Perhaps such a sentiment, a reminder, is expected these days. It is Lent, after all.
However, this past Monday I received a much more shocking reminder: Steve Webb, one of my Wabash College professors, died suddenly on March 5. Steve had taught Religion and Philosophy at Wabash for twenty-five years. More recently he blogged regularly at First Things, taught at Christian Theological Seminary, and had started a prison ministry. He had published over a dozen books on topics ranging from Karl Barth to education to vegetarianism to, in what turned out to be his last years, Mormonism.
All that production, though, doesn't cover half of Webb's impact at Wabash. For a time, no faculty member came close to Webb's popularity. Nobody had more advisees, and nobody taught more students (his courses routinely carried double the maximum enrollment). Attending a lecture featuring Webb became de rigueur. And within Webb's own department was another prominent, universally-adored and well-published theologian. At the time--well over a decade--most of us did not recognize the extent of the Wabash Religion department's productivity, and particularly Webb's contributions.
And, above and beyond all that, he was a devoted husband and father. Steve himself saw the connections because he wrote about them frequently. Here about soccer, and here about the "dietary celibacy" of dieting food fads. Steve's mind moved several steps ahead of us mere mortals, being able to find theological reflection amidst the hum-drum routines of feeding the kids or watching them play their games.
