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The
ecumenical and interreligious family is richly diverse and populated with
sisters and brothers whose lives were models of faith,
fortitude and courage. Some made powerful impacts on the
world stage while others lived out God's call in humbler
settings. All of them, when they are gone, leave an
enormous void. In this page we pause to remember some of them with
gratitude and love.
NCC News contact:
Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 646-853-4212 (cell)
Bruno Kroker, d. June 11, 2009
Bruno
Kroker, 93, who fled
his native Germany during the Third Reich and worked as a journalist in
China before becoming a communicator for the National Council of Churches
USA, the World Council of Churches and the United Presbyterian Church, died
early June 11 at Meadowlands Hospital Center, Secaucus, N.J. "His life
was one of the great novels that never got written," said his friend, Fred Myers, who also worked on the National Council
of Churches news staff in the 1970s. In the 1970s he was a familiar figure
to journalists who covered the ecumenical movement in the U.S. He moved to
the U.S. from Shanghai in 1950 and became an American citizen in 1955. For a decade after coming to
America, he worked with CROP, the food appeal related to Church World
Service. The decade following saw him as an information officer with the
National Council of Churches."Bruno
played a key role in press coverage for the NCC Commission on Religion and
Race and its part in training rights students who went south to places like
Philadelphia, Miss." Myers recalled. "He was also deeply involved in
planning and covering the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom."
(Full
story)
Arnold Tiemeyer, d. May 31,
2009
Arnold
Tiemeyer, 72, a pastor and social service agency executive, died
May 31. Pastor Tiemeyer, father of Pastor Ann Tiemeyer, director
of Women's Ministries for the National Council of Churches, recently
retired from Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lansdale, Pa.,
and lived with his wife, Betsy, at Shannondell in Audubon, Pa. The
common thread running through the mission of Arnold’s life was a
commitment to making room for everyone at the table – both our
community table and the Lord’s table. During his 45 years of
ordained ministry, Arnold worked continuously to bridge community
divisions over social and civil rights rooted in economic
circumstance, race and ethnicity, gender, or sexual
orientation. Pastor Tiemeyer was most proud of his work to open
Betak, the first AIDS hospice in Philadelphia during the early
1990s. At his installation as President of the Lutheran Home at
Germanton (LHG) social service organization, Arnold said LHG’s
mission was to “reach out to anyone in need”. A community member
attending the event challenged him to bring this promise to the AIDS
community. Arnold remained committed to the promise throughout the
significant struggles to open and manage Betak for four years.
Richard M. Jones, d. May 8, 2009
The
Rev. Dr. Richard M. Jones, a senior staff leader of American Baptist
National Ministries, was a key participant in the U.S. Civil Rights
Movement, walking in the March on Washington in 1963. Jones wrote of that
event: “We…gathered at the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., for a
short prayer service and then joined thousands of others to walk toward the
Lincoln Memorial for a time of music and the famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech
by Dr. King. I was fortunate to be close to the platform and hear those
words and feel the power of them.” Jones wrote of a 1963 meeting with Dr. King to plan strategies for taking stands against injustice: “There was
a sense of emergency, fear and authenticity to the relationship of faith
with action. Dr. King…had a sense of what might befall the movement as it
took shape.” Jones' engagement in the Civil Rights Movement, he wrote,
transformed his theological understanding and commitment along with his
belief that personal salvation and action for social justice are
intertwined. The Rev. Dr. A. Roy Medley, general secretary for ABCUSA,
said, “Working with Dick, there was no room for sloppy thinking or theology.
He pressed us to think our best, to reach deep into our faith and how it
challenged and had transformative power for our culture. His prophetic voice
will be greatly missed.”
Herman E. Luben,
d. April 15, 2009
The
Rev. Herman E. Luben, 91, served
the National Council of Churches as the executive director of the Commission
on Worship and Evangelism and administrator of Common Worship and the Arts.
He also
served the General Program Council of the Reformed Church in America as the
secretary of new life and evangelism. Herm’s daughter, Jan Luben-Hoffman
(pictured with her father), is also an RCA pastor.
Calling himself a citizen of the world, Herm was born on a farm in
Coopersville, Michigan. He always kept a garden, and, later in life, kept
bees. His practice of ministry took him to Alberta, Canada, where he
distributed Bibles on horseback; Baldwin, N.Y. (Long Island); Roxbury, N.Y.;
Utica, N.Y., where he started a church; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands;
Lucerne, Switzerland; and Athens, Greece. He served the Reformed Church in
America as an executive responsible for church growth and evangelism, and
was instrumental in establishing the Fowler Camp and Retreat Center in
Speculator, N.Y. A prayer cabin there was recently named in his honor -
Vrede, Dutch for "peace." Herm was a gifted pastor and preacher, and over
the years became a friend and mentor to many.
Kosuke Koyama, d. March 25, 2009
The
Rev. Dr. Kosuke Koyama, 79, an international ecumenical leader who
specialized in bridging gaps between Eastern and Western religions, died in
Springfield, Mass. Koyama became a Christian in 1945, at age 15, as American
bombs poured over his native Tokyo home. He was touched by the words of a
local pastor who taught his congregation the importance of loving everybody,
“even the Americans.” It was a value system Koyama would spend the rest of
his life teaching others. Koyama, who attended Princeton Theological
Seminary, travelled to Thailand to become a missionary with the United
Church of Christ. By 1968, he had moved to Singapore to become dean of the
South East Asia Graduate School of Theology and editor of The South East
Asia Journal of Theology. A decade later, Koyama moved to Manhattan to
lecture at Union Theological Seminary. He authored 13 books over the course
of his career. Many served to explain Christianity to an Eastern audience.
