The Gold Coast Church and Ghetto

About this book

One of the nation's best-known churches, Fourth Presbyterian is a thriving mainline church housed in a Gothic building in Chicago's wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood. Less than a mile to the west is another world: the Cabrini-Green low-income housing project. In this account, James Wellman surveys the church's history of balancing its theological aims and its social boundaries and sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of liberal Protestantism as a modern religious institution. Wellman tracks Fourth Presbyterian's gradual shift away from an evangelical role towards its current focus on service, epitomized in an extensive volunteer tutoring program that serves hundreds of Cabrini-Green residents each week. By documenting the church's struggle to meet the needs of its privileged congregants while challenging them to move beyond exclusive boundaries of race and class, The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto opens a window into the past, present, and future of the Protestant mainline.