wfn.org | UCC - Riverside's $600,000 Preacher

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

> Riverside's $600,000 Preacher

> Saturday, April 25, 2009

New York?s Riverside Church, a joint congregation of the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Church, is set to install their new minister tomorrow. The Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton was named the new senior minister of one of America?s most famous congregations late last year. Dr. Braxton is a Southern Baptist minister.

Among the church?s senior pastors have been The Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick and The Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin. Riverside Church was the site of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,?s historic 1967 ?Beyond Vietnam? sermon at the conference on Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.

Dr. Braxton is a young leader with a distinguished record. But news about his compensation package has drawn criticism and even legal action to prevent his installation.

> The New York Times reports:

Longstanding tensions among parishioners at the renowned Riverside Church erupted again this week as a group of congregants went to court to stop the installation of a new senior pastor whose compensation package, they say, exceeds $600,000 a year.

In a motion filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the group said that the new pastor, the Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton, and the church board that selected him last September after a yearlong search, had dismissed their calls for transparency in financial matters. They also complained that Dr. Braxton was moving Riverside away from its tradition of interracial progressivism and toward a conservative style of religious practice?.

By the dissidents? account, Dr. Braxton?s compensation package includes an annual base salary of $250,000; a monthly housing allowance of $11,500; pension and life insurance benefits; entertainment, travel and ?professional development? expenses; an equity allowance for the future purchase of a home; money for a full-time maid; and private school tuition for his 3-year-old daughter.

Rick Stone, a longtime parishioner who served as pro bono lawyer for the petitioners, said Dr. Braxton?s package was roughly twice what his predecessor  received?.

A statement released by the congregation reads:

The Reverend Brad Braxton was selected senior minister at the end of a year-long search by a democratic vote of the congregation. The senior minister?s full compensation package was presented to the congregation on three separate occasions and was voted on, and approved by the congregation in our budget meeting. Among the factors the church took into account were that first, according to an independent study, the package Rev. Braxton receives is in line with compensation packages of other religious leaders in Manhattan who minister to congregations of a similar size and scope. The church also feels that it is important to note the breadth of responsibilities of the senior minister. Those responsibilities include: overseeing a staff of 150 people, including eight ministers each with his/her own department; ministering to a 2,000-member congregation; overseeing a full-time day school of 128 students; and running 80 church and community programs.

The statement goes on to dispute that Dr. Braxton's daughter receives tuition from the church or that Dr. Braxton is provided with a maid.

> The New York Times notes:

Scott L. Thumma, a sociology of religion professor at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research who has studied pastor compensation, said the average salary of 105 megachurch pastors surveyed in 2008 was about $150,000, with the highest-paid receiving about $300,000.

?With 2,700 congregants, I would call Riverside a megachurch, and measure its pastor in that pool,? Mr. Thumma  said.

The courts have thus far refused in intervene in this dispute.

Clergy salary guidelines for UCC ministers in the New York region are available online but while the UCC?s New York conference calls for ministers to be compensated adequately nowhere in the guidelines does the conference call for such extravagant compensation.

Dr. Braxton?s salary and other benefits raise serious questions about the judgment of the current leadership of Riverside and the commitment of both their and Dr. Braxton?s commitment to social justice ? a hallmark of the ministry of the church.  One would expect such blindness from the executives at New York's financial firms but not from Riverside Church.