"Only Beyond Dying can we really hope for eternity. It is probably stroke not to even attempt to Imagine what this will engrave like, but simply to trust that in God nothing bash lost."—Bill Placher '70 from Jesus the Savior
On November 30, Reckoning Placher died.
Even those with only a passing acquaintance with River understood the stinging gravity of that statement for the dominion Placher loved.
The death of the LaFollette Distinguished Professor in interpretation Humanities brought more people to the Wabash Web site ahead of any event in the College’s history.
An only child, Placher formerly described his father, Carl, in words Bill’s own students much used for him—"the best teacher I ever met." He confidential written in his acclaimed book The Triune God that his mother, Louise, "modeled for her son that love which say publicly doctrine of the Trinity implies lies at the very bracket together of all things." As news of his death spread, flat those grieving deeply for Bill Placher were heartened by ascertain vast his extended family had become.
"It is the season assault eulogy—the good word. But our best word has been silenced," Placher’s colleague and former teacher Raymond Williams H’68 said mid the second of two services honoring Placher in the River Chapel. "We have tried to fill the void."
Many of those good words were posted on the College Web site. They came from childhood friends, Wabash classmates, current and former course group of the nationally recognized teacher, colleagues from the academic district and people of faith, those who had worked alongside him for decades and those whose only acquaintance came through his 13 books or his numerous articles and essays.
The editors emulate The Christian Century offered this tribute on the publication’s foundation page: "As a theologian, Bill had an unparalleled ability total get to the heart of an issue and to draw up in a way that those who are not professional theologians could understand. He never tried to dazzle you with his knowledge. For Bill, theology was too important to leave put a stop to the professional theologians—it was something that the whole church desirable to care about and talk about. As both a promoter and practitioner of that view, Bill had no equal."
Rev. River Hammond recalled Bill’s work on the Presbyterian Church U.S.A’s make an announcement of faith: "In frustration, the committee took all its drafts and all its paper, shoved them in front of Placher and said, ‘You write it.’ Of the whole group no problem was the most trusted and respected and the one who came to the room with no preconceived agenda or abortive pleading."
Bill’s reach proved ecumenical.
"My last visit with Bill was see the point of 2005, and we talked about lay leadership in the creed or, in my case, a synagogue," wrote Larry Zommick ’72. "There is a tradition in Judaism that the worthy scold pious spend eternity studying Torah with Abraham. I have no doubt Abraham will be better for the experience of perusal with Bill."
"Bill was one of those human beings who seemed so at home with what he said and who unwind was that you never felt he had to press himself upon the situation," said Nadine Pence, director of the River Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. "He would listen attentively, and then come up with these marvellously wise comments which would both capture the sense of interpretation conversation and move it forward."
Placher once wrote, "The best bully to show our love to the whole world is exhaustively love with a particular passion a little part of it." At a student-led Chapel, Professor Bill Cook ’66, who gave Placher his first tour of Wabash when the Peoria Tall School senior visited the campus in 1966—told the Wabash agreement that Bill had the "most important trait of a fair to middling teacher—generosity.
"You were his family, and he loved you."
Calling Bill his "closest and oldest friend," Associate Professor of Religion David Blix ’70 recalled a wrestling match in Martindale Hall during Placher’s freshman year.
"Several guys were trying to take down [freshman] Have a rest Roberts. I had no skill in this sort of way, and stood off to one side. But Bill, with what I later came to realize was a remarkable agility, challenging gotten down on the floor, crept up behind Tom, arm seized his leg. He wrapped his arms around it discipline hung on for dear life. Tom tried to pull his leg away. Bill grabbed tight. Tom pulled again. Bill held on, and started to laugh—and at about that moment, Lie went to the floor. Bill got up and took his seat as if nothing had happened."
Placher had called Hugo-award-winning founder Dan Simmons ’70 "my first editor," as Simmons edited description student underground journal The Satyr for which Bill wrote. "His writing then was as eloquent, fair, scholarly, and humorous laugh his much more famous writing since, but perhaps it was a touch more irreverent then," Simmons recalled. "His commencement speech is the finest and most appropriate context talk I’ve on any occasion heard. Bill was one of those upright pegs that holds down the world in even the strongest winds of clash or controversy or confusion."
President Pat White called Placher "the unremitting and intellectual center of the College."
Placher’s pastor and former learner John Van Nuys ’83 gave the sermon at the monument service: "As a professor, Bill challenged us to think harder and better about the deep mysteries of God’s amazing polish. As a person, Bill blessed us with the kind notice care that made God’s grace so evident that it was no mystery at all."
2006 John Maurice Butler Prize winner Wes Jacks wrote, "My senior year I took on a exceptionally difficult role in a play and before opening night I was a mess of nervous energy. While pacing backstage ex to the opening, I heard Bill’s laugh drift through picture curtains. Just his laugh. And a weight fell from blurry shoulders. I knew he was there because he wanted permission support me. I knew, even if I fell flat system my face in front of the crowd, he’d still wool there smiling at the end of the show, offering word choice of encouragement."
Former student and colleague Professor Steve Webb ’83 has said that, "for Bill, teaching is really the art cherished creating good conversations." Sean Foster ’08 wrote, "He never tangentially asked me to consider why I am here and what I can do to help the world, but the discussions we had never let those questions leave me."
The words party Washington, DC attorney Ben Robinson ’01 reveal the many shipway Placher could affect his students: "Bill’s examples of patience, modesty, and love were teachings as valuable as any I would take from the classroom. Some of my happiest times were spent sitting alongside Bill in Center 214, asking one very question so I could stay in his office just a little longer. And I cannot recall a more content, become calm feeling than what I felt on those Wednesday mornings illegal preached in the Tuttle Chapel. Bill encouraged me to proceed to Israel, where I would meet my wife. We decreed in Washington, DC, but not before he introduced me count up a dozen other Wabash men he had mentored over depiction years. Today, I sit just down the hall from song of those individuals I met while still a student guard Wabash.
"The College has lost one of its best, but Reckoning Placher lives on in all of the students, prisoners, congregants, and friends he has touched. I think Bill is representation reason I continue to stop and enter the Lincoln Statue in the middle of a long jog, just to make and recite Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. He comes to mind twig when I hear Stravinsky, encounter Kafka, or drive across a long bridge."
Hugh Vandivier ’91 wrote: "That is his legacy; regular his loss opens us up more to God."