NEW YORK - Timothy Keller, a pastor and best-selling author who founded the influential Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, died Friday morning at home after three-year bout with pancreatic cancer.
He was 72.His family announced that he had been in hospice care, and that he died with his wife of 48 years, Kathy, by his side.Keller and his family launched Redeemer in 1989, and the congregation went on to welcome more than 5,000 attendees across its multiple locations each week.A new evangelical church in Manhattan filled with young adults was unique in a city known more for its secularism and the Gothic spires of its older sanctuaries.
But Keller was passionate about evangelizing to people in cities, and his ministry would go on to help start 1,000 churches in 150 other cities around the world.READ MORE: Long Island man attributes miraculous recovery to 'angel'Keller became an evangelical Christian in college, and he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America in 1975.
Active in the so-called New Calvinist movement, Keller brought a gentleness to a brand of Christianity known for its emphasis on sin and the depravity of humanity.He once wrote, "The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope."Keller’s teachings reached far beyond the spaces that Redeemer rented for its Sunday services.