Remembering John Haddon Leith – 1919-2002
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman Online, August 14, 2002
John Haddon Leith loved the church.
John Haddon LeithHe loved the church’s faith. Encompassed by a great cloud of witnesses, Leith studied and taught theology as a lively engagement with God through the faith of God’s people. Theology was never to be treated as merely an academic exercise or an individual’s experimentation with novelty. Leith believed that theology is God language – reflections on the Word of God, delivered to and through the life of the church.
He loved the church’s hymns. No Christmas was complete in our home until John Leith’s annual message arrived. Therein, he reflected on recent events through the lens of the gospel. On one occasion, his letter was accompanied by an audiotape that included his favorite hymns. John Leith loved a “hymn sing.” With a raspy voice that would have disqualified him from every choir, he belted out “Now Thank We All Our God,” deliriously happy that in this quasi-musical moment the church’s faith and the church’s life were entwined.
He loved the church’s servants. It pleased him to nurture ministers. For many of his students, graduation did not end their relationship with the scholar who had mentored them through Augustine, Calvin and Barth. For more than three decades, Leith initiated frequent telephone contact with pastors across the country, reminding them of their calling, encouraging them in their work, and always asking the question: “What’s the news of the church?”
He loved the church’s discipline. John Leith had no patience with ecclesiastical leaders who neglect the church’s faith. He walked out of the Milwaukee General Assembly when the moderator opened worship by wafting smoke amidst commissioners in order to drive away evil spirits and honor “indigenous peoples.” He publicly challenged a fellow professor who denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and he castigated minister-politicians for attempting to be all things to all people. He chastised those self-affirming “evangelicals” who substitute sentimentality for substance, don multicolored raiment, and conduct show time in lieu of “worship.” He insisted that church leaders be honest, live simply, and attend to their primary task of growing the church.
He loved the church’s Lord. John Leith knew the founder of the church. In his Reformed Imperative, he warned ministers that they would be lured by culture to play many roles that have little to do with what that founder had commissioned them to do. They would be tempted to define themselves as psychological counselors, sociologists, politicians, and corporate managers. Those roles are needed, said Leith, and it is important that Christians who have earned expertise in those areas enter them as vocations. But the church has something to say that no psychological sensitivity group, social organization, or political party can say, he declared. The church is here to proclaim nothing less than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
John Leith has fulfilled his calling. The legacy he has bequeathed to the church that he loved is immense. His 15 books and numerous articles will continue to teach the Reformed Tradition, and a foundation that he established for the explication and application of Reformed faith, now safely in the hands of an independent board, will enrich the training of church leaders for many years to come.
Editor’s Note: Parker T. Williamson was a student of John H. Leith at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia during the 1960s, who benefited from his mentor’s encouragement and counsel over the ensuing years.