The Rev. Timothy Keller, an evangelical pastor and best-selling Christian apologist famous for bringing the Gospel message to urbanites — died Friday morning in New York City, the Redeemer Churches and Ministries community stated in an announcement circulated on-line.
Mr. Keller, 72, disclosed his pancreatic most cancers prognosis in June 2020.
Mr. Keller based Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan in 1989 and, over the following 20 years, constructed it right into a congregation the place 5,000 attended weekly. The congregation is atypical, some observers stated, for an city megachurch. During Mr. Keller’s years there — he retired from that pulpit in 2017 — many attendees had been single adults, with a quantity working within the arts or New York’s monetary service business.
In a fractious nationwide local weather the place church buildings had been cut up by get together politics, notably through the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, Mr. Keller was nonpartisan. He rejected crucial concept and criticized those that denied the biblical view of gender and sexuality, but in addition advised congregants that they had an obligation to assist individuals in want and commit themselves to racial equality.
Reaction from the Christian neighborhood was immediate — and private.
Russell Moore, editor in chief of Christianity Today journal, stated Friday through Twitter that Mr. Keller’s demise “is an incalculable loss to the church, the world, to those of us who loved him [and] those of us he helped in our darkest hours.”
Evangelical creator Marvin Olasky, the previous editor of World journal, tweeted a quote from Mr. Keller with reference to demise: “We must do as the Bible tells us to do in the face of death: We should grieve, yet we should have hope; we should wake up from our denial and discover a source of peace that will not leave us; finally, we should laugh and sing.”
Mr. Olasky added, “The last is hard to do in the moment.”
Talk present host Erick Erickson, a good friend, stated of Mr. Keller, “He loved others. He believed in engaging a world hostile to Christ and learning from those not of the church. He told me frankly that because everyone is made in God’s image that we have much to learn even from those who might reject God. He loved people. He loved the Lord.”
Redeemer has been praised in evangelical circles for its theological depth and for discussing Christian points in accessible phrases.
A local of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Mr. Keller discovered Christian religion whereas a pupil at Bucknell University. He earned a grasp’s diploma at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1975 and a doctorate in ministry from six years later. Before arriving in New York City, he led a Presbyterian Church in America congregation in Hopewell, Virginia, for 9 years.
He has revealed greater than two dozen books, together with 2008’s “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism,” which climbed to No. 7 on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller listing. His most up-to-date title, “Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?,” was revealed in November.
Mr. Keller can also be one of many founders of The Gospel Coalition, a company that promotes evangelical doctrine and educating.
Michael Keller, one among Mr. Keller’s three sons, wrote on Facebook Thursday that his father approached the tip with equanimity.
“Over the past few days, he has asked us to pray with him often,” Michael Keller wrote.
He stated his father “expressed many times through prayer his desire to go home to be with Jesus.”
Speaking with The Washington Times in September, Mr. Keller stated he wrote about forgiveness as a result of society was now fragmented, not solely by the COVID-19 pandemic, but in addition by a burgeoning period of social media, texting and ghosting, the place offended events disappear with out clarification.
Most younger individuals, he stated, “do not know how to do face-to-face conflict resolution or talking to you saying, ‘This is how you hurt me.’ They don’t do that.”
Mr. Keller stated forgiveness should come earlier than in search of justice, even when forgiveness is ignored by many as we speak.
“If you don’t forgive before you pursue justice, you won’t be pursuing justice; you will be pursuing vengeance,” he stated.
Mr. Keller was married to Kathy, whom he met at Gordon-Conwell, sons David. Michael and Jonathan, and 7 grandchildren. His sister Sharon Johnson of Sorrento, Florida, additionally survives.
Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com