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Lewis Smedes

Lewis B. Smedes, 81-year-old professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, died December 19 from complications after a fall at his home in Sierra Madre, a nearby suburb.

"Fuller Seminary has lost one of its great faculty leaders," said Fuller president Richard J. Mouw. "He embodied a unique blend of intellectual rigor, pastoral warmth and eloquent expression. More than one of his former students has said that while his class lectures were unforgettable, it was worth coming to class just to hear his opening prayer."

Smedes, whose book Forgive and Forget has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, had an "irenic personality" that could be "open" to readers "without compromising principles," according to John Loudon, executive editor of Harper SanFrancisco, which published that work and several others by Smedes.

This fall, Smedes finished a spiritual memoir, titled, My God and I, which Eerdmans will publish in the spring of 2003.

For twenty-five years, Smedes was on the full-time staff at Fuller, first in the department of theology and ethics from 1970-1990, where he served as department chairman. He then became chairman of integrative studies in the school of psychology from 1990 until his retirement in 1995. In 2001, he was honored with the creation of the Lewis B. Smedes Chair of Christian Ethics at Fuller. Dr. Glen H. Stassen holds this professorship.

Smedes earned his first two degrees at the heart of the Christian Reformed Church's educational system: an A.B. from Calvin College and a B.D. from Calvin Theological Seminary. He earned a Th.D. at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he taught immediately before coming to Fuller. Earlier in his career, Smedes taught at Calvin College, and was ordained a minister in the Christian Reformed Church.

The author of 15 books, much of Smedes's work covered "hot button" issues for evangelical Christians, including sexuality and forgiveness. His Sex for Christians was criticized by some as too liberal on sexual issues.

In the May 1999 issue of the Reformed journal Perspectives, Smedes argued that the apostle Paul, in Romans 1:18-27, was not referring to "Christian homosexual persons who are living their need for abiding love in monogamous and covenanted partnerships of love.' … To single people in general it says: you must choose between celibacy and marriage. But to all homosexuals it says: You have no choice; you may not marry and you must be celibate."

Jon Pott, editor-in-chief at Eerdmans, said Sex for Christians pushed the envelope of evangelical thinking.

"From the start we knew it would be somewhat on the edge," Pott said. Smedes's "refusal to be absolutely black-and-white, which is a hallmark of Lew, gained him some supporters and costs him some supporters," he said.

"He was in many ways a mediating figure," Pott added. "He was one of those remarkable figures who had a first rate theological mind, but was able to connect with real life and weave serious reflection seamlessly."

In December 2000, Smedes appeared on "30 Good Minutes," a program sponsored by the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, and spoke about his life and the importance of gratitude and forgiveness.

"My father was only thirty-one when he died of a heart attack, much too young for a father to die and leave his young wife with five rambunctious little kids to take care of," Smedes recalled. "I was the youngest. Only a couple of months old when he died. My mother, well, she was an immigrant girl, only thirty years old, all alone in a strange country, not an uncle or an aunt or a distant cousin on the whole continent."

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46