The first time I recall hearing about Tim Keller was a recommendation from David Wayne (The Jollyblogger) while we both lived in Winter Haven. He had sermon tapes and lent me some on Galatians. I was hooked.
I used to have a portable MP3 player from my sister-in-law that I used to play sermons while I worked out. There were plenty of Keller sermons on it. When I moved to AZ, someone gave me an actual iPod Classic. On Fridays during home school game day, I’d circle the park listening to Keller’s sermons. And then there were the books.
I don’t agree with everything Tim did or said. We disagree on some aspects of creation. I’m not sure how that Kuyperian model plays out when you are in a minority position. I recognize that his ministry approach was not meant to be carbon copied everywhere. It needed adjustment for the situation (I could do a little triperspectivalism here). So, while Tim may be on my “Mount Rushmore”, like Sproul, he’s not flawless.
Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen is the result of 3 years of interviews. As he notes in the postscript it is about “the influences on, more than the influence of” Tim Keller. In many ways this is a fairly unique approach (I really haven’t seen or read similar books). You learn about Tim, but you also learn about the many people who shaped and impacted him. Some he knew personally and some only from a distance in either time or space. There are also a number of helpful lessons in the course of this volume.
Tim was not an innovator, he was a synthesizer. I can identify with that though he was far better at it than me. He was also far smarter as well. And more humble.
The book is broken up into 4 main sections: from birth to young adulthood; the seminary years; the Hopewell and Philadelphia years; and finally NYC.
Birth Thru College
Hansen begins with his family of origin. The person who looms large is his mother Louise. His father Bill was known to other kids as The Shadow because he wasn’t there even when he was. His mother had a dominating personality, and was quite skilled at holding a grudge. Raised Italian Catholic, she had a need for control and for her oldest son to make her proud. She had a bent toward works righteousness, and was hardest on Tim, the oldest.
Tim read at 3 years of age. He and his younger brother Bill were in a gifted program which led to no small amount of bullying. He often felt lonely, and had learned to talk his way out of confrontations with bullies since his mother forbid him from fighting. There were also frequent arguments with her. We can see God’s work of redemption in taking what was meant for evil to shape him into someone who was able to calmly interact with those of differing opinions. While that was a positive he took away from it, he also took a struggle with perfectionism and internal self-criticism.
While still Lutheran, as a young teen he recalled hearing the gospel for the first time during a confirmation class. The retired pastor used SOS: the law shows our sin, and the gospel shows our Savior. While interesting, he didn’t embrace the truth revealed. But a seed was planted. Sadly his second confirmation class teacher focused on works righteousness, particularly activism. He was a social gospel liberal. The shift to the Evangelical Congregational Church focused on our effort and the quest for sinless perfection. Church, and Christianity, didn’t hold much attraction for him as he went off to Bucknell.
His road to Christ went through the major events and cultural shifts happening while Tim was in college. He was in a university that left its Christian moorings. He had to engage with Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. The school was committed to Marcuse and the Frankfort School. He saw that the emperor had no clothes: in a morally relative world, there is no basis to pursue social justice. If justice is a social construct and relative, pursuing it becomes oppressive. He struggled with the reality of racial segregation. He studied the world religions to find an alternative to Christianity. He began to see the stark difference between Christian doctrine and other religions, Christianity and the existentialism and Marxism of his professors. But it was really his need to belong that mattered. In Christianity he found a God who loved and accepted him, even calling him “son.”
InterVarsity was the main influence and he became a leader in a revival on the Bucknell campus. He followed up with interested students and oversaw small groups. He wrote incoming freshmen including Sue Kristy, whose older sister Kathy gave her approval. Tim invited one of the most influential men in his life, Ed Clowney, to give an evangelistic talk, asking him to engage Camus and Sartre on the Absurd Man. He was unsurprisingly drawn to the book table and read Stott, Lewis and Packer. It was at Bucknell that Keller began to expect skeptics in the audience.
