above. As I sat in the pews, the beautiful organ rang, an experience rarely received in my reformed evangelical background.
“If I stayed here long enough, I think I could reach nirvana,” I joked to the Christian next to me.
Nirvana isn’t real. Yet, the spiritual enlightenment the Buddhist faith seeks is ultimately reached by the fullness of God’s revelation in Christ. As I looked at the stained glass of Jesus and the apostles, I saw the biblical redemption narrative. My eyes gazing upward to heaven, I felt the finite limitations of being a creature and was pointed towards a true enlightenment that is the fullness of God’s revelation in Jesus. In a way most young people can understand, I felt close to nirvana.
I knew how beautiful this church was, and how it was created with such majesty to worship the Lord. But it pained me to know that it now is stewarded by theological revisionists who deny some foundation beliefs of the Christian faith. The Episcopal Church is a Mainline Protestant denomination that, although rich in historic edifices and institutional resources, skewed away from biblical orthodoxy, and is seeing the results by a constant loss of membership.
The Episcopal Church has become like most Mainline denominations, very progressive, although some congregations are exceptions. Take, for example, the post-inaugural prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral last month. Washington Bishop Mariann Budde’s homily went viral as the bishop asked Trump to have “mercy” on illegal immigrants and “transgender” kids. Budde was criticized – heavily – for delivering a political sermon to the newly inaugurated President of the United States.
Not only is this problem prominent in the Episcopal Church, but many Mainline Protestant institutions are theologically progressive and politically outspoken. Earlier this year, IRD critiqued the United Methodist Church (UMC) for acting as a leftist NGO, and the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) in my own Reformed tradition is no different with its denominational advocacy against Project 2025 and other political stances. Mainline denominations institutionally prefer political advocacy over the kind of evangelism required to reverse their 60-year membership decline.
I sat at Trinity Church admiring its beauty but bewildered at the current state of its denomination. Everything in Trinity Church geared the eyes and soul upward to heaven. But the church itself through its preaching and service seeks to bring the spirit right back down to earth. Often focused upon a particular view of social justice, much of the Episcopal Church faces irretrievable decline.
So why then does she have this beautiful church? Why is it that the unorthodox, the theologically liberal, and much of the Mainline, keep the historicity and the beauty of Christian heritage? Why do the heterodox get to keep the beautiful buildings?
To preserve sound theological orthodoxy, many theological conservatives in these now-leftist led denominations fled, often losing their buildings and heritage. As traditionalists left to preserve orthodoxy, the Mainline denominations continued to politicize, while keeping the beauty, tradition, and architecture that originate in, and point to, orthodox faith.
Meanwhile, much of conservative Christianity builds worship spaces and hosts worship services that deemphasize if not ignore traditional beauty. Instead, they stress practicality and contemporary style.
Can we have orthodox faith and traditional worship in beautiful sanctuaries? Of course, it still can be found. But it’s a combination that seems to be shrinking in U.S. Christianity. Trinity Church Wall Street has a $6 billion endowment, accumulated across several centuries! But vast wealth is not necessary for beautiful churches and traditional worship.
We can pray that evangelistic preaching returns to beautiful old churches like Trinity Wall Street. And we can also pray that more evangelistic churches appreciate timeless beauty that transcends all fashion.
Comment by Wilson R. on February 11, 2025 at 1:07 pm
If we have come to the point that a call on our leaders to practice mercy is considered political and therefore out of bounds, then the Gospel has lost its meaning as a guidepost, and we’ve moved into “fake gospel” territory.
Comment by David on February 11, 2025 at 3:08 pm
In addition to its endowment, Trinity Church Wall Street, has had the right for centuries to any dead whale that washes up on the shores of Manhattan. This was very valuable for oil and “bones” at one time, but not today. It is unknow if this right was ever exercised.
Comment by Different Steve on February 12, 2025 at 10:06 am
In her riff against President Donald Trump in the Washington National Cathedral about his ungodly treatment of immigrants last week, Episcopal Bishop Marianne Budde failed to mention that Episcopal Migrant Ministries received $53 million taxpayer dollars in 2023 to aid its migrant resettlement program.
https://www.virtueonline.org/post/washington-episcopal-bishop-rips-trump-over-immigration-gays-church-of-england-in-crisis-new-te
Comment by Wilson R on February 12, 2025 at 11:55 pm
Oh, you mean the federal funding for migrant resettlement that Trump withdrew? Lord.
