In last week’s newsletter, I reflected on the death of two influential figures in my spiritual and intellectual formation. Today, I consider two more figures who went to their eternal reward in recent days.
Heaven is Richer
When it rains, it pours. It’s a trite saying, but it seems appropriate given some recent losses experienced by the contemporary church.
Two exemplary pastor-theologians went to their eternal reward this past week: Harry Reeder and Timothy Keller. Reeder passed away tragically in a car accident. Keller passed after a lengthy bout with pancreatic cancer. Both were in their 70s. Both were PCA Presbyterians. Both wrote some very helpful books.
Their similarities are notable, but they were very different in their personalities, sensibilities, and ministry backgrounds.
Remembering Reeder
I can hardly improve upon the excellent tribute authored by Matt Pinson, President of Welch College: “Harry Reeder, Present with the Lord.” It captures some of the notable themes in Reeder’s ministry. The most important part of it (for my purposes here) is where his ministry intersected with Free Will Baptists.
Reeder and Pinson developed a professional and personal connection many years ago, which led to Reeder coming to preach at Welch. I believe he first spoke at either a Forum/Bible Conference event or Forlines Lectures series. Welch’s chapel and conference messages were available online back then to download, and so I listened to this Reeder fellow. I was quite impressed. He was obviously intelligent, but also winsome and down-to-earth. He spoke from a depth of experience, not the theory we too often get from academic circles. At the same time, Reeder was well-acquainted with church growth literature and the larger conversation about how ecclesiology, contextualization, and missionality intersect. He knew how to discuss it with biblical clarity and practical understanding.
Soon after hearing these messages, I obtained a copy of From Embers to a Flame, his most important and well-known book. Indeed, this is the basis of the revitalization ministry that he and other colleagues have been providing to other churches for years. (It’s also the basis of the Rekindle Coaching program sponsored by the Free Will Baptist National Executive office.)
I found the book compelling, realizing that he put into words what many pastors like me were generally thinking and attempting: this thing lots of folks were calling “church revitalization.” By this time, I was a few years into my first lead pastorate, trying desperately to lead a turnaround effort in a church facing generational decline. In 2014, I led a core group through Reeder’s excellent book. It was a wise, clear, well-packaged presentation of the principles and practices we had been trying to implement, albeit slowly and often with great difficulty.
I’m not sure that our study radically changed anything in the trajectory of what God was doing in our church. However, if nothing else, it made much more explicit what may have been only implicit for some: we were trying to welcome God’s hand into this massive task.
I never got to meet Dr. Reeder. The closest I came was last summer when my family and some good friends visited Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, the church Reeder served for 20+ years. Unfortunately, he was on a short sabbatical. Still, the service was wonderful. We enjoyed seeing how God seemed to be working among the people.
While Reeder was 75, we should remember that he didn’t die of some prolonged illness or old age; he died in an accident. This was sudden, tragic, heartbreaking. Even as admirers like me take stock of his ministry, we must remember that a church has lost its pastor. The church held their first worship service without him yesterday. That’s no small thing.
As we celebrate Reeder’s legacy and homecoming, let’s remember to pray for the Briarwood congregation.
Additional reading:
Kevin DeYoung, “Giving Thanks for Harry Reeder (1948-2023).”
Remembering Keller
Even as I was mulling over the implications of Reeder’s death, I got word of Tim Keller’s death. I had heard an interview with him not long ago and knew that his health prognosis was grim. Still, it was a little surreal to hear of the death of one of the luminaries of confessional evangelicalism and fathers of the so-called “Gospel-centered movement.”
As one can see from the links below, Keller has touched the lives of many young leaders. He was known for his influence, intellect, humility, and encouragement, among other qualities.
The closest thing I have to a Tim Keller story takes place in 2018. I was having my dissertation defense at Concordia Seminary. One part of my presentation alluded to D.A. Carson and Tim Keller. Of course, they’re often linked due to being co-founders of the well-known parachurch organization, the Gospel Coalition. However, my engagement with their work stems from the fact that both have written in the last decade or so about cultural engagement, and specifically the notion of cultural transformation—the principal subject of my dissertation. They aren’t the main interlocutors in my work, but I do deal with them in one chapter since their analysis and critique are relevant.
After the defense, a Presbyterian classmate asked if I knew that Keller was actually in town for a conference. He jokingly asked why I didn’t reach out and invite him to my hearing. Afterward my dissertation advisor took my wife and I to a nearby restaurant for a celebratory dinner. As we pulled into the parking lot, I glanced across the lot at the hotel which adjoined the complex where the restaurant was. None other than Keller stood in the parking lot, seemingly lost, trying to figure out where he was going. I remember thinking, “What a normal-looking guy, except he’s really tall.”
That reaction exemplifies my thought about seeing or meeting famous people, especially famous Christians. They mostly don’t seek out fame. They just do what they do, and sometimes God uses them in extraordinary ways. This strikes me as especially relevant to Keller’s legacy. I’ve noticed in nearly every tribute or remembrance of him (from people who knew him) how down-to-earth, unassuming, modest, and humble he was. That’s something to consider. It’s in keeping with the kind of modesty and humility that the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes encourage us to have as we contemplate our mortality.
