History
The roots of Fountain Street Church date back to 1824, when the region’s original Baptist mission established itself “to convert the Ottawa Native Americans.” A lengthy history of institutional squabbles between themselves and other area Baptists eventually culminated into the two factions' reuniting in 1869 to create Fountain Street Baptist Church (so named for the building they erected on the east side of downtown Grand Rapids).
Following the ministry of John L. Jackson, the church selected John Herman Randall, a young graduate of the new University of Chicago Divinity School . Over his 10-year ministry, Randall effectively converted Fountain Street Baptist Church from orthodox to progressive, reflecting the spirit of the Divinity School which is still known for its liberal approach to religious studies. He left to serve Mount Morris Baptist Church in New York City and eventually moved on to serve with John Haynes Holmes' Community Church of New York, beginning a kinship with Unitarians that exists to this day. Randall's son, John Herman Randall, Jr.., became a noted philosopher at Columbia University
While Randall's career moved the church toward a more liberal direction, his successor, Alfred Wesley Wishart — also a graduate of the UC Divinity School— permanently set FSC on a liberal path. Wishart's career was marked by three significant events: 1) The 1911 Furniture Workers Strike, 2) the rebuilding of the church following destruction by fire in 1917, and 3) the use of FSC as a public venue for debates and lectures that brought world famous faces and voices to Grand Rapids.
Read more about this topic: Fountain Street Church
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)