Technically Ken Monroe was not my first college professor, but he was by the far the best professor I had while an undergraduate student. He had come to Westmont a few years before me after a long career at a well-known Bible Institute, with a doctorate from Pittsburg Theological Seminary. He taught Bible and Theology, as well as Introduction to Philosophy.
Ken Monroe was a quiet, thoughtful and gentle fellow, with wry sense of humor. When he spoke in Chapel he often began with a joke. Once he held up a book saying simply: “I have in my hand a book”. We did not know whether to laugh, but soon from the look on his face we realized that this was his idea of a joke. Another time he announced that when he and his wife went to the Holy Land, they went Third Class because there was no Fourth Class.
Ken Monroe was respected by faculty and students alike as the only real scholar on the faculty. He had read widely and still walked from his near bye home to the college every morning reading a book.
I took several classes from Ken Monroe and always found them interesting and mind-stretching. He invited his students to his home each semester for an evening of fellowship, partly so we could get to know each other, but mostly so he could get to know us. He and his wife were the only faculty members of this fundamentalist college who became members of the local Golf and Country Club and who joined the First Presbyterian Church.
When my wife and I snuck into the movie theater to see “King of Kings”, about Jesus’ life and death, because the college forbade seeing movies, we were heartened to see Ken and his wife walk down the aisle in the dark after the film had started. They obviously had a broader view of things than the college stood for. Incidentally, Ken ‘s and his first wife had been divorced and this raised a lot of eyebrows among the college community.
Indeed, after I had finished my Master’s degree I loaned a copy of thesis on Reinhold Niebuhr’s view of the relationship between reason and faith to Ken. After reading it he asked me if I now thought Niebuhr was a Christian, an absolutely ridiculous question for anyone not knowing the fundamentalist mindset, since Niebuhr was a thinker whom everyone else thought to be a paragon of the Christian faith. I answered that I do think Niebuhr is a Christian. Ken paused a bit, and then replied, “That’s what worries me about the college.” Our college, Westmont, was still then a fundamentalist school. It is now a broadminded evangelical college.
I kept in touch with Ken over the years until his death at 81 years of age. In the context of a Fundamentalist school seeking to become an Evangelical school he was a guiding light. He opened my mind toward a posture that embraced both reason and faith simultaneously. I have spent the past 70 years striving to affirm and live this broader posture toward life.

Our friendship goes back to Seminary days in the late 1950s. We had several classes together and used to do shoot-arounds in the funky basement of the gym of the seminary on East 49th street in Manhattan. We found that we thought a lot alike on many theological and related issues. I never met Karls’ wife Jean, but he told me a great deal about her. I feel as though I have known Karl all of my life.
Karl grew up in a Salvation Army family. For those of you who do not remember or never knew about the Army, it was – and I’m pretty sure still is – a strong but peculiar Fundamentalist organization that wears army-like uniforms and plays band music on the street corners of big cities. They also collect donations in buckets at Christmas time. I believe they were started by a fellow named Booth. I think Karl left the Army when he finished college at Adelphi College in Queens NY.
Once while we were shooting hoops Karl told me that in his senior year at Adelphi his team got to play in Madison Square Garden and he hit a stupidly taken hook-shot from beyond the keyhole area. While we shot the ball around we also talked theology. We greatly admired our leading professor, Robert A. Traina whose teaching and writing (Methodical Bible Study), avidly discussing the content and implications of our classes together with him.
While in seminary I commuted to the city from The Stony Brook School on Long Island where I was a part-time teacher. I remember introducing Karl to the school and after I left he was hired to teach 8th Grade Bible classes. Before long he and his family moved to the school and Karl eventually became a full-time Bible teacher there. Indeed, a few years later he and his work were so respected that he was chosen to be the Headmaster of the school. During his years there the school prospered a great deal.
One evening many years later I was teaching at Eastern College just outside of Philadelphia and there came a knock on the door. There was Karl all smiles and eager to catch-up on old times. I think he was out doing “fund raising” for the Stony Brook School. We had a wonderful reunion that evening. I remember that he looked around and asked where all my books were. He always teased me about writing so many books. I told him they were in my office at the college. We never saw each other again after that evening around 1980.
However, somehow we connected up again on the internet around the year 2000 and renewed our friendship with a good deal of vigor. We made plans for him to visit my wife Mari and me in Tucson, AZ, but it turned out that his health would not allow it. So we continued to write emails back and forth for several years, mostly with me sending him my latest scribblings and he responding with keen observations and analysis.
Karl was a big person and eventually had trouble avoiding falling often. Nonetheless he amazed me with his accounts of his outings with his children all up and down the East coast. Since his wife had died Karl lived with his two daughters near Washington, D.C. Since Karl had trouble fiddling with a keyboard he preferred talking on the phone, so we occasionally got to hear each other’s voice. All through these last couple of years Karl’s continued interest in discussing ideas challenged and delighted me.
A couple of weeks ago I found that I was unable to connect up with Karl either by phone or email. Eventually one of his daughters, Cheryl, wrote and explained that he had died. She so kindly mentioned how much he had enjoyed our renewed friendship and discussions of theological and biblical issues. I assured her that I, too, had cherished our continuing friendship. Since I recently turned 90 I assume Karl was about that age, too, when he died. A rare and wonderful friendship, indeed! We had known each other for nearly 70 years. Thanks ever so much, Karl.