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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Beyond stones
and stained
glass:
In its 180th year, Christ Church
Episcopal continues its spiritual
and social mission

Angela Smith
July 1, 2008
Special Topics in Public History
Dr. Michael Tomlan

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Beyond stones and stained glass: In its 180th year, Christ Church
Episcopal continues its spiritual and social mission

Soon after my mother died in 1990, I moved into a rental house in the Oak Hill area of Nashville – a

house that was instrumental in my recovery from a sometimes overwhelming grief. Sanctuary came

from the space and its generous and caring owner. It was an older house on the rear section of a large,

wooded estate on Tyne Boulevard. The owner, Evelyn Ames Davis, was the widow of the Rev. J. Paschall

Davis, a successful businessman who, after retirement, became the rector of Christ Church Episcopal.

Mrs. Davis, who was called Evie, was a New Englander by birth and a 1932 graduate of Smith College,

and both she and her husband were early reproductive rights advocates. She was instrumental in

bringing Planned Parenthood to the Southern states, and in 1992 she established the J. Paschall

Davis Fund for Planned Parenthood of Nashville to provide no-interest loans to low-income women

who would not otherwise be able to provide abortion services. She was also a founder and member

of the board of the Nashville chapter of Concern for Dying, an advocacy group for the right to die.

Evie Davis died in the fall of 1993 at the age of 83, and it was at her funeral that I entered Christ

Church for the first time. Having grown up attending a conservative Southern Baptist Church, as

an adult I had sworn off churches for the foreseeable future. When I had to choose a church for this

study, it was a difficult task. Because of my history with the conservative churches of the South, I

understood that an important part of who I am was condemned by the church – a lesbian who has

been in a loving, committed relationship for ten plus years. Then I remembered Mrs. Davis and

her social consciousness, and I also thought about the 2003 ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop

of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the church’s history, and I thought, “Perhaps

Christ Church Cathedral is the perfect study for me.” And indeed it was. The integrity of the church

and its open arms – the rector is a woman and the canon pastor is a gay man – as well as its record

of preservation of one of Nashville’s historic buildings made this church a clear-cut choice.

Its congregation has grown from around 20 founding members in a city of 6,000 in 1829 to more

than 2,100 today in a metropolitan area of 1.5 million; it has held to the Episcopal liturgical tradition

centered on the Book of Common Prayer, but it has continued to find ways to ensure its relevance

to 21st-century parishioners; it has always had a focus on ministering to the poor and extending

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

its mission of service, and it has expanded the mission to serve those who are marginalized by

society in every area of Nashville; it has increasingly joined its time, energy and resources with

other churches and agencies to better serve those in need; and in recent years its identity has also

changed from church to cathedral to recognize its place as the seat of the Diocese of Tennessee.

Christ Cathedral, in its 180th year, is a Nashville institution, carefully preserved and

on the National Register since 1978. From any spot in the 600-seat sanctuary, one can

see stained glass and richly carved woodwork. From the unique tiled aisles to the barrel

vaulted ceiling of the Gothic structure, Christ Cathedral is a magnificent building, and it

is also a living, changing body, committed to the congregation and the community.

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

A brief history of the Episcopal Church in the United States

In the turmoil of the Reformation and Henry VIII’s spat with Pope Clement VII, the Church

of England arose, Anglican rather than Latin in language and politics – and, eventually, in

theology. Less than a century later English settlers who arrived in Jamestown brought with

them the budding theology, the Book of Common Prayer, and the minister. What they did not

bring was a bishop, leaving them tied to church leadership in England for the next 150 years.

To establish additional parishes and clergy, “it was necessary for devout and learned men who

were capable of praying for and instructing their neighbors to cross the ocean for the purpose

of ordination by ‘a cross old gentleman from Canterbury.’”1 The result was a struggle to keep

the Anglican tradition viable in the colonies, a struggle that other churches did not have.

By the early 18th century, Presbyterians were flooding in from Scotland and settling in the

frontiers Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They not only had a “sullen hatred” for

the Anglican church, they had freedom to organize their own, “selecting from among themselves a

pastor whose ordination was a simple laying on of hands by some presbytery in session close by.” 2
Up and down the Atlantic coast, the Baptists, too, had no administrators that supervised them.

