The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

Whole Earth, Winter, 1997

"Ecology is a way to understand life in our time. It is a way to do theology. I don't mean it is a way for priests, rabbis, babas, or mullahs to split hairs. I mean it is a way to understand the workings of the Reality which for me as a Christian is Christ, and for you is Allah or Yahweh or Buddha or the Great Spirit of Tao.

"In every age, there is an image whose power is commanding. In the fourth century, Augustine made it possible for people to see God's work in the world by means of the image of the city.... In our time, the sciences -- particularly ecology -- give us a new language to experience communion with God. We can have a relationship to the divine that is as powerful and living as was Augustine's.... And we must. The planet will not long continue to tolerate the abuse to which we have subjected it.

We don't do theology, and then think about environment. Our theology is ecological and our ecology theological. If you continue the long divorce between nature and human nature, then you will regard this idea as flaky, if not downright heretical. If, on the other hand, you regard Creation and communion as the two fundamental facts of the universe, you will get the idea." -- Rev. James Parks Morton

If there are one place and one person that have nurtured the blending of faith-work and environmental concern, they are the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, who served as Dean for twenty-four years. Into the Cathedral have come the homeless, renowned politicians, religious spokespeople, elephants and pets, scientists, shamans, great musicians and performers, as well as loving New Yorkers. Its sermons have forged a new liturgy of sacred ecology. Proclamations written there, especially the Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment, put power brokers in Moscow and Washington on notice that the fate of the planet must have a high priority. Cathedral-sponsored projects in victimized, discriminated-against, and poor neighborhoods set the standard for urban ecological hope.

Since the Cathedral's cornerstone was laid in 1892, it has radiated a Statue of Liberty nuance. Called the "House of Prayer for All Peoples," it has Naves of the Seven Tongues, each for a recent immigrant language. Dean Morton pictures the Cathedral's role as "Inter, inter, inter! International, interfaith, intercultural! Those are the realities of the new city." Since the 1970s, a fourth "inter," the interdependence of life on the planet, has been blended into the vision. When New York needs a safe haven to discuss racism or a future Green City, it relies on St. John the Divine. Cathedral projects range from the first west side recycling center to gardens to involving high school students in water quality assessment.

Even more remarkable is the Cathedral's ability to transfer new thoughts about Earth spirituality to the "heavies" in politics, religion, and science. From the Cathedral's pulpit have come the words of HH Dalai Lama, Rene Dubos, James Lovelock, Carl Sagan, Thomas Berry, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Dean Morton and Paid Gorman of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (p. 12) organized congregations and religious leaders (Assisi, 1987), added politicians (Oxford, 1988), and then scientists (Moscow, 1990). The next year, Sens. Al Gore and Timothy Wirth met at the Cathedral with a wild mix of American religious leaders and scientists; they took the resulting Joint Appeal to Congress in 1992. If sacred ecology becomes a driving force, moving hearts in the twenty-first century, historians will trace the spring of hope to the upper west side of Manhattan Island.