IN MEMORIAM GLEN STASSEN Glen Stassen, the 2013 recipient of the Baptist World

Alliance Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights award, died on April 26. He was 78 years old. Stassen, the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in California in the United States, was presented with the award in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, in July 2013, for his longtime role as a peace activist. He was lauded as the foremost proponent of the globally recognized just peacemaking theory in matters of war and conflict and was hailed as “arguably the leading Baptist peace theorist-activist of the twentieth century” whose “influence is felt well beyond the confines of the Baptist family.” He was described as a fearless advocate who, for more than 50 years, engaged religious communities, civil society and governments in human rights, justice and peacemaking issues and who engaged in nonviolent campaigns for peace and human rights in countries such as the former East Germany, Kazakhstan and South Korea, and regions such as Central America, Eastern Europe and Southern Africa. Declared as a tireless campaigner who participated in anti-nuclear campaigns across the world and negotiated the disarming and removal of short and middle range nuclear weapons from Europe, he led organizations such as the Strategy Committee of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and the Arms Race and the International Conflict Committee of the Louisville Area Council on Peacemaking.

Stassen led and held membership in a wide ranging number of academic, peacemaking, and denominational institutions and organizations, including on various BWA commissions over a number of decades. At the time of his death, he was a member of the BWA Commission on Peace. He wrote or co-authored several books on the just peace making theory and award winning publications such as Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context Stassen leaves wife, Dot, and sons Bill, Michael and David.

Osadolor Imasogie, The Earthly Life and Mission of Jesus Christ and the Anticipation of the Parousia, Imasogie Foundation, 2013

Imasogie, retired theological educator and head of the famed Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary in Ogbomosho, addresses controversial issues through the lens of “Christian philosophy.”

Emiola Nihilola, Theology under the Mango Tree: A Handbook of African Christian Theology, Lagos, Fine Print & Manufacturing Ltd., 2013

Nihilola, a systematic theologian and editor of the Ogbomosho Journal of Theology deals with “topics in African Christian Theology.”

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