“The churches frequently provided a man’s opportunity for self-government, and to him his voice,

heard for the first time, sounded sweet and strong.” 3 The Methodists, at first Anglican churchmen

who wanted a more personal religious practice within the church, did not get the clergy they

requested from the Bishop of London. Then “John Wesley sent Thomas Coke as superintendent of

the societies. Coke, with Francis Asbury, a missionary already in America, surreptitiously assumed

the title and function of bishops, organized a compact empire, cut the Methodist societies from

the Anglican Church, and started the Methodist Episcopal Church on its independent way.”4

As the differences between the mother country and the colonies became more and more apparent,

the Baptists and Presbyterians, as well as the mushrooming Methodists who had an increase of ten

thousand members, actively supported the revolutionary movement.5 In the Church of England in the

colonies, some parishioners – Patrick Henry and James Madison among them – were loyal to the faith

but not to the king of England. Many of the clergy, however, were torn. When they were ordained,

they had sworn allegiance to the king, but them they found they were leading churches filled with

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

patriots ready to defend the new land. Some left for England and some simply left their congregations,

but “a large proportion, however, by desire or discretion, remained loyal to the government they

represented. … The churches were wrecked, the lands and property confiscated by legislation, the

chalices and patens defiled, and the baptismal fonts lay in disuse. … When the independence of the

American colonies was recognized by treaty, the Church of England in America ceased to exist.”6

The aftermath of the war exposed the church’s weaknesses and its members drifted to

other churches, but it also gave the church an opportunity to renew itself within the new nation.

Its hierarchy was in the fashion of the Federalist idea of a strong central government formed of

complementary parts. In secret meetings, men of the church – and only men – sought to find a

framework in which the church could be revived. Church history dictated a top-down approach,

but the 1784 committee acted boldly even though there was no bishop for the American churches.

The thinking was that “quick action was required by the three major problems which faced

every thoughtful churchman: the preservation of church worship, the conservation of church

property, and the inauguration of an American episcopacy.” 7 When the Episcopal Church sent

Samuel Seabury to England to be consecrated, the Church of England balked. The Episcopal

Church of Scotland agreed to the consecration, although questions of its legitimacy were raised,

and Seabury returned in 1785 as the Episcopal Church’s first bishop in the United States.

By 1789, the church had a new constitution that provided for a bishop in each state and an

American version of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in which all references to the British

sovereign were deleted.8 Soon two more bishops were consecrated, this time in London. While

these actions finished the early work of reorganizing the church, theological differences between

the churches in the South and those in New England threatened to divide the fragile movement.

The role of clergy and laity was a significant issue, with the evangelical Episcopalians of the

South leaning toward a democratic governance while the New England churches remained

attached to the high church idea that gave the bishops direct authority. Some of the changes in

the prayer book, also designed to appease the evangelicals, were unacceptable to Seabury and

his supporters. Negotiations at the 1789 church convention, however, overcame the differences:

“Delegates from all the states formally approved both the church’s constitution and the body

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

of laws known as the ‘canons.’ They also adopted the final version of the American Book of

Common Prayer and made its use obligatory throughout the denomination.” 9 In the next decade,

compromises continued to increase the American church’s distance from the Church of England.

At the same time these white church leaders were reconstructing the church, African

Americans embarked on a similar path. Absalom Jones, who came to Philadelphia as a

slave in 1762 and was educated and freed in the climate of Quaker abolitionism, embraced

the Anglican tradition. He was instrumental in founding what was not only the first black

Episcopal Church in the United States, but the first black church of any denomination.

