Opinion | Tim Keller Showed Me What a Christian Leader Should Be
Tim’s relationship with me was yet another example of his investment in people across difference. He was in a denomination that doesn’t ordain women, and he believed the Bible calls for distinct roles for men and women within the church and the household. I am a woman who is an ordained priest. We discussed our disagreements openly, but the conversations were never hostile. We found far more unity in our mutual faith in Christ and commitment to the Bible than our differences could undo. Our theological differences about gender roles didn’t keep him from supporting my work in ways he could. A few years ago, he found out I didn’t have a literary agent and chastised me, in a kind, concerned way. A week later, his agent contacted me. Tim had called him. Even this month, in his last weeks, when he was very sick, he made time to offer me wisdom and advice. Tim had nothing to gain from giving me his time. He was simply generous, even to the very end.
In our last conversation, he spoke fondly about his ministry at Redeemer, his love for the church and his concerns about American Christians. As a pastor and Christian leader, Tim refused to be politically captive to either party. In a 2017 piece for The Times, he wrote, “While believers can register under a party affiliation and be active in politics, they should not identify the Christian church or faith with a political party,” insisting that the church must never devolve into “one more voting bloc aiming for power.” He continued: “For example, following both the Bible and the early church, Christians should be committed to racial justice and the poor but also to the understanding that sex is only for marriage and for nurturing family. One of those views seems liberal and the other looks oppressively conservative. The historical Christian positions on social issues do not fit into contemporary political alignments.”
Tim was criticized by some for being too theologically conservative, by others for being too liberal and by others for being too moderate. However, he never seemed bitter or upset by the criticism. He took it all in stride and encouraged me to as well, signing emails with advice like, “Keep that skin thickening!”
Tim seemed so secure in his relationship with God that he wasn’t threatened by anything. He was at ease with disagreement and difference. He did not fret over the future of the church. He did not even fear death. Some Christian critics say that the Tim Keller model of engagement — his winsome, gentle approach to those with whom he disagreed — is outdated. They say that increased secularization and progressive hostility toward traditional Christianity requires the faithful to hit back, respond in kind, dominate or humiliate those who oppose us. But Tim wasn’t kind, gentle and loving to others as some sort of strategy to win the culture wars, grow his church or achieve a particular result. Tim loved his neighbors, even across deep differences, simply because he was a man who had been transformed by the grace of Jesus. As he wrote in The Times, he believed and lived as if “the Gospel gives us the resources to love people who reject both our beliefs and us personally.”
The Christian Scriptures describe “the fruit of the Spirit” — what grows in us as we walk with God — as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Tim’s life was marked by these things. And these dispositions are not a political strategy. They are not a part of a brand. They are not a way to sell books, gain power, win culture wars or “take back America for Christ.” Tim inhabited these ways of being not as a means to any end but as a response to his relationship with God and love for his neighbor. The last 10 years or so have been hard on orthodox or traditional Christians who are wary of Christian nationalism, hyperpartisanship and the politics of bitterness or resentment. “Keller’s passing leaves a void in the nascent movement to reform evangelicalism,” wrote Michael Luo in The New Yorker, “and today’s social and political currents make the prospects for change seem dim.”
