Even in death, the Rev. Tim Keller challenges Christians to think broadly and widely – and to not blend politics and faith

Keller’s passing leaves a void.
(Photograph by José A. Alvarado Jr, Redux)

How can we begin to fix a world so fractured? The life, faith-filled words and writings of the late pastor Tim Keller, who died at 72 Friday, may provide a "blueprint" of what healing might look like, suggests Michael Luo in The New Yorker. He says Keller was "perhaps the most gifted communicator of historically orthodox Christian teachings in the country," and in The New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks calls him "one of the most important theologians and greatest preachers of our time," two things that rarely coincide. 

Luo recalls a visit to Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church when he was the Times' religion reporter: "He stood well over six feet tall. . . . His mannerisms and tone were that of an English professor. With a sheaf of notes on a music stand, he preached a thoughtful disquisition on Jesus' healing of a paralyzed man, drawing on readings from C. S. Lewis, the Village Voice, and the George MacDonald fairy tale The Princess and the Goblin." Brooks recalls, "Tim could draw on a vast array of intellectual sources to argue for the existence of God, to draw piercing psychological insights from the troubling parts of Scripture or to help people through moments of suffering."

Keller had a résumé that resembled that of perhaps no other Christian minister in America. "Early in his career he pastored a church in the small town of Hopewell, Va., where only 5 percent of the high school graduates went on to college," Brooks notes. Luo reports, "In the late 1980s, officials with the Presbyterian Church in America, a relatively young denomination based in a suburb of Atlanta, began searching for a pastor to start a congregation in Manhattan. . . . Only after two other candidates also declined did he agree to take the job. His limited preaching experience in a small-town church in the Bible Belt made him an unlikely fit for New York City. Within three years of its founding, however, Redeemer had swelled from 50 people to 1,000. By the mid-aughts, it had become a beacon, around the world, for pastors interested in ministering to cosmopolitan audiences." By 2017, it "had more than 5,000 worshippers across multiple services every Sunday, making it one of the largest Protestant churches in New York City. Keller also was a best-selling author, publishing more than twenty books, including 2008's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, and writing regularly for major publications such as the Times, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker."

Keller avoided blending religious teaching and politics, Luo reports: "In a 2017 Times op-ed, Keller explained that he had come of age in the early '70s, when 'the word evangelical still meant an alternative to the fortress mentality of fundamentalism.' But the meaning of the term had changed radically, no longer describing a set of historic Christian doctrines. 'Evangelical used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground,' he wrote. 'Now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with hypocrite.'. . . He expressed optimism for a future shaped not by white evangelicalism, whose core was aging and declining, but by a more diverse, global cadre of leaders who defied political categorization." In a later Times op-ed, he warned that Christian faith should never be aligned with a single political party."

So now, as the prophet Isaiah quoted God, the question is "Whom shall I send?" Keller left some words to live by, including a farewell essay in The Atlantic. "One of his final projects, completed earlier this year, was an 83-page white paper called "The Decline and Renewal of the American Church," Luo reports. "It offers a wide-ranging set of prescriptions for what he viewed as the profound afflictions of the evangelical movement. . . . The document is an exhaustive blueprint, but the question now is who will carry it out. Keller's passing leaves a void in the nascent movement to reform evangelicalism, and today's social and political currents make the prospects for change seem dim. . . . Keller observed that, in the past, significant revival movements in Europe and North America often began with 'pace-setting individuals'––in other words, people like Keller. Yet he was careful to add that 'ultimately no one can control' what would capture the imagination, fortify the spirit, and become 'an organic, significant movement.' In his view, this was the role of the divine."