Rev. Timothy J. Keller, 72, died on Friday, May 19, 2023, after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Long before he planted Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, taking New York City by storm; before City to City galvanized an international urban church planting movement, starting nearly 978 churches and training thousands of Christian leaders; before his endlessly churning mind birthed some two dozen books, many of which are already hailed as Christian classics; Tim Keller was just a kid in Pennsylvania, growing up and grappling with God and reason and himself with all the strength his head and heart could muster.
Born in Allentown in 1950, Keller became a Christian through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship while a sophomore at Bucknell University. He was bookish, even then, nose down in the works of John Stott, F.F. Bruce, A.W. Tozer, and C.S Lewis (to whom he would later be compared). He inhaled words like air (the better written and more sharply reasoned the better), swam in seas of ideas, and wrestled with both the intellectual plausibility and the emotional heart of the Christian faith. By the time he graduated, his path was set: Tim Keller would be a minister of the gospel.
He attended seminary at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary right after college, earning his M.Div in 1975. There, he met his beloved wife, Kathy, and plunged even deeper into the questions of the faith, engaging with Reformed doctrine and learning in the era of Meredith Cline, David Wells, Jack Davis, and J. Christy Wilson Jr.
“1970s Gordon-Conwell [was] a distinct theological phenomenon, and if you don’t understand that then you really don’t understand Tim Keller,” said Reformed Theological Seminary Chancellor Ligon Duncan. “Gordon-Conwell had a ton of confessional Calvinists there in the mid ‘70s, [and] Tim exudes the kind of intelligent, apologetic, reformed evangelical Christianity that was being fostered.”
M.Div in hand, the 24-year-old Keller signed on to pastor West Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Hopewell, Virginia. He served that congregation for the next nine years, slinging sermons like hotcakes (three per week, more often than not), pastoring congregants, and serving his local community. Along the way, Keller found time to earn his D.Min from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1981, and serve as director of church planting for the PCA’s mid-Atlantic region.
Some in Christendom resented Keller’s stumbled-upon celebrity. Others hailed him as the C.S. Lewis for a new generation. As for Keller, he stayed focused—there was a gospel to preach, cities to reach, souls to save.
In the 1980s, Tim and Kathy Keller moved to Philadelphia, where the couple did urban ministry together. There, Keller taught leadership and communication at Westminster, served as Director of Mercy Ministries for the PCA, and authored his first two books—both related to mercy ministry. By 1989, the Kellers had moved yet again, this time to New York City to plant Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The Big Apple was more dangerous back then, a gritty mission field beset by crime, money, and skeptics. And though most of the other boroughs were chock-full of churches planted by Christian immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Manhattan was overwhelmingly dominated by secularism, with less than 1% of the population identifying as evangelical Christians.
Redeemer started small—with only around 50 members at first. But under Keller’s leadership, the little church began to grow. By the dawn of the new millennium, nearly 3,000 people attended Redeemer’s Sunday service. After the September 11 terror attacks, some 5,400 reeling Manhattanites poured through the church’s doors, searching for meaning, comfort, and hope. Trauma and tragedy fueled a growth spurt, and numbers of new converts soared.
“Those who did not know him could be off-put by his private nature,” noted Bryan Chapell, PCA stated clerk. “Who would expect such a public figure to be so inward preferring? Yet it was that same Tim who would greet me in a crowd in Australia, and hug me to his chest on a subway in New York, fearing that this midwestern preacher of small stature would be crushed by the New York City masses. Warmth of expression was not always his specialty, but his heart for his Savior was taller than the skyscrapers he loved. No one could hear him preach and doubt it.”
That same year, 2001, Keller co-founded Redeemer City to City—a non-profit that has since recruited and trained thousands of pastors and Christian leaders to plant churches in urban centers across the globe. Hundreds of Christian communities have been started across the globe as a direct result. Other para-church ministries cropped up too. The Center for Faith and Work aimed to apply the gospel to the workplace. Hope for New York rallied volunteers to serve New York’s poor and marginalized. Redeemer worked with Reformed University Fellowship to disciple university students and set up counseling services to bring hope and healing.
