The church lost many other servants this year. Among them:
Kurt E. Koch, 73, a German Christian widely regarded as a top authority on the occult, author of 36 books, and lecturer at more than 100 universities and seminaries in some 65 countries, died January 25 in Aglasterhausen, West Germany.
David J. du Plessis, 81, widely known as “Mr. Pentecost,” died of cancer in Pasadena, California, on February 2. A native of South Africa and a naturalized U.S. citizen, du Plessis was considered by many the foremost spokesman for the Pentecostal movement. An Assemblies of God minister, du Plessis was the organizing secretary of the World Pentecostal Fellowship (now the World Pentecostal Conference). He spent his later years at Fuller Theological Seminary, where the David du Plessis Center for Christian Spirituality was established in 1985.
Edwin C. Clarke, 73, former president of Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, died February 17 following an extended illness. Clarke joined the Geneva College faculty in 1937 as an economics instructor. In the following years, he served as assistant professor of economics, chairman of the Department of Economics and Business Administration, and vice-president for development. He was named president in 1956, a post he held until he retired in 1980.
Carl Armerding, 97, professor emeritus of Bible and theology at Wheaton (Ill.) College, died March 28 in Hayward, California. The oldest of ten children of German immigrants, Armerding became a Christian at the age of 15. He served as a Plymouth Brethren missionary in British Honduras (Belize), the Bahamas, the United States, and Canada. He later taught at Dallas Theological Seminary and was on the extension staff of Moody Bible Institute. His son, Hudson, served as president of Wheaton College from 1965 to 1982.
Baroness Maria Augusta von Trapp, 82, the former Austrian governess whose life story formed the basis of the musical The Sound of Music, died of heart failure in Morrisville, Vermont, on March 28. After deciding not to become a Catholic nun, she married Baron Georg von Trapp in 1927, and in 1942 they moved to Vermont with the baron’s seven children. Mrs. von Trapp was active in Catholic mission work after her husband died in 1947.
Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til, 91, professor emeritus of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, died April 17 following a lengthy illness. Born in the Netherlands, Van Til emigrated to the United States with his family when he was 10. Although he held degrees from Calvin College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Princeton University, Van Til said studying “was not easy.… Having grown up on the farm, I was used to weeding onions and carrots and cabbages. It was hard to adjust to classroom work.…” He pastored a Christian Reformed congregation and taught at Princeton seminary before joining the Westminster seminary faculty in 1929.
J. Edwin Orr, 73, president of the Los Angeles-based Oxford Association for Research in Revival, professor emeritus of the history of awakenings at Fuller Theological Seminary, and a recognized authority on revival and spiritual awakenings, died of a heart attack on April 22 in Asheville, North Carolina.
Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison (U.S. Army, ret.), president emeritus of Officers’ Christian Fellowship, died May 25 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, at the age of 91. After retiring from the U.S. Army in 1957, Harrison served as chairman of the board of Dallas Theological Seminary and as a contributing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. A 1917 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Harrison became the most highly decorated soldier in the 30th Infantry Division during World War II. He served as chief of reparations in postwar Japan under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and later was chief United Nations delegate to the armistice negotiations that led to a cease-fire in the Korean War.
Peter Deyneka, Sr., 89, a Russian-born immigrant who founded the Slavic Gospel Association, cofounded the Russian Bible Institute, and pioneered evangelistic radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union, died July 26 in Wheaton, Illinois.
P. Kenneth Gieser, 78, a former medical missionary who helped found the Christian Medical Society and Christian Service Brigade, died August 1 in Speculator, New York. Gieser and his late wife, Catharine, served as medical missionaries in China from 1934 through 1940. They returned to the United States in 1941 for health reasons. Gieser later accepted short-term missionary assignments, serving at eye hospitals in Nigeria and West Pakistan. He also served on the boards of Wheaton (Ill.) College, The Evangelical Alliance Mission, MAP International, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and Christianity Today, Incorporated.
J. Stratton “Strat” Shufelt, 77, former minister of music at Chicago’s Moody Church and a song evangelist who worked with Billy Graham in a number of his early Youth for Christ crusades in Europe, died September 19 in Muskegon, Michigan.
Wendell P. Loveless, 95, station manager for Moody Bible Institute’s radio station WMBI from the 1920s to the 1940s, died October 3 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Asked last year about his years at WMBI, Loveless said, “When I started, my secretary and I were the radio department.… When I left, about 160 people were taking part in the radio programming.”
Everett S. Graffam, 72, head of World Relief from 1967 to 1978 and recipient of the National Association of Evangelicals’ Layman of the Year award in 1974, died October 20 in Fort Myers, Florida. Under Graffam’s leadership, World Relief’s annual budget grew from $108,000 to $1.5 million.
Theologian Orlando Enrique Costas, 45, academic dean of Andover Newton Theological School, died November 5 in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, of stomach cancer. Costas pastored churches in his native Puerto Rico and in the United States and served as a missionary to Costa Rica. He was a visiting professor at Texas Christian University, Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. He also taught missiology and directed Hispanic studies and ministries at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
