|
 Phil Strickland died Feb. 11 after nearly 40
years of ministry
with the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission.
Phil Strickland believed his mission was to provide a voice for the
powerless in the halls of government and speak prophetically to Texas
Baptists on moral and ethical issues. After a long battle with cancer,
resultant pneumonia silenced that prophetic voice Feb. 11 at age 64.
Strickland’s served 38 years with the Baptist General Convention of
Texas’ Christian Life Commission, including nearly a quarter-century as
director of the public policy and moral concerns agency.
“Phil Strickland helped Texas Baptists to remember and be faithful to
their heritage, and he consistently declared the high ethical calling of
the Christian life,” said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade.
While Strickland possessed a well-earned public reputation as a
knowledgeable political activist, an outspoken advocate for children and a
staunch defender of individual religious freedom and other historic
Baptist principles, people with whom he came into contact individually
learned he also was “a man of deep personal faith and prayer,” Wade
noted.
“Everybody who ever spent any time around him grew in their Christian
walk, their faith and their response to the gospel,” Wade said.
Strickland was a member of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where he
had served as a deacon, Sunday school teacher and chairman of various
committees. Pastor George Mason noted his church lost “a faithful
servant,” Baptists lost a strong and prophetic voice, and “the kingdom of
God has lost a skillful and passionate moral advocate for the weak and
vulnerable of our world.”
Strickland possessed a rare combination of keen intellect and
consistent activism, Mason observed.
“He was always eager to learn the next thing, to read the next book, to
measure his position on matters against those who could teach him
something new. That curiosity bred creativity. His work for justice in the
church and in the world was formed by the gospel and informed by the
living Christ within him,” he said.
Strickland’s “never-ending quest” to make life better for children and
to improve the lives of the overlooked and under-served energized his
life, Mason added.
“The gospel was Phil’s preoccupation, and he occupied his life making
sure it penetrated not only human hearts but human systems as well,” he
said. “The spiritual and the social were always for him interconnected
spheres of life. Since Jesus is Lord of all, Phil believed that society
could better reflect the Lordship of Christ if Christians would put the
gospel into practice.”
Former Texas Speaker of the House Pete Laney called Strickland “an
unwavering advocate” for Texans in need.
“His voice in the policy discussions at the State Capitol has made a
significant impact on the lives of the state’s most vulnerable citizens —
its children,” Laney said. “He has provided strong ethical leadership and
is a reminder to us all that government exists to serve the people. His
influence will never fully be recognized, and his presence will be deeply
missed in Austin.”
Strickland often recalled that he took a leave of absence from a Fort
Worth law firm in December 1967 to help Texas Baptists defeat gambling. He
never returned to fulltime private legal practice.
Instead, he became the first — and for many years the only — registered
lobbyist in Austin serving a religious denominational body.
Drawing on contacts made and lessons learned as a law student when he
worked as legislative assistant to Texas Lt. Gov. Preston Smith,
Strickland urged lawmakers to oppose the expansion of gambling, resist
attempts to chip away at the separation between church and state, and
remember the needs of children — particularly the poor, abused and
neglected.
To advance those causes, he built coalitions that spanned the political
and religious spectrum.
Strickland became founding chairman of Texans Care for Children, the
state’s first multi-issue child advocacy group, which brought together
more than 50 organizations that address the needs of children.
Gov. Mark White appointed him first chairman of the Texas Council on
Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, a council created to oversee and
coordinate distribution of the Children’s Trust Fund. He also served on a
variety of other governmental advisory committees.
Weston Ware, who worked alongside Strickland at the CLC during nine
regular sessions of the Texas Legislature and numerous called special
sessions, praised his abilities as a coalition-builder.
“Phil not only was a political strategist par excellence, but he also
was able to win the hearts and minds of diverse groups, often bringing
together the most conservative and most liberal advocates to resolve
difficult issues, as he did with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,”
Ware recalled, pointing to legislation aimed at preventing substantial
burdens on the free exercise of religion.
“Few could say ‘no’ when representatives of the religious right and the
American Civil Liberties Union or the Texas Freedom Network all came
together on the same issues.”
Strickland earned a reputation for integrity, trustworthiness and
professionalism among legislators in Austin, and that established
credibility for anyone representing the CLC, Ware noted.
“It meant when I went to talk to a legislator, or to give testimony
before a legislative committee, that Phil’s good reputation, gained over
all the years since 1967, had gone before me,” he said. “It meant that a
legislator could trust me, could value what I had to say, could believe
that I had done my homework on the issue at hand because I worked for Phil
Strickland, and Phil had never let him or her down.”
Nationally, Strickland served on the Inter-religious Task Force on U.S.
Food Policy, the Bread for the World board of directors, the Americans
United for Separation of Church and State board of trustees and the
National Child Abuse Coalition.
He was a past president of the United Way of Texas.
Even though he held some prominent positions, Strickland worked mostly
behind the scenes, said James Dunn, his immediate predecessor as director
of the Christian Life Commission.
“Texas Baptists as a whole have no idea about the significant
contributions Phil Strickland made to Texas Baptist life, to the state of
Texas, to children and to a decent and just society,” he said. “His
contributions remind me of an iceberg, in which perhaps only one percent
of the massive movement is seen and 99 percent is hidden beneath the
surface. That is the way Phil led the fight for truth and righteousness in
Texas.”
Dunn, who left the Texas Christian Life Commission to become executive
director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, also noted
Strickland’s steadfast commitment to religious liberty and distinctive
Baptist beliefs such as the soul competency of every individual.
“In a day when many Baptists seem to have amnesia about our
heritage, Phil remained a rock-solid champion of religious freedom and the
separation of church and state,” said Dunn, who teaches at Wake Forest
Divinity School.
BGCT Executive Director Emeritus Bill Pinson praised Strickland for
“his brilliance coupled with his dedication to Christ and his genuine
concern for all persons [that] made him extraordinarily successful in
Christian ministry.”
Strickland’s influence reached beyond Baptist circles and beyond Texas
as he worked with various denominations for causes of social justice,
Pinson noted.
“His application of the gospel of Christ to life includes practically
every aspect of Christian ethics — family life, race relations, hunger,
poverty, neglected children, alcohol abuse, gambling, economics, social
justice, religious freedom, separation of church and state,” he said. “His
positive impact across a wide spectrum of our world has been enormous. He
surely will hear our Lord say, ‘Well done, good and faithful
servant.’”
An Abilene native, Strickland studied at Baylor University before
transferring to the University of Texas in Austin where he earned both his
undergraduate and law degrees.
He also pursued graduate studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary.
He is survived by his wife, Carolyn; daughter Delaine Mueller of Tucson, Ariz., her
husband, Daniel, and their two children ; daughter Shannon Holman of
Lonoke, Ark., and her husband, Merritt and their two children; and his
mother, Sybil Strickland of Abilene. |