With all of these forward steps, however, the Episcopal Church reflected the same divide as

the young nation. The old world was one of established order and deference to authority and the

new world was burgeoning with people convinced they could make decisions for the individual

and common good. In the church, the liturgy, the bowing and kneeling, and the adapted but still

archaic language of prayer seemed to reinforce the subordination the church had ostensibly left

behind. In 1790, the nation had grown to four million, but only about ten thousand of them were

Episcopalians and they were primarily upper- and middle-class residents of urban areas. Those

who were poor and rural, the vast majority of the population, “found the experiential faith of the

Methodists and Baptists far more appealing than the formal worship of the Episcopalians.”10

The blacks that joined Absalom Jones “understood both the inherently egalitarian potential of

the evangelical denominations and the elitist pretensions of Anglicanism.”11 When a new wave of

anti-British feeling erupted around the War of 1812, American institutions that were associated

with England were again suspect, so the Episcopal Church had a decidedly uphill battle.

In the mid-nineteenth century, many significant figures and movements continued the reshaping of

the church, and its adherents increased. Among them – and still reflected in the contemporary church

– were the establishment of lay sisterhoods to serve society’s neediest and sending missionaries to work

with Indian children on reservations and African Americans throughout the South. Then there was

the hurdle of the Civil War, with many Episcopalians in the South seeking a religious defense for their

slaveholding and many others supporting the Union cause. This resulted not only in a split in the white

Episcopal Church, but also in the black church. Between 1865 and 1870, thousands of former slaves left

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

the Episcopal Church and other denominations controlled by the white people who had enslaved them.

Heading uphill again, the church found a niche in the climate of social and intellectual change between

the Civil War and World War I. The extraordinary rise in immigration and the increasing population

density in urban areas brought problems that the Episcopal Church was committed to address. “Out of a

desire to alleviate suffering and minimize disorder, Episcopalians instituted some of the most important

institutional expressions of the social gospel movement in the United States.”12 With this came a “broad

church” movement, a third church party that would try to find a balance between issues that divided

the evangelicals and the high church and ultimately adapt religious ideas to contemporary life.

Following World War I, just over one million U.S. Episcopalians had a renewed confidence as

the church membership had tripled between 1880 and 1920. The modern church emerged and

thrived, despite the fact that its several efforts for ecclesiastical unification with Presbyterians and

Methodists failed and its numbers remained static during the Great Depression as fundamentalist

and Pentecostal churches grew rapidly. After World War II shook the nation, however, there

was a surge in church membership in the expanding suburbs throughout the country. By 1960,

there were 3.3 million baptized Episcopalians, one in every 55 citizens. The work of the church

increased, too, with even greater emphasis on race relations, the rights and roles of women, and

other social issues. In the 1960s, however, the church lost nearly one million members, the same

fate that befell most Protestant churches in that turbulent decade. In the coming years, upheavals

and strife came as the denomination dealt with the ordination of women as priests, the acceptance

of gays and lesbians in the church, and the effort to increase ethnic and racial diversity.

By the dawn of the new century, Episcopalian church membership was just over 2.3 million.

Even though it had never regained its peak numbers, the church’s identity remains strong, just

as its struggles go on. In 2006, the Right Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori became the first female

presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in its history, three years after the Rev. Gene Robinson of

New Hampshire became the church’s first openly gay bishop. Several dozen of the church’s 7,700

congregations have split with the church over the issue, an action that church leadership has said it

cannot allow. The issue is expected to continue, since a judge in Virginia on June 28 upheld a state

law that allows congregations to split from their parent denominations, which eleven conservative

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Episcopal churches in the state say they will do.13 In Jerusalem last week, more than one-quarter of

the 800 bishops who would have met in July for the once-a-decade international Anglican conference

in Canterbury attended a rival meeting, the Global Anglican Future Conference. The breakaway group

that includes eight American bishops declared that they could not reconcile with the Episcopal Church

in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, which have accepted a gay bishop and same-

sex unions. Their theological manifesto released June 26, is called “The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” a

directive for new Reformation. “Now after five centuries,” it says, “a new fork in the road is appearing.”14

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Governance and organization of the church15

The word “episcopal” suggests the governance of the church and the continuance of the apostolic

tradition; the Greek word “episcopos” means “overseer.” According to the Bible, apostles were

overseers of the church. Their successors – bishops are vital to the common life of the church

and its governance. The statement of church governance for the Episcopal Church suggests a

democratic organization: “All church members play a role in our governance, from decisions in

parish life to our highest policy-making body, the General Convention. Lay and ordained people,

in concert with the church’s bishops, share the responsibilities of oversight and legislation.”

