As I sit down to pen this note, I find it difficult to believe that I am writing you my last editor’s note—just as I find it impossible to believe that I have reached the hoary age of 65. It seems only yesterday that I finally agreed, under a little brotherly arm twisting from Billy Graham, to leave my former post and become the editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. But since then, five-and-a-half years have sped swiftly by.
These have been rich and exciting years for me. I have found many new friends among my colleagues on the staff of the magazine. Not least, I have made a host of friends among you who are readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. When I first began to sketch these notes, I confess I was somewhat awed of you. You represented hundreds of thousands of leaders in the religious world, but only strangers to me. Across these years, I have come to think of you as my very dear friends. I shall miss you. “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” the poet said. And it is true.
Some of you have been kind enough to ask what I will do in my retirement. I shall be teaching systematic theology full-time at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I am also delighted that my successor, Gil Beers, has invited me to assist him in a minor way in the editorial work of the magazine. It will be a joy to share with him in this significant ministry for Christ and his kingdom.
As I leave the editorship, I experience some feeling of regret over unfinished tasks and dreams not realized. Far more, however, I am excited about the future—my own future—as I anticipate working once again with students and writing projects long sitting on the shelf. And I am also excited about the future of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. God has singularly blessed this magazine in its 26-year ministry. And with Gil Beers’s dual background in academia and journalism, I am confident that under his guidance it will have an even greater impact upon the leadership of the church than it has had in the past.
