I received sad news in an email recently: Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Clark sent John Sanders and me the following note:

Dear Tom and John:

I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer’s. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I’ve enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I’ll meet you over Jordan if not before.

You are free to make this news known.

With love,

Clark

via Pinnock, Alzheimer’s, and Open Theology · For The Love of Wisdom and The Wisdom of Love · Thomas Jay Oord

I feel like I’ve been flooded out with bad news about people I love and respect, people who have helped make me who I am today. Intellectually, I know that it isn’t about me and that I’m one of the least affected. But in my soul, this is really hurting a great deal.

First it was the Jollyblogger, David Wayne. Then I was just getting to know Matt Chandler, and he was stricken with cancer. Then the worst blow, Michael Spencer. I just found out last evening that Michael and his family have decided to cease treatment and engage the help of hospice.

Now today, I found out that Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer’s. This is devastating. His work is over. I’ve seen in my own family how this terrible disease is, in some ways, worse than dying.

But the common thread in these four pieces of bad news is this: each one of these men knows Jesus and intend to live with him forever. It is my hope to spend some time with each of them “over Jordan”, when their minds and bodies are right again, and to tell them how much I appreciated how they lived and how they died.