The Evangelical Synod of North America

Many 19th-century German immigrants—both Lutheran and Reformed—were attracted to the more inclusive spirit of Pietism and its zeal for mission and reform. Many of their first pastors were missionaries trained by evangelical mission societies in Basel, Switzerland, and Barmen, Germany. These societies believed that confessional distinctions between Lutheran and Reformed should not divide the church, and adopted the word "evangelical" as a unifying term. (In Europe, "evangelical" did not suggest—as it does in the United States today—a particular kind of religious conservatism or fundamentalism, but simply meant "of the Gospel" and was a term frequently used at the time of the Reformation to describe Lutheran and Reformed churches.)

Joseph A. Rieger, from Barmen Germany was one of these Evangelical missionary pastors. He was one of the first pastors of the Evangelical church to visit Illinois.  A supporter of the abolitionist movement, he lived for a time with abolition martyr and Presbyterian Pastor Elijah Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois and in 1837 became the first secretary of the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society. At the same time, he taught school and served as an itinerant preacher.

In 1848, the The German Evangelical Church Society of the West acknowledged the key testimonies of both the Lutheran and Reformed traditions: Luther's Small Catechism, the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, and the Reformed Heidelberg Catechism. Their intent was not to coerce Christian conscience at points of disagreement by adopting exclusive confessions of faith but to affirm symbols, or expressions, of God's word. These symbols, they believed, pointed to the fundamental reality of God's love for humanity in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In 1872, the regional Evangelical Synods merged and in 1877 took the name The German Evangelical Synod of North America. Later, the word "German" was dropped. By 1934, when the Synod merged with the Reformed Church in the United States, Evangelicals totaled 281,598, pastored by 1,227 clergy.

From A Short Course in UCC History,
Maxfield's Church History Resources, and
Memorial Diamond Jubilee: German Evangelical Synod of North America, October, 1915: Eden Publishing House Print, St. Louis.

The Evangelical Synod in Chicago

In 1858, there were enough German Evangelical Christians in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan that they organized themselves into the United Evangelical Synod of the Northwest with headquarters in Chicago.  By 1871 they had grown to the point that they were able to found Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Illinois as a pre-seminary school.   In 1872, the regional Evangelical Synods merged eventually taking the name The Evangelical Synod of North America.

In the 1880s the German immigration to the Midwest was intense.   The Fifth District (Northern Illinois) of the Evangelical Synod of North America organized a German Evangelical Colonization Society on October 17, 1882, to settle new immigrants in the West. Article I of the Society's Constitution stated its purpose, which included:

1. To acquire, as soon as possible, land in a good and healthful region in a new state or in a territory, where land is still cheap, for the founding of a German Evangelical Settlement.
2. To bring into existence a German settlement for the organization of a German Evangelical congregation, which shall be connected with the Evangelical Synod of North America. This settlement shall be for persons of limited means, or such other as consider emigration to the West.

Only persons of the Evangelical faith of good moral character could join the Colonization Society. Members were recruited by Evangelical pastors throughout the Midwest. This settlement effort and several similar ones which were organized by the Evangelical Synod churches of Chicago during the 1880s colonized an area just west of Bismarck, North Dakota.

from Maxfield's Church History Resources

Presbyterians in the United States

The Presbyterian church in the United States traces its ancestry back primarily to the British Isles.  Presbyterians were active in the colonies particularly in the Mid-Atlantic States.  The PCUSA was formed in 1983 through the merger of the two large Presbyterian denominations that had separated in the mid-1800s over the question of whether Christians should own slaves.  Here is a brief timeline of American Presbyterian history

1630s	First Presbyterian churches organize in the colonies.
1683	Francis Makemie, the "Father of American Presbyterianism," arrives from Ireland.
1706	First presbytery in the American colonies organizes in Philadelphia.
1789	First Presbyterian General Assembly meets in Philadelphia.
1807	First African-American Presbyterian church organizes in Philadelphia.
1837	Elijah Lovejoy, minister and abolitionist publisher, dies while defending his printing press against a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois.
1861	The General Assembly pledges loyalty to the Federal government. Southern commissioners withdraw and form the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America.
1930	The PCUSA’s constitution is amended to allow women to be ordained elders.
1956	First woman minister ordained, Margaret Towner.
1964	First African-American moderator of a General Assembly, Edler Hawkins.
1972	First female moderator of a General Assembly, Lois Stair.
1983	Two largest American Presbyterian denominations, reunite after 122 years.
1986	First Native-American woman ordained, Holly Haile Smith.