The General Convention, a bicameral legislature that includes the House of Deputies and the House

of Bishops, meets every three years – the 76th meeting is in July 2009. These deputies and bishops,

representing each of the 112 dioceses of the United States, consider the matters facing the church. The

first General Convention was held in 1785 in Philadelphia. Its initial work was to develop a constitution

and a book of worship on the order of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. “Within

ten years the General Convention had agreed on its form of governance and its pattern of worship, both

of which endure to the present day,” according to the Rev. Dr. Gregory Straub, executive officer and

secretary of the General Convention. “ Uniquely for its time, the first General Conventions determined

on a bicameral house in which elected (rather than royally appointed) bishops would make up one

house, and lay and ordained deputies (equally represented) would make up the other house.”

The House of Bishops, chaired by the primate and presiding bishop of the church, may include

all bishops of the church in good standing, both active and retired – generally about 300 bishops.

The House of Deputies is drawn from the U.S. Dioceses, the Convocation of Churches in Europe

and the Navajoland Area Mission. Each of those entities may elect eight deputies, four laypersons

and four priests and/or deacons, to the House of Deputies, which has its own president. At each

convention, there are 800-plus deputies. According to secretary Straub, “Deputies vote their

conscience for the good of the church. They cannot be instructed to vote one way or another,

for to do so would preclude godly debate and preempt the work of the Holy Spirit. Deputies are

expected to serve on committees, if appointed, to attend forums and hearings, to read the reports

to the church from its commissions, committees, agencies and boards, to listen to, and if so

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

moved, to respond to resolutions on the floor of the house.” In the manner of the U.S. Congress,

the House of Bishops and House of Deputies meet, deliberate and vote separately on resolutions

that come from committees, commissions, agencies and boards of the church; bishops; dioceses

and provinces; and deputies. Prior to discussion of the resolutions, legislative committees

“consider, amalgamate and perfect them before presenting them on the floor of the convention.”

Each diocese, a district overseen by a bishop, holds its own convention, usually once a year. The

Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee, for example, has more than 50 congregations, and the cathedral –

Christ Church – and diocesan offices are in Nashville. While it is called the Diocese of Tennessee, its

scope is Middle Tennessee, and there are other dioceses for both the east and west areas of the state.

Its vestry, the legal governing and decision-making body, most immediately governs the congregation

of each Episcopal Church. Led by a senior warden, the vestry is made up of lay members elected by

the congregation. Among its tasks, the vestry chooses the priests and deacons, handles financial

decisions and budgeting, and oversees the resources of the parish, including buildings and grounds.

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Theology and belief

A popular T-shirt in Episcopal youth groups is imprinted with “Top 10 Reasons to be an

Episcopalian.” Number Five is “all of the pageantry, none of the guilt.” It is meant to be a

joke, but it includes a grain of truth about the U.S. Church that represents, in simple terms,

a middle ground between the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. In its theology

and its liturgy, the denomination has some of both. Episcopalians believe in a Trinitarian

God, subscribe to the historic Nicene Creed and Apostles’ Creed, embrace the Bible as the

divinely inspired word, and celebrate the Eucharist as a sacrament central to worship.

However, it also gives a wide berth to interpretation of doctrine. The Book of Common

Prayer is central to congregational worship, but the public confession of specific beliefs

is uncommon. The prayer book, an American adaptation of its long-standing Anglican

predecessor, is a link between congregations that might have traditional Christian

beliefs but different styles of worship. The prayer book is part of the celebration of

“mass,” similar to the Roman Catholic tradition but shaped by the Reformation.

Another distinguishing feature of the Episcopal theology is that the individual

has a responsibility to use personal experience and intelligence, i.e., reason,

to build a relationship with God’s word as it is delivered in the Bible.

