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Services Pending for Dr. F. Burton Nelson
CHICAGO, IL (March 22, 2004) - Arrangements are pending for Dr. F. Burton
Nelson, longtime North Park Theological Seminary professor, who died
this afternoon at Swedish Covenant Hospital.
Nelson, 79, had been hospitalized for some time and members of his
family were with him when he died. Tentative plans call for a Saturday
afternoon service. (The service time will be published when available).
He was considered one of the top scholars on the life and work of German
Lutheran pastor and Nazi opponent Dietrich Bonhoeffer and was a close
friend of the Bonhoeffer family. In 2002, he co-authored with Geoffrey
B. Kelly The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer published by Eerdmans and served as a consultant for the
90-minute film documentary on Bonhoeffer's life that opened in Chicago
in March last year.
Nelson taught at North Park from 1960 until his retirement in 1996. He
was serving as Research Professor of Christian Ethics at the seminary at
the time of his death.
He was born August 22, 1924, in Mt. Kuling in Hupeh, China, the son of
K.M. and Anna Nelson, who were Covenant missionaries. He attended North
Park College from 1942 to 1944 where he received an Associate in Arts
degree. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1946 from Brown
University where he majored in philosophy. He received a diploma from
North Park Theological Seminary in 1948 while also completing graduate
studies at the University of Chicago (1948 in philosophy).
While a student at North Park seminary, Dean Eric Hawkinson challenged
Nelson to pursue a career in teaching. Nelson went on to study at Yale
University Divinity School (Master of Divinity in 1950), where he
decided to focus on Christian ethics, following in the footsteps of one
of his professors, the famed H. Richard Niebuhr. He then earned a Ph.D.
in theology from Northwestern University in 1965 and studied ethics at
Garrett Theological Seminary.
It was at Northwestern where he first seriously studied Bonhoeffer's
work. In a 1958 graduate course on contemporary ethics, he was asked to
study one ethicist in detail and then present a paper on that ethicist
to the class. While reading works like Life Together, Ethics, and
Letters and Papers from Prison, Nelson found his life's calling.
"I was immediately hooked," he told The Covenant Companion in a
1996 interview.
During his studies, Nelson and his wife, Grace, served a number of
Covenant churches: Swedish Congregational Church in West Warwick, RI
(pastor 1944-45); Covenant Congregational Church in Providence, RI
(assistant pastor 1945-46); Garyton Covenant Church in Garyton, IN
(pastor 1946-47); North Park Covenant Church in Chicago (assistant
pastor 1947-48); dual Connecticut pastorates at Swedish Congregational
Church in Forestville and Queen Street Congregational Church in Bristol
(1948-51); and the Evangelical Covenant Church in Evanston, IL (pastor
1951-60).
His studies on Bonhoeffer also led Nelson to teach about the Holocaust.
He was a founding member of the Annual Scholars' Conference on the
Holocaust and the Churches and was honored by the conference in 2000
with its Eternal Flame award for his contributions to the field of
Holocaust studies.
He continued teaching, writing and speaking in retirement. He had been
scheduled to speak this week on anti-Semitism at an event for the
Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois. Earlier this year, he was
invited to be part of a meeting of Holocaust scholars, including 1986
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, said Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell,
executive director of the Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust
and the Church, but was unable to attend because of his illness.
Evangelical Covenant Church President Glenn Palmberg describes Nelson as
"a longtime, good friend of mine and a rare gift of God to the Covenant
Church. He brought a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart to his teaching
in the seminary, and two generations of Covenant pastors benefited from
that mix," Palmberg said. "Burton was one of the foremost Bonhoeffer
scholars in the world; yet, characteristic of him, his personal
relationships with the remaining family members meant more to him than
scholarly honors."
Palmberg praised Nelson's lifelong commitment to the Covenant church and
"to the work of Christ's church in the world. His consistent support and
advocacy for community service ministries and justice causes contributed
significantly to the Covenant's growing involvement in those areas,"
Palmberg said. "God richly gifted Burton as a teacher, scholar, mentor,
writer, activist and friend. I will miss him greatly - his friendship,
his conversation, his support, his unfailing, mischievous humor. Yet his
rich legacy lives on in my life and in the many other lives he touched."
Additional information about service times and family members will be
posted to this online Covenant news report as it becomes available.
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