Remembering Rev. John Rasmussen

The Institute of Lutheran Theology has lost a committed faculty member, an excellent student, and a very close friend. Reverend John Rasmussen passed away on November 13, 2024, losing his earthly body to cancer.

What can we say about this?

John was not his earthly body but rather a baptized child of God who lived each day with the sure and certain belief of the resurrection. His life was a witness to the future rather than to the past. He boldly proclaimed the Word of God, insisting that his students likewise proclaim with good tidings and clarity the eminent Kingdom of God. They learned that there is no time to talk about oneself when there is such exciting news to share.

Among the scores of things I could say about John, I am thinking about three things right now:

1. John Rasmussen and his wife Lenae were perhaps the first to talk very clearly about the need to form a new seminary. Long before I was selected by the WordAlone Network in 2005 to head the Study to develop a “house of studies that would employ the hermeneutic of the Lutheran Reformation,” John and Lenae were talking with me about the need for a new institution that would take theology seriously again.
2. In 2011, I had the opportunity to team-teach the Lutheran Confessions with John. What fun we had! Sometimes we talked on the phone about what happened in the class a full hour after the students had gone home.
3. In 2021, I offered a PhD course in Kant, in which John was a student. While I was blessed to have John as a student in a number of my courses, I remember with clarity how good he was in this course. His summary of the First Critique of Kant was simply excellent.

These three memories show John as visionary, teacher, and student, roles that he assumed and performed gracefully for decades.

While I will miss John as a friend, colleague, and student, I know that John’s work is not done among us. There will be posthumous works appearing soon, the first forthcoming in the next issue of Verba Vitae. There is the manuscript of Usus Legis edited and translated by John Rasmussen and Tim Swenson currently at ILT Press that will be published in the next year. There are other writings that will likely see print as well.

Brother John, I will miss you, the faculty will miss you, and your students will miss you. However, you above all people have taught us to attend to the important. ILT is not about us, after all, nor are our lives about us. We live in anticipation of the One who has already come, the One who has livened your days and animated your witness, the One who is our hope as well as yours. We are blessed to have known you, John!

Ave et Vale

Dr. Dennis Bielfeldt, ILT President and Chancellor

John Rasmussen’s funeral will be held Friday, November 22, in El Paso, Texas. Here is a link to the details: https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/33789397/john-h-rasmussen.