Hansen then introduces us to Barbara Boyd. She was IV’s first female staff member and led Bible and Life weekends. Tim learned how to read the Bible from her, a method he used for sermon preparation for the rest of his ministry. She also passed on her love of Martyn Lloyd-Jones to him via Stacey Woods. Later, Keller would see Lloyd-Jones’ postwar England as very much like NYC and Stott’s ministry as a model to approach ministry there. His time at IV would stick with him, holding fast to essential doctrines and focusing on what we had in common rather than our intramural differences.
We then circle back to Kathy Kristy, who was rather unimpressed the first time she met Tim Keller while visiting her younger sister at Bucknell. She would introduce Tim to Lewis’ fiction. As a tween she corresponded with Lewis. In high school she was deeply involved in Young Life, also seeing God work in amazing ways. John Guest, who did an outreach at Bucknell involving Tim, called her the “most brilliant youth organizer in Pennsylvania.” They were both highly intelligent and socially awkward. They both decided to attend Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and before leaving went to listen to R.C. Sproul at the Ligonier Study Center. While at G-C they slowly moved from friendship to dating to marriage. R.C. officiated the wedding. They were very much soul mates. She seemed to play the role for Tim (facilitator) that Vesta played for R.C.
“I’m not number 2. We serve together, and it’s a joy if I can be a wind in his sails.” Kathy Keller
They were very much alike. If you think of soul mates, they should probably come to mind. She edited all his books, and co-wrote some. She was not simply home holding down the fort but was also a very gifted woman sharing in many aspects of his ministry. She also spent time working with Great Commission Publishing. Complementarianism was not intended to squelch the service and value of women.
The Inklings exerted a profound influence on the Kellers, particularly C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Tim tends to default to Lewis when he doesn’t have time to prepare. Hanson notes that “Lewish gave Keller a model for wide reading and clear thinking. … Tolkien, though, gave Keller a heart language … ways to talk about work, to talk about hope, to talk about the stories we all hope will come true someday.” It was Tolkien who helped Keller comfort NYC after 9/11. Due to his wide reading, he would quote authors from literature, science, sociology etc. They shaped his preaching so he led people to wonder and expose their deepest hopes and desires.
He loved stories because they reflect the Story. He liked to use Tolkien’s term eucatastrophe, “joyful catastrophe, the tragedy that turns out to be a triumph, the sacrifice that turns out to bring joy, the weakness that ends up being strength, the defeat that ends up being victory.” The model for this is the Cross.
He then turns to R.C. Sproul and the Ligonier Valley Study Center. Sproul talked with Schaeffer about his L’Abri experiences. Francis warned him of the dangers. Among the many people who would go to and be profoundly influenced at the LVSC, two were Tim Keller and Kathy Kristy. Amazingly, Tim still left an Arminian. But R.C. provided them with a L’Abri model for evangelism that would stick with them. This was important for them because they both went to colleges that undermined historic Christian faith. Sproul’s Gabfest was the model for the Sunday Night Q&A’s Tim would utilize in VA and NY.
Tim didn’t want to form a study center (which burned Sproul out) but form such a community in a church. While they loved to hear R.C. talk theology and apologetics, they never developed a love for sports. Sproul is the one who told them about the PCA a week before their wedding. When Sproul debated Gordon Fee at Gordon-Conwell, he had dinner with the newly wed Kellers.
While Tim departed from Sproul’s classical apologetics for presuppositional apologetics he kept Sproul’s model of speaking persuasively and intelligently to non-Christians.
Seminary
Those who have attended seminary get this. To me it seemed like college on steroids in terms of influence on my life. I was exposed to men and thinkers/books that would remain with me the rest of my life. I also made significant friendships. The Kellers were no different. Gordon-Conwell is officially a non-denominational evangelical seminary. There are professors from a wide variety of Christian traditions. This means you hear a wide variety of views to weigh. Those who impacted Tim include Gwyn Walters (who was an interim at a church I attended who was all style and not much substance in my opinion), Latin American theologian Orlando Costas, Meredith Kline who hooked Tim on a redemptive-historical approach to the Bible and taught him covenant theology.
