Ben Lacy Rose, moderator of the 111th General Assembly of the PC US (1971-1972) died in Richmond, Va, November 13 at Westminster Canterbury retirement community two days after Veterans Day. He lived a long, active, and productive life as a pastor, military chaplain, professor of homiletics, editor, and author, supported by his spouse Ann Thompson Rose, who died in 2005.
Rose was born in Fayetteville N.C., in 1914, heir to a long history of Roses whose line extends back to Scotland of the 1730’s, to Orange County, N.C., and Fayetteville where he was born in 1914. He attended Davidson College in N.C., Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., where he took his BD (1938), Th. M. (1950) and the Th. D. (1955). He served as chaplain in the United States army in World War II and was awarded a Bronze Star and Legion of Merit Medal. In 1974 he retired from the Army Reserve with a rank of colonel, one of those veterans of honorable service marked on Nov. 11.
As a minister of the Presbyterian Church, he served congregations in Duplin County, N.C., and then the Central Church in Bristol, Va., the First Church, Wilmington, N.C., and the Chapel on the Boardwalk, Wrightsville Beach, N.C. For the past 17 years, he has served as stated supply of the Hebron Church in Manakin-Sabot, Va.
For 20 years, Rose produced a “question & answer” column in the monthly magazine, The Presbyterian Survey. He was also chairman of the General Executive Board and the Board of National Ministries of the PC US. In 1971-72 he presided as moderator of the PC US General Assembly. What a ministry to celebrate!
What ideas did Rose share with his congregations, students and friends over the years?
He left us a paper trail that began when he was an army chaplain during WWII, entitled Letters Home (1986). He printed correspondence with Anne in which he reported his war experiences as a chaplain on the battle line. In one letter toward the end of his duty he tells of his encounter with Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller and Karl Barth, the noted Swiss Reformed theologian, illustrating the broadening of his theological interests. In more recent years he has been printing his reflections on important faith issues. On Christian theology, he published Apostles’ Creed: Anchor in a World Adrift (1999), lectures which he gave on “God the Father,” “God the Son, Human and Divine,” and “God the Holy Spirit,” He concluded: “this faith, capsulated in The Apostles’ Creed, is a trustworthy anchor in a world adrift. It has brought millions upon millions of believers light in distress, joy in living, strength in temptation, comfort in sorrow. It is a faith worth having, worth praying and striving for.”
His book, Basic Christianity, Lectures on Christian Faith and Life (2002) focused on the continuing importance of the Ten Commandments. A pamphlet, Racial Segregation in the Church (1957) explored his convictions on the struggle against racial prejudice. We are, he wrote, “ONE in Jesus Christ.”
His understanding of his Christian calling and vocation was clear. God had given him “a witness to give,” He was to “preach the gospel and teach the faith.” And so Ben Rose did during his ministry!
He was my colleague at the seminary, and my friend and neighbor. I still remember seeing him out in his garage workshop, working and singing gospel songs. Both the Roses and the Smylies moved in time into Westminster-Canterbury retirement community. There all the residents knew when Ben Lacy Rose was coming down the hall–he was singing those gospel songs! He often led in worship at Westminster-Canterbury.
We should remember Ben Lacy Rose as someone who knew himself to be both a child and a servant of God, and one whose life reminds us that we are, too.
James H. Smylie is emeritus professor of Church History at Union-PSCE, Richmond, Va.
