NEW YORK (NY)
Forbes Magazine
July 11, 2019
By Natalie Sachmechi
Even in a progressive bastion like New York’s Riverside Church — which touts LGBTQ equity, supports immigrants and focuses on environmental justice — one high-ranking woman seems to have been ousted in the aftermath of sexual harassment allegations.
The church has been at the forefront of progressive Christian leadership since its inception in 1930. Statues of scientists like Darwin, Galileo and Einstein decorate the building where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous anti-Vietnam War speech in 1967. And in 2004, the church issued a statement in support of same-sex marriage and said it had been performing same-sex ceremonies as early as 1991.
In 2014, the church made headlines when it hired its first female senior minister, the Rev. Dr. Amy Butler. She was known as a progressive Christian leader to her followers and “wanted to be known as a pastor who happens to be a woman, not a woman pastor,” she wrote in a blog post.
Last week, her name was all over Christian media outlets when news broke that she was stepping down after five years at Riverside — and no one appeared to know exactly why. A statement issued by the church said that she would not be renewing her contract, and Butler called her time at Riverside “one of the greatest honors of my life.”
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