Attempting to take the measure of notable public figures too soon after their passing is no small challenge. Too often, our contemporary viewpoint lacks a perspective that only time and reflection can bring.
Having acknowledged that, I will be surprised if historians examining the ministry career of Dr. D. James Kennedy do not describe him with words like “visionary,” “reformer” and “innovator.”
The innovation for which Dr. Kennedy will most be remembered is Evangelism Explosion. Frustrated with his efforts to explain his faith to others early in his career, in the early 1960s he developed a method of conversational evangelism that uses diagnostic questions to assess a person’s understanding of the Gospel.
As Dr. Kennedy trained lay members in his own church to use this conversational approach to evangelism, the church began to grown dramatically. For many years, the church he founded was the fastest growing Presbyterian church in America.
Today Evangelism Explosion is an international ministry operating in every nation on earth. Over 5 million people trace their spiritual conversion to someone explaining the Gospel using the training they received through Evangelism Explosion.
D. James Kennedy was also a significant reformer, calling the Church back to biblical orthodoxy. When he began his ministry career 48 years ago, few of his contemporaries saw the mission of the Church beyond what theologians call the Great Commission – the command given to the Church by Christ Himself to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
While Dr. Kennedy wholeheartedly embraced the Great Commission, as evidenced by his innovative work in personal evangelism, he believed the Scriptures also taught that men and women whose lives had been changed by the Gospel had an obligation to engage the institutions of the culture with what the Bible calls “the mind of Christ.”
This biblical teaching is commonly referred to as the Cultural Mandate, having its roots in the Book of Genesis. Throughout his ministry, Dr. Kennedy called upon Christians to consider careers in education, medicine, law and business -- as well as government and politics -- as a legitimate expression of their Christian faith.
Nearly one-half century ago, Dr. Kennedy was like a voice crying in the wilderness. Today, there are thousands of pastors and lay leaders who agree the Church must fulfill both the Great Commission and the Cultural Mandate.
D. James Kennedy was also a visionary who anticipated the dramatic reach of electronic media long before the Internet was a gleam in Al Gore’s eye. Christian broadcasters were early adopters of radio technology, but Kennedy and other notable broadcasters saw that the culture was becoming more and more media centric, and that individuals were becoming increasingly sophisticated consumers of electronic media.
Accordingly, in the 1970s Dr. Kennedy founded Coral Ridge Ministries Media, which produces teaching programs that are distributed via terrestrial radio, broadcast television, satellite radio and television and cable television, as well as via wireless and Internet technologies.
Today, Dr. Kennedy’s principal programs, “The Coral Ridge Hour” and “Truths That Transform,” are collectively heard and seen on more than 400 television outlets and nearly 750 radio stations in North America and are carried around the world on the Armed Forces Network to 165 countries.
With his passing September 5, even his opponents in the marketplace of ideas acknowledge that D. James Kennedy was a towering intellect, a visionary leader and a man whose convictions and innovations transformed the Church in our day – with significant commensurate societal impact.
Dr. Frank Wright is president of the National Religious Broadcasters. He was founding executive director of the Center for Christian Statesmanship and a longtime member of the staff of Coral Ridge Ministries.
