For 15 precious years, Ron Sider was my colleague at Palmer Seminary at Eastern University, just outside Philadelphia. One of the most passionate voices advocating for the vulnerable, he has shattered negative stereotypes of evangelicals, as well as the negative social justice stereotypes of some conservative evangelicals.

I first heard of Ron when New Testament scholar Gordon Fee said that Wealthy Christians in the Age of Hunger was a book that every North American Christian should read.

Gordon wasn’t used to exaggerated book endorsements, so as a student I saved my coins and bought a used copy. I had recently read 40 Bible chapters a day, so I was very familiar with the book’s recurring message about caring for the poor. as i read Rich ChristiansI was struck: Here is a writer who has genuinely paid attention to the emphasis of Scripture on this theme.

Eventually, I discovered that Ron was also advocating for racial justice and challenging apartheid, even at a time when these positions were still controversial among many white evangelicals in the United States.

Ron was always ready to learn. His commitment was not to any specific economic theory, but rather to helping those in need. In this spirit of humility, he has adapted his approach to particular economic solutions in revised editions of Rich Christians. His doctorate was on the history of the Reformation, not the world economy.

I knew less about economics than he did, so I wouldn’t have seen the difference if he hadn’t told me later why he made the revisions. His initial approach to economics needed adjustment, he told me, but he hoped people would remember that he and his colleagues were right about apartheid.

Some of the more extreme critics have complained that Ron’s handling of scriptural requirements for the poor is “Marxist”. Apparently they had never really read it, never really read the Bible, or were themselves more committed to economic or political agendas than to the Bible.

Ron’s loyalty was to the scriptures. He was no more radical than John Wesley or Charles Finney (and certainly much less radical than St. Anthony and St. Francis).

As I once pointed out to him, he was much more accommodating than the biblical characters of Amos; Jeremiah; John the Baptist (Luke 3:11); and, most important of all, the Lord Jesus, who said we cannot be his disciples unless we give up all our possessions (Luke 12:33; 14:33).

Although Ron was often associated with the evangelical left, he consistently remained pro-life and insisted that the church uphold biblical sexual ethics. I’m pretty sure he and I didn’t always vote the same way, despite our agreement on ethics, but I never doubted his vote was informed by his biblical conscience.

In conversation, I found him willing to embrace what he saw as the best solutions on either side of today’s (tragically polarized) political aisle, and he maintained contacts on both sides of this split. He always remained the consistent evangelical Anabaptist that he was – living simply and sacrificially and working on behalf of the needy. The 2013 book of essays dedicated in his honor is aptly titled Following Jesus: Journeys in Radical Discipleship.

Despite the scathing reviews, Ron refused to return what he found in the scriptures. One of our former students, Michael Jordan, now Dean of Chapel at Houghton College, explained it this way in a Facebook post:

Dr. Sider stubbornly insisted that Christians should act for change on issues of systemic injustice not despite our religious beliefs, but because of them. This made him completely inconvenient for all causes, because he refused to be anyone’s useful idiot: he opposed with equal ferocity abortion on demand and white flight; he told us to listen to the countries of the South both on marriage and on American imperialism.

Ron humbly joined the global church and was eager to learn from other Christian leaders around the world. He spoke about totalitarian regimes in Latin America (whether right-wing or Marxist), apartheid in South Africa, the martyrdom of Christians in Nigeria, hunger in the world, access to healthcare health and environmentalism.

I admit that for a while I thought he was just hype on environmental issues. However, after hearing about Christians in the South Pacific whose homes are being destroyed by rising sea levels, as well as my wife’s experiences with oil pollution in Africa, I was quickly convinced that this problem had also a human face. Ron was more prescient than me.

His impact on the North American Church is particularly remarkable. He bridged long-standing divides by speaking to many evangelicals about social justice – a passionate concern of many mainstream churches – and speaking to much of the mainstream church about evangelism – a passionate concern of many evangelicals. . He refused to let our cultural polarizations blind us to aspects of Scripture that made us uncomfortable.

At a time when I felt torn by my respective commitments to be theologically evangelical, experientially charismatic, and part of the black church, there were no better guides for me than my senior colleagues, Ron Sider and Samuel Escobar. Ron respected and welcomed the gifts of everyone in the body of Christ, and he wanted to bring together the best of them.

I met Ron in person when I was a PhD student involved with the organization he founded, then known as Evangelicals for Social Action (now Christians for Social Action). Due in part to Ron’s support and encouragement, I ended up at Eastern Seminary (now Palmer Seminary at Eastern University).

Although he was already a respected Christian leader and demanding of his time, he took me under his wing by encouraging and advising me. When we differed in our exegesis of the “least of these” passage in Matthew 25, Ron humbly and graciously honored my interpretation by mentioning it as a respectable alternative view.

He was a true activist, always doing his best to help people in need. Through Senator Rick Santorum’s office, he even helped me bring my wife, Medina, to the United States after the events of 9/11 slowed down the immigration process. Many others could tell similar stories of Ron’s willingness to engage, network and mentor. (Ron’s dear wife, Arbutus, a counselor, also helped me with post-traumatic stress from some past events.)

After 15 years of working with him at Palmer Seminary, I moved to Asbury Seminary (where I now teach). But leaving him was one of the many reasons I found this transition difficult, even though we stayed in touch.

The impact he had on me, on his students and readers, and on North American evangelicalism is hard to underestimate.

When I was doing my doctorate at Duke University, the objections to Christianity I heard from undergraduates were not the ones I was trained to respond to. They accused the Christian faith of being racist, sexist and imperialist. However, Ron’s life and legacy has constantly challenged all of these perceptions.

Given some of the similar concerns expressed by today’s growing young nuns movement, I believe that greater recognition of Ron’s voice could have helped prevent much of this bleeding.

I miss you, dear brother. I’ll see you on the other side.

Craig Keener is FM and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary.