Conservative Political Powerhouse Beverly LaHaye Dies at 94
LaHaye, wife of pastor and author Tim LaHaye, led Concerned Women for America for almost 30 years
Beverly LaHaye, influential conservative activist and founder of Concerned Women for America, died on Sunday at a retirement home in California. She was 94 years old.
Beverly LaHaye / Photo courtesy of Concerned Women for America
Her husband Tim LaHaye was a well-known pastor and co-author of the wildly popular Left Behind book series. Yet, despite his own platform and success, Tim was a vocal supporter of his wife’s activism.
Beverly LaHaye was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 30, 1929, to Lowell and Nellie Davenport. After her father died when she was a toddler, her mother moved in with a neighbor while working at a phone company until she remarried. During this time, LaHaye witnessed her mother’s quiet strength.
LaHaye had to summon that strength through her teen years as Davenport struggled with a heart condition. She took time off from school to care for her mom and take over her domestic responsibilities.
When she was 17, she enrolled in Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., where she met Tim LaHaye. They were married a year later.
LaHaye dropped out of school to financially support the family while her husband served churches in South Carolina and Minnesota. As opportunities for him grew, Beverly LaHaye was trying to avoid the spotlight at every turn. She was so shy that Tim called her a turtle. “I had an inferiority complex,” LaHaye later said. “I didn’t really think I had much to offer the world.”
In the 1970s, LaHaye pushed through her timidity and started teaching what she had learned. She and her husband started Family Life Seminars, offering eight lectures on the biblical principles they said God gave to “guarantee the happiness and fulfillment He intended for the Christian home.”
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LaHaye became a political activist in 1978, and in 1979 she founded the Concerned Women for America (CWA), which was radically effective in influencing culture and enacting change. President Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying Beverly was “one of the powerhouses” of the conservative movement and she was “changing the face of American politics.”
She served as president of the CWA until 2006. She retired from its board in 2020.
“Beverly would not hesitate to accept the opportunity to be the voice of Christian women,” according to a family-authorized obituary. “She always conducted herself with grace and dignity and spoke truth with strength and clarity.”
LaHaye’s death follows that of her husband, who died in 2016, and her son Lee, who died in 2017. She is survived by three children, 9 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren.
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