The gentle evangelist

NEW YORK — Bill Moyers begins his look at the charismatic leader of Manhattan’s Riverside Church by setting up a straw Christian -- then knocking it down.

He opens with a montage of fundamentalist invective in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks: the Revs. Jerry Falwell (“the pagans, and the abortionists, and the gays and the lesbians” helped bring on the tragedy); Pat Robertson (Islam is “just not” a peaceful religion); and Jerry Vines (“all religions are not equally true”).

But then “Now With Bill Moyers” -- which airs tonight on PBS -- shifts to the awe-inspiring confines of Riverside Church, the soaring house of worship built overlooking the Hudson River by John D. Rockefeller Jr.

“Jesus revealed the capacity to affirm your own tradition, and at the same time to reach out to those of other traditions,” the Rev. James Forbes Jr. tells his congregation, five days after the attacks. “His first sermon said, ‘Be careful living with nationalistic narrowness. Because that does not discern the broadness of the heart of God.’ ”

The point is that not all evangelical Christian voices are so angry, that a spiritual leader has arisen who speaks with a loving, liberal voice for devout Christians who are not represented by the Falwells and the Robertsons.

Forbes, says Moyers, has gained “growing influence on the national stage.”

Moyers does not offer any evidence of that newfound influence. In fact, earlier this year, when Forbes approached Vice President Dick Cheney with the idea of opening a dialogue to discuss his flock’s differences with the administration, the vice president did not respond.

But in a way, Forbes’ influence is beside the point of this portrait of a man of faith and the unusual institution he leads.

Moyers follows Forbes’ path from Raleigh, N.C., where his father, a minister, worked as a candy salesman to support his eight kids. The son studied to be a doctor, but he recalls a moment nearly 50 years ago when he was a Howard University student, listening to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony in F minor.

“I thought I heard, ‘Jim Forbes, don’t you know I have called you. Jim Forbes, don’t you know I have called you. Yes, oh, yes, I have called you,’ ” he says, singing the message to the notes of the symphony.

He took it as a revelation, and set out to follow in his father’s footsteps. But when he started as a Pentecostal minister, he realized he was at a disadvantage -- he did not speak in tongues.

So he embarked on a more ecumenical career. He was teaching at Union Theological Seminary, next door to Riverside, when the church asked him to succeed the renowned activist William Sloane Coffin.

Riverside has a long liberal history, beginning with its first pastor, Harry Emerson Fosdick. Even its design is open-minded -- besides carvings of Christ and other biblical figures, it’s adorned with sculptures of Mohammed, Buddha, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln and Booker T. Washington, among others.

Forbes, Riverside’s first black minister, has extended its social activism over the last 14 years. The church trains welfare recipients in hair cutting; it offers the homeless an opportunity to take showers and do their laundry; it sanctions gay marriages.

Forbes is a gregarious man and a fiery preacher. Occasionally, he raps from the pulpit: “Wealthy getting richer, poor getting poorer, with rats and homeless living in the sewer.”

There are other ways in which the style of worship at Riverside has become more like that of some black churches. Now, the congregation sometimes breaks into applause during the service; to Barbara Butler, a member for 30 years, it was a jarring change.

“The rule of thumb is, if you can go along with around 80% of the service, then consider yourself lucky,” she says.

Moyers says about 60% of the congregation was white and 40% black when Forbes became its minister; Forbes says it is now nearly 70% black. Forbes is proud that “you still have ... white folks in the choir and white folks in the usher board,” but Riverside has changed, and Moyers doesn’t explore why. Have whites left? Have blacks flocked there?

Forbes does not shy away from race as an issue, but he insists that economic inequality between the rich and the poor is a more pressing problem -- and one he will continue to address from Riverside’s pulpit.

Forbes asks, “If God were our consultant about economic reality, would God say, ‘Well, all I can say is it’s just a free enterprise system. Let it work and everything is gonna be all right’?” Then he answers his question.

“No,” he says. “God would say, ‘You gotta look at that again.’ ”

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‘Now With Bill Moyers’

Where:KCET-TV

When: 8 tonight