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Saturday Memorial Service for Dr. F. Burton Nelson
CHICAGO, IL (March 24, 2004) - A memorial service will be conducted at 2 p.m.
on Saturday at North Park Covenant Church for Dr. F. Burton Nelson,
longtime North Park Theological Seminary professor, who died Monday
afternoon at Swedish Covenant Hospital.
Nelson, 79, had been hospitalized for some time and members of his
family were with him when he died.
Family members will be available Friday evening from 5 to 9 p.m. to meet
with friends and neighbors in the parlors of the church, which is
located at 5250 N. Christiana Avenue in Chicago.
North Park senior pastor Doug Johnson will officiate at Saturday's
service and Dr. Glenn R. Palmberg, president of the Evangelical Covenant
Church, will deliver a tribute. Dr. John Weborg, retired North Park
Theological Seminary professor and long-time friend, and Geoffrey B.
Kelly, who recently co-authored a book with Nelson, also are scheduled
to speak.
Nelson 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
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.
Nelson's longtime friend, John Weborg, recalled his love of practical
jokes and sense of humor. He remembered once getting a letter from
Nelson, which contained "issues and tissues" - a collection of toilet
paper from the great cathedrals of Europe. He described Nelson as a
"church man" - someone who cared deeply for the Covenant Church and it's
pastors and a teacher who had "infinite interest in conversations with
his students."
He also said that Nelson wanted his students "to know the world wide
Christian Church" and to be concerned about ethical issues, but
internationally and in their local community.
He used an enormous collection of newspaper clippings to show students
how ethical issues played out in their communities.
"Karl Barth said that Christians should pray with the Bible in one hand
and the newspaper in the other," Weborg said. "Burton did that every day
- it was a daily practice for him. The bible was the key text for him."
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."
He is survived by his wife, Grace; children Rebecca L. Nelson and Craig
Lindley of Libertyville, Illinois; Ingrid Nelson and Paul Hough of
Geneva, Illinois; Emily Nelson and Eric Bruckner of Hiram, Ohio; Sonya
Nelson and Conrad Iandola of Pearl City, Illinois; Tim Nelson, of
Seattle, Washington; and Martha and Chuck Trott of Libertyville,
Illinois; and ten grandchildren.
It is suggested that memorials be directed to North Park Covenant
Church, North Park
Theological Seminary, or the Bonhoeffer Society (information on the
Society is available online at http://www.dbonhoeffer.org/ibs-info.htm.)
Peace to his memory.
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