Frank Tupper, a Baptist theologian who taught generations of seminary students that when it comes to the problem of evil and suffering “God always does the most God can do,” died Friday, Feb. 28, just more than three years after suffering paralysis in a fall at his home that left him confined to a wheelchair.
James Leo Garrett, theologian who influenced two generations of Baptist scholars, dead at 94
James Leo Garrett, a renowned Southern Baptist scholar and teacher remembered as one of the last “gentleman theologians,” died Feb. 5 in Nacogdoches, Texas. He was 94.
Missiologist and ministry mentor Bill O’Brien dies
Bill O’Brien, a former Southern Baptist music missionary acknowledged as a leading expert in 21st century global missions, died Saturday. George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, announced his passing on social media, saying his father-in-law and brother in Christ “did not wake up on this side of the veil.”
Walker Knight, founding editor of Baptists Today newspaper and former editor of Home Missions magazine, dead at 95
Walker L. Knight, a trailblazer in establishing a free and independent Baptist press, died Dec. 1 at age 95.
Doug Dillard — cartoonist who gave Baptists ‘Brother Blotz’ — dead at 90
Doug Dillard, a minister and cartoonist who for decades encouraged Baptists to laugh at themselves, died Oct. 5 at age 90.
Helen Graves, wife of one seminary administrator and mother of another, dead at 105
Her great grandmother was a Cherokee who walked the Trail of Tears and she remembered women’s suffrage, but Helen Graves didn’t live long enough to see her dream of a female president. The widow of a longtime seminary dean and mother of a seminary president died Sept. 6, a few months after celebrating her 105th birthday.
Retired BWA leader Denton Lotz dead at 80
Denton Lotz, who led the Baptist World Alliance through some of its most challenging years, died April 23 at age 80
James E. Wood, Baylor scholar and BJC leader, dead at 96
James E. Wood Jr., a Baptist statesman and scholar recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of church-state relations and religious liberty, died peacefully March 4 at age 96. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Wood began his…
Paul Simmons, outspoken Baptist ethicist, dead at 82
Paul D. Simmons, a Christian ethics professor who a quarter century ago became a lightning rod at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for advocating a woman’s right to abortion, died March 17 following an illness. He was 82. Walter Shurden, a…