Even outside of sermons, Terry Starks often falls into the rolling cadences and exhortations of the pastor he has been for the past two decades, a declamatory tone that makes it easy to believe him when he says that God gave him the right to a 113-year-old, 48,000-square-foot church on New York City’s Upper West Side. Developers have been struggling to convert this building, initially called the First Church of Christ Scientist New York and then 1 West 96th Street, but now referred to in documents as 361 Central Park West, into luxury apartments since its sale in June 2014 for $26 million. But Starks knows a higher power is on his side, even in the secular arena of Manhattan real estate. "361 is a promise God made me. That building means to me what Israel means to the Jews," he says. "How are you going to turn God’s house into condos?"