It’s never wrong for a pastor to beseech national leaders to practice mercy.
What’s different now is that many self-proclaimed Christians are happy to side with haters who regard mercy as a weakness.
They might do well to remember what Jesus said about the many who shout “Lord, Lord” but will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. Or, they might continue to fool around and find out.
Comment by Wilson R. on February 13, 2025 at 10:10 am
David French’s newsletter today, published in the NYT, is worth a read on this topic. As a lawyer, David has been an actual defender of religious liberty. He has some rather harsh things to say about the heretical notion of “toxic empathy” that has been voguish on this site.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/opinion/trump-usaid-evangelicals.html
Comment by Different Steve on February 13, 2025 at 6:00 pm
And, of course, we had Bishop Budde, I think her name is Mariann Budde. She was going to give this national prayer sermon. She gave it and then she hijacked her own sermon and started haranguing Donald Trump about being too harsh and he has to be merciful in the treatment of transgenders and illegal aliens.
Nothing about an open border where 80,000 to 100,000 people are killed through imported fentanyl. Nothing about criminal aliens that hurt and maim and kill Americans. Nothing about cutting in front of the line and hurt legal applicants. Nothing about overwhelming social services so that our poor don’t have the access that they previously had.
No, it’s just a, what? A performance art, virtue signaling way of getting attention. And indeed, the bishop went through all of the talk shows, “The View,” to highlight her confrontation with Donald Trump.
What am I getting at here in conclusion? The Left is out of ideas. They’re like an addict that is addicted and fixed on their next, I don’t know, melodrama. And they know that is destroying them. They know that people want substantive debate. They know they can’t do that because they’re on the losing end of that argument.
They know they should not continue with these psychodramas, the strife, strident, invective, and they can’t stop. Like a zombie addict, they can’t stop. In other words, to quote Talleyrand, again, “They’ve forgotten nothing and they’ve learned nothing.”
https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/02/13/like-a-zombie-addict-the-left-cant-stop-hating-maga/
Comment by Different Steve on February 13, 2025 at 6:28 pm
LOL: David French is the NY Times’s newest ‘conservative’ columnist
You get the idea: David French is a “conservative” whose “conservative” values align very closely with the Democrat party’s values. No wonder that the New York Times is thrilled to welcome their newest “conservative” columnist:
As with other so-called “conservative” columnists at leftist outlets (Jennifer Rubin at the WaPo, Brett Stephens at the Times), readers of the New York Times can have the thrill of finding that they agree with a “reasonable” conservative, one who marches in lockstep with all of their views. It’s all those other conservatives, the ones who don’t take orders from the New York Times, who are the real haters in America.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/lol_david_french_is_the_ny_timess_newest_conservative_columnist.html
Comment by SW Livingston on February 13, 2025 at 10:38 pm
I feel sorry for the author, but she is very young and not broadened by experience. Bishop Budde is my kind of Christian. I openly describe myself as Protestant, Methodist, main-line. I cringe at evangelical arrogance.
Comment by Thomas on February 15, 2025 at 9:50 pm
How come someone who believes that Jesus was wrong when He said that marriage and sexuality are only possible in the sacred union of a man and woman in marriage can be a Christian? Or someone who believes all religions lead to God? Or supports abortion and says Jesus would have supported too. Budde is as much an apostate as TEC. This isn`t Christianity anymore but apostasy and neopaganism.
Comment by Thomas on February 15, 2025 at 9:51 pm
The UMC, TEC, Presbyterian Church (USA) are dead for the Christian faith. GMC, ACNA, Presbyterian Church in America are still Christian.
Comment by Joe M on February 17, 2025 at 12:15 am
We can also pray that Evangelicals will give up their lover affair with overhead screens, for starters.
Comment by JoeR on February 18, 2025 at 7:05 am
It seems as though the Libs are spending a lot of time flooding the comments section.
I disagree with many aspects of Trump’s life. I do agree with our borders being secure, my tax dollars being spent wisely, and the Federal Government being reduced in size.
Those who enter illegally should be deported.
Comment by George on February 18, 2025 at 10:38 am
It’s only a matter of time. It’s already happening in parts of Europe. “What?”, you may say.
There is a knock at the door. It’s law enforcement. They hand you a piece of paper and then go throughout your house, taking your phone and computers. Later in court, you are fined and warned that you could serve time in jail for repeating your crime. The crime is quoting Bible verses in an online chat room that are at odds with today’s progressive agenda. I’m not making this up. It’s real. It happening already.