Lee Rouner; BU professor blended philosophy, religion

Presiding at a memorial service held during the 40th reunion of his Harvard class, Lee Rouner reflected on what had changed in the decades since ''life was full of hope" and the future stretched endlessly ahead.

''We know something now that we didn't know then," he said at the service for classmates who had died. ''We know that we, too, are mortal."

While intimations of mortality are not uncommon among those in their early 60s, Dr. Rouner had made a career of wrestling with complex questions about life and death. For 25 years he directed the Institute for Philosophy and Religion at Boston University, which sponsors lectures on such topics as civility and responsibility, immortality, and evil.

Dr. Rouner, who had taught philosophy and religion at Boston University for more than 30 years, died of blood cancer on Feb. 11 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. He was 75 and lived in Sandwich, north of his birthplace near Lake Winnipesaukee.

The son and brother of Congregationalist ministers, Dr. Rouner was himself ordained, but ''chose to teach rather than preach," said his son Jonathan of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dr. Rouner's career had taken him to Harvard, to graduate studies in New York City, to teaching in India, to Boston University, and back home to New Hampshire in an arc that for him recalled a favorite passage in ''Four Quartets," a T.S. Eliot poem:

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

Leroy Stephens Rouner was born in Wolfeboro, N.H., and grew up in Portsmouth, where his father was pastor of North Church. Only 14 months separated Dr. Rouner and his brother, the Rev. Arthur Rouner, and their lives tracked closely.

''I was older and smaller," said Arthur, who lives in Edina, Minn., and has a summer house in Ossipee, N.H., not far from his brother's home.

At 6-foot-6, Dr. Rouner was 4 inches taller than his brother. The two attended Choate on scholarships, with Dr. Rouner using his height as an end for the football team and a center on the basketball court. Then both went to Harvard, where they sliced through the Charles on different rowing crews -- varsity and junior varsity.

''Our best races were against each other," Arthur said.

In the years after Harvard, Dr. Rouner graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and received a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. For five years, beginning in 1960, he taught philosophy at United Theological College of the Church of South India, in Bangalore.

When he had finished teaching there, his wife, Rita Rainsford Rouner, suggested that the family drive back to Europe. In a modified Land Rover dubbed Ulysses, the great traveler in Homer's ''The Odyssey," the Rouners and their four children did just that. The two older boys, Stephen and Timothy, slept in the vehicle, and the rest stayed in a tent.

''Back in those days, it could be done," said Stephen, who uses Rains, an abbreviation of his middle name, as his first name.

They drove through Pakistan, across the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, and on through Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and what was then Yugoslavia. Near the border of Iran and Afghanistan, Dr. Rouner used hand gestures to persuade a man in a caravan to let Rains, who was quite taken with ''Lawrence of Arabia," ride a camel.

''The trip became an important part of family history," Jonathan said.

In the United States, Dr. Rouner began teaching at Boston University, where he began leading the Institute for Philosophy and Religion in 1970, serving as director for 25 years.

''Theologian, philosopher, educator -- Lee Rouner warmed the hearts of his colleagues, inspired generations of students, and enriched their passion for learning," Elie Wiesel, who has lectured at the institute, said in a prepared statement.

John Silber, former president of BU, issued a statement saying that Dr. Rouner ''melded faith and uncertainty in a way that made his religious commitment persuasive in a secular age. He wrote with insight and emotion on the death of his son, a mountain climber, without ever compromising his dignity."

In 1977, Rains and Timothy Rouner attempted a first ascent on the 6,000-foot northwest face of Devil's Mountain in Alaska, and Timothy died in a climbing accident.

Dr. Rouner wrote a book, ''The Long Way Home," about traveling from India, where he was when he learned his son had died, to Alaska to meet with Rains.

''Timmy's death was a terrible thing," Dr. Rouner told Choate students in 2000. ''Losing a beloved child kills you. . . . Something in you dies. You never get over it. You never want to get over it because his death has become one with his life and both are precious to you. But it sure gives you perspective on yourself and what you care about."

Though he never took a job in the ministry, Dr. Rouner ''buried and married people, preached on many occasions, and was greatly loved," said his brother, who on Sunday will help lead the memorial service for Dr. Rouner.

Speaking from Dr. Rouner's house, he added, ''I think I, like many folks in this town, thought that Leroy would lay us away someday. It was a surprise that he was overpowered so quickly. Of course, he was a deep thinker and was very helpful. Lee had thought a lot about it, and had said to his doctors, 'I know a lot about life and death, I just hadn't counted on old age.' "

In addition to his wife, his sons Jonathan and Rains, of Belmont, and his brother, Dr. Rouner leaves a daughter, Christina, of Brooklyn; two sisters, Elizabeth of Center Ossipee, N.H., and Louise Van Kesteren of Tequesta, Fla.; and three grandchildren.

The memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday in Marsh Chapel at Boston University.