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One final nagging image from Vernard Eller. In 1973, I was enrolled in a seminar on the theology of preaching. I decided to focus my paper on Eller. I had no idea, actually, if Eller was much of a preacher. I knew him as a theologian and a writer. But I wrote to him and requested a dozen tapes of his sermons, which he happily provided. As I listened to those reel-to-reel tapes, I discovered an extraordinary preacher.

While I remember my astonishment at his preaching, I do not remember what I wrote in my paper. What sticks with me is an image.

Eller was preaching on resurrection, as I recall, and on the need for a seed of wheat to die and fall into the ground before it can be resurrected. "I am dying," the middle-40s theologian announced to his congregation. And he pointed to the dual hearing aids he wore. His ears were dying faster than the rest of him, he said, but they were a constant reminder that this body was corruptible and that he must "put on incorruption."

Such a memento mori, it was. Every time I see a hearing aid, I remember Vernard Eller, and I remember that I am dust and to dust I will return.

Now Eller's body has been sown in corruption. May it be raised in incorruption.

David Neff is editor in chief of Christianity Today.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The Brethren Newsline ran Eller's obituary.

The Christian Century website doesn't have Eller's 1967 article, "The 'Mad' Morality: An Expose," but it is available elsewhere.

House Church Central offers a collection of selected electronic texts from Eller's books and articles.

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June (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51