Though I never met Keller, I first encountered him as an intellectual influence in the late 2000s (circa 2007-2009). Two messages impacted me: “The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World” (given at the 2006 Desiring God Conference), and “The Grand Mythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry” (given at the 2009 Gospel Coalition Conference). I won’t dare attempt to summarize them, but they’re well worth a listen today. They may not sound like a typical Keller sermon at Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, but they do reflect the combination of clarity, depth, and wisdom that characterized Keller’s work.
Keller is better known to the Christian world for his writing. As he noted more than once, he really had no ambition to be a writer. After the shocking success of The Reason for God, he just kept writing as ideas and opportunities arose. (I personally prefer the follow-up book, Making Sense of God, to the former.)
Like a lot of believers, my wife has enjoyed some of Keller’s devotional books/writings. I probably haven’t read nearly as much of those as I should. Indeed, given my appreciation for Keller, I’ve not read half of his books. There are too many! But my favorites are the aforementioned title, Preaching, and Center Church. Our men’s group at church also did a study of The Prodigal God, which was very edifying.
Center Church was my first introduction to Keller as an author, circa 2011-2012. I was impressed by Keller’s command of theology, apologetics, history, sociology, cultural studies, and other disciplines. I thought to myself, “This is the kind of book I wish I had written!” But what I most appreciated—and this is a key link to Reeder above—is that one can read such a book and realize you’re not reading a professor regurgitating theories and arguments. This is a long-time pastor whose done his homework and been in the trenches all along the way. This book is the fruit of study and action, analysis and obedience.
Debated and Disputed
Keller is an interesting figure for a lot of reasons. I suppose one reason is because he has become something of a Rorschach test for certain kinds of people. If Keller makes you nervous, you probably think there’s an inherit temptation to wokeness within certain quarters of evangelicalism. If Keller really resonates with you, it probably means you think he finds the right way to be nuanced and provocative in a time when everyone wants everything in life, ministry, and culture to be black and white.
On the first count, I’ve often shaken my head a bit. I realize that some tweets (often lifted out of context) about poverty and race in the last few years caused some to sour on Keller. And Keller’s views on the political implications of some doctrines might be 15 degrees to the right or left of me in some cases. However, Keller has been writing and speaking for decades about how the Christian faith shapes social concerns, including race and poverty. I don’t think his willingness to engage with extremists on the merits of different arguments needs to be viewed as some kind of betrayal.
One reason Keller resonates with me (but annoys many) is his infamous “third-way-ism.” He often tended to triangulate between two common positions on an issue, pointing out how they both missed the truth in some important way, but also somehow captured it. Then he’d proceed to show how there was a third way.
Long ago I discovered that this kind of intellectual pattern was ingrained deep within me also. All the talk about destroying binaries in the area of gender has obscured a crucial fact: binaries often aren’t good in intellectual disputes. On many matters, there are more than two positions! Often three, four, or more! I appreciate how Keller often sought to help people find the third way, which he sought to show was a more biblical way.
To be clear, I have disagreements with Keller. Aside from the Calvinism, his comfort-level with some kind of synthesis of Genesis 1-2 with evolution troubles me. Likewise, no one should mistake Reeder’s Free Will Baptist roots (and appreciation) for where he stood: he was a paedobaptist Calvinist.
If I looked hard enough, I could find other points of departure with these two men. But they were brothers. And by all firsthand accounts I’ve read, they walked the walk. Praise God. May they rest in peace.
Additional reading:
Daniel Darling, “Remembering Tim Keller.”
Samuel D. James, “He Made Me Want to Be More Like Jesus.”
Trevin Wax, “Tim Keller: Into the Sunset (1950-2023).”
LOTS MORE at the Gospel Coalition.
Follow-Up:
In Newsletter #67, I wrote a bit about a renovation project underway in my study. As part of the process, I’ve had to part ways with at least 20 books, and possibly as many as 30. Admittedly, some of them aren’t good or substantive. However, if anyone is interested in John Piper’s latest book on saving faith (I have two copies), or Chuck Colson’s classic autobiography, Born Again, let me know. I’ll find a way to get them to you. Also, I’ll try to mention any other titles of interest in a future post.
Currently Reading:
Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace (Volume 1): God’s Gifts for a Fallen World.
Quote of the Week:
A common theological mistake avoids considering our resistance to the Spirit of God by quickly and sloppily universalizing that resistance under the important theological rubric of sin and the sinful condition. Resistance is indeed sin, but its particularities are what matter not only to God but also to how we perceive divine presence working with us even in our resistance. The preaching life shows us that working and that resistance in slow motion, capturing its details inside the dual exegesis of texts and lives. . .yielding to the Spirit of God is dangerous and sometimes frightening work. To yield is to reach into the depths of one’s own humanity in recognition that God sees through every stratagem of concealment, every lie we tell ourselves, every denial and deceit that we believe protects our reputation, as well as the fears and wounds that hold us back from full living.”
Willie James Jennings, Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race.