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Christ Church history

Nashville, with more than 800 churches, is often called the “Buckle of the Bible Belt.” Its propensity

for houses of worship began shortly after the city’s founding in 1780, with pioneers establishing a

Methodist congregation in 1789, Presbyterian in 1814 and Baptist in 1820. “However, there were some

who preferred to wait,” Christ Church archivist and historian Fletch Coke wrote in the Tennessee

Historical Quarterly. She quoted a visitor to Nashville in 1827 as saying, “As there was no Episcopal

service and not knowing where we should hear a good sermon, we remained within doors.”16 Just two

years later, though, the National Banner and Nashville Whig reported that an Episcopal church would

be built. “[The lot is] nearly midway between the Baptist and Presbyterian churches and on the same

side of the street with the Methodist Church. All the houses of worship (except the Roman Catholic

Chapel, which of late is seldom used) will thus continue to be on the same street, at very convenient

distances from each other.”17 While the building was under construction, the new congregation
gathered at the Masonic Hall for services. Their new place of worship was consecrated July 4, 1831, and

courtesy of the Nashville Public Liberary


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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

parishioners worshiped there for more than 50 years. The Gothic structure, built at a cost of more than

$16,000, was not yet finished when it was consecrated, and the debt was considerable. Just a week later,

finances were eased somewhat at a pew sale ordered by the vestry. Many of the church’s 66 pews were

auctioned and bidders bought what amounted to a lifetime row of reserved seats, with periodic rental

fees; the purchase also entitled them to a vote at the church’s annual meeting, a benefit available only to

pew holders. The sale of 48 pews brought in $3,881 from individual purchase prices that ranged from

$60 to $182.18 Four additional pews were sold privately to complete the list of original pew holders.19

The financial woes of Christ Church continued, however, and when Tennessee’s first bishop,

the Rev. James Hervey Otey, arrived in 1834, “he found the parish oppressed with debt in

consequence of having erected the church.” 20 The ladies of the church Sewing Society were

courtesy of the Nashville Public Liberary


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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

committed to financial stability, and one of their actions was to acquire a church bell to call

worshipers to come to church – and to make an offering when the plate was passed. The group

netted $650 from a public sale of their needlework to make their purchase. The bell that placed in

the church tower April 26, 1834, was moved to the belfry of the new Christ Church in 1891. 21

This and other efforts were not enough, and the church’s first pastor, the Rev. George Weller,

resigned in 1837 because “of the inability of the congregation to furnish me with the means of support

of a large and increasing family.” The congregation was growing as well, and quickly hired the Rev.

J. Thomas Wheat to replace Weller and lead the parish of 72 members in a city of 9,000.22 A decade

later, Wheat left to assist Bishop Otey; even though money was still a problem, Wheat’s successor

vocally opposed the pew rentals. When the cornerstone was laid in 1852 for Nashville’s second

Episcopal church, the newest Christ Church pastor, the Rev. Charles Tomes, praised the forthcoming

Holy Trinity: “The building here to be erected is to be a free church, and God be praised that such

is to be.” 23 Five years later, the pastor still wanted free pews at Christ Church, which then had 179

communicants, and the vestry still refused. The Church of the Advent, the city’s third Episcopal

congregation, was established in 1858 as a free church; 117 of Christ Church’s members left for the

new church. Despite the pew squabble, Christ Church again grew; at the 1860 convention, it reported

118 members. Three hundred more Episcopalians attended three parish churches that were free. 24

Christ Church was fortunate to escape occupation by Federal troops during the Civil War and

by 1867 had 145 communicants on its rolls. The Church of the Holy Trinity was used as a powder

magazine during the occupation, and it required significant restoration after the war. Christ Church,

though, was one of just a few Nashville churches of any denomination that was not destroyed or heavily

damaged. A city newspaper later reported that it survived because “it was so darkened by is windows

of dark red and ochre glass that it was almost useless as a habitation, and also, there were many

churchmen among the Union soldiers who protested against the desecration of an Episcopal Church.” 25
Services at Christ Church had continued sporadically during the war and the Federal occupation

of the city, and when the war was over the Rev. William J. Ellis, was quick to look ahead. At the 1867

convention, he raised the idea of a new church building: “The pews are all rented, although the price

has been doubled; and the only hindrance to a large increase to the congregation is want of room.” 26

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Twenty years later, a visiting English evangelist held a mission – some might call it a revival – at

Christ Church. He, too, urged the congregation to raise money “to build a larger and worthier house

of worship.” 27 By 1889, $25,000 had been raised and a lot had been purchased for the building that

continues as Christ Church nearly 120 years later. Francis Hatch Kimball, a New York architect

whose Gothic creations were praised by both critics and observers, designed the church, known

for its architecture and artistry. Among the features of the main building are the following:28

◆◆ The church is constructed of Sewanee sandstone (donated by the University

of the South) and trimmed with Bowling Green limestone.