Despite his time at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, Keller did not hold to the Reformed doctrine of predestination. His one semester learning from A.T. Lincoln grounded him in a Reformed Perspective. That Lincoln was there is attributed to Mike Ford overhearing dean Kerr’s prayers and reaching out to his father, then President Gerald Ford. Hansen notes that Keller would use this as an illustration of God’s providence. Ford was only the President because of the Watergate scandal produced when a guard noticed a door open that normally was closed. It can be the little things.
He then has a chapter on Elisabeth Elliot and a band of friends called the Robins. They first encountered Elisabeth at the funeral of her husband Addison Leitch. They were struck by her straightforwardness and faith in the face of loss. She taught Kathy that “calling is different from giftedness or even desire.” Gifts can be used in a variety of calling. Egalitarian Kathy became a complementarian. Elliot even quoted from a paper of Kathy’s in Let Me Be a Woman. All this happened as she came to understand the authority of the Scriptures as God’s Word. Since she was under care of the Pittsburgh Presbytery (UPC), she had to provide notice of her desire to be removed. On the floor of Presbytery Kathy explained that the Scriptures did not permit women to be ordained. Many of them booed her.
The members of the Edmund P. Clowney Fan Club formed the core of the Robins, a group of lifelong friends many of whom shared a passion for Tolkien, Lewis and Edwards. A number of students would gather to hear Tim’s lectures on the lectures. He would synthesize the material for other students. In keeping with Luther’s Table Talk, they helped transform the school paper from Qohelth to Table Talk. One of those involved was Stu Boehmig who later worked for Ligonier and brought the design with him. In an article Tim criticized “hermeneutical Nestorianism” which separated the divine and human authorship to focus primarily on the human author’s intention.
Dr. Roger Nicole became influential in how Keller carried out theological debate. Nicole was committed to being irenic and knowing his opponent’s position better than he did. He encouraged going to original sources instead of relying on potential straw man arguments. Dr. Nicole was still telling students this when I studied under him in Orlando. Nicole also helped him understand Calvinism. Nicole also introduced him to Bavinck and neo-Calvinism. Keller read the Puritans deeply with regards to personal piety, but also the Dutch theologians on the interaction of theology and culture. He took a presuppositional approach to apologetics as a result. He also criticized elements of neo-Calvinism (weak ecclesiology and lack of evangelism). Nicole also gave Keller a commitment to the substitutionary atonement.
Richard Lovelace helped Keller to understand how the Spirit works through the gospel to transform people and communities. Keller regularly recommended Dynamics of Spiritual Life. Lovelace drove the law-gospel distinction into Keller’s head. The subject of revivals drove him to Edwards. Edwards would not only shape his understanding of experiential Christianity but his preaching. Seminary. really set the foundation for his theological convictions, and he didn’t veer off that road much.
Most of us have favorite professors and people who influenced us greatly. Keller seemed to have picked up the best, not the worst of each. By “worst” I mean points of deviation. Years ago I interacted with a former friend upset because a teaching contract was not renewed. He touted all he learned from particular professors we had. I mentioned that what he took from them was their deviations. He didn’t share just one but a host of them. This placed him out of the mainstream of the particular institution. We do need to make sure we take the right things away from our interaction with a theologian or friend.
Trial by Fire
The third section relates Keller’s influences during his time in Hopewell and then Westminster Seminary. Hopewell was known as the Chemical Capital of the South, and tons of chemicals polluted the James River. Not what you want to learn when you move there. In Tim’s time there the congregation when from about 90 to about 300. A Yankee in the South, he had plenty of learn culturally. I can attest this is quite difficult at times. He worked about 90 hours/week, preaching 3 times a week and doing lots of pastoral counseling. One mistake was not hiring sufficient pastoral staff. As a result, he left his time at Hopewell exhausted and on the verge of burnout. He learned a tremendous amount about ministry and preaching. He and Kathy’s three children were born there. He worked on a DMin focused on diaconal work that would result in Ministries of Mercy. This would lead to his jobs at Mission to North America and Westminster in Philadelphia.
