Timothy Keller

Timothy James Keller was born on September 23, 1950, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to a family of Lutheran background. His father, Willard Keller, worked as an advertising man, and his mother, Louise, was a homemaker. He had a brother and a sister. The home was a normal Pennsylvania one, with regular church attendance. As a boy, he read widely. He attended Bucknell University, a small liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1972. As a student, he was a thoughtful and skeptical youth, who was drawn to philosophy and politics. He was a friend of a number of student leaders. During his time at Bucknell, he was introduced to a Christian group, a chapter of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, through which he came to a settled faith. He was influenced by the writings of C. S. Lewis and by a campus minister, who showed him that the Christian faith has an intellectual depth.

He went on to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, where he studied for the ministry. There he met Kathy Kristy, a fellow student, whom he married in 1975. They would have three sons. At the seminary, he was a student of Roger Nicole, a Swiss-born Reformed scholar, who gave him a firm grasp of the doctrine of grace, and of Edmund Clowney, who taught him to preach Christ from every part of the Bible. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America in 1975. He took his first post as a pastor in Hopewell, Virginia, at the West Hopewell Presbyterian Church, a small congregation in a working-class town. He served there for nine years, and the church grew. He saw that a pastor must care for the poor, and he started a program of help for those in need.

In 1984, he returned to the seminary world as a professor of practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, in Philadelphia. He taught preaching and ministry. He was also involved in the work of church planting under the denomination. He thought that cities were the places where the church must put its best efforts, since cities shape culture. In 1989, he and his wife were sent by the denomination to New York City, to begin a new church. It was a daring step. New York was known as a hard place for the faith, a city of ambitious, secular and often cynical people. He was thirty-eight. They began by meeting with a small group in their apartment on the Upper East Side. In 1989, they held the first public service at Hunter College.

He took a distinctive approach to preaching. He addressed his sermons to those who doubted. He took the objections of the skeptics seriously and answered them. He spoke about the problems of work, of art, of money, of sex, of suffering and of the good of the city. He did not shy from the hard questions. He showed how Christ is the answer to the deepest longings of the human heart. He said that he preached to the thinking nonbeliever as well as to the believer. The church, which he named Redeemer Presbyterian Church, grew rapidly. It attracted many young professionals, artists and students. It grew to a congregation of over five thousand, which met in several services in different parts of Manhattan. It was one of the best known churches in the nation.

He began to write. His book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, published in 2008, was a response to the common objections to Christianity. It became a New York Times best seller and sold more than a million copies. It was widely read by believers and doubters. Other books followed. The Prodigal God, published in 2008, was an exposition of the parable of the two sons. Counterfeit Gods, Generous Justice, The Meaning of Marriage, Prayer, Making Sense of God, The Prodigal Prophet and Forgive were among the others. His writing was clear, calm and fair to those who disagreed. He showed that the gospel is not only for individuals but for the renewal of the city.

He had a large influence on the church. In 2001, he started Redeemer City to City, a network that trains church planters and supports them in cities around the world. It has helped to plant hundreds of churches in dozens of cities. In 2007, he and D. A. Carson founded The Gospel Coalition, a network of evangelical pastors and churches. He was a widely sought speaker, and his approach to ministry in the city was copied by many. He stepped down as the senior pastor of Redeemer in 2017, at the age of sixty-six, and turned his time to the work of the city networks and to writing.

He had critics. Some thought that he was too cautious on certain social questions. Others said that he was too ready to engage with the culture. Some in his own denomination disagreed with the way in which he approached ministry. He had a firm conservative theology, and he defended the traditional view of marriage and of the authority of the Bible. He was also a man who stood for the poor. He was also criticized for his openness to dialogue with those who differed. He answered the critics with patience.

In 2020, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He wrote about his illness, about death and about the hope of resurrection, in a number of articles and in a series of reflections. He said that he was not afraid of death, since he trusted in Christ. He died on May 19, 2023, at the age of seventy-two, in New York. His life shows the effect of a pastor who took the questions of an age of doubt seriously and who answered with grace. His work reached far beyond his own church.