After serving almost
three decades as Senior Minister, Forrest Church is now Minister
of Public Theology of All Souls. He was educated at Stanford
University (A.B., 1970), Harvard Divinity School (M.Div.,
1974), and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D.
in Early Church History (1978).
Dr. Church defines his Universalist theology simply:
• “Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and knowing we must die.”
• “The purpose of life is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for.”
• “The only thing that can never be taken from us, even by death, is the love we give away before we go.”
His mantra for living well is:
“Want what you have; do what you can; and be who you are.”
Dr.
Church, who is 60 years old, has written or edited 25 books,
including: Father and Son: A Personal Biography of Senator
Frank Church of Idaho (Harper & Row, 1985); Our
Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism (Beacon, 1989); God and Other Famous Liberals (Simon
and Schuster, 1991); Life Lines (Beacon 1996); Lifecraft (Beacon, 2000); Bringing God Home (St. Martins, 2002); The American Creed (St. Martins, 2002) and Freedom
From Fear (St. Martins 2004). He focused
on the history of church and state in America as editor of The Separation of Church and State (Beacon, 2004)
and author of So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and
the First Great Battle over Church and State (Harcourt,
2007). Beacon Press released Love and Death—My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow in June of 2008. In Fall, 2009, Beacon will publish his new book, The Cathedral of the World: a Universalist Theology.
Among
other works, he is editor of The Essential Tillich (University of Chicago, 1999); The Macmillan Books of
Earliest Christian Prayers and Meditations (1988-1989); One Prayer At a Time (Collier, 1989); Thomas
Jefferson's Bible (Beacon, 1989) and Restoring Faith:
America’s Religious Leaders Answer, Terror with Hope (Walker, 2001).
For
two years (1987-88), Dr. Church wrote a weekly column for
the Chicago Tribune; fifty of these columns are collected
in Everyday Miracles: Stories From Life (Harper and
Row, 1988). He served two terms at Dartmouth College as Montgomery
Fellow and visiting professor (spring/summer 1989).
Eight
of his addresses have been selected for inclusion in the annual
anthology Representative American Speeches (Wilson
& Co.): "Love and Death" (1983-1984); "Terrorism" (1986-1987);
"Chariots of Fire" (1987-1988); "If I Were A Woman" (1989-1990);
"Shall We Overcome?" (1992-1993); "The American Creed" (1994-1995);
"Fear and Terror" (1994-1995); and "September Song" (1996-1997).
"Fear and Terror" is also included in Representative American
Speeches 1937-1997 (Wilson & Co., 1997). Dr. Church's
1988 interview with Bill Moyers is included in A World
of Ideas (Doubleday, 1989).
Appointed by Mayor Giuliani (1998-2004) and reappointed by Mayor Bloomberg (2004-06), Dr. Church chaired the Council on the Environment of New York City, a public/private partnership based in the mayor's office. Among other city-wide environmental programs for which he was responsible were New York's 50 Greenmarkets. Among his other non-for-profit service, he also served on the Board and Executive Board of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (1982-2009).
Forrest received the FDR Four Freedoms Award from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation (2008) and the Art Buchwald Spirit Award from the National Hospice Foundation (2009). He presented the first Heart and Soul Foundation Forrest Church Humanitarian Award to President Bill Clinton in 2009.
He
is married to Carolyn Buck Luce and has four children, Frank
(29), Nina (26), Jacob (23), and Nathan (21).
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