In counter-culture San Francisco, a church has become a hip place

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco residents have always celebrated the new, the innovative and the groundbreaking. The crazier, the better. But these days, they’re flocking to a surprising place for the cool factor: a church that’s older than the city itself.

High on Nob Hill, above the clattering cable cars and luxury hotels, stands the majestic Grace Cathedral. The Episcopal congregation dates back to 1849, the year before the city was founded, when the pews in a precursor to the current building were filled with miners throwing gold dust into the offering plates.

The Gothic cathedral, built in 1927 for the same congregation, has been the site of traditional religious rites and events for decades: Sunday services, baptisms, weddings, funerals and choir performances at Christmas. But in recent years it has experienced a boom for reasons that have nothing to do with the Bible. Just last week, a public art exhibition featured colorful laser beams beamed from the roof of the nearby Fairmont Hotel into the large, round window at the front of the cathedral. The event drew more than 1,000 spectators, including Sergey Brin, the billionaire co-founder of Google, and Kudra Kalema, a Ugandan prince and technology founder.

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Rapper Kanye West has visited the cathedral during quiet hours to play the organ. Bobby McFerrin, the singer who rose to fame with his 1988 hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” regularly leads cathedral visitors in impromptu singing circles.

But it’s not just celebrity status that’s fueling interest in Grace. In a city whose office buildings are among the emptiest in the country, many remote workers in San Francisco long for a real community.

Two years ago, the San Francisco Cathedral launched Grace Arts, a program designed like a museum membership that offers perks such as discounts on classes and events in return for an annual fee.

The program has become so popular that it now has more members than regular church members. About 820 households subscribe to Grace Arts, compared to 550 households where churchgoers live. Annual surveys show that the average age of Grace participants has dropped from 63 to 40 in just two years, suggesting that the new program is attracting a younger audience.

Kimberly Porter-Leite volunteers at the cathedral’s twice-weekly yoga classes. The classes are so popular that she has to perform “mat Tetris” to make sure everyone has room between the pillars and pews. The fire department has even ordered the cathedral to block off an open path with colorful cones so yogis can get out in an emergency, she said.

Porter-Leite, who wore black leggings and heart-print socks at a recent session, said she has felt incredibly lonely during the pandemic, and the death of her mother has widened that hole.

She is not religious and is married to a woman she describes as a “recovering Catholic” who felt mistreated by the church because she is a lesbian. A cathedral was not an appropriate place for her to spend her time, but she lives nearby and knew Grace had a reputation for being liberal and welcoming. In 2021, she tried a yoga class and loved it.

“This place has been a lifeline for me,” she said. “It’s so weird and quirky and beautiful and inclusive. It’s been such a relief.”

Darren Main has taught yoga classes at the cathedral for many years, but he said the classes used to be small and have only recently swelled. He, too, is gay and felt shamed by the Catholic Church where he grew up.

“Many people here have left the church because they don’t feel particularly welcome or safe,” he said. “But we still need a place where we can be together for some reason rather than arguing about politics.”

Others find community and joy in the cathedral by attending monthly sound baths, where they snuggle up in their sleeping bags and listen to musicians play by candlelight, or by dancing in the pews at tribute concerts to Sting, Queen—and of course, Taylor Swift.

They take guided tours that allow them to enter corners of the cathedral that have long been off-limits to visitors – including the cupboards where the bishop’s vestments are kept, the bell tower and the walkways overlooking large stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes in bright colors. In some areas, the headroom is so low that visitors must wear protective helmets.

Carnival events have even taken place in the cathedral, with drag queens and trapeze artists swinging from the high ceiling.

“Crazy San Francisco! Isn’t it great?” joked the Reverend Malcolm Clemens Young, dean of Grace Cathedral, who regularly swaps his collar for a T-shirt and shorts during yoga class.

The growing interest seems unlikely in a city known for its counterculture, where organized religion is not central to many residents’ lives — except on Easter Sunday, when they crowd the hills of Dolores Park for the annual Hunky Jesus Pageant. A 2020 study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies found that 35% of San Francisco residents belong to a religion, compared with nearly 49% nationwide.

Young said he was greatly encouraged that people of all faiths, as well as agnostics and atheists, took part in the celebration at the cathedral.

“We always say you can belong before you believe, or you can belong and never believe,” he said. “There is such a spiritual hunger. We will always look up at the stars in wonder. And we will always wonder why we are here.”

Of course, the unusual offers were also designed out of self-interest.

Grace is just one of many churches across the country that have been trying to pay their bills at a time when fewer and fewer people are attending church and paying tithes every Sunday.

Maintaining the cave-like structure, as well as paying staff and utilities, costs a staggering $17,000 a day. The cathedral relies largely on large private donations, but Grace Arts membership fees and fees for one-off classes, tours and concerts also help. Praying and meditating in the church remains free.

Some churches have had other lives as cafes, nightclubs, or fraternity houses. Housing advocates see an opportunity for congregations with a surplus of property, such as extensive parking lots, to build affordable housing units next to their churches under the slogan YIGBY, “Yes in God’s Backyard.”

Mark Elsdon, a consultant who helps churches repurpose their buildings and is also an ordained minister, says more and more churches will face this problem.

“It’s a wave, a tsunami, and we’re really only at the beginning,” he said. “There’s just not a need for that much space.”

Young said he is hearing from deans of cathedrals in Washington, DC, New York City and elsewhere that they have ideas about how to attract more people to their buildings – if not to their services.

“We certainly advise each other,” he said. “But we are the ones who push the boundaries more than they do.”

Or roll out the yoga mat as needed.

On a recent Tuesday evening, Paul Wong went through his weekly routine: arriving early to secure a coveted yoga spot in the labyrinth at the center of the cathedral, he stripped off his work clothes to reveal just shorts and a T-shirt.

He is a religious agnostic but said he feels at home at Grace.

“It feels a bit like going to church, but it’s not forced on you,” he said. “Whatever worries or stresses I have, it helps me get rid of them.”

He lay on his back and looked up at the fading sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows. He took a deep breath. He was at peace.

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