Church of the Open Door Closes Them : Downtown Congregation Marks Move to Suburbs After 70 Years

The 4,000-seat Church of the Open Door was filled to overflowing Sunday for its final services in downtown Los Angeles, closing its portals on 70 years as a highly visible evangelical landmark with its neon “Jesus Saves” signs.

Ushers said the church, with a congregation now numbering 2,000, has not welcomed such a large crowd since 1970, the last of J. Vernon McGee’s 21 years at the church’s pulpit. He returned there Sunday, as pastor emeritus, to give the church’s farewell address.

Most members, who have been commuting great distances to attend, were happy about the move to a suburban location.

“We were prepared for it to be an emotionally sad day,” said Jinny McDougall, a member for 20 years who lives in La Mirada. “I brought extra tissues--and there were some tears. But it turned out to be an exciting high.”

Funds for Relocation

The independent Christian congregation, faced with a quarter of a million dollars in annual maintenance and parking costs, sold its property to a development company last year for a reported $14 million and has relocated in Glendora at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.

It is one of several spacious Protestant churches in downtown Los Angeles that have yielded to growing expenses and dwindling attendance. St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, Temple Baptist Church and First United Methodist Church have sold their old buildings in recent years, although the latter congregation stayed downtown in a new location.

When the Church of the Open Door was built in 1914, a prime donor was Lyman Stewart, the first president of Union Oil Co., now Unocal. He was a charter member and one of the church’s first elders.

Stewart, with his brother Milton, is generally credited by historians with establishing the name “fundamentalist” for conservative evangelical Protestantism. From 1910 to 1915 the Stewart brothers financed a set of 12 booklets, called “The Fundamentals,” written by conservative scholars in North America and Great Britain and distributed to an estimated 3 million people.

Topic for Sermon

The same conservative tenor was conveyed by McGee in the morning sermon Sunday to 4,085 people who filled the ground floor, two balconies and part of an auxiliary room equipped with sound.

McGee, now 81, decried the “self-esteem gospel,” an apparent reference to television preacher Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral. “When all is said and done (with the self-esteem gospel),” McGee said, “you got nice, polite individuals but no one (saved).”

Talking of changing times, McGee pointed to places in the pews once occupied by familiar faces that are no longer around.

In a similar vein, he noted that he has always taken his hat off in the presence of women. Recently, however, he said he took his hat off in an elevator until he heard two women occupants discussing the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.

“They were women libbers. I put my hat back on,” he said, drawing laughter from the congregation.

Decision Is Approved

McGee complimented the Rev. J. Michael Cocoris, the current pastor, and the elders of the predominantly white congregation for deciding to move to the suburbs, because people increasingly would not drive into downtown to go to church.

Cocoris appealed to the crowd for a hefty contribution, explaining that the deal has not been closed yet on the sale of the building, which lies south of the city’s Central Library. “We are the poorest rich boys on the block,” Cocoris said. When the sale is completed, most of the proceeds will go toward the purchase of the church’s new 40-acre site and property improvements, he said.

Dates are uncertain for destruction of the Church of the Open Door complex, flanked by wings of the Rainbow Hotel, and the rooftop 14-foot “Jesus Saves” signs, which were installed in 1935. The church was established in connection with the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and the two institutions were closely related until the school, now Biola University, moved to La Mirada in 1959.

In afternoon ceremonies Sunday, a time capsule that had been placed into the building’s cornerstone on May 31, 1913, was opened. It contained, among other items, a bible, brochures and the six Los Angeles newspapers of that day. The Times headlined a story that the U.S. State Department would be acquiring rights through Nicaragua for a proposed canal (that was never built) and a naval station.