Table of Contents

Introduction
Invocation: The Cathedral of the World
 
Book I: God and other Famous Liberals
1. The Greatest Liberal of Them All
2. Mother God
 
Book II: The American Creed
3. The Role of Religion in American Democracy
4. The American Creed
5. What Would Jefferson Do?
6. America’s Promise
7. From Nationalism to Patriotism
 
Book III: A Liberal Pulpit
8. The Presidential Pulpit and Religious Politics
9. The Commonwealth of God
10. Fear and Terror
11. Shall We Overcome?
12. World Peace 2000
13. Choose Life
14. Evil and Sin
15. Religion and the Body Politic
 
Book IV: Universalism for the Twenty-first Century
16. The Search for Meaning
17. The Church of the Future in Light of the Past
18. Universalism for the Twenty-first Century
19. Emerson’s Shadow
20. There Is No Hell
21. The Seven Deadly Virtues
22. Home After Dark
23. At Home in the Universe
 
Book V: Love After Death
24. Love and Death
25. Love’s Tribunal
 
Benediction: Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going?
 
Acknowledgments
Credits

About the Author

Forrest Church (1948-2009) served for almost three decades as senior minister and was minister of public theology at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City. He wrote or edited twenty-five books, including Love & Death.

Reviews

“Church is a towering public intellectual and the leading universalist philosopher of his generation. This last testament to his prophetic thought and witness is a gift of faith, hope, and love to us all!” —Cornel West, author of Race Matters

“An essential read for anyone interested in liberal religion.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“A complete expression of [Church’s] liberal theology.”
—William Grimes, New York Times
 
“The Cathedral of the World sums up in a dramatic and powerful way the work of one of America’s most gifted clergymen. Forrest Church has lived his theology as well as proclaimed it. Ours is a better world because he did.”
—Bishop John Shelby Spong, author of Jesus for the Non-Religious
 
“Church challenges us to see the light shining through the many windows of the cathedral of the world and to be receptive to the mysteries which abound in our lives . . . [A] fine compilation.”
—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
 
“[Church] reminds us in so many words how lucky he and we are to be in the hands of a lovingly liberal God . . . This [book] feels like a swinging wide open of the doors of a dusty house and a letting in of sunshine and fresh air.”
—Booklist