The Passing of Dr. George W. Webber, July 10, 2010

George “Bill” Webber, an internationally known leader in theological education and urban ministry, died on July 10 at his home in Maplewood, NJ. He was born on May 2, 1920, in Des Moines, Iowa, the first of two sons born to George Webber and Edith Dunham Webber. He grew up in Des Moines where his father was Director of the YMCA and his mother had a weekly radio show reviewing books. He graduated from Roosevelt High School and attended Harvard College on a basketball scholarship. After graduating magna cum laude in 1942, he joined the Navy and served during World War II as a gunnery officer on the USS Breeman, a Destroyer Escort in the North Atlantic.

On August 27, 1943, he married his college sweetheart, Helen “Dibby” Barton, who served in the WAVES. After the war, Bill entered Union Theological Seminary from which he received a Bachelor of Divinity Degree in 1948. Dr. Webber received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1963. In 1948, Bill was appointed Dean of Students by Union President Henry Pitney Van Dusen. While still Dean, he and two other Seminary graduates, Don Benedict and Archie Hargraves, founded the East Harlem Protestant Parish in 1948. The Webbers moved their family to the public housing projects of East Harlem in 1956, where they lived until 2003.

Through its storefront ministries, the Parish engaged in programs of social justice, the struggle for civil rights, new housing, tutoring, drug treatment and public education and Bible Study which influenced a generation of college and seminary students from many countries and became a model for the renewal of inner city ministry nationwide. Out of that experience he wrote three books: God’s Colony in Man’s World, The Congregation in Mission, and Today’s Church. In the late sixties, Bill founded Metropolitan Urban Service Training (MUST) and also became a founding member of Clergy and Laity. Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV), later known as Clergy and Laity Concerned, and Witness for Peace.

He traveled to Vietnam and was arrested several times for his opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1969, Dr. Webber became the President of the Biblical Seminary in New York, a post he held until 1983. Under his leadership the name was changed to New York Theological Seminary and its mission became one of dynamic urban transformation. The seminary became a leader in providing theological training to a broad range of urban pastors from storefronts to cathedrals, with a student body of African American, Latino, Korean, and European American pastors and laypersons. The story of that experience is told in Dr. Webber’s fourth book, Led by the Spirit: The Story of New York Theological Seminary.

Under his leadership, the Seminary established the Master of Professional Studies program to provide theological education to inmates at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY. Inmates from across the state vie for admission to the program which Dr. Webber directed and taught in until 2000.

The program has graduated over 200 men, many of whom are social workers, pastors, prison reform advocates and educators. Few have ever returned to prison. Of those serving life sentences, many have devoted their lives to teaching and ministry in prison. When state funding for College programs ended, Dr. Webber organized Rising Hope, a program which provides college level education to inmates who have received their GED. He often received, and replied to, 30 or 40 letters from inmates each week.

Bill and Helen were married for sixty-seven years and lived for most of their adult years in East Harlem. Their summers since 1951 were spent at their beloved cabin on the shore of Frenchman Bay in Sorrento, Maine.

Bill is survived by his wife, Helen, five children, John, Tom, Peggy, Andrew, and Katy, eleven grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.

In 2004, New York Theological Seminary established the George W. Webber Chair in Urban Ministry in his honor. On May 19, 2000, he received the Union Medal from Union Theological Seminary. The award included these words: “George Webber, your passion for faith-based justice has helped shape the perspective of several generations of Protestant clergy engaged in urban ministry. Your imaginative grasp of the problems that confront an embattled urban church in an expanding and often violent city has given new meaning to the concept of Christian mission.”

Memorial services are tentatively planned for Sorrento, Maine in August and in New YorkCity in October.