In the spring of 2008, Forrest Church wrote what he believed would be his final work, Love & Death. But when an experimental cancer treatment gave him a temporary new lease on life, Church saw he had a chance to tie up the one loose end in his remarkable oeuvre: his vocation as a liberal theologian.
 
The Cathedral of the World offers the culmination of a lifetime of thought and lived theology from one who has been called the leading universalist philosopher of his generation. Here Church draws from the entire span of his life’s work to hammer out a clear statement of his universalist theology, gathering his thoughts on religion, faith, and God in a single volume and definitively framing his theological teachings.
 
Opening with a liberal interpretation of the divine, Church compellingly argues that our country was founded on universalist principles, laying out a firm grounding for his theology. Providing a taste of universalism in action, Church’s faith next becomes the inspiration and support for a lifetime of political activism and social justice. Bringing the arc to an end is a systematic unpacking of Church’s theology—one that can apply to almost any faith tradition.
 
In a society in which religion has been hijacked by the religious right and ridiculed by the secular left, Forrest Church gives new voice to the power of liberal religion, openhearted and open-minded, humble and awestruck. In answer to the divisive global trend toward competing fundamentalisms and the dangerous spread of neighborly hate, Church invites all seekers to enter the Cathedral of the World, where there are many windows but only one light.

"Forrest Church, a leading pastor and American religious historian, is also the leading Unitarian Universalist theologian of our time. But he has never pulled together the pieces of his luminous universalist theology, until the gift of this book. The Cathedral of the World is a jewel of theological and grace-filled imagination."

"Forrest Church is a towering public intellectual and the leading Unitarian philosopher of his generation. He also is one of the most courageous and compassionate human beings I know. This last testament to his prophetic thought and witness is a gift of faith, hope and love to us all!"

—Cornel West, Princeton University

—Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of
Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

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"The story of the Rev. Forrest Church of the All Soul's Church in Manhattan is a profile in courage. Not just for his lifelong work helping those less fortunate, but for his perseverance in the face of a fatal illness."

"Forrest Church, a deeply spiritual but always practical visionary, is a minister to us all with this moving and instructive book on the lessons of life and death. A lovely, important book."

—Tom Brokaw