I debated on whether to put this entry here or on our companion blog, Lex Anteinternet. In the end, I decided to put it up here first and then link it over. This will be one of a couple of posts of this type which explore changes, this one with a local expression, that have bigger implications.
When we started this blog, some of the first entries here were on churches in downtown Casper. These included the First Presbyterian Church and the First Baptist Church, with buildings dating to 1913 and 1949 respectively. First Baptist, it should be noted, has occupied their present location, if not their present church, for a century.
Indeed, while I wasn't able to get it to ever upload, I have somewhere a video of the centennial of the First Presbyterian Church from 2013, featuring, as a church that originally had a heavy Scots representation ought to, a bagpipe band. Our original entry on that church building is right below:
This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park.
The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.
Well, since that centennial, First Presbyterian has been going through a constant set of changes, as noted in our entry here:
This isn't a new addition to the roll of churches here, but rather news about one of them. We formerly posted on this church here some time ago:
People who have followed it would be aware that the Presbyterian churches in the United States are undergoing a period of rift, and this church has reflected that. The Presbyterian Church, starting in the 1980s, saw conflict develop between liberal and more conservative elements within it which lead to the formation of the "moderate conservative" EPC. As I'm not greatly familiar with this, I'll only note that the EPC is associated with "New School Presbyterianism" rather than "Old School" and it has adopted the motto "In Essentials, Unity; In Non-Essentials, Liberty; In All Things, Charity. Truth in Love.".
The change in name here is confusing to an outsider in that this church is a member of the EPC, but it's no longer using its original name. As it just passed the centennial of its construction, that's a bit unfortunate in some ways.
We'd also note that the sought set of stairs is now chained off. We're not sure why, but those stairs must no longer be used for access.
The changes apparently didn't serve to arrest whatever was going on, as there's a sign out in front of the old First Presbyterian, later Grace Reformed, that starting on February 23, it'll be City Park Church.
City Park Church, it turns out, is the name that the congregation that presently occupies another nearby church, First Baptist Church, will call its new church building, which is actually a much older building than the one it now occupies, which is depicted here:
This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.
This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.
What's going on?
Well, it's hard to say from the outside, which we are, but what is pretty clear is that the rifts in the Presbyterian Church broke out, in some form, in the city's oldest Presbyterian Church to the point where it ended up changing its name, and then either moving out of its large church, and accompanying grounds, or closing altogether. I've never been in the building but I'm told that its basement looked rough a couple of years ago and perhaps the current congregation has other plans or the grounds and church are just too much for it. At any rate, the 1949 vintage building that First Baptist occupies is apparently a bit too small for its needs and it had taken the opportunity to acquire and relocate into the older, but larger, church. It can't help but be noted that both churches have pretty large outbuildings as well. Also, while they are both downtown, the 1913 building is one of the three very centrally located old downtown Casper churches, so if church buildings have pride of place, the Baptist congregation is moving into a location which has a little bit more of one.
While it will be dealt with more in another spot, or perhaps on Lex Anteinternet, the entire thing would seem to be potentially emblematic of the loss that Christian churches that have undergone a rift like the Presbyterian Church in the United States has sustained when they openly split between liberal and conservative camps. The Presbyterian Church was traditionally a fairly conservative church, albeit with theology that was quite radical at the time of its creation. In recent years some branches of that church have kept their conservatism while others have not and there's been an open split. As noted elsewhere this has lead in part to a defection from those churches in a lot of localities, and a person has to wonder if something like that may have happened here, as well as wondering if the obvious fact that a split has occurred would naturally lead to a reduction in the congregation as some of its members went with the other side. We've noted here before that the Anglican Community locally not only has its two Episcopal Churches in town, but that there are also two additional Anglican Churches of a much more theologically conservative bent, both of which are outside of the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming.
A person can't really opine, from the outside, if something like this is "sad" or not, but it's certainly a remarkable event. We've noted church buildings that have changed denominations of use before, but this is the first one where we've actually witnessed it. And in this case, the departing denomination had occupied their building for a century.
