On the 18th of December last, as the night moved close to the eleventh hour, Bishop Michael McDaniel died at the Lutheran Home West in Hickory, North Carolina, as loving wife Marjorie and a handful of friends softly prayed and sang Christmas carols.

In almost fifty years of ordained ministry (from June 20, 1954), Bishop Michael sounded a clear and courageous voice for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ - as parish pastor, as churchwide staff person, as college professor, and as bishop. He served in a small town at Faith Lutheran Church in Faith, NC (1954-58), in a large town at Lutheran Church of the Ascension, Savannah (1958-60), and in Chicago at Edgebrook Lutheran Church (1962-67). He was Associate Director in the Department of Evangelism for the ULCA (1960-62).

Bishop Michael's call was to both pulpit and podium, as he completed doctoral work in systematic theology with Sittler and Brauer at the University of Chicago, as well as additional study with Thielicke at Hamburg. He was called to teach at Lenoir-Rhyne in the fall of 1971, where several generations of students in two different periods (1971-82 and 1991-99) were challenged to embrace the faith of the church and to turn their best effort to the tasks of clear thinking and moral courage.

But I think that Michael McDaniel's signal contribution to the church was as Bishop of the North Carolina Synod (LCA & ELCA), to which office he was first elected in June of 1982. Genuinely surprised by the Holy Spirit as to the election, Bishop Michael embraced the office as he lived his life - as "an adventure in courageous joy." His leadership of the North Carolina Synod during the period of the formation of the ELCA was, again, as a clear voice of faithfulness.

As a Lutheran of evangelical catholic stripe, Bishop Michael was active in genuine ecumenical dialogue, serving on the Lutheran/Orthodox dialogue (1983-89), and helping to generate conversation with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in the southeast with the "Lutheran Family Gatherings" of the late 1980s. Also in the late 1980s, he was one of the Lutheran bishops who went to Rome, Constantinople, and Canterbury. He treasured the cross given him by Pope John Paul II. In 1991, Bishop Michael was instrumental in forming the Catholic-Lutheran Covenant in North Carolina, together with Catholic Bishops Gossman of Raleigh and Donoughue of Charlotte.

Bishop Michael did not stand for re-election in 1991, called instead to return to Lenoir-Rhyne to found the Center for Theology—and again to teach. He began the annual Aquinas/Luther Conferences in 1993, yet another effort to foster the classic teaching of the church, in the context of genuine ecumenical conversation.

In July of 1997, at Lenoir-Rhyne, Bishop Michael participated in writing the draft for The Rule of the Society of the Holy Trinity, along with pastors Ron Bagnall, Phillip Johnson, Frank Senn, Lou Smith, and myself. Bishop Michael saw in the Society both a haven and a beacon for faithfulness in the Lutheran Church. His spiritual and moral leadership in the Society continued to the last, even as complications from diabetes drained his vigor and energy.

To his friends - who number in the thousands - and to the church, Michael McDaniel was a priceless jewel whose gifts of excellence ran from classical music to bishop as teaching theologian. He and Bob Karsten engaged for years in a running contest of "name that tune" that had the one whistling or humming a line from a classical piece. The other had to name the composer, the piece and the movement from which it came. Michael was guest conductor for the Western Piedmont Symphony for a concert in the mid 1980s, having served on the symphony board while at Lenoir-Rhyne. He spent the spring semester in 1989 on sabbatical at Oxford, teaching theology as visiting bishop.

Bishop Michael knew and taught the Lutheran confessions as classic catholic theology. He was an honest and learned man who was never afraid to speak the truth, as bishop and as human being. In an ecclesial climate that increasingly values diversity and process over clarity and courage, Bishop Michael insisted on the truth of the scriptures as norm and rule for faith and life. And was willing to speak that truth to his fellow bishops and to the church.

As human being he was a loving husband and father. He loved Marjorie. They celebrated their 50th anniversary in November, Michael greeting people warmly, though by that time blind and from a wheel chair. He loved his son and daughter-in-law. He loved his grandchildren. Michael and Marjorie were always a team - when he traveled across North Carolina as bishop she often drove so that he could read. Marjorie read all the parish newsletters and the journals and called his attention to items and articles that needed attention, either as to a good word to a pastor or a response to an article. Marjorie tenderly cared for him in his declining health, and was holding his hand as he died.

I was privileged to be his friend for 27 years, working side by side, instructed by his learning and his courage, inspired by his leadership and his preaching - and not least by his steadfast faith in the face of debilitating illness. Bishop Michael was a man of powerful energy and enthusiasm for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a man whose mettle was tested by the times and whose voice did not waver. Now among the saints who from their labors rest, he was surely also among those who by faith before the world confessed the name of Jesus! Alleluia!

Our prayers for God's peace are for Marjorie, as well as for son John and his wife Barbara and their three children of Dumfries, Virginia. Marjorie lives at 125 42nd Avenue Circle NE, Hickory, NC 28601.

Memorials may be sent to the Rev. Dr. Michael C. D. McDaniel Endowment for the Center for Theology, Lenoir-Rhyne University, P.O. Box 7467, Hickory, NC 28603; Lutheran Services for the Aging, P. O. Box 947, Salisbury, NC 28145; or St. Andrew Lutheran Church, 629 8th St. NE, Hickory, NC 28601.

JLY - 01.28.04