◆◆ Inside the church, each of the granite columns has a capital, or decorative

crown, of a different design, a nod to an early church tradition of

building with materials from destroyed pagan temples.

◆◆ Kimball’s design included the church and an asymmetrical bell tower, but

it was 1947 before the tower was built. Chimes were added in 1949.

◆◆ Swiss woodcarver Melchior Thoni, employed by the Nashville and Edgefield

Manufacturing Co., carved much of the woodwork, including the massive altar.

◆◆ A triptych window in the nave, given in memory of the Leslie Warner children, is

not only a Tiffany window, but also is the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. It

depicts the child Jesus with a lamb under one arm and a lighted lantern in the other

hand, with Joseph at his workbench on one side and Mary watching over her child
on the other. A second triptych was also made by the Tiffany firm, and the walls

are lined with additional stained glass, beautiful but with less lofty origins.

◆◆ A rose window on the south wall with lancets of stained glass below was designed

to bring light into the nave. The installation of a new and massive pipe organ,

however, has reduced that light significantly because it obscures the lancets.

◆◆ A Sicilian marble baptismal font, elaborately carved on its eight sides, was designed and executed

“expressly as an example of high-class church work” for the Scottish International Exhibition.

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

The church, which cost more than twice the initial estimate of $25,000, was under construction

for about four years. The old church building was sold during that time, so the Christ Church took

its worship services to The Temple. The Rev. James R. Winchester, who became rector in 1889,

recognized that in a history of the parish published in the Tennessee Churchman: “The congregation

… feel under a deep obligation to our Hebrew brethren for their Christian kindness.” 29 The new doors

of Christ Church opened in 1894, and many of the parishioners could walk to services from what was

then a residential area. They entered and took their seats in their marked rented pews, a practice

that continued until 1918 even though it had been a source of disagreement for more than 60 years.

Pew rental aside, Christ Church has a history characterized by internal stability and a

commitment to fostering growth both in the diocese and the national church. Of the nine rectors

1907 Platt map, courtesy of the Nashville Public Liberary

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

leading the parish between 1894 and 1940, eight went on to become bishops. By 1960, Christ

Church had spawned thirteen mission churches in the diocese, an average of one every decade;

five still flourish. Over the last 100 years, only three organist-choirmasters have served the parish,

providing unusual continuity that has fostered a strong musical tradition. In 1969, the parish

elected its first woman to the vestry and in 1985, employed its first female priest as assistant

rector.30 Christ Church was listed on the National Historic Register in 1978, and in the 1990s it

underwent a massive restoration. Its once-residential location is now in downtown Nashville, a

stone’s throw from Union Station, which was for decades a major Southern railway station. The soot

from the trains was one of the agents that affected the church both inside and out, deteriorating

the soft sandstone exterior and darkening the interior’s rich wood and painted plaster. 31

Today the church is beautifully and accurately restored, and it is a showcase for its

art and architecture. The brass numbers remain on the carved oak pews, but Christ

Church, which has just observed its 179th anniversary, blends a rich history and a

contemporary conscience as it serves more than two thousand communicants.

