The Saints Go Marching On

A couple of significant people within the Christian community passed away this week.

The first is Dr. James Kennedy, the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. You may know him better as the founder of Evangelism Explosion or from his radio ministry Truths that Transform, or the author of a number of books like What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?. I had attended his church a number of times during vacations in Florida and was actually in Florida when we heard of his heart attack last December. We can see the steeple of the church from the balcony of the condo at which we were staying. A couple of the comments from the Sun-Suntinal article:

"The 76-year-old pastor died "peacefully in his sleep" in his Fort Lauderdale home around 2:15 a.m. Wednesday, September 5th, according to publicists for the 10,000-member church. By his side were Jennifer, his daughter, and Anne, his wife of five decades.

The Rev. Kennedy had suffered from several ailments since a cardiac arrest on Dec. 28. He underwent treatment at Holy Cross Hospital, then rehabilitation in Michigan, but never returned to the pulpit. His last sermon was on Christmas Eve.

In contrast to the folksy, Southern style of many televangelists — a term he disliked — the Rev. Kennedy crafted an urbane, intellectual approach, blending history, logic, rhetoric and Bible interpretation. He sought to reach not only ordinary people but government, cultural and academic leaders — "influencing the influential," he called it." There is also a nice tribute on the Evangelism Explosion page.
EDIT: Christianity Today put a list of reports and tributes together at their site.

The other person was Madeline L'Engle, a Christian author whose childhood fables, religious meditations and fanciful science fiction transcended both genre and generation, most memorably in her children’s classic “A Wrinkle in Time.” She died on Thursday, September 6th in Litchfield, Conn. She was 88. She earned a write-up in the New York Times.