Ben Lacy Rose ’35

Ben Lacy Rose ’35 of Richmond, Va., professor emeritus of homiletics and pastoral leadership at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond and former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.), died November 13, 2006. He earned his B.D., Th.M., and Th.D. at Union, where he was a former trustee. He was awarded an honorary doctor of divinity from Davidson in 1974. In February, he was honored at Westminster Canterbury Richmond, where, as a resident, he had enriched retirees’ lives by helping lead worship services, lecture series, and Bible studies, and by visiting residents. He taught preaching from 1956 to 1973 at what is now Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education, occupying the Benjamin Rice Lacy Professorship named for his uncle. He once estimated he had written more than 2,000 sermons and helped train more than 600 ministers. From 1971 to 1972, he served as moderator of the 953,000-member Southern branch of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.) Considered a moderate, he was known for his stance for unity within the church. For more than two decades, Dr. Rose’s “Q&A” column delighted readers in 194,000 homes where his denomination’s magazine, the Presbyterian Survey, circulated. Although he retired from the church in 1978, he was supply pastor at Hebron Presbyterian Church in Manakin until 1999. His nearly 70-year stand in the pulpit took him to churches in North Carolina, Central Presbyterian Church in Bristol, and Ginter Park Presbyterian Church in Richmond. During World War II, he served as an Army chaplain in Europe, earning the Bronze Star, and was a retired Army Reserve colonel. His wife, Anne Claiborne Thompson Rose, died in 2005. Survivors include a son, Ben Lacy Rose Jr. of Richmond; two daughters, Anne Nancy Vosler of St. Louis, Miss., and Margaret Rockwell Day of Noank, Conn.; and four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.