Here's a diagram (from the Presbyterian Historical Society) of the different relationships that are part of our American Presbyterian history.  The red highlight indicates the denominational history of St. James Presbyterian Church.  Please click on the diagram to see a larger image of it.

Presbyterians in Illinois

Rev. John E. Finley, a Presbyterian minister from Chester County, Penn., to Mason County, Ky., coveted the privilege of being the first to plant the Church of Christ upon the territory of the future great State of Illinois. . . .  In 1797, Mr. Finley descended the Ohio River in a keel-boat, with several of his neighbors, members of the Presbyterian Church, and ascended the Mississippi, and landed at Kaskaskia. . . . Mr. Finley probably had ultimate reference to a mission among the Indians. He preached the Gospel, catechised and baptised several of the "red men." But, in short time, he was led to abandon the enterprise....

During the years 1810, 1811, and also in 1814 and 1816, Rev. James McGrady spent a considerable time in the southern counties of Indian[a] and in Illinois, and in 1816, or some accounts say, in 1814, Mr. McGrady organized Sharon Church in White County. This was the first Presbyterian Church in Illinois.

From the History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois, 1879

Presbyterians in Chicago

In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit priest, and Louis Jolliet, a Canadian explorer and mapmaker, were the first Europeans to visit the site we now know as Chicago.  In 1696 Father Francois Pinet, a Jesuit missionary, founded the Mission of the Guardian Angel at the mouth of the Chicago River. The mission was abandoned in 1700.  There is a gap in our knowledge of what was happening in Chicago until 1779 when Jean Baptiste Point du Sable established the first permanent settlement at what is now Chicago.  He settled at the mouth of the Chicago River just east of the present Michigan Avenue Bridge on the north bank.

The first Protestant services in what is now Chicago were held October 9, 1825 by the Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist minister.  The first Presbyterian services were held when Philo Carpenter, a Presbyterian druggist, who was treating the troops at Fort Dearborn for cholera, would gather his friends together on Sundays and read a sermon.  

He began this practice soon after he arrived in July of 1832.  His log cabin drugstore was near the east end of the present Lake Street Bridge.

The first Presbyterian Church in what is now Chicago was established in 1833, four years before the city was incorporated.  The Rev. Jeremiah Porter, preached the church's inaugural sermon to a congregation mostly of soldiers gathered in the carpenter's shop of Fort Dearborn.  They later erected a small wooden building at the corner of Clark and Lake and held their first service there on January 1, 1834.  The entire building (26x40 feet) would fit inside the sanctuary of St. James Presbyterian Church.  Rev. Porter later became known for his powerful sermons against slavery.

By the 1840s, slavery was a source of much controversy across America.   In that decade, the little congregation that had been founded in the carpenter's shop split into three (First, Second, and Third) Presbyterian Churches over slavery.  They were all opposed to the practice of owning human beings but differed in how they proposed to see it end. The members of Third Church were the most militant willing even to go to war to abolish slavery.

Philo Carpenter, one of the founding members of the original congregation, helped found Third Presbyterian Church.  Carpenter, it is now known, was a very active member of the underground railroad helping about 200 slaves escape to freedom in Canada.  It is important to remember that opposition to slavery was a religious issue before it became a political one.  Many Christians were willing to go to prison to oppose slavery.

In early 1851, Philo Carpenter and the majority of Third Presbyterian voted to abstain from participating in the meetings of the presbytery because of the church's "failure to discipline those guilty of holding their fellow-men in bondage."  When the Presbytery of Chicago removed them they founded the First Congregational Church of Chicago.

In 1859 through the efforts of Cyrus McCormick, the faculty of the Hanover College Theological School was enticed to relocate from New Albany, Indiana to Chicago where it eventually renamed itself McCormick Theological Seminary.  In 1876, after several failed attempts, Chicago Presbyterians opened Lake Forest College.

