Presences: A Bishop's Life in the City [Hardcover]

Paul Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1997

In his highly readable memoirs, Episcopal bishop and human rights activist Paul Moore writes movingly of the presence of God in his life and stresses the importance of the Church's witness against poverty and injustice. Photos Four-city author tour. National publicity.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Throughout his long career as Episcopal bishop of New York, Moore fought with untiring zeal for justice and equality as he understood them. Even in retirement his voice continues to be heard on many controversial issues. With a professional life that stretched from the early 1950s through the 1980s, Moore provides a fascinating view of the Christian left in action while offering glimpses of such other leaders as Bishop James Pike and Malcolm Boyd. Along the way, Moore also gives personally revealing descriptions of his childhood, his World War II service, and his family life. He includes a vivid account of his first wife's losing struggle with cancer. The resulting self-portrait is movingly human. Anyone interested in the history of liberal Christian politics in general or the radicalization of the Episcopal church and hierarchy in particular will find this a fascinating autobiography of an important figure.?C. Robert Nixon, Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

An autobiography by Moore (Take a Bishop Like Me, 1979), erstwhile Episcopal bishop of New York City, social activist, and father of nine. Born in 1919, Moore was the youngest of four children in a wealthy Yankee family, with a remote father and a loving but frail mother. His childhood was spent shuttling between the family's New Jersey home, an apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, and a summer residence in Palm Beach, Fla. Following family tradition, he boarded at St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, where he was drawn to High Church spirituality and had a profound experience of God's presence when he first went to confession. In 1937, again following family custom, he went off to Yale, and when war came he joined the marines. Wounded while serving in the Solomon Islands, he was sent home, and married and studied for ordination at New York's General Theological Seminary, where he was influenced by such luminaries of the time as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. After ordination, he began expressing a commitment to civil rights, forming close personal and financial links with the NAACP, and worked to change the orientation of the Episcopal Church toward social action. In 1963, he became suffragan bishop of Washington, D.C., where he wielded influence on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Subsequently, as the bishop of New York, Moore was a leader in agitating against the Vietnam War. He also worked to admit practicing gays and lesbians to the ranks of the Episcopal clergy and advocated for recognizing the plight of the homeless. Moore writes well, sharing his private thoughts with the reader and offering brief but moving details of his family life. Very much a '60s figure, Moore comes to guilt naturally over his wealthy upbringing and his church's social elitism--and he handles the guilt graciously. A revealing portrait of this controversial and influential Anglican. (b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1St Edition edition (December 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374175675
• ISBN-13: 978-0374175672
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,147,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read the book. You'll enjoy it. And remember it., January 10, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Newburgh, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Presences: A Bishop's Life in the City (Hardcover)

I found the book by Bishop Moore to be a story told with beauty, love and power, of a life spent serving others, and making an indelible mark on everyone he has touched, including friends, associates, family, critics, and his Church in many places throughout the world, including his own back yard. As an Episcopalian, I have a greater understanding of the Church, and the challenges and opportunities which are available to serve others. The author's experiences are many, and his journey is told with honesty, compassion and strength. Reading "Presences" is a great way to begin the new year and is a book I strongly recommend. Tom.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Energetic Episcopate, December 23, 1999

By 

roger spence (Cleveland, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Presences: A Bishop's Life in the City (Paperback)

This is one of the most moving books I have ever read. It is the autobiography of Paul Moore, a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth amongst the "horsey set" of northern New Jersey. He went on to become a war hero in the Pacific theater during World War II but, shortly thereafter, found the planned course of his life arrested by an overwhelming urge to devote himself to the work of the Episcopal Church, in which he eventually rose to the lofty position of Bishop of New York. By far the most valuable and edifying portion of this narrative is the section dealing with Moore's days as a young priest in his first parish, Grace Church Van Voorst, in the ghetto of Jersey City. He and another young man assumed the co-pastorate of this church as seminary students, and decided to adopt the radical experiment (for the late '40's) of emphasizing social action in a neighborhood of crying needs. It took several years and much heartache to transform the church from a congregation of fourteen elderly ladies to one of three hundred lively neighborhood residents, and the story of the daily-changing demands of ministry to the homeless, gang members, and drug users would inspire anyone of good will to want to roll up his sleeves, plunge in, and get to work. Something of the challenge of the work and its contrasts is highlighted when Moore speaks of an evening spent at the ballet in New York City, where he was "caught up and swept away in a world of delicate form and beauty." He continues, "All the way back on the Hudson tubes, I lived on in that other world, until I walked up the steps of the rectory and found a dirty, ragged man covered with vomit, lying unconscious on the floor of the porch. I stepped over him, closing my eyes and my nose to his presence. It was too much. Oh, I knew he was more important than the fantasy world I'd come from. I knew Christ dwelt in him, that indeed he was Christ to me. And yet I could not face him, the stench of his vomit, nor my own priesthood, which bound me to him." Social action remained the hallmark of Moore's ministry as he rose in the councils of the Church to the pulpit of the cathedral in Indianapolis, and then to the offices of Assistant Bishop of Washington and Bishop of New York. In New York Moore had two Assistant Bishops under him, and thus was provided with more time for his political activities during the turbulent years of the 1960's and '70's when he became a leader in the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. His life was not without pathos and tragedy as his wife sank into a deep depression and eventually succumbed to cancer and his nine children forsook the Church for the liberated lifestyle of the drug culture. Of course the real tragedy in all of this is to see a life lived for service to man and to the Church but without much of a true spiritual dimension and bereft of the power of the Spirit in a real gospel message. Those who sat under Moore's ministry were exposed to such teachings as, "I believed that all human beings were created good, in the image of God, but often turned violent and cruel....Distortions of human beings, whom we believed were created good in the image of God occurred...through disease and conscious individual sin." Such subjective, relativistic views led to this analysis of the sexual revolution: "If it is loving and does not hurt anyone, and if it is not breaking marriage vows, I do not think sex outside of marriage is sinful per se. The New Testament teaches otherwise, but the Bible came out of a very different culture, where sex was tied up with property rights, where birth control was not reliable, and where women were treated as inferior beings." On one hand, it is refreshing to read the memoir of someone who came out of those radical decades with a sincere desire to change the world for what he believed to be the better. Yet, as the saying about atomic power has it, "If only it could be harnessed for useful purposes!"

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read, December 13, 2010

By 

Warbird Buff (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Presences: A Bishop's Life in the City (Hardcover)

Nimbus32's review and perceptions are unfair and disappointing. Paul Moore speaks honestly from his heart while describing his personal transformation and conversion to a lifetime of humility in giving of himself to others. Names of some well known people are part of Moore's story which is expected when one is reading about the life of a person from great wealth who is in a high profile senior position (bishop) located in New York City.

When Paul Moore originally chose to live with his family in a rundown crime infested New Jersey city to pursue his ministry, one cannot imagine how it must have been like; yet Moore describes this period with grace and raw reality through his deep sense of faith and humility. The mere mention of "charm and skill" by the Nimbus32 reviewer leads me wondering as to what book he/she actually read.

We tend to like in others what we like in ourselves and Paul Moore saw Christ in everyone.