Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009)

Richard John Neuhaus died this morning of complications due to a cancer that was diagnosed over Thanksgiving of 2008. Neuhaus was a Roman Catholic priest, social critic, author and editor, most notably of the 1995 Evangelicals and Catholics Together as well as the magazine First Things.

Over the past five years, First Things has been my favorite magazine to read. Eclectic in nature, it always provides acute insight into the various political, moral, and theological outlooks at work in America. Neuhaus' editorial section "The Public Square" was always poignant and prosaic. He will be missed.

Justin Taylor has provided a helpful timeline of Neuhaus' life:

1936: Neuhaus was born and raised in Pembroke, Ottawa, Canada, one of eight children. His father, an American, was a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister.

1950: Neuhaus leaves home at the age of 14.

1960: Ordained as a Lutheran pastor, Neuhaus served in the 60s as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Lutheran Church, a largely black congregation in Brooklyn. He was a self-described "revolutionary," protesting the Vietnam War and advocating for other progressive causes.

1973: The Roe v. Wade decision causes Neuhaus to abandon his political liberalism activism in order to become a conservative.

1984: Co-founds and becomes the first director of the Rockford Institute’s Center on Religion and Society. Publishes his book, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America.

1988: US News & World Report's survey lists him as as one of the 32 most influential intellectuals in America.

1990: 30 years after becoming a Lutheran pastor, Neuhaus converts to Catholicism at the age of 54. He was ordained as a priest a year later. (Here's a letter to Lutherans explaining his conversion, and here's an autobiographical essay he published in First Things, originally delivered at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.)

1990: Neuhaus founds First Things--an ecumenical journal, published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, "whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society."

1994-1995: Neuhaus publishes the controversial document he co-edited with Chuck Colson entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

2005: Time Magazine names Neuhaus one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" (even though he is not an evangelical).

HT: Hunter Baker of the Facebook Group Readers of First Things (ROFTers)