Rev. Gordon Torgersen, 91; put principles into action

In 1969, with the Vietnam War raging and violence roiling cities and college campuses, the Rev. Gordon M. Torgersen stood before a gathering of clergy in Boston's John Hancock Hall and issued a bracing challenge.

Churches, he said, should be ready to sacrifice their own existence if necessary while battling social ills such as poverty, prison reform, and substance abuse.

"Religion which is interested only in itself, its prestige and success, its institutions and ecclesiastical niceties, is worse than vanity," Rev. Torgersen told the Churchmen's League for Civic Welfare.

An opponent of the Vietnam War and a civil rights activist, he spent more than two decades as minister of First Baptist Church in Worcester and had served as president of Andover Newton Theological School. Rev. Torgersen died of pneumonia Monday in Bayside health center in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 91.

"His primary emphasis was putting Christianity into action, not simply through verbal prayer, but through determination, physically taking action so that the meaning of the Bible would become real," said his son, Philip of Paxton.

His father's life, he said, was about "putting principles into action, putting beliefs into action, and taking the consequences of those actions."

Churches, Rev. Torgersen told the Churchmen's League, should be "alert and sensitive to conditions and willing to lay down our very lives to see that things do change."

A gifted preacher, he delivered sermons on radio and television, at Ivy League universities, and even at Sing Sing prison in Ossining, N.Y.

"He was just a very curious man who was interested in absolutely everything, and I think that's what made him such a wonderful pastor," his daughter said. "He always preached to himself, as well as to his audience."

Social justice topics often found their way into Rev. Torgersen's thoughts, and he did not shy from offering his opinions, even when Vietnam and the civil rights movement divided his parishioners.

"He was very much opposed to the war and President Nixon's dealings with it," his son said. "That caused him some problems and tension, but he thought it was very important to come out strongly against injustice."

Gordon Melby Torgersen was born in St. Paul, the son of a Norwegian immigrant, and grew up in an immigrant section of the city. He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul and told his children that his decision to become a minister was simple.

"He told me once he went into the ministry not because he had answers," his daughter said, "but because he had questions."

After graduating from Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y., he served as assistant pastor to military families at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and then was pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ridgewood, N.J., from 1944 to 1951. He became minister of First Baptist Church in Worcester in 1951, remaining there until 1972.

Rev. Torgersen, who had received an honorary doctorate from his divinity school in 1960, returned in 1972 to what had become Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, where he was director of church relations. He became president of Andover Newton in 1979, retiring in 1983.

At Andover Newton, he and his wife, the former Margaret Dahlberg, "would have students over for special breakfasts," said their daughter, Anne Goff of Worcester. "The students knew that whoever you were, you weren't just a number. My parents just gave their life to being involved with people."

Rev. Torgersen served in leadership positions with several church, community, and academic organizations and boards, including as president of the Worcester Council of Churches and of the Massachusetts Baptist Convention.

In retirement, he and his wife initially traveled several months a year while he was a consultant to the American Baptist Ministers and Missionary Benefit Board. When they were home, he volunteered with the maintenance department at the Westminster retirement community in St. Petersburg, where they lived.

"He painted more of the apartments in this complex than probably anybody else," his daughter Gail said.

The pulpit still called, however, and he was a consultant to the Church of the Beatitudes, an American Baptist church in St. Petersburg, where he could still occasionally deliver a sermon. In August 2001, he preached one last time. His sermon, "With What You Have Left," addressed the losses that accumulate with age and how people are called to do their best with the talents that remain.

"The following sermon is one that came about at the time I was thinking that in my 86th year I had better quit," Rev. Torgersen wrote in the prepared text. "The subject of this sermon came to mind, I decided to wrestle with it, and see if I could follow my own counsel or advice!"

With an eye toward that day when he would no longer be alive to judge his efforts, he added: "We'll see! You'll know and I won't!"

In addition to Margaret, his wife of 66 years, his son, Philip, and his daughters Gail Randall and Anne Goff, Rev. Torgersen leaves another daughter, Joan Magill of Boynton Beach, Fla.; eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Oct. 20 in First Baptist Church in Worcester.