Krister Stendahl; expanded scope, depth of divinity school

From the academic pulpit afforded him as dean of Harvard Divinity School, the Rev. Dr. Krister Stendahl preached pluralism and equality, and throughout his career he wrote essays and books that eloquently sought to redefine the often fractious dialogue between Jews and Christians.

Under his leadership, the field of women's studies in religion took root at Harvard, and his teachings as a renowned New Testament scholar added context to the understanding of the Apostle Paul.

And yet, speaking last year to a former student, Dr. Stendahl said with a trace of wistfulness that he had accomplished too little, and usually in a role one step removed from the man he saw when he looked within.

"I always felt in my bones that I was meant to be a priest, that I was a preacher at heart," he said in the interview published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin.

Instead, his congregation was academia, save the four years he served as the Church of Sweden's bishop of Stockholm, his childhood home. Revered for the twinkle in his eye, a transcending intellect, and his captivating presence in a church or classroom, Dr. Stendahl still brightened as visitors came to his side in his final days. He died of renal failure Tuesday in Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Stendahl was 86 and had lived in Cambridge with his wife, Brita.

"One of the astounding things about him is the range of his contributions," said James Carroll, a Boston author and a columnist for the Globe's opinion pages. "He was a theologian, a teacher, a pastor, a bishop, a university administrator. You just don't find people who achieve a degree of eminence in each of those very different responsibilities."

William A. Graham, current dean of the divinity school, said Dr. Stendahl's leadership from 1968 to 1979 was critical both for his openness to the study of religions outside the Christian tradition and for his championing of women in church leadership and academia.

"His promotion of women in scholarship turned out to be one of his longest-lasting legacies," Graham said. "The women's studies program that he helped found has really built a field of women's studies around the world."

Margaret G. Payne, bishop of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said in a statement that she "particularly appreciated his intelligence, humility, and relentless advocacy for those who are marginalized in society. He was an early advocate for the ordination of women. I heard him lecture on that subject years ago, and it was one of the moments that gave me hope that women might indeed be welcomed into the ordained leadership of our church."

First invited to teach at Harvard in 1954, the year he received a doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden, Dr. Stendahl was a legendary figure among students at Harvard Divinity School.

"I took his New Testament course," Graham said. "I think to this day he's the best lecturer I ever encountered in this country or anywhere else. He would stand up and go for 50 minutes without blinking an eye. He had notes, but he did not read the lectures; he simply spoke and did not repeat himself. Most of us stumble about in lectures. You didn't hear that from him. He just mesmerized."

Rabbi Mark Saperstein, principal of Leo Baeck College's Center for Jewish Education in London, once taught a class with Dr. Stendahl at Harvard.

"I've always felt that I really should have been paying tuition for that course because I learned as much from him as the students learned from me," he said.

"He had an extraordinary capacity to articulate for Christians a Jewish perspective of things - sometimes better and more effectively than rabbis do," Saperstein said. "And he would challenge Christians and Jews to reexamine things we've all taken for granted, to put them in a proper context, to appreciate the outlook of the other side, and to listen to each other very carefully and humanely. All of this was based on a foundation of mastery of the sources of profound scholarship, combined with the personal inspiration that affected so many people that he knew."

Said Diana Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard: "He was just a wonderful, towering presence in the Christian ecumenical community, both in interfaith and in Jewish-Christian relations. He was someone that people really listened to in the churches. He was the living link between the somewhat isolated world of Harvard Divinity School and the wider world of interfaith relations."

Born in Stockholm, Dr. Stendahl was drawn to religion "through the simple faith" of the family's domestic servants, said his son John, who is pastor of Lutheran Church of the Newtons.

"He was really taken with the importance of Jesus and the power of prayer and devotion as seen in these servants, in these women, who exerted an influence that bespeaks his paying attention to people whom his class would typically have ignored and left unnoticed, or held of little value," his son said.

When Dr. Stendahl became bishop of Stockholm in 1984, his son said, "he sought out one of these servants, of course now quite old, and he found her and paid her a visit, and paid tribute to her for her importance in his life."

Setting high standards, Dr. Stendahl was never quite satisfied that he had accomplished enough, his son said. There were words to live up to.

"I remember him coming across a book that had been given to him by his mother," he said. "Just inside the cover she had inscribed it with an exhortation in Swedish, which might be translated in all its conciseness simply: 'Be honorable.' "

And so he was, though he made sure to bring a light touch to even the most serious matters, employing what his son called "the humor of a playful person, one who took delight in life. It was the manifestation of a joy in what either is funny or could be made funny."

In "Why I Love the Bible," an essay published last year in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Dr. Stendahl cautioned against wanting the Bible "to be so terribly deep. One of the best rules for reading Scriptures is the very same as for preaching: It should be light, it should be quick, and it should be tender. It should not be ponderous, it should not be labored, and it should not be heavy."

In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Stendahl leaves another son, Dan of Ipswich; a daughter, Anna Langenfeld of Middleborough; six granddaughters; two grandsons; two great-granddaughters; and a great-grandson.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. on May 16 in Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.