The Rev. John Buchanan was the leader of Fourth Presbyterian Church on the Near North Side — one of Chicago’s most prominent congregations and the second-largest Presbyterian church in the U.S. — for 27 years, overseeing significant growth as well as outreach to the less fortunate.
Buchanan also was the editor and publisher of the Chicago-based magazine The Christian Century for more than 15 years.
“He transformed Fourth Church, which attracted Chicago’s elite of many faiths, into a church of service to hundreds of children from the city’s poor neighborhoods, bused to the church for free meals and a tutor and mentoring program, to the homeless, to people in need through a food pantry of free goods, to migrants, providing social services, help with housing, clothing and food and caring,” said Dorothy Pirovano, a friend, neighbor and parishioner.
Buchanan, 87, died of complications from surgery Feb. 3 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said his daughter, Diane. He had lived on the Near North Side for many years.
John McCormick Buchanan was born in the small railroad town of Altoona, Pennsylvania, and received a degree in political science and government from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. He moved to Chicago in 1959 to study at the. University of Chicago Divinity School.
“I was compelled deeper and deeper into theology,” Buchanan told the Tribune in 2012. “Out of that came a sense of calling that this is what I want to do with my life.”
Upon his graduation in 1963, Buchanan worked as the pastor of churches in Indiana before becoming head pastor of the Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, which U.S. News & World Report magazine once had termed “a model congregation.”
In 1985, Buchanan was chosen by parishioners to be the pastor and head of staff at Fourth Presbyterian Church, which was formed in 1871 when the congregations of two North Side churches worshipped together for the first time. He was only the fourth senior pastor that the historic North Michigan Avenue church had since 1909.
Although Fourth Church had undergone the same changes in character that the rest of society experienced during the 1960s, the congregation long had a public perception of being a church for the wealthy.
But Buchanan’s predecessor, the Rev. Elam Davies, had begun focusing on the community at large, including launching a tutoring program for children in the nearby Cabrini-Green housing complex, starting a social service center and forming a counseling center. He even removed an expensive pew rental system for reserved seating, opening up worship services to all interested and not just those with means.
Under Buchanan’s leadership, community outreach intensified — and, the church’s makeup began to more accurately reflect the broader community.
“We have more diversity in this congregation than in any church I know anywhere, contrary to the part of our image that everyone who comes here is affluent,” Buchanan told the Tribune in 1988. “We have the whole wonderful kaleidoscope of the human race in our sanctuary on Sunday morning.”
In 1988, the Tribune characterized Buchanan’s sermons as “literate, down-to-earth homilies that combine the biblical message with contemporary theological thought and literary and other references as different as Ernest Hemingway and Marlee Matlin. He touches often on the issue of the existence of God and people’s common compulsion to ask, ‘Is there a God who really matters?’”
“John was a skilled preacher because he had the mind and heart to put words together in a way that helped people make real sense of their lives,” said Peter Marty, publisher and editor of Christian Century. “Whether it was a social issue of urgency, a spiritual matter of consequence or an injustice concern that was wounding or even killing people, John addressed every topic with integrity and trustworthiness.”
Tom Are, Fourth Church’s interim pastor, said as a preacher, Buchanan was “wise, honest and relevant.”
“He knew that his congregation, located where we are, has responsibilities to pursue justice and to offer services to those in need,” Are said. “He was recognized across the nation, and in some ways around the world, as a faithful leader offering a witness that the love of God includes all people.”
Throughout his tenure at Fourth Church, Buchanan tackled all manner of controversial issues, including the ordination of gays and lesbians and conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians.
“The Presbyterian Church feels that it’s our job to shine light on issues that have moral significance,” Buchanan told the Tribune in 2012. “(Issues) that have to do with peace and war and how people are treated.”
Buchanan long had been an advocate for allowing ordaining gay and lesbian clergy. Since the turn of the century, the issue has divided the Presbyterian church — and plenty of other denominations nationwide — and in 2011, the Presbyterian Church as a denomination voted to change its constitution to allow openly gay people to be ordained.
“Slowly but surely the whole society is seeing that gay and lesbian people don’t pose a threat to overall morality,” Buchanan told the Tribune in 2001.
Marty noted that Buchanan “wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power.”
“In fact, on myriad issues … he took plenty of heat for doubling down on convictions that were grounded in his love of God and his inclusive understanding of scripture,” Marty said. “What I find beautiful is that his personal courage helped move a lot of people to new places and fresh sensibilities, just as it brought them together.”
Buchanan also dealt with more mundane issues, including the church’s finances and optimal use of its property in its cramped Streeterville neighborhood. That included a plan he supported and promoted more than 20 years ago to sell the air rights to the property just west of the church’s historic Gothic revival-style building for $25 million, to allow for the construction of a 64-story condominium tower.
Amid significant community and political opposition, Buchanan and other church leaders scrapped the plan in 2009. However, Buchanan then oversaw a pivot, which resulted in the construction from 2011 until late 2012 of what became the Gratz Center, a five-story, $42 million, 80,000-square-foot addition immediately west of the church’s sanctuary and parish house. The Gratz Center houses a preschool program, a dining room and kitchen, offices and rooms for Sunday school, tutoring, adult education and meetings.
“We plunged ahead on our own, and the church will soon be able to breathe,” Buchanan told the Tribune in 2012, in anticipation of the addition’s completion.
In 1996, Buchanan took a year’s leave of absence to become moderator for the General Assembly, which is the highest position in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He returned to Fourth Church the following year.
In 1997, Buchanan began a side job as editor and publisher of The Christian Century, the monthly Chicago-based magazine that reports on religious news and provides opinions on a host of theological and moral issues. Buchanan started out on the magazine’s management and business side but soon expanded to writing a popular biweekly column that addressed often-controversial current topics.
Marty said Buchanan’s work at the magazine “helped shape an ethos that prized critical thinking and made faithful living an aspiration for everyone who picked up the magazine.”
“It was quite a run he had (as publisher and editor),” Marty said. “Some of our current strength at the Century — a progressive magazine devoted to commentary on faith, politics and culture — is a result of John’s steady leadership hand.”
Buchanan published five books, including “A New Church for a New World,” “Being Church” and “Sermons for the City.” In 2016, he published “From the Editor’s Desk,” a collection of his Christian Century editorials.
After retiring from Fourth Church in 2012, Buchanan remained the editor and publisher of Christian Century until 2016. During retirement, Buchanan preached occasionally at various churches, and he also undertook a short-term commitment as an interim pastor at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas.
However, much of his time was spent caring for his wife, Sue, whom he married in 1959. She was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 2010, and soon was weakened by the ailment. She died in July.
“He dedicated his life to her in her remaining years and took care of her with great tenderness and love,” Diane Buchanan said. “It was such a beautiful thing to see.”
Buchanan also occasionally published posts on a personal blog. His final post, on Dec. 20, was on the Christmas story.
“The story has inspired hope in every circumstance down through history,” Buchanan wrote. “It has comforted and strengthened and encouraged political dissidents in oppressive political situations down through the centuries right up to the present. In every age, including the present one, it has inspired men and women to hope and strive for a time of peace and justice when all are valued and respected and protected and regarded as equals.”
In addition to his daughter, Buchanan is survived by another daughter, Susan, who is an Oak Park village trustee; three sons, John, Andy and Brian; a brother, Bill; 13 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is set for 1 p.m. March 8 at Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut St., Chicago.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
