Deaths of Notable Christian Leaders in 2025

Editor’s Note: Below are Christian leaders who died in 2025, listed chronologically. To read a more complete obituary, click on the person’s name.

BILL MCCARTNEY — January 10. McCartney was a former college football coach who became one of the most influential religious figures in American life during the 1990s after founding the Promise Keepers movement. In March of 1990, not long after his University of Colorado Buffaloes missed a chance at the national championship by losing to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, McCartney hopped in a car with a friend, Dave Wardell, to drive from the university’s campus in Boulder to Pueblo, Colorado, where he was scheduled to give a speech at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes banquet. While on the road, McCartney talked about his concerns that American men were losing their faith in God — and as a result, the nation’s families were suffering. During that drive, the idea of Promise Keepers was born. Within a year, McCartney had grown Promise Keepers from a relatively small group of followers to a gathering of 4,000 men at the University of Colorado’s basketball arena — and along the way, had led the Buffaloes to a national championship after beating Notre Dame in a rematch. A few years later, Promise Keepers was drawing tens of thousands of worshippers to arenas and stadiums around the country — and eventually more than half a million men to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1997.

PAUL RADER — January 18. Rader was the first American-born general of the Salvation Army. A tall man whose military bearing befit his position, he led the group for five years. Asbury University, where Rader earned an undergraduate degree and met his wife, Kay Fuller, recruited him as president after his term of leading the Salvation Army expired. He served six years as the school’s head before retiring in Lexington, Kentucky, and attending a Salvation Army church — called a “corps,” borrowing from military lingo — whenever he was in town. Rader, who held two doctorates, became fluent in Korean during 22 years of missionary work in South Korea. He was 90 when he died.

JACK HEMMINGS — January 24. Jack Hemmings was a decorated World War II veteran pilot and co-founder of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). He died “peacefully in his sleep” at age 103. He was 19 years old when he joined the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force in 1941. During the height of World War II, a young Hemmings was stationed in British India as squadron leader of 353 Squadron. In 1946, Hemmings was awarded the Air Force Cross for his “exemplary gallantry while flying” during the war. In February 2024, Hemmings became the oldest British person to take control of a Spitfire at the age of 102. After the war, Hemmings and fellow veteran pilot Stuart King co-founded Mission Aviation Fellowship — the “Good Samaritan of the skies” as Hemmings once dubbed it — to reach remote communities around the world with “medical supplies, Bibles, building materials, and emergency food in times of crisis,” according to the organization’s website. The pair of pilots undertook the organization’s first humanitarian survey flight across central Africa in 1948. Today, MAF is the world’s largest humanitarian airline.

JIM SHADDIX — February 1. Shaddix was senior professor of preaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He died at 64 years old. A native of El Paso, Texas, Shaddix earned degrees from Jacksonville State University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. At the time of his death, in addition to his professorial role, Shaddix was W.A. Criswell Chair of Expository Preaching and senior fellow for the Center for Preaching and Pastoral Leadership at Southeastern Seminary. In December 2024, Southeastern installed the Jim Shaddix Chair of Expository Preaching in his honor.

MARTIN E. MARTY — February 25. An eminent church historian, prolific chronicler and interpreter of religion and its role in public life, Marty died at the age of 97. Marty, who was also a warmhearted friend, mentor and pastor to many, taught for 35 years at the University of Chicago Divinity School and published a constant stream of books, articles, essays, newsletters and columns. His book “Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America” won the 1972 National Book Awards in Philosophy and Religion.

HUGH MACLELLAN — April 4. A Christian philanthropist and longtime leader of the Maclellan Foundation, Hugh Maclellan Jr. died at 85. Maclellan was involved in leading the influential private Christian foundation in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for 55 years. The Maclellan Foundation was established in 1945 and is “focused on establishing and strengthening the local church, promoting discipleship and leadership development, sparking community transformation, promoting the power of prayer, advocating for generosity, and increasing access to Scripture.” Under his leadership, the foundation was among the earliest to invest in indigenously led ministries, and it also supported The Jesus Film in an effort to accelerate the proclamation of the gospel.

KAY ARTHUR — May 20. Kay Arthur was a popular Christian speaker, author and longtime host of the “Precepts for Life” Bible teaching program that was broadcast around the world. She died at 91. A former missionary and registered nurse, Arthur graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Her first marriage was short and ended in divorce after the couple had two sons, leaving Arthur in what her ministry called “a period of great personal hardship.” While a student at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga, she met and married a missionary named Jack Arthur, and the couple moved to Mexico as missionaries. When their time as missionaries ended, they moved back to Chattanooga, where Kay Arthur began leading Bible studies for teenagers. Known for her inductive Bible studies — which involved teaching people to “observe, interpret, and apply the truth of Scripture” — Arthur would go on to write more than 100 books and Bible studies. The Precept Bible Study Method is used in 190 countries and has been translated into 110 languages.

