Forrest Church

Forrest Church died yesterday.

Forrest served our All Souls congregation in Manhattan for nearly three decades. He was also the author of something in the neighborhood of twenty-five books. His interests ranged from liberal Christian theology to American politics.

He had a real influence on me. I was much taken with his stance as an evangelical Unitarian Universalist. On any number of occasions I cited his observation that the spiritual quest is grounded in the twin knowings, that we are alive and that we will die.

The son of the late and I have to say great Idaho Senator Frank Church, he was raised in a prominent political family, attended Stanford and then Harvard where he earned both his divinity degree and a doctorate. He was public man whose struggles and failures were also public.

As was the grace of his exit. He was given the gift of some real time from his final diagnosis with cancer. And he used it well.

I certainly will miss him and his fine mind and reaching spirit.

I wish his family healing and many friends in these hard times…

Here’s a nice story on him…

And here’s Forrest himself, preaching on “Love and Death.” As is the case for longer clips at Youtube, this one is broken into three parts…