homecontact
 
Forrest Church
 
About News Writings Calendar
Biography Resume Interviews      
   

"Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die."
— Forrest Church


 

 

 
 
 

Coming Soon
(Available Now
for Preorder):

Love & Death:
My Journey
through the Valley of the Shadow

from Beacon Press

Preorder at Amazon.com

 
 
 
 
 

Other Featured Books
by Forrest Church

   
 

So Help Me God

from Harcourt Press

Buy at Amazon.com
Also available at Barnes & Noble and other booksellers

 
 
 
 

Freedom from Fear

from St. Martin's Press

Buy at Amazon.com
Also available at Barnes & Noble and other booksellers

 
 
 
 

Separation of
Church and State

Writings on a Fundamental Freedom by America’s Founders

Forrest Church, editor



from Beacon Press

Buy at Amazon.com
Also available at Barnes & Noble and other booksellers

 

Biography

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).

Back to top

 


© 2002–2003 || Forrest Church || All Rights Reserved || Privacy Policy