On the Passing of Tim Keller

It has now been six weeks since the passing of Tim Keller, and I think that is about an appropriate amount of time to have expired before me going where I want to go here. As a general rule, I find it shameful when people use the immediate aftermath of someone’s passing to pile on them. Some have died in recent years who I knew but did not like, and I personally chose to say nothing at all (to this day), just because I find it in poor taste to use the courage of social media or the web to criticize a dead person. It isn’t a hard and fast rule, and I wouldn’t suggest there is an absolute ethic here, but I think some general standards of etiquette ought to apply.

But I am not about to write a critical piece on Tim Keller, and the context here is not “waiting six weeks for the purpose of propriety before pointing out all the flaws in Tim Keller.” I adore the man. I adore his ministry. I waited six weeks to say good things. Why? Because I didn’t want to use the occasion of his death as a venue for pot shots at his critics, either. In that sense, I felt it would be non-Kellerite to go after Keller’s critics with his death as the pretext. Suffice it to say, his critics felt no such restraint.

And therein lies an ironic rub in all this. The very nature of the approach, style, and personality of Keller vs. his critics is at the heart of things even in his passing. His “winsomeness” was his downfall for his critics (allegedly), and the kind of spirit that would go to Facebook the day an evangelical giant died to call him a heretic is heralded as the missing ingredient in finding a Christian culture. Okay.

I say “allegedly,” though, because I do not believe most of Keller’s critics are really that offended and appalled by the horror of “winsomeness.” I think most of them are flat-out jealous, period. There are varying degrees of self-awareness behind this, but the resentment of his success embedded in the pathology of so many of his Twitter critics is self-evident. I do get it. Many of these people have blogged hard, thrown themselves into an edgy expression of their faith, and made very clear to their friends how counter-cultural they are. Yet Keller, who seemed to be broadly respected by such unspeakable institutions as the New York Times, achieved a substantial popularity late in life, complete with book sales, podcast downloads, and general street cred. And they don’t think he earned it. They don’t think he threw enough bombs to be so popular in Reformedville. Plus, as all “indie” bands know, any popular band sold out to become big. Keller may as well be Nickelback to these cool kids. If it weren’t so cliche and sad it would be funny.

But Tim Keller never cared one tiny bit what these people thought about him. Tim Keller loved the gospel. He preached it. He lived it. And he helped to serve it to the greatest city in the world, the city that continues to this day to be the island at the center of the world. He was surely wrong about some things. I know that I disagreed with him about some of his expressions of economic ethics, and we debated these things both privately and publicly.

But I don’t really understand what I am supposed to do with the fact that he was wrong about some things. I can’t name a single theological or ministerial figure who I agree with on 100% of matters of public controversy, theology, policy, or application. Not John Calvin. Not Martin Luther (not even close). Not R.L. Dabney. Not Benjamin Warfield. Not Doug Wilson. Not even Greg Bahnsen (but I mean, he’s pretty close).

Now, with the exception of Dabney, I still find all of the aforementioned deeply valuable in one’s portfolio of theological influence. So I think it is fair to say that “perfection” or “universal agreement” is a pretty unfair standard. So why, besides the jealousy factor, is Keller so villified by these social media bros for a few areas where he may be in a different place theologically or politically? Is it more than a non-essential disagreement about something, like a real paradigmatic variance from orthodoxy or acceptable thought? Of course not. It is entirely temperamental. Period. These people do not like his persona. I mean, sure, he preached the gospel to hundreds of thousands of people in the most influential cultural city in the world where only 3% of the population are professing Christians, but why in the world didn’t he tweet in ALL CAPS more?? Yeah.

Tim Keller saw Princeton Theological Seminary, where Christian orthodoxy goes to die, withdraw an award they were going to give him because he was too faithful to Scriptural teaching about sexual ethics. Yet, I am told, he was soft on sexual ethics (he was not). In between all the TR and warrior children crowd throwing shade at him since his passing, we were also treated to an idiotic screed by Kirsten Powers working through her “complicated feelings” about Keller because he, again, was too Biblical in his teachings about sexual ethics. No one on the theological or political right ever accused Keller of holding to wrong views about gender or sexuality; they just didn’t think he was enough of a bomb-thrower.

Well, boys and girls, when it comes to the culture war, my suggestion is that you write something about Critical Race Theory as good as this, and until then, just say “thank you,” and go on your way.

And that is what I want to say to the life and ministry of Tim Keller - “thank you.” I am thankful that he countered the anti-intellectualism of Christianity that permeated the 1980’s and 1990’s where truly pitiful celebrities dominated the Christian bookseller lists. I am thankful that he was an apologist, fully devoted to presenting the wisdom of the gospel, the superiority of Christian thought, and the futility of unbelief. I am grateful for his popularity in a time where the vast majority of what is “popular” in Christian circles is so incredibly compromised and just plain sad. And I am thankful that Tim, though he became a “celebrity” late in life, maintained his witness, his fidelity, and his integrity, free of the financial and sexual and leadership scandals that seem almost par for the course these days.

I am not convinced he fully understood markets. I am sure his articulation on all political matters would not be mine. But Pastor Tim Keller was a man of deep Christian humility and love, who believed with every ounce of breath in his body that the solution to that which plagues our world - the secret sauce of an effective cultural apologetic - was found in the gospel. If that is not enough for some, I don’t know what else to say.

May he rest in peace.