Dr J. Lawrence Burkholder

Goshen College President Emeritus J. Lawrence Burkholder, an influential figure in the Mennonite church, passed away early on Thursday, June 24, 2010 at the Greencroft Healthcare Center in Goshen. Burkholder, 92, played many significant roles throughout the 20th century as a pastor, professor, pilot, philosopher, civil rights activist, war-time relief worker and college president. Burkholder was born to Henry L. and Mary (Seitz) Burkholder on Oct. 31, 1917, in Newville, Pa. Upon graduating from Goshen College in 1939, Burkholder married Harriet Lapp, with whom he had four children. In 1942, after receiving his bachelor of divinity degree from Lutheran Seminary (Gettysburg, Pa.), Burkholder was ordained as a minister by the Mennonite Church and served as the pastor of Croghan Mennonite Church in New York. He earned his master of theology degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1951 and his doctor of theology degree summa cum laude from Princeton in 1958. In 1944, he volunteered to be an administrator of a relief program in India, serving as a representative for Mennonite Board of Missions. He then went on to serve in China until 1948, where he acted as associate director of Church World Services with Mennonite Central Committee, directed the activities of the National Clearing Committee and flew DC-3’s over the Himalayas to deliver supplies to Chinese refugees. Burkholder’s time and work in China shaped him in significant ways. “I came out of a background of simplicity. Now I was discovering complexity and ambiguity, and sometimes tragic necessity,” he said in a 2004 lecture. “And not as a military man, not as a government official, just as trying to give something away and giving it fairly and justly.” Upon his return to the United States in 1949, Burkholder became a professor in Goshen College’s Bible, Religion and Philosophy Department. In 1961, Burkholder was called to serve as a professor at Harvard Divinity School, where he was a part of the faculty until 1971. At Harvard, he was named chair of the Department of the Church and was the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity. While at Harvard, Burkholder also became involved in the civil rights movement, and in 1964 he was arrested during a sit-in at a segregated restaurant in St. Augustine, Fla. Then, in 1971 Burkholder left the Ivy League to lead the small college in Northern Indiana he knew intimately. He returned to Goshen College to serve as its 11th president with the conviction that “Mennonites had something to contribute to the world, and I wanted to be part of it,” he said. Burkholder, who served as president until 1984, began his presidency with a simple religious service and the planting of 138 trees around campus. “I wanted to bring beauty to a campus that seemed somewhat barren,” he said. “And I hoped to soften and humanize the image of the place in the process.” Along with his work in the church and collegiate arena, Burkholder had hobbies that he was known for. He could often be spotted in his ultralight airplane, flying over Goshen, or on a local tennis court working on his game. He also had a life-long passion for listening to classical music, especially organ music. Burkholder is survived by his children, Howard Burkholder, Boston, Mass.; Janet (Lauren) Friesen, Flint, Mich., and Myrna Burkholder, Goshen, Ind.; two grandchildren, Eliot (Carrie) Friesen-Meyers and Erica (Blair Franklin) Friesen; one great-grandson, August Franklin; and a sister, Evelyn Kreider, Goshen, Ind. He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife Harriet, on Sept. 5, 2007; his son, Gerald Burkholder on April 19, 1981; a brother, Harold Burkholder, and two sisters, Mildred M. Hackman and Verna Troyer. The Burkholders were awarded Goshen College’s “Culture for Service” Award in 1990. Their legacy will live on through their family and in the form of scholarships awarded at the college in honor of the Burkholders.   Memorial gifts can be made to the J. Lawrence and Harriet Burkholder Merit Scholarship Fund at Goshen College.   Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, June 29 in the Koinonia Room of College Mennonite Church. Family and close friends will meet at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 30 for a procession to burial at Elkhart Prairie Cemetery in Goshen. The funeral service will begin at 11 a.m., also on Wednesday, June 30, at College Mennonite Church.