WALTER BRUEGGEMANN — June 5. One of the most widely respected Bible scholars of the past century, Brueggemann died at 92. The author of more than 100 books of theology and biblical criticism, Brueggemann was professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, until his retirement in 2003. His specialty was the Hebrew Bible and especially the Hebrew prophets, and his books were aimed primarily at clergy and church leaders. But through sermons, Brueggeman’s concepts have become familiar to many churchgoers. Though ordained, Brueggemann never served as a pastor of his own church. He was, however, a much sought after and eloquent preacher and lecturer. His 1978 “The Prophetic Imagination” sold more than a million copies and remains a classic that is still frequently assigned in seminaries.

JENNIFER LYELL — JUNE 7. Jennifer Lyell was an editor and author whose promising career in Christian publishing was derailed when she accused a former Southern Baptist leader of abuse. She died at 47. For much of her adult life, Lyell had been a Southern Baptist success story. She came to faith at 20 at a Billy Graham crusade, went to seminary, dreamed of becoming a missionary, taught the Bible to young women and children and became a vice president at Lifeway, the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm. There she worked on about a dozen New York Times bestsellers, according to a biography from her time at Lifeway. By 2019, she was one of the highest-ranking women leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

JIMMY SWAGGART — July 1. Jimmy Swaggart was a televangelist and gospel singer whose fall from grace in the late 1980s made national headlines. He died at 90. A legendary Pentecostal televangelist and musician, his cousins were country star Mickey Gillis and rock pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis. Swaggart was once one of the best-known preachers in America, filling stadiums for crusades in the early 1980s, building a massive radio and television following, raising more than $100 million a year for his ministry and feuding with rival televangelists Jim Bakker and Oral Roberts.

JOHN MACARTHUR — July 14. Known for both his preaching and his penchant for controversy — especially his feuds in recent years with public health officials in Los Angeles during COVID-19 shutdowns, his critique of women in ministry and his criticism of Pentecostal pastors — MacArthur had been ill for much of the prior year after having surgery in 2024 to replace a heart valve.

ROBERT ALLEN CASE II — July 15. Robert Allen Case II is one of the unsung heroes in the development of Christian news outlets over the past 30 years, in part because of his co-founding and leadership of World Journalism Institute, whose graduates are at news outlets around the country and around the world. He died at 81 years old.

JAMES DOBSON — August 21. James C. Dobson was a psychologist, political activist, and author who championed Christian pro-family values on his popular radio shows and in his bestselling books. He was also a world-class organization builder. Focus on the Family, one of several organizations he founded or co-founded, is one of the largest Christian ministries in the nation. He died at 89.

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CHARLIE KIRK — September 10. Charlie Kirk, an evangelical Christian activist and social media personality who rallied young Americans to Donald Trump’s MAGA cause, died after being shot while addressing a crowd at a Utah university. The founder of Turning Point USA and Turning Point Faith and host of the streaming “Charlie Kirk Show,” Kirk was a native of Arlington Heights, Illinois. In 2019, Kirk teamed up with Jerry Falwell Jr., then the president of Liberty University, to start the Falkirk Center, a think tank based at Liberty, to defend Judeo-Christian beliefs. Kirk left in 2021 after Falwell became mired in scandal. In recent years, Kirk started Turning Point Faith to rally pastors and other Christian leaders to Trump’s cause and began speaking openly about his faith, especially during monthly Freedom Night in America rallies at the church he attended, Dream City Church in Phoenix.

VODDIE BAUCHAM JR. — September 25. A graduate of Houston Christian University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Baucham pastored churches in Texas for years before moving to Zambia in 2015 to lead a missionary seminary there. He returned to the United States in 2021 after dealing with serious health issues. Earlier this year, he was named president of Founders Seminary under the auspices of the Founders Ministry, a nonprofit with ties to Southern Baptists. In recent years, Baucham allied with a group of conservative pastors to fight what it considered liberal drift within the Southern Baptist Convention. Baucham’s 2021 book, “Fault Lines,” made USA Today’s bestseller list, peaking at number 7. The book critiqued critical race theory, dubbing it unbiblical and the leading edge of a “looming catastrophe” in evangelical Christian churches.

MORRIS CHAPMAN — October 20. Morris Chapman, a longtime leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, died at 84. Chapman led the Nashville-based Executive Committee from 1992 to 2010, during a time when conservatives solidified their control of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Before that, Chapman served two years as SBC president during the tail-end of a long battle between conservative and moderate Southern Baptists.

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