The Rev. Ruth Faith Santana-Grace at First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, October 8, 2023. Courtesy of fpcphila.org worship stream.
The Rev. Ruth Faith Santana-Grace, Co-Moderator of the 225th General Assembly, is also executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. On Oct. 8, she traveled to the heart of the mid council and a congregational cornerstone of the denomination to preach about First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia turning 325.
The Rev. Dr. Baron Mullis, pastor of “First Church,” welcomed Santana-Grace to the pulpit during the congregation’s 11 a.m. Sunday service.
Santana-Grace brought greetings on behalf of the presbytery and the General Assembly, adding that First Church has “a special place in my heart” because it was among the first congregations to welcome her to Philadelphia when she began her call with the presbytery 10 years earlier.
“Three hundred and twenty-five years. Can you imagine the excitement and joy of your spiritual ancestors as they began to formally give shape to what they prayed would be a sanctuary of faith and religious expression?” she asked.
“What did it mean to be a church then? What does it mean today?”
325th anniversary banner in front of First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo by Fred Tangeman.
325th anniversary banner in front of First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo by Fred Tangeman.
The Co-Moderator’s preaching was one of the special fall events planned for the 325th anniversary by the church’s commemoration committee, including “minutes for history” and lectures by the Rev. Jesse Garner, retired pastor, on “First Church in the Community” and “First Church and Social Change.”
In September, the commemoration committee hosted a reception at the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) featuring a talk by Dr. Heath W. Carter, Associate Professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary and senior co-editor of The Journal of Presbyterian History.
During “Steadfast Through the Storms: A Lecture on the 325th Anniversary of Philadelphia’s First Presbyterian Church,” Carter told First Church members that the congregation, referred to as the “mother church” of American Presbyterianism, “played a vital role in the story of American Presbyterianism.”
He explored the congregation’s beginnings as part of an ecumenical gathering on the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets in the heart of colonial Philadelphia. From vandalism at the hands of British soldiers during the Revolution to financial strife during the Great Depression, First Church’s history reflected the ebb and flow of American history. The congregation was at the center of complicated divisions that arose in American Presbyterianism, including the Old Side-New Side controversy in the mid-1700s and the debate over slavery a century later. Albert Barnes, First Church pastor from 1830 to 1868, was a vocal critic of slavery but did not call for immediate abolition.
Carter also talked about recent history. In 1990, seven members of the church started delivering meals to neighbors dying of AIDS, an effort that evolved into MANNA, a Philadelphia non-profit that has now provided over 21 million meals to Philadelphians in need.
“I think of the small ecumenical band that first gathered in the Barbados store in the modest colonial village that was 1690s Philadelphia,” Carter told the PHS audience. “They could never have imagined all that was to come in the life of their church and city.”
William Lake Leonard, co-chair of the commemoration committee, wrote about the event in the church’s newsletter, calling PHS “a perfect place for a celebration of history, specifically the celebration of the 325th anniversary of the founding of The First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia.”
PHS First Church reception, Philadelphia, September 21, 2023. Photo by Lorraine Brown.
Santana-Grace touched on the congregation’s long history during her sermon, connecting it with ministry in 2023.
“Identifying as a people of faith can be exhausting, and at times even discouraging,” she said. That’s true today, just as it was during the first three centuries of the Philadelphia congregation and the first century of the Common Era, when the scripture Santana-Grace preached about was written: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).”
She talked about Peter encouraging early Christian communities in Asia Minor to be like Christ, “to remember who they were.” That often meant being different than the ruling authorities and others wielding power wanted them to be.
“Remember who you are,” she exhorted the civically engaged congregation, later quoting the president emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Brian Blount, who has called stones a living symbol of faith that are shaped and molded by time and movement into something new. Santana-Grace also mentioned scriptural interpretation by the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton, the president of Princeton Theological Seminary, saying that “a royal priesthood” is not a call to exclusivity but a reminder “to serve the people as representatives of God.”
“We gather inside this sacred, beautiful space so we might engage the realities outside this space,” she said. “I’m grateful how you as a church family continue to lean into this church journey, to be a beacon of hope in Center City … You continue to be faithful.”
After telling the story of Alexander Papaderous, co-founder of the Orthodox Academy of Crete, who as a boy used a toy mirror “to bring light into dark places,” Santana-Grace returned to stones — the kind that form the figurative foundation of any congregation. “As you prepare for your next 325 years, may you do so as living stones that ensure that your spiritual descendants — your spiritual paleontologists — will speak of your commitment to make right a broken world because you have blessed the world by your witness. May you do so as lights that defy the darkness.”
Left to Right: Ruth Faith Santana-Grace, Baron Mullis, Laura Colee. First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo by Fred Tangeman.
Earlier on Oct. 8, Santana-Grace joined the 9 a.m. worship service, reflecting on the role of Co-Moderator with those gathered, including Bullis and associate pastor the Rev. Laura Colee. Colee gave a children’s sermon connected to the congregation’s history and at the end of the service thanked God for the church’s past, present and future. “We here today are truly the actualization of our ancestors’ wildest dreams and we marvel at all our community has endured,” she said. “May we be inspired to bravely and boldly carry the mantle that has been passed to us this day.”
After the 9 a.m. service, Mullis mentioned that the culmination of the 325th anniversary commemoration will take place during a celebration service on All Saints Sunday, Nov. 5.
“The original date the congregation was organized is lost in the mists of time,” he said. “We date it from the call of the first pastor, Jedediah Andrews.”
Bullis added that the congregation had scheduled the celebration for the Sunday after All Saints Day on purpose. “For a congregation to live as a functioning ministry for 325 years is as real a manifestation of the communion of the saints as I can imagine.”