Koyama was responsible for much productive communication between Christian
and Buddhist leaders. He retired in 1996. Koyama is survived by his wife,
Lois; son, James; daughter, Elizabeth; and five grandchildren
Claude Black,
Jr., d. March 13, 2009
The
Rev. Claude William Black, Jr., 92, an American Baptist pastor and pivotal
player in the civil rights movement died in San Antonio, Texas. For over
half a century, Black served as pastor of
Mount Zion First Baptist Church, the largest African-American church in
San Antonio. Black had a long history of serving his city, working as a
council member from 1973 to 1977 and becoming the city’s first black mayor
pro-tem. Black was among the most significant religious leaders who fought
for civil rights. He was an associate of Martin Luther King, Jr., A.
Phillip Randolph and Thurgood Marshall. Black helped desegregate
department stores, swimming pools and parks in San Antonio. President
Johnson appointed Black as
a delegate to the White
House Conference on Civil Rights. Black also served his nation under the
Clinton administration as a delegate to the White House Conference on
Aging. A graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, he earned his master's
degree in divinity from the Andover Newton Theological Seminary, near
Boston, in 1943. The San Antonio native returned to his hometown where he
lived the remainder of his days.
Robert E. A. Lee,
d. February 27, 2009
Robert
E. A. Lee, 87, film producer and Lutheran communicator, died at his home in
Baldwin, N.Y. For over a half of a century, Lee dedicated his life to
ecumenicism and equality. He served as the executive secretary of
Lutheran Film
Associates and
also as executive director
for communications of the Lutheran Council in the United States. He produced
two highly controversial but extremely well-received films, A Time for
Burning and Martin Luther. The first was a documentary
demonstrating race relations in the 1960s. Though the film was rejected by
three major television networks, it was finally broadcast in October 1966.
The critical success led to its later theatrical release and subsequent
Oscar nomination for best documentary. In 2005, A Time for Burning
was added to the National Film Registry, a prestigious list of films that
are preserved for their cultural impact. Martin Luther, a film
chronicling the life of the great reformer, received two Oscar nominations.
Lee produced several other successful films throughout his lifetime. His
wife, Elaine, died in 2000. Lee is survived by their six children, Peg
Harris, Barbara Greenfeldt, Sigrid Lee, Richard Lee, Sylvia Lee-Thompson and
Paul Lee; two sisters, Juliet Seim and Naomi Hysell; eight grandchildren;
and seven great-grandchildren.
Leon Howell, d. February 26, 2009
Leon
Howell, an author and essayist who was the last editor of the influential
liberal-tilting journal Christianity and Crisis, has died. He was 73.Howell
died Feb. 26 at his home in Silver Spring, Md. He had suffered for years
from a viral spinal infection that was never fully diagnosed. Christianity
and Crisis, founded in 1941 by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, reached its peak
in the late 1960s, when it was a leading critic of the Vietnam War. Howell
began contributing to the publication during that time and was its editor
from 1985 until it folded in 1993. He told the New York Times that it was
the high cost of postage and health insurance more than any theological
dispute that prompted the publication's closing. In retirement, Howell
helped organize an annual weeklong seminar at the Ghost Ranch conference
center in New Mexico called "Discerning the Signs of the Times," named after
an anthology of Niebuhr's sermons. Howell's books included "Freedom City:
The Substance of Things Hoped For" (1969), about the struggle for black
tenant farmers in Mississippi to start their own community, and "Asia, Oil
Politics and the Energy Crisis" (1974), written with Michael Morrow.
Millard Fuller,
d. February 3, 2009
Millard
Fuller, 74, founder of Habitat for Humanity and a pioneer of modern
volunteerism, died near Americus, Ga. Fuller was 29 when he decided to
give up his successful business and millionaire lifestyle to devote himself
to fulfilling the lives of the needy. He, and his wife, Linda, used
Christian principles and a notion Fuller described as “sweat equality” to
build a network of devoted volunteers who together have built over 300,000
homes worldwide. Fuller first began the project in 1968, building 114
houses. By 1973, he had officially established Habitat for Humanity
International as an organization that would provide homes for low income
people. The homes are built using donated material and funds, and using
volunteer labor. The homes are then sold without profit. Since its founding,
the organization has created chapters in 14 countries. Fuller’s
humanitarianism earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. Three
years later, Christianity Today called him “God’s contractor.” He is
survived by his wife, Linda; brother, Doyle; son, Christopher; daughters,
Kim Isakson, and Faith Umstattd; and nine grandchildren.
Richard John Neuhaus, d. January 8, 2009
The
Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, 72, a theologian whose ideas transcended the
political spectrum, died in Manhattan. The Ontario-born idealogue came to
the United States as a young man and initially served as a Lutheran minister
with liberal Democrat values. At the age of 54, he was ordained as a Roman
Catholic priest. With this sweeping theological change came an equally
drastic change of political views. The man who protested the Vietnam War and
helped lead the civil rights movement became a neoconservative -- and a
frequent critic of ecumenical organizations like the NCC and World Council
of Churches. In later years, Father Neuhaus was an advisor to former
President George W. Bush. Father Neuhaus wrote over 30 books, the
best-known, The Naked Public Square, argued that American government
should be based on Christian values. His survivors include his sisters,
Mildred Schwich and Johanna Speckhard; and his brothers, Clemens, George,
Joseph, and Thomas.
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