CURW's Robert L. Johnson leaves broad religious tapestry on campus

By Franklin Crawford

During a farewell speech marking the occasion of the Rev. Robert L. Johnson's last sermon in Sage Chapel, David Robertshaw, professor of biomedical science, described the retiring director of Cornell United Religious Work (CURW) as "a gift from God."

Robert L. Johnson, Cornell United Religious Work director, who has led the interfaith campus organization since 1982, will step down in June. Matthew Fondeur/University Photography

It's not the kind of thing biomedical scientists were likely to say 19 years ago when Johnson joined the Cornell community.

"It was sincerely meant," said Robertshaw. "He's had a great influence on the spiritual life of this community, and I feel his presence here was truly a gift."

Johnson will present the Baccalaureate Service address, titled "The Glory of Everything," at 8:30 a.m. this Sunday in Bailey Hall. The interfaith service honors all graduating students and retiring faculty members.

Johnson's tenure at Cornell came after a relatively secular period on campus, when social issues and the peace movement predominated and, with few exceptions, students and faculty alike tended to play down the "God thing." Even Johnson's suggestion to replace the American and Cornell flags outside Anabel Taylor Hall -- flags burned during campus protests in 1969 -- was viewed with some derision.

"The shadow of the 1960s was still over this place," Johnson said, referring to Anabel Taylor and its occupants at the time. "There was a certain sense of disappointment among some chaplains that the '60s were done."

The '60s were done; but radical chic was slow to die and anti-religious sentiment slow to recede. Johnson said some of the most outspoken and influential Cornell faculty at the time were professed atheists. World-famous astronomer Carl Sagan and L. Pearce Williams, professor of history emeritus, proffered rich and elegant, if Godless, points of view from the pulpit of the nonsectarian Sage Chapel. Both were "distinctive voices" whose influence on students at the time was strong, Johnson said. Nothing wrong with that at a university, he added. But the atmosphere at the time was not necessarily nurturing or worship-friendly in the religious sense.

"That has changed, especially in the last five to 10 years," Johnson said. "It is now possible for a bright Cornell student to openly profess a religious faith" and not be considered intellectually adrift.

Housed in Anabel Taylor Hall, CURW is a group of more than 20 affiliated religious communities that offer programs of worship, study and social life. But when Johnson arrived in 1982 as CURW director, evangelical protestant ministries like the Korean Presbyterians and the Southern Baptist ministry did not exist. And back then, the United Pagan ministry would have had a better chance of pitching a tent on the moon.

Yet quietly, without much fuss, Johnson has helped guide the organization through nearly two decades of unprecedented expansion. Today, while mainline Protestant denominations have diminished, almost all other major religions have grown. The Jewish and Catholic communities have increased and there is a thriving Islamic community. With the exception of a Hindu ministry, CURW is now fairly representative of world religion.

"We plan to bring a Hindu group into CURW next year," said Johnson, who leaves the directorship this summer. "It will be a great service to the many Cornell students who practice the Hindu faith."

Overseeing the resurgence of religious interest on campus has been one aspect of Johnson's Cornell experience. But this year's Baccalaureate service speaker considers his greatest contributions to be the rehabilitation of the campus's Sage Chapel and the variety of dynamic scholars CURW has attracted to speak at Cornell. Those speakers include: Kim Dae Jung (now president of South Korea), theologian Hans Küng, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Rabbi Harold Kusher, Congressman John Lewis, author and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, humanities scholar Harold Bloom, editor and political commentator William F. Buckley Jr. and, most recently, actor and humorist John Cleese.

Under Johnson's leadership, improvements to Sage Chapel were many -- the historic Aeolian-Skinner organ was refurbished and upgraded; a window memorializing slain civil rights workers was added; an E.B. White plaque was mounted; pews were refurbished and reshaped to accommodate more human proportions; new hymnals and choir robes were purchased; and a $300,000-plus lighting project was completed, which now makes it possible to follow the words in the new hymnals.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Johnson was ordained in 1954 in the United Methodist Church. He received his master of divinity degree from the Union Theological School in 1955 and a master of theology from Harvard Divinity School in 1968. Prior to coming to Cornell, Johnson served 18 years as director for the Wesley Foundation at Chapel Hill. He also has served as president of the National Institute for Campus Ministries and is currently president of the Association of College and University Religious Affairs (ACURA), a professional group of approximately 60 chaplains and directors from universities nationwide. Johnson now serves on the editorial board of the journal Cross Currents. He has published many articles and also is the author of a book titled Counter Culture and the Vision of God, published in 1971.

"The experience at Cornell inevitably enlarges your view of the world and its faiths; I've work with the Jewish and Muslim communities as well as Pagan ministries and we've brought a lot of scholars from a variety of backgrounds here," said Johnson, who had a part in the establishment of the first religious studies major at Cornell. "I'm very pleased with the dialogue we've been able to pursue."

He noted with some disappointment that the lack of a strong conservative presence among the Cornell humanities faculty has made debate on campus somewhat one-sided -- and that has hurt both sides.

"I wish there were more realistic debate of live issues; debates with more tension and vigor," he said. "Students learn against the grain."

Johnson originally planned a return to Chapel Hill, but instead will stay in the area, "writing, resting and traveling," he said.

His successor at CURW will be Rev. Kenneth I. Clarke Sr., who will begin as CURW director in July. Clarke served for 10 years as director of the Center for Ethics and Religious Affairs at Pennsylvania State University and primary administrator for the Helen Eakin Eisenhower Chapel, also at Penn State.

Johnson will be a tough act to follow, according to Carolyn Taber, Anabel Taylor and Sage Chapel coordinator for 13 of Johnson's 19 years.

"A few years ago," said Taber, "when I asked my then 4-year-old grandson what he thought God looked like, he immediately said, 'he looks like Bob Johnson' (whom he had seen a few times in his white robe at Sage Chapel). Bob will be missed at Sage Chapel and Anabel Taylor Hall."