For all the growth in attendance, he salary didn’t grow much at all. His low salary didn’t include a book budget. Tim read the Puritans and Spurgeon in earnest. His favorite was John Owen but he also read Sibbes, Flavel and Charnock. Whitefield also shaped his preaching. Tim didn’t begin to talk or write like a Puritan (I know some who have). He also dove into Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a man very different from Tim. He began to use Evangelism Explosion. One person he did bring on staff was Ted Powers who had a gift of evangelism. But the revival Tim longed and worked for didn’t arrive.
There is a statement on page 126 about “his tendency to cogitate over an answer to your question by gazing off into the upper corner of the room.” I was reminded of Dr. Nicole whose eyes would do something similar. The dear Dr. was reading the pages in his mind. I wonder if Tim also had a photographic memory.
Keller left Hopewell to takeover for Edmund Clowney as preaching professor at Westminster. Clowney was his mentor and had been a personal influence from his days at Bucknell. Clowney recommended he attend Gordon-Conwell, and helped Tim through many transitions. He also schooled Keller in the unfolding drama or Biblical Theology. Another who helped him in this was Alec Motyer whom Sproul had hosted for a gabgest years ago. Motyer’s answer to Sproul’s question challenged Keller’s understanding of the OT. Keller popularized “Christ-centered” or “gospel-centered” preaching. He wasn’t an innovator, but became one of the most popular pastors to preach this way. His interaction with Clowney bore fruit in The Prodigal God. You can also see Lovelace’s focus on law-gospel with a desire to restore the gospel to the church.
While at Westminster he began to worship at New Life, pastored by Jack Miller. CCEF professors David Powlison and Ed Welch were there as well. Keller was willing to learn from fellow faculty members like Sinclair Ferguson, Richard Gamble, Richard Gaffin and others. Harvie Conn was instrumental in viewing America as a mission field. Conn noted the limitations of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It wasn’t wrong. But no confession is sufficient for all possible contexts. Keller began to focus on contexualization (interpreting the circumstances and preaching the unchanging gospel to those circumstances in ways they will understand). He also gained a theological emphasis for the city.
In his time at New Life, Keller learned more about the relationship between the church and revival. Miller developed a focus on the doctrine of adoption, as well as repentance particularly from pride and self-righteousness. Here they made the personal connection with Dick Kaufmann which would prove helpful at Redeemer.
In his work for MNA, Tim was supposed to find a church planter for NYC. He struggled. No one wanted to go. He was increasingly convinced he was supposed to go. It took Kathy time to see the same thing, addressing her own fears about raising kids in NYC. With sufficient funding, Tim and Kathy moved the family to New York.
“You’re not pushing this decision on me! You’re the head of this household. If God calls you to New York, I’ll wrestle it out with God.” Kathy, pp. 191
From Gotham to Globe
This is the largest section of the book, focusing more on his influence than influences. At one point New York had been the evangelical capital of the country. Hansen traces some of the big movements and revivals that came out of New York. By the time the Kellers moved there it had all changed. Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, which Keller read before the move, spoke of the elite as “Masters of the Universe” who could get away with just about anything.
While the ethnic churches stayed, many of the white evangelicals left the city. One who didn’t was Nancy DeMoss who did evangelism among the “Masters of the Universe.” Many were coming to faith, she hired staff for her organization but there was no church for them to attend. When the Kellers came, about 40 of those “yuppie Christians” became part of the core of Redeemer.
He had another cultural shift to make from Southerns working hard not to offend to blunt New Yorkers. He made to adjust things quickly (not a bad thing), but for a man prone to self-criticism this couldn’t have been easy.
In the early days of Redeemer it was nicknamed “the Land of Yes.” Tim freed people to serve according to their gifts. He rejected a seeker model and viewed the church itself as the evangelistic program. The music reflected the community: classical in the morning and jazz in the evening. Tim focused on the native New Yorkers knowing that the younger residents were more transient.
Growth exposed Tim’s weaknesses in leadership. Prayer was central to that growth. In 20 years, people in Manhattan who attended evangelical churches went from 9,000 to 80,000. Prayer can’t be underestimated: NYC revivals which spread to London in the 1850’s, New Life, the early Ligonier days, Korean revivals and more. In less than 3 years over 1,000 were attending Redeemer. Redeemer which had a traditional worship service. It looked like most churches from the outside, but the culture was different.
