Langdon Gilkey, 85; Theologian Wrote About God in Wartime

Langdon Gilkey, 85, Protestant theologian, educator and prolific author who wrote widely on the relevance of God in “time of troubles,” died Friday of meningitis at the University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville.

The Chicago-born son of a liberal Baptist minister, Gilkey described himself as an “ethical humanist.” As a Harvard student, he expressed pacifist beliefs and with his classmate, future Cardinal Avery Dulles, formed a Keep America Out of War Committee. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Gilkey was teaching English in Beijing and was interned by the Japanese, prompting his 1966 book, “Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure.”

At war’s end, he studied at Union Theological Seminary with Reinhold Niebuhr, who had sparked his interest in the role of religion and faith during world power struggles. Gilkey earned a doctorate in religion from Columbia University, then taught at Vassar, Vanderbilt University Divinity School and the University of Chicago.

Among his books are: “Maker of Heaven and Earth: A Study of the Christian Doctrine of Creation,” “How the Church Can Minister to the World without Losing Itself” and “Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History.” He also wrote commentaries on the teachings of theologians Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, “Gilkey on Niebuhr” and “Gilkey on Tillich.”