On Sunday evening October 8, 1871, a fire broke out at the intersection of DeKovan and Clinton Streets.  By Tuesday morning when the fire had burned itself out, a 3.5 square mile area from 22nd Street to Fullerton and from Halsted to Lake Michigan was in ruins.  At least 300 people died in the fire and 100,000 people were homeless.  The fire stopped just outside the property of McCormick Theological Seminary and for many days the lawn and all its buildings were used to house persons who were homeless because of the fire.

In 1883 prompted by the Rush Medical College Faculty, several wealthy Presbyterians organized the Presbyterian Hospital.  They built a 250 bed facility on the Rush Medical College's land.  Later the two institutions merged with St. Luke's Hospital (Episcopal) and founded what became the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center.

Adapted from Presbyterians in Chicago: 150 Years of Christ's People Making a Difference,
Presbytery of Chicago, 1983.

St. James Evangelical Church

After a canvass made during the winter of 1925 and the spring of 1926 by members of the Evangelical Synod of North America (a denomination made up primarily of German immigrants) it was determined that the Western and Devon area was home to a large number of persons with a heritage in the Evangelical denomination who did not have a convenient church home.

In 1926, that denomination's Home Mission Board purchased a lot at the corner of Rockwell and Albion and contracted with the Rev. Alfred F. Schemmer as an organizing minister, a service was held in the display room of the Ford Sales Company at the south-west corner of Arthur and Western on Sunday September 26, 1926 at 2:30 in the afternoon.  About 125 persons attended from the city's other Evangelical Churches.  At the service, an offering of $40.00 was collected and given to the Rev. Schemmer to rent a space for a temporary place of worship.

The following week Schemmer rented a store at 2644 Pratt Avenue and on Sunday October 3, 1926, the first worship service of what would become St. James was held with 8 or 10 adults present and 13 children in the Sunday school.

The meetings of the unnamed mission continued into the next year until St. James Evangelical Church was officially organized on April 22, 1927.

The owner of the store at 2644 Pratt Avenue was eventually able to rent his store for more money and in the early part of 1928 the congregation moved to 6433 N. California to a larger rented space.

Members marched from 6433 N. California on September 15, 1929 to the corner of Rockwell and Albion for the groundbreaking service of the building we now know as the "Sanctuary Wing."  As they marched they sang hymns among them "Jesus Loves Me," "Onward Christian Soldiers," and "The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord."

Ninety-eight days later on December 22, 1929, dedication services for the not quite completed building were held and the congregation's first sermon in the new space was entitled "A Church for Christmas."

In 1934 the Evangelical Synod of North America merged with the Reformed Church in the United States becoming the Evangelical & Reformed Church.

St. James United Church

During the Great Depression, the congregation at Rockwell and Albion merged with North Town Presbyterian Church.  The Presbyterian congregation had been organized for only a few years and had not built a church nor did it own any property.  This new congregation was a member of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.   On January 8, 1935, at the congregation's annual meeting the congregation voted to change its name to St. James United Church.

On Sunday May 27, 1956 after several years of rapid growth and a Sunday School enrollment of 285 students, the congregation dedicated its "New Parish Building" now called the "Education Wing."

In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the Congregational Christian Churches becoming the United Church of Christ (UCC).

In 1958, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America becoming the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA)

St. James United Presbyterian Church

The pastors serving St. James until 1959 were from the Evangelical Synod of North America or its later incarnations, the Evangelical & Reformed Church and the United Church of Christ.  With the appointment of Robert Holloway in September of 1959, the church began to be served by Presbyterian pastors.  At a congregational meeting on November 30, 1964, the church determined to change its name again this time to St. James United Presbyterian Church.  For official purposes this is still the name of our church although we usually shorten it just to St. James Presbyterian Church.

In 1983, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA) merged with the  Presbyterian Church in the United States becoming the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

In recent years, St. James has been recognized by the denomination as a Peacemaking Church.  In the 1990s, we joined with other Presbyterian congregations in the Covenant Network committing ourselves to building "a church as generous and just as God's grace."  And in December 2001, We declared ourselves a More Light Church by affirming that “Following the risen Christ, and seeking to make the Church a true community of hospitality, the mission of More Light Presbyterians is the full participation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people of faith in the life, ministry, and witness of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)."

In 2003, several members of St. James were involved in peaceful protests against the U.S. government's invasion of Iraq.  We understood all of these actions to be logical extensions of the call of the gospel.

The Pastors at St. James
 

< Back

Next >