All the while, the thoughts and conversations and ideas continued crashing and growing and forming in Keller’s head. In 2008, nearly 60 years old, Keller published what is perhaps his best-known and most widely impactful book, “The Reason for God”—explicitly addressing the questions and skepticisms he heard about the Christian faith over and over again by New Yorkers. It was as if a long-dammed river of words had been released. Over the next 12 years, Keller wrote 21 more books, including “Counterfeit Gods”, “The Meaning of Marriage,” and “Generous Justice.” Earlier this year, he published “Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?” Their cumulative impact is immeasurable.
As Keller’s fame and influence grew within the PCA and the Church at large, the secular world began to take note as well. This professorial preacher in the heart of Manhattan was no cartoonish backwoods baffoon. He was whip smart and well-read, winsome and intellectually engaging, all without sacrificing orthodoxy. The New York Times and The Atlantic wrote about him. Forbes listed him as one of the top 50 most influential leaders in the world. Some in Christendom resented Keller’s stumbled-upon celebrity. Others hailed him as the C.S. Lewis for a new generation. As for Keller, he stayed focused—there was a gospel to preach, cities to reach, souls to save.
“It was everybody’s aspiration to be part of this vision that God has given [Tim] for ministry in cities,” said pastor and author Scott Sauls, who worked under Keller at Redeemer. “[That vision] was centered around the gospel, worship, and evangelism, but also focused in this sort of Kuyperian way on a part of Jesus’ vision to claim the whole earth for Himself, socially, spiritually, and culturally. We were all inspired by that. We all bought into it.”
At the 2009 PCA General Assembly, Keller faced off with Ligon Duncan in a panel discussion on women in the deaconate. Despite their opposing views, the pair’s repartee was civil and their arguments rich with Biblical depth. In the end, what was billed by some as a bareknuckle battle between arch-nemeses turned out to be a healing moment for the denomination and, for Keller and Duncan, the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
Even when he was diagnosed with cancer in June, 2020, he scarcely slowed, continuing to work, write, lead, and think—even amidst the chemo, right to the very end.
“If you don’t know that Tim Keller was an evangelist, you don’t know Tim Keller,” said Duncan. “Tim care[d] about the city [and] engaging culture … but ultimately Tim want[ed] to see men and women, boys and girls from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation worshipping the triune God through faith in Jesus Christ. Every molecule of his DNA just scream[ed] that out. And when you got to know Tim, that [was] unavoidable.”
By the time Keller retired from Redeemer in 2017, the church he planted 28 years before had grown to include three campuses with more than 5,000 people attending every Sunday. In stepping down from the pulpit, he was not stepping out of ministry. Far from it. Though no longer preaching every Sunday, Keller threw himself into leading and teaching budding Christian leaders at City to City and RTS in Manhattan. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer in June, 2020, he scarcely slowed, continuing to work, write, lead, and think—even amidst the chemo, right to the very end.
“I am thankful beyond words for the life and ministry of Tim Keller,” said Chapell. “He has humbly submitted personal gifts of rare combination to the greater glory of Jesus Christ: deep insight into God’s Word, and great love for the lost; incredible intelligence, and the humility to speak so that all can understand; a broad vision for what the church can be, and a willingness to work valiantly to see, heal, and help her shortcomings; a willingness to speak the truth in love for Christ’s sake, and a steadfast heart to endure patiently those who do not. I know of no contemporary church leader or friend who has more compassionately and conscientiously heeded the Apostle Peter’s call always to be ‘prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.’”
“[Tim] in the PCA was a little bit like Gandalf in the Shire,” Duncan added. “We think he’s just a guy that does fireworks at birthday parties, when he’s actually out there in the world slaying dragons and taking on evil wizards.”