By Franklin Crawford
Nineteenth-century conservative religious leaders once branded our revolutionary land-grant university as "Godless Cornell." Would that they could drop by for two separate talks marking the double anniversary of Sage Chapel -- 130 years -- and Cornell United Religious Work (CURW) -- 75 years.
While it's true that Cornell was founded as a nonsectarian institution where "persons of every or no religious denomination are equally eligible to all offices and appointments," that very premise allowed a diverse array of religious traditions and sects to flourish on campus.
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In 1875 Sage Chapel was built to accommodate nonsectarian religious services held by a student group called the Christian Association -- a cooperative mix of Protestant denominations with both male and female memberships. The chapel's first service was held June 13, 1875, and the preacher was Phillips Brooks, a Harvard graduate and renowned cleric out of Boston's Trinity Church. In celebrating the 130th anniversary of Sage Chapel, organizers have tapped another Harvard divine for the occasion. On Sunday, April 10, at 11 a.m., the Rev. Pro-fessor Peter J. Gomes, minister of the Memorial Church and Pusey Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard University, will deliver a sermon titled "So Far, So Good, So What?"
"Gomes is one of the premier preachers in the United States and a compelling speaker who represents the best traditions of Sage in his ability to speak both to the mind and to the spirit," said Kenneth Clarke, CURW director. "He also is a person, like Brooks, of considerable renown who, whether through his writing or sermons, addresses grand overarching themes that affect a broad humanity."
Gomes's most recent books are Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living (2003), and The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need (2002). Gomes last spoke at Sage in 1995, and prior to that appearance he delivered the 1986 Cornell Baccalaureate address.
Sage was not the first nonsectarian chapel in the country, according to Morris Bishop's A History of Cornell. But it is considered one of the most beautiful college chapels, and diverse voices have preached from its pulpit, among them: Carl Sagan, Jane Goodall, Elie Wiesel, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, John Cleese, Rienhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr., Paul Tillich, Rabbi Abraham Herschel and Harry Emerson Fosdick.
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In celebration of CURW's 75th anniversary, the chapel will host another distinguished voice: Karen Armstrong, an internationally renowned scholar of comparative religions. On Thursday, April 14, Armstrong will deliver the Frederick C. Wood Lecture, "God and the Religious Quest of Humanity," at 4:45 p.m. Armstrong is the author of several highly regarded works, including A History of God (Ballantine, 1993), Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (Knopf, 1996), The Battle for God (Knopf, 2000) and The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (Random House, 2004).
"Hers is a voice that lends itself to understanding and moves us toward cooperation and respect in ways that are important to a society with such a diverse religious landscape as America," said Clarke. "She speaks well and ably to the world CURW symbolizes."
Marion Howe remembers that world like no one else. Howe, 87, served under every CURW director except Clarke. A 1938 graduate of Cornell, she was lured back from a satisfying job in New York City to work with CURW founder Rev. Richard Edwards in 1939.
"I loved New York City and thought I would stay here for a year or so," she said. "But I got hooked."
Howe stayed with CURW for 44 years. Now living at Kendal at Ithaca, she remembers reactions to her decision to work as an administrative assistant "in what was considered a intellectual rut."
"Good grief, it was no rut -- it was kaleidoscopic," she said, recalling heady days when she hand-typed Edwards' A History of Cooperative Religion at Cornell, as general manager and budget director for CURW. Howe helped to navigate the organization through its explosive period of growth, retiring in 1983. In fact, CURW still is an important part of her life. In May, Howe will give a talk at Kendal, "CURW -- 'See You Are, What?'" and discuss some history and highlights from her career.
Established in 1929, CURW may have been the first designated interfaith organization on an American university campus, according to Clarke, who composed a brief history of the organization. The roots of CURW date back to 1869, when 12 male students at Cornell formed a Young Men's Christian Association, or YMCA, later simply called the Christian Association to include women students.
Edwards was initially hired to lead the Christian Association in 1919. But his commitment to providing an array of religious options for students led to an experiment in religious community-building called CURW. The title stuck. In its first year, CURW welcomed both Jewish and Roman Catholic chaplaincies into its agency -- a bold and progressive move for its time. From 1933 to 1937, CURW embraced organizations for Unitarians, Christian Scientists, and members of the Society of Friends and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In 1948 Cornell alumnus Myron Taylor funded the construction of a new interfaith center at Cornell, Anabel Taylor Hall, dedicated to his wife. In 1952 Anabel Taylor Hall became the new home of CURW and now houses the university's World War II, Korean and Vietnam War Memorials as well as a small chapel, auditorium, meeting rooms and offices for CURW and core staff. Under its new roof, CURW played an important role in community service activities now overseen by the Cornell Public Service Center. And CURW chaplains played a pivotal role in the student anti-war protests and in mitigating racial tensions on campus during the politically volatile '60s.
CURW's involvement in social issues led to the establishment of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) in 1971. Independent of the university, CRESP was founded to address larger concerns ranging from U.S.-Latin American relations to the environment to the local living wage campaign.
In 1966 the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association -- MECA -- joined CURW, establishing what may have been one of the first Islamic chaplaincies on a major U.S. campus. CURW now hosts 26 affiliate groups, including a number of Christian evangelical organizations, an African-American worship service, Muslim, Hindu, Zen and Tibetan Buddhist, Hasidic Orthodox Jewish and Pagan groups.
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| This Cornell campus panorama, which was taken looking north from the Sage College tower, circa 1880, shows Sage Chapel, which was only five years old at the time. Visible behind it and at right are other Cornell buildings, including Morrill, McGraw, White and Rand halls. Archive Picture Collection/Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections |
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