James Boice at 10th Presbyterian in Philadelphia became another model besides Stott for city center ministry. Both had biblical preaching and ministry to the community. Tim was able to implement the ideas from Ministries of Mercy. But Tim liked to keep people happy, a weakness in a leader. He understood the dynamics of revival but not those of management or politics. The focus must become character, not simply gifting.
Some watershed moments were his brother’s funeral after his death from AIDS and 9/11. While in hospice care, it was the Christians who came and his brother repented because he finally saw what real love was. Like the rest of New York, the people of Redeemer waited to see if they knew people who died in the towers. Tim’s sermon the first Sunday addressed the resuscitation of Lazurus. Thousands of extra people were there, but hundreds stayed long term. They didn’t hear explanations. They didn’t hear condemnations (like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell). They heard about Jesus who wept at His friend’s death. They heard that Jesus was the resurrection and the life. Financial gifts poured in to help people rebuild their lives. An accountant and a social worker were hired to manage it all.
One of the things that guided him during those days was the lessons from Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity. Christians cared for people during the plagues in the Roman Empire. While the pagans fled the cities, Christians stayed and cared. The church grew. He knew it would take a long time for NY to emotionally recover, and the church had to stay and care for the city.
Kathy had struggled with Chohn’s disease since 1991. There were numerous surgeries. But in 2002 Tim was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He considered stepping away to care for Kathy. She recommended they pray together each night, and they did, no exceptions. He returned to Edwards, Lloyd-Jones and Owen to deepen his own prayer and spiritual strength.
At this time we saw the rise of the New Atheists and the Da Vinci Code which pictured Christianity as toxic. Keller began to work on The Reason for God to answer critiques. He tried to rebuild the bridge to science that had been destroyed.
“Keller excelled less in philosophical apologetics, with its proofs of God, and more in cultural apologetics. He sought to connect the gospel of Jesus Christ with all of life, which is mediated by culture.” pp. 233
His book was obsolete quickly as the culture shifted yet again. He joined the Dogwood Fellowship with members like James Davidson Hunter and Jim Seneff. They sought to understand how the church should respond. Hunter would write To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Keller saw that the West had an unstable view that wanted to be both relativistic and moralistic. In 2012 he and Kathy attended the Oxford mission in England. Tim spoke and the family (Michael and his wife Sarah were there too) debrief those and the Q & A with students. This became Encounters with Jesus. He returned in 2015, after spending 3 years reading Charles Taylor, Philip Rieff and Alasdair MacIntyre. He spoke and did Q & A’s again. There he responded with a memorable illustration about a Viking and the power of culture in our morality: encouraging some desires and discouraging others. His point: we can’t depend on our feelings for identity. All this would result in Making Sense of God. He used those social critiques to inform his questions in apologetics. Christianity both connects with and correct every culture.
These many influences on Tim (and Kathy) Keller contributed something significant to him as a man and a pastor-author.
My Thoughts
I really like this book even though it was not strictly a biography. There is information about his life but not in great depth. He also provides some background information on many of those who influenced Keller. This is clearly not hagiography. We see some of Keller’s weaknesses (socially awkward, perfectionistic bent, lacking in leadership/management skills). He is a man shaped by others, not a “self-made man”. It was easy to read and understand (in other words well-written) and well researched.
While in the Epilogue he mentions John Newton, he doesn’t cite Newton as one of the main spiritual influences in Keller’s life. Tim mentioned him frequently in sermons. He is the reason I ended up reading The Works of Newton. This is not an exhaustive volume, I get that. Newton always seemed to me to be a main influence, particularly in humility and an irenic spirit in controversy (he recommended Newton’s On Controversy).
If you are looking for an ordinary biography, this is not the book for you. We do see how God works to form leaders. You will get some good theological and pastoral applications. You will find threads to pull on to pursue your own spiritual formation. This volume is worth the time to read and digest. Collin Hansen has done us a great service.
(Thanks to a fellow member of AZ Presbytery who gave me a copy)
Wonderful write-up. Thank you so much.
Dr. Keller’s ministry is a huge blessing. I thank God for him.