Pastor and author Voddie Baucham Jr. dies at 56

Pastor Voddie Baucham Jr. died Thursday at the age of 56, after suffering an emergency medical incident earlier in the day, according to an update from Founders Ministries. The American pastor and author was dean of the School of Divinity at African Christian University in Zambia for nine years. A Reformed Baptist, he also served as the first president of Founders Seminary in Cape Coral, Fla.

Baucham’s background hardly looked like a typical evangelical pastor’s resume: Growing up in a non-Christian home, he was raised mostly in the Los Angeles projects by his Buddhist mother. But a Campus Crusade staffer introduced Baucham to Christianity during his freshman year of college. While a sophomore, Baucham met Bridget: they married six months later. Despite the high divorce rate in their families, the couple remained married for over 30 years until Baucham’s death. They had nine children, seven of whom they adopted.

Baucham credited his mother’s high expectations and no-excuses attitude for his academic success. He played college football at Rice University before transferring to Houston Baptist University, then earned a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctorate from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Baucham spoke at churches and conferences about cultural apologetics, homeschooling, and family worship. He wrote several books, including The Ever-Loving Truth, Family Driven Faith, and Expository Apologetics. Baucham first visited Zambia to speak at a conference in 2006, later telling his wife, “I think I want to be buried there.” He was a preaching elder at Grace Family Baptist Church before moving to Zambia in 2015.

Baucham often found himself on the opposite side of popular cultural opinion. During the Ferguson unrest after Michael Brown died in 2014, Baucham, an African-American, wrote for The Gospel Coalition that the systemic problem facing African Americans is not racism but an “epidemic of fatherlessness.” His book Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe was published in April 2021, soon after Baucham underwent major heart surgery.

A WORLD reporter once asked Baucham how he wanted others to remember him. “That I made much of Christ,” Baucham answered. “That’s what I want the judgment to be, that I made much of Christ.”