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Christ Church today

Christ Church Cathedral, as an urban ministry, looks beyond its historic walls to

share materially in helping those less fortunate and spiritually in opening its space,

traditions, and heritage to the community. Formally, the church’s mission statement

is “to be a welcoming place; a stronghold of Christian faith; a model of service in our

community and diocese in liturgy, spiritual formation, education outreach, stewardship,

pastoral care and a parish willing to take risks in pursuing our mission.” 32

Historically and currently,

Christ Church has a significant

number of affluent and well-educated

communicants, but it also has increased

its diversity. Christ Church’s rector,

the Rev. Anne Stevenson, said the

church of 2,100 baptized members

welcomes differing viewpoints,

social backgrounds, income levels

or sexual orientation. 33The church’s The Reverend Canon Anne B. Stevenson


location on Broadway, one of the city’s busiest streets, quite literally has at its steps the homeless,

the disabled and others who are marginalized in a city where 13 percent of the population lives below

the poverty line. In committing to outreach, in the late 1990s Christ Church committed to the tithe

as its standard measure of giving to local and global ministries. Ten percent of pledges to the church

and offerings in the plate go to traditional outreach programs. Outreach committees administer

the money that goes to many groups, some of which the church was instrumental in creating. St.

Luke’s Community House was founded 95 years ago by Christ Church as a “well-baby” clinic in West

Nashville for dependents of prisoners at the nearby Tennessee State Penitentiary. Today St. Luke’s is

a comprehensive source of family services in that low-income area, and Christ Church parishioners

are deeply involved. The Bethlehem Center, a childcare program for low-income families, occupies

the church’s childcare rooms on weekdays. Working with other denominations, the cathedral helps

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

with Room at the Inn, which provides seasonal overnight housing for the homeless. A Wayfarers

Committee ministers to homeless men, women and families that come to Christ Church on Sunday

mornings. Volunteer and financial investment in other local outreach has expanded to include dozens

of organizations providing services to the homeless, recovering addicts, teens in crisis, victims of

domestic violence and AIDS, immigrants and many others living on the margins of the Nashville

community and in the global community as well. The Christ Church Ecology Group, part of an

environmental ministry that started 10 years ago, provides education on ways to protect creation. 34

Another outreach, First Friday: Sacred Soul Space, began in 2000 by offering special liturgies

and commemorations, artistic programs and performances, and educational programs. The monthly

alternative service, an outcome of a parish-wide strategic planning session, is a way for the church to

share its historic space and its Christian commitment to a wide audience. “We keep the service within

the Anglican framework,” Stevenson said, “but within that framework we find the best expressions we

can and try to make it particularly welcoming to people. We’re looking to use the best of everything,

ancient and modern.” 35 That expression may include an African drum corps or a Hank Williams Sr.

Songfest, a moody poem or a hip-hop dance, but each unique service is grounded in the Book of

Common Prayer. This nationally recognized liturgy draws in worshipers of all denominations. Another

outgrowth of Sacred Space for the City is a guided tour of the cathedral, offered every Saturday.

With the church’s growth, services have expanded. Holy Eucharist is celebrated three times

on Sunday mornings (twice during the summer). Average attendance at Sunday services is 588,

according to the church’s current profile. On weekdays, there is an 8:30 a.m. prayer service in the

chapel and the Eucharist is offered at 12:15 p.m. Special services include Taize, a prayer service

for world peace, and scheduled contemplative prayer, in addition to the First Friday services.

While Christ Church Cathedral has incorporated diverse and contemporary

elements in its outreach and its worship, the Sunday service would be familiar

to almost anyone who has observed the Anglican tradition.

19
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Order of Service

Hymn

Voluntary

Opening Acclamation

Gloria

Collect

Lesson

Hymn

Gospel Reading

Alleluia

Sermon

The Nicene Creed

The Prayers of the People

The Peace

The Offeratory

Anthem

The Great Thanksgiving

Sanctus

The Breaking of the Bread

Postcommunion Prayer

Blessing

Hymn

Dismissal

Voluntary

20
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

The future of Christ Church Cathedral 36

For Christ Church Cathedral, a master plan that was concluded in 2004 addressed preservation

issues in the historic building, some improvements of the existing buildings and the acquisition of a

new organ. In 2006, a new master plan defined current needs and incorporated parts of the previous

master plan that had not been completed. The church’s aim is to create a structure that reflects its

desire to be open and welcoming as well as its sense of community and continuity with the past. One

aspect of the plan, which clearly indicates the church’s vision to be an urban ministry, is to renovate

and build with the idea of using 75 percent of the structure 75 percent of the time. As the congregation

grows, there is a greater need for fellowship and Christian education space. The church always

keeps in mind its historic significance, and whatever changes come will not alter the sanctuary. The

architectural firm Hammond, Beeby, Rupert, Ainge of Chicago has proposed a plan to expand the

main cathedral building to create fellowship space, more classrooms and offices, a modern kitchen,

accessible entrances to the building and the sanctuary, and a cloister garden, all in the downtown area.

