Tribute: Don Lewis 1950-2021
By Julie Lane Gay & Sue Careless
THE HEAD OF the Anglican Studies program at Regent College in Vancouver and a key figure in the Essentials movement and the Anglican Network in Canada has died suddenly. Dr. Donald “Don” Munro Lewis suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on Oct. 19 in Vancouver. He was 71.
Lewis taught Church History for four decades at Regent, becoming the college’s longest serving faculty member. He was variously Academic Dean, Summer School Dean, Secretary of the Anglican Studies Program, and Editor of CRUX.
Regent College was founded in 1968 as the first graduate school of theology in North America to make education of the laity its central focus. In its online obituary the College wrote:
“An Anglican since his late twenties, Don was committed to the health of the Anglican Church worldwide, particularly its pastors. He was a spiritual companion to many, journeying alongside them through dark hours and seasons. A faithful mentor and brother in Christ, he would often pray with several students and pastors in the course of a single day. Prior to Covid-19, it was not unusual for Don to spend his reading week flying from Atlanta to Minneapolis to Winnipeg to visit the many alumni and pastors he mentored.
“Don was known for beginning each class with a hymn that underscored the content of the day’s lecture. A recent student reflected, ‘Don was a church historian in the best sense — he did history for the church. He was also a wonderful historian to study with: thoughtful, reflective, and inviting. His gentle, easygoing manner created a contemplative learning environment where you could sink into stories from the past, breathe with them, and begin to see connections across time and space, whether to other eras or to your own life experiences.’ ”
Bp Charlie Masters, the Diocesan bishop of ANiC, grew up with Lewis in Lennoxville, Quebec. The boys were in the same class each year from Grade 4 until Grade 10, when the Masters family moved to Ontario.
“We both were blessed to be raised in Evangelical families,” said Masters. “His dad was the local Pentecostal pastor as well as working in administration at Bishop’s University. My dad was a professor at Bishop’s.”
Masters lost touch with Lewis until they met again at the pivotal 1994 Essentials Conference in Montreal, which Lewis had a hand in organizing. He also spoke on cross-cultural mission to the 600 participants and helped draft the foundational Montreal Declaration.
At the Montreal General Synod of 1998, Lewis organized a group of advisors to help inform delegates on controversial motions coming before the national body. He continued to lead this initiative at subsequent synods until he himself realigned with ANiC, after which the Anglican Communion Alliance adopted the practice.
“What was of particular interest and joy to me was that in his late twenties Don had become an Anglican and, from then on, was a mighty force for evangelicalism within Anglicanism,” said Masters.
“As a bishop, knowing there was Don Lewis, along with J.I. Packer and others, at Regent College was so encouraging and important. There are a large number of our clergy who were taught by these two great men.” (Packer died in July 2020.)
Lewis was a long-time member of St. John’s Shaughnessy, later St. John’s Vancouver (ANiC). In 2013, he moved to the young St. Peter’s Fireside, and continued as an official advisor for ANiC’s Bishop of Western Canada, Trevor Walters.
Lewis graduated from Bishop’s University, Lennoxville with a BA in History and a Diploma in Education. After three years teaching high school in Montreal, he began studies at Regent.
Next came Oxford University where for his doctorate he delved into the Protestant evangelical mission to the British working class in London. This work sparked a lifelong fascination with British evangelicalism in the Victorian era and the eventual publication of The Dictionary of Evangelical Biography: 1730-1860.
Then in 1981, Lewis returned to Regent College to teach Church History.
In 2009 he published The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and the Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland. Just released this August was A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-first Century. While deeply sensitive to the complexity and controversy inherent to the subject, Don pressed forward with the conviction that “church historians are meant to help people — both Christians and non-Christians — understand such movements. … They are to be seekers of truth.”
Former Regent President Carl Armerding said, “The shy lad from Quebec who came as a student almost half a century ago will be remembered as God’s faithful servant and our steadfast friend.”
Lewis is survived by his wife Lindi White whom he married in 1983, their three children, their spouses and one grandchild. He recently wrote that “being a husband, father and friend are what constitute my primary identity – after, of course, being a (genuinely flawed!) follower of Jesus Christ.” –Portions of this tribute appeared originally on Regent College’s website. TAP
