As 2022 starts to fade into memory, let’s highlight significant religious figures who died during the year, a useful way for reporters to contemplate where the field has been heading. For this we’ll tap the personalities chosen by religion-beat veteran Adelle M. Banks, who is currently projects editor and national reporter for Religion News Service.
But first, a point of personal privilege. December 10 was a huge moment for our oft-neglected religion beat as the Washington Association of Black Journalists gave Adelle its first Lifetime Achievement Award. Quite the honor when you consider D.C.’s journalistic talent pool! Before joining RNS 27 years ago, Adelle worked at (The Guy’s hometown) Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, Syracuse Herald-Journal (R.I.P.), Providence Journal and Orlando Sentinel.
Though Adelle has skillfully covered an amazing variety of religious groups, she has paid special attention to all-too-thinly-covered African-American faiths. She’s a worthy successor to The Guy’s late friend William A. Reed of the Nashville Tennessean, in whose honor the Religion News Association named its own Lifetime Achievement Award.
In her RNS report, Adelle paid tribute to deceased beat colleagues Richard Dujardin of the Providence daily and Cecile Holmes of the Houston Chronicle. Both were Religion News Association presidents, as was Reed. The headline on that feature: “Remembering faith leaders who died in 2022: preachers, writers and interpreters of faith.”
The hugely newsworthy death of the conservative Pope Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in centuries, occurred on New Year’s Eve after the release of Adelle’s article. Here are the others on her list:
* Madeleine Albright, who only learned after becoming U.S. Secretary of State that her family background was Jewish, including members who died in Holocaust concentration camps.
* Anne van der Bijl, a.k.a. “Brother Andrew,” Dutch smuggler of Bibles into Communist-run European nations who founded Open Doors to help and monitor persecuted Christians worldwide.
* Stuart Briscoe, the Brit-born pastor who built Elmbrook Church in suburban Milwaukee into Wisconsin’s largest; also noted author, speaker, and radio preacher.
* Frederick Buechner, one of the generation’s most thoughtful novelists, a non-religious youth captivated by a Presbyterian sermon who attended seminary and eventually led Philips Exeter Academy’s religion department.
* Dan Busby, veteran president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which certifies ministry practices.
* Calvin O. Butts III, activist pastor for 33 years of Harlem’s influential Abyssinian Baptist Church; simultaneously president of the state university at Old Westbury.
* Patricia Daly, Dominican nun and veteran agitator with corporations as executive director of the New Jersey-based Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment (now Investor Advocates for Social Justice).
* Queen Elizabeth II, legendary monarch and titular head of the Church of England who testified to her Christian belief in annual Christmas broadcasts.
* Journalist Michael Gerson, devoutly evangelical chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, then a Washington Post columnist.
* Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam exile, Zen master, non-violence advocate, author, and founder of the Engaged Buddhism movement.
* Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate (1977–2019) and devout leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which he once served as a local bishop.
* Mildred “Bonnie” Hines, the first and as yet only female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She led western Africa and southeastern U.S. districts and served a term heading the board of bishops.
* Chaim Kanievsky, a rabbi widely acknowledged in Orthodox Judaism as a reigning authority on interpreting religious law.
* Youssef al-Qaradawi, Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader and highly influential teacher of Islam via a weekly Al-Jazeera TV show.
* E. P. Sanders, Duke University scholar who shaped more positive views of Judaism during New Testament times.
* Leon Schwarzbaum, survivor of the Auschwitz death camp who lived to age 101; lifelong advocate for fellow Holocaust victims.
* Ron Sider, college and seminary professor who promoted progressive economic and political views among evangelicals by founding Christians for Social Action, while remaining conservative on abortion, marriage and sexual morality.
* Rembert Weakland, Milwaukee’s liberal Catholic archbishop who resigned after the revelation he paid a former student $450,000 to privately settle a sexual assault claim, though Weakland said their relationship was consensual.
* George Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination that is one of America’s fastest-growing.
To which The Guy would add four additional names:
* Ray Bakke, practitioner, advocate, and teacher of urban ministry in the U.S. and internationally.
* Gordon Fee, evangelical scholar at Regent College, British Columbia; who specialized in textual criticism; New Testament editor of the New International Commentaries series.
* Duane King, founder of Deaf Missions, which in 2020 completed a 38-year effort to translate the entire Bible into videos as the American Sign Language Version.
* Mary Adele McLeod, who in 1993 became Vermont’s bishop and thus the first woman to head an Episcopal Church diocese.