In 1929, which marked the first century of the Christ Church congregation, the Rev. Edmund

Dandridge suggested that goal of moving the old church outside of the busy downtown area had

not been accomplished. The residential area in which the new building opened in 1894 quickly

gave way to business and the railroad. He said then, and the church’s urban ministry today affirms,

that “perhaps the failure to escape from downtown was providential. Certain it is that Christ

Church has never moved out, nor sought to move out, from the life of the heart of the city.” 37

21
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

Endnotes

1
Walter B. Posey, “The Protestant Episcopal Church: An American Adaptation,”
Journal of Southern History, Vol. 25, No. 1 (February 1959): 4.
2
Ibid., 5
3
Ibid.
4
Posey, “The Protestant Episcopal Church: An American Adaptation,” 5-6.
5
Ibid., 5.
6
Ibid., 7.
7
Posey, “The Protestant Episcopal Church: An American Adaptation,” 8.
8
David Hein and Gardiner H. Shattuck Jr., The Episcopalians (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), 55.
9
Hein and Shattuck, The Episcopalians, 57.
10
Ibid., 59.
11
Hein and Shattuck, The Episcopalians, 59.
12
Ibid., 85.
13
Religion News Service, “Va. Judge sides with breakaway Episcopal churches.” Christianity Today,
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/juneweb-only/127-12.0.html (accessed June 30, 2008).

Laurie Goodstein, “Conservative Anglicans Plan Rival Conference as Split Over Homosexuality Grows.”
14

New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world/20anglican.html (accessed June 27, 2008).


15
The Episcopal Church, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ (accessed June 27, 2008).
16
Fletch Coke, “Christ Church Episcopal, Nashville,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Summer 1979), 141.

William E. Beard, “The Church of Ante-bellum Times,” in Christ Church


17

Nashville 1829-1929 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce, 1929), 75.


18
Coke, “Christ Church Episcopal, Nashville,” 145.
19
Beard, 77.
20
Ibid, 80.
21
Coke, “Christ Church Episcopal, Nashville,” 146.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.,150.
24
Ibid., 146.

Thomas H. Malone, “During the War Between the States,” in Christ Church
25

Nashville 1829-1929 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce, 1929), 113.


26
Thomas F. Gailor, “In Days of Reconstruction,” in Christ Church Nashville
1829-1929 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce, 1929), 117.

22
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

27
Gaillor, 119.

Walter Stokes Jr., “Christ Church, Nashville,” in Seven Early Churches of Nashville: A series of lectures presented
28

at The Public Library of Nashville and Davidson County (Nashville, TN: Elder’s Bookstore Publisher, 1972), 52.
29
Mrs. William E. Norvell, “Removal of the Church: 1889-1894,” by Mrs. William E. Norvell,
in Christ Church Nashville 1829-1929 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce, 1929), 137.
30
Christ Church Cathedral Parish Profile, undated church pamphlet.
31
Tom Barton, cathedral guide in Christ Church, June 28, 2008.
32
Christ Church Cathedral Parish Profile, 2208 church pamphlet.
33
Anne Stevenson, interview by author, Nashville, TN, June 27, 2008.
34
Christ Church Cathedral Parish Profile, 2008 church pamphlet.
35
Ray Waddle, “Worship in Nashville cathedral explores ‘sacred soul space,’” March 25, 2003,
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_19749_ENG_HTM.htm (accessed June 27, 2008).
36
Christ Church Cathedral Parish Profile.
37
Edmund Dandridge, “Where the Next Hundred Years Begins,” in Christ Church
Nashville 1829-1929 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce, 1929), 276.

23
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

24
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

29
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

31
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

32
Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

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Congregation Study, Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee

35

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