Rev. John Buehrens

Biography

Rev. John Buehrens holds three honorary doctorates, including one from SKSM that cited him as the “evangelical rabbi of liberal religion.”  In the UU ministry for 50 years, he was UUA President from 1993 to 2001. He is the author or co-author of seven books, including A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion in the 21^st Century, with Rebecca Ann Parker, and Conflagration: How the Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for Racial, Gender, and Social Justice. A long-time advocate for women’s, LGBTQ rights, and human rights both domestically and internationally, he was national co-chair of Freedom to Marry, 2002-2012. He has been married to the Rev. Gwen Langdoc Buehrens, a priest in the Episcopal Church, for 51 years. John served as Sr. Minister of First UU in San Francisco from 2014 to 2017. He continues to do research, writing and teaching from his retirement home in Berkeley.