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| Christ the King, Willingboro (originally Levittown), courtesy Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey |
During the mid-twentieth century period of firm conviction that the future of the church in the Diocese of New Jersey lay in (White) suburban growth, an opportunity presented itself to the leaders of the diocese that they were very keen to receive. Levitt & Sons, the suburban development firm, tendered a proposal to the diocese with regard to a suburban development they planned to build in the outer suburban region in New Jersey between Trenton and Camden, across the Delaware from a Levittown they had already begun to build. This new Levittown, the Levitts hoped, would have an Episcopal Church from the very outset, in part to attract the kind of home-owners they sought. Like many other suburban developers at the time, Levitt & Sons did not sell to Black people,[1] even though technically, racially restrictive housing covenants were illegal at the time.[2] Their proposal to this unapologetically “conservative” diocese involved a gift of land on the condition that the diocese would agree to raise the funds for the construction of the new church.[3] This overture was interpreted by diocesan leaders, and through them to the rest of the diocese, as the epitome and perfect fruition of their missional dreams and aspirations. Here was an opportunity to do exactly what they had already been hoping to do generally speaking,[4] but instead of playing catch-up to the White flight of their parishioners, here they could be ahead of the curve.
Bishop Banyard made the campaign a central topic of his diocesan convention address in 1958. It is the only significant initiative he spoke of. He wrote:
Levitt and Sons have begun to develop Levittown, New Jersey. It is estimated that this will be a community of 15,000 homes and that there will be about 60,000 people living there. The first houses costing $11,500+. $14,500+, and $17,500+ will be ready for occupancy in October. Approximately 2,500 will be built each year.
On April 18, 1958, the Venerable Samuel Steinmetz, Mr. Albert L. Hancock, Sr. and I met with Mr. Robert Hagen, Vice President of the Levitt Firm. At that time we were informed that Mr. Levitt is prepared to donate 2¾ acres to the Diocese of New Jersey, provided that within one year after the land is deeded, the building of a church will commence. The proposed site on Charleston Road was shown to us. We will be required by June 1st to state whether we will accept this grant for an Episcopal Church, Parish House and Rectory.
After discussing this important challenge offered to our Diocese for which $200,000 will be needed to erect the buildings, at our meeting on April 22nd, the Trustees of the Diocesan Foundation decided to recommend to this Diocesan Convention that a two year fund-raising campaign be approved and sponsored by the Diocese, beginning in 1959 with $100,000 being raised the first year and $100,000 being raised the second year. It was recommended further that each parish and mission be assigned a proportionate share in each phase of the $200,000 goal spread over a two year period.
I trust that this recommendation will be adopted and that all of our people will support it enthusiastically and generously. You will find an informative display in Synod Hall describing this project and we have arranged a special order of the day for a thorough discussion of the proposed campaign. We must not fail to meet this challenging missionary opportunity.[5]
This initiative was huge, dwarfing outlays for other individual missions. The Committee on the Bishop’s Address wrote that “The challenge that Levittown presents will seem insurmountable to those who look only at the price tag.”[6] Indeed, the total net disbursement to missions for the whole diocese in 1957 was $37,292.32.[7]
The following year, the Committee on the Bishop’s Address concluded their report and call for faithful giving with the statement that “the establishment of [the] new Church in Levittown” was a “bold and absolutely essential Missionary enterprise.”[8] Banyard had again mentioned the project in his convention address, this time referring to it as “one of the most important missionary projects ever to be sponsored by our Diocese.”[9] The convention report from the Department of Missions similarly characterized the Levittown project as “the most outstanding example” of “the planning of both missionary expansion and development for the future.”[10] The project was widely promoted by the diocese within the Episcopal Church. An excerpt from The Witness in December of 1959 is illustrative:
The Episcopal Church will have to spend $200-million for new churches in the next twenty years just to keep pace with population growth. One of the most farsighted programs was launched by the diocese of New Jersey under the leadership of Bishop Banyard. Pictured here is the Church of Christ the King under construction in Levittown which will be completed before most of the residents occupy their new homes. It is a diocesan project, voted by the convention last year, with parishes raising $130,000 over a two year period to pay for the church and rectory.[11]
As is clear from formal, public diocesan communications at this time, the leadership of the Diocese of New Jersey viewed itself as being at the forefront of ushering the Church into a new period of success through hand-in-glove cooperation with suburbanization. That advocacy for and cooperation with suburbanization at this time was bound up inextricably with racism in New Jersey is an established fact.[12]
Cooperation by the diocese with Levitt & Sons moved very quickly, with the Department of Missions reporting in 1959 that,
by the time this report is submitted, ground will have been broken, and with the continued efforts of all the parishes and mission of the Diocese in meeting the financial assessment for Levittown, and with God’s help, we will have services on the site by this fall conducted by the Vicar of the Church of Christ the King, Levittown, New Jersey.[13]
Approval of mission status was granted at the 1959 convention, before the building was even completed.[14] Banyard notes, in astonishingly direct terms, that the diocese was so keen on the immediate success of the project that they advanced funds beyond the parish and mission giving to ensure speedy completion:
Many of our churches have fully discharged their obligation, which was a mandate of our Diocesan Convention in 1958 and 1959. Others have partially paid the special assessment assigned by our diocesan formula over a two year period. It is imperative that every parish and mission meet in full its dept of honor in connection with this project by the end of 1960. When the church and vicarage were completed last fall, the Architect and Builder had to be paid. Therefore, a large sum of money was borrowed from the bank, on which interest must be paid regularly until the debt is liquidated.[15]
However, funding of the project did not involve exclusively voluntary contributions. One of the sources from which funds were derived, perhaps through the invocation of the 1958 convention’s approval of “any action which they deem necessary,”[16] was from the liquidation of the property of St. Monica’s Episcopal Church in Trenton, a historically Black parish that had recently fallen on hard times.[17] In 1958 the diocese mandated its closure, ordered parishioners to attend other parishes, sold the property,[18] and subsequently used the proceeds to cover a significant portion of the Levittown building costs.[19]
Any and all means had been deployed, and by the time of the convention of 1960, the Department of Missions could report that the building project was complete,[20] and a vicar was installed. However, as it has often proved, the idyll that racists produce is rarely adequate to their yearning, typically fleeting in its form, and as such, always in danger of abandonment. Following the initial period of White flight settlement in Levittown, the area was then soon after largely abandoned by White residents as predominantly Black inhabitants took up residence in the area, now called Willingboro. This process occurred in the 1970s and ‘80s[21] and produced a difficult transition period at Christ the King, Willingboro, as White parishioners left and were replaced largely by African-American and Afro-Caribbean Episcopalians. Diocesan archival materials[22] suggest that this transition period involved both governance difficulties and financial difficulties and the parish went long periods of time without a full-time priest. Today, the now overwhelmingly Black parish has entered a period of greater stability and is led by the Rev. Vernal Savage, however, persistent racial wealth disparities in New Jersey[23] continue to present an ongoing challenge to the financial security of most predominantly Black Episcopal churches.
This essay has been excerpted and adapted from the paper “‘White Flight’ Missiology and Its Result: Racially Segregated Ecclesiology in the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey” by Jolyon Pruszinski, which will be presented at the Anglican Studies Seminar of the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in November 2024, in San Diego, CA.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
