What We Believe & Affiliations

The Riverside Church in the City of New York is an inter-denominational church, influential on the nation’s religious and political landscapes. We are an interdenominational, interracial, international, open, welcoming, and affirming church and congregation. Whoever you are: You are safe here. You are loved here. You are invited into full participation in our life together.

The Riverside Church in the City of New York seeks to be a community of faith. Its members are united in the worship of God known in Jesus, the Christ, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The mission of the Church is to serve God through word and witness; to treat all human beings as sisters and brothers; and to foster responsible stewardship of all God’s creation.

Riverside commits itself to welcoming all persons, celebrating the diversity found in a congregation broadly inclusive of persons from different backgrounds of characteristics, including race, economic class, religion, culture, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, family status, and physical and mental abilities. Members are called to an individual and collective quality of life that leads to personal, spiritual and social transformation, witnessing to God’s saving purposes for all creation. Therefore, the Church pledges itself to education, reflection, and action for peace and justice and the realization of the vision of the heavenly banquet where all are loved and blessed.

Approved by the Religious Society of The Riverside Church on May, 1992; Revised: March, 2008

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