LEROY GARRETT (1919-2015)
Four years short of the century mark, Dr. Leroy Garrett, 96, fell asleep in Jesus at 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015. He was a lecturer, editor, and author among Churches of Christ and Christian Churches for over seventy years, and was a member of the Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton, Texas. Garrett was preceded in death by his wife, Ouida, and by numerous near of kin. Surviving him temporarily are a son, David, one grandson, two great- grandsons, and a brother, William.
Garrett attended Freed-Hardeman College in western Tennessee for one memorable year. In his 2003 autobiography, A Lover’s Quarrel: My Pilgrimage of Freedom Within Churches of Christ, he recalls his year at Freed-Hardeman with gratitude and affection, relating special kindnesses shown him by the college’s namesake and then-president, famed Churches of Christ debater, N. B. Hardeman. Years later, a different president at Freed-Hardeman (H.A. Dixon) had Garrett arrested and charged with “disturbing the peace” when, in defiance of orders from the administration, he accepted the invitation of some ministerial students to discuss religious issues with them in their dorm.
Garrett graduated from Abilene Christian University, and earned graduate degrees from Southern Methodist University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Harvard University. He was a professor of philosophy at colleges and universities in Illinois, Texas, and at Bethany College in West Virginia, which was founded by Alexander Campbell.
Earlier this year, the old warrior and iconoclast for Christ, mentor and example to many of us who came after him, announced in his bulletin that fatigue due to “old age” required him to end his decades of written ministry. “I feel like I must be dying,” he opined. “If that be the case, so be it. Our time is in His hands, the Psalmist assures us.”
A memorial service will be held at Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton,Texas on Saturday, October 3rd, 2015 at 10:00 a.m. Dr. Bob Lewis has put practically all of Garrett’s writings online–the menu is found at: www.leroygarrett.org