GARDNER TAYLOR

IN MEMORIAM Continued

Women’s Leadership Conference Local Arrangements Committee. Funeral service was held at Yorkmin-

ster Park Baptist Church in Toronto, on May 23. She leaves husband, Ralph, daughters, Victoria and Martha, and son, Jonathon.

degrees from Leland College and Oberlin Graduate School of Theology. His pastorates included Bethany

Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio; Beulah Baptist Church in New Orleans, Louisiana; Mt. Zion Baptist Church, his home church and the pastorate of his father, in Baton Rouge; and the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, where he spent 42 years. While in New York, Taylor became involved in a number of civil rights causes. He led fundraising in New York on behalf of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement; was arrested for public protest on behalf of African American and minority trade workers; and promoted political and racial equality within New York as the first African American on the New York Public School Board. But it was Taylor’s preaching gifts

Gardner Taylor, dubbed the “Dean

of American preachers” and the “poet laureate of American Protestantism” due to his eloquence and depth, died on April 5 in North Carolina, in the United States. He was 96 year old. Taylor was, along with Martin Luther

King, Jr., a founder of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in 1961 that helped to spearhead the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. He was elected president of that body a few years after its founding.

The grandson of slaves and the son of

a Baptist pastor, Taylor was born in 1918 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He earned

that won him acclaim in the US and other countries. “In him the scholarship of a professor; the language of a Shakespearean writer; the skills of an English Thespian and the tradition of radical progressive African American preachers converge to form a preaching moment which transcends the ordinary and escapes into a world of the Spirit,” one biography noted. Taylor’s sermons have been published

in several volumes. He has taught preaching at Harvard, Princeton, New York Seminary, Union Theological Seminary and Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. He delivered the 100th Lyman Beecher Lecture on Preaching at Yale. In 1979, Time magazine named him one of the seven greatest Protestant

BOOK NOTES

James Early, Jr., A History of Christianity, B&H Publishing, 2015

Described by Timothy George as a “comprehensive account of the Christian story written with clarity, grace, and understanding.” William Loyd Allen says it is “a balanced and valuable resource.” Douglas Weaver calls it “an accessible, easy-to-read handbook.”

30 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE

S. Oyin Abodunrin and I. Deji Ayegboyin, Editors, Under the Shelter of Olódùmaré: Essays in Memory of Professor E. Bolaji Idowu, John Archers (Publishers)

Limited, 2014

Among the contributors are Jacob Olupona, Ezekiel Ajani, Samson Fatocun, Paul Oguntoye, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and John Pobee.

D. Leslie Hill, Faithful & Free: Baptist Beliefs through the Years, Illustrated and Expanded Edition, Church Strengthening Ministry, Inc., 2013

According to Bruce Gourley, Hill has

“described some history that . . . one finds in no other Baptist history book.”

preachers in the US. A Baylor University survey in Newsweek magazine named him as one of the 12 greatest preachers in the English-speaking world. In 1993, Taylor delivered the sermon at

the Inaugural Prayer Service of President Bill Clinton. In 1997, he offered the benediction at President Clinton’s second inauguration. In August of 2000, Clinton bestowed on him the nation’s highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Taylor served the Baptist World

Alliance on a number of committees and commissions, including as a member of the BWA Executive Committee, co- chair of the Commission on Religious Liberty, and member of the Commission on Freedom, Justice and Peace and the Commission on Pastoral Leadership. He spoke at four consecutive Baptist World Congresses. In a resolution passed during the BWA

Annual Gathering in Santiago, Chile, in July 2012, the BWA took note of Taylor’s “faithful stewardship as a preacher of the gospel” and stated that he is “held in special esteem among the people of God called Baptists.” At the meetings in Chile, both the Commission on Baptist Worship and Spirituality and the Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity held a joint session dedicated to the living legacy of Taylor. His first wife, Laura Bell Scott, died in

1995. He leaves wife, Phillis, and daughter,

Martha.

Funeral service was held at Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, on April 13.