A New York Times article gushed over a nearly 100-year-old Christian cathedral being used as a space for massive yoga classes, drag shows and other new age-y events as the “place to be” in San Francisco.
The Times’ San Francisco bureau chief Heather Knight published a piece on Grace Cathedral, a gothic Episcopal church built in 1927 that has become popular in the past few years for hosting off-the-wall community events and has attracted a congregation that isn’t so religious.
“But in the past few years, it has boomed for reasons that have nothing to do with the Bible,” Knight wrote, explaining that it draws a non-churchgoing crowd that has recently almost doubled its normal congregation.
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According to a recent U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey from March, San Francisco is the second least religious metro area in the U.S., just behind Seattle. Sixty-three percent of adults in the city don’t attend church or religious services, or go less than once a year.
Knight wrote how in 2022, the cathedral created a program called “Grace Arts,” which she described as “a program designed like a museum membership that charges an annual fee in exchange for benefits that include discounts on classes and events.”
Among these Grace Arts events are twice-weekly yoga classes, concerts, and even drag shows and performances featuring trapeze artists.
The journalist described one of the more eccentric events that Grace Arts has put on: “Others are finding community and joy at the cathedral by packing monthly sound baths, where they nestle into their sleeping bags to listen to musicians play by candlelight.”
Since the cathedral has started offering this program, Knight wrote, “Grace Arts members now outnumber regular church members.”
“About 820 households subscribe to Grace Arts, compared with 550 churchgoing households. Annual surveys show the average age of a Grace participant has dropped from 63 to 40 in just two years, signaling the new program is drawing a younger crowd.”
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Describing the draw that the yoga classes have, for example, Knight wrote, “Kimberly Porter-Leite volunteers at the cathedral’s twice-weekly yoga classes, sessions so popular she has to perform what she calls ‘mat Tetris’ to ensure everybody fits between the columns and pews.
The journalist noted how many of these new members are people who have strayed from traditional religion but who are seeking community.
She spoke to yoga instructor Darren Main, a gay person who “felt shamed by the Catholic Church,” who told her, “A lot of people here left the church, not feeling particularly welcome or safe. But we still need a space where we can be together for some reason besides bickering about politics.”
Knight also highlighted a lesbian who volunteers at the classes named Kimberly Porter-Leite. The author wrote, “She is not religious and is married to a woman she described as ‘a recovering Catholic’ who felt mistreated by the church for being a lesbian.”
“A cathedral was an unlikely place for her to spend her time, but she lives nearby and knew that Grace had a reputation for being liberal and welcoming. In 2021, she tried out a yoga class and was hooked,” Knight added.
The dean of Grace Cathedral, The Very Rev. Malcolm Clemens Young, told The Times journalist he is “heartened” by the diverse group of people who attend the functions, among them agnostics and atheists.
“We always say you can belong before you believe, or you can belong and never believe. There’s such a spiritual hunger. We’re always going to look up at the stars in wonder. And we’re always going to ask why we’re here,” he said.
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