Robert and Barbara Walker

LAKE MARY, FLORIDA (ANS) -- Robert Walker, the man who published the first national cover story about Billy Graham, propelled Pat Boone's encounter with the Holy Spirit to best-seller status and inspired millions of Christian writers and readers alike has died at age 95.

The founder of Christian Life magazine helped bridge the gap between Pentecostals and Evangelicals.

The editor emeritus of Charisma & Christian Life, Walker died March 1 at a retirement community in Carol Stream, Illinois. Although a former athlete and avid weightlifter, Walker had suffered from Parkinson's disease and dementia since 2005.

Robert Alander Walker, who received the first prestigious Magazine Publishers Award from the Evangelical Christian Publisher Association in 1994, is considered by many to be the pioneer of Christian Journalism.

"That's because he has been involved with so much over so many years," says Mark Sweeny, President of ECPA.

Those "involvements" include the founding/editing of His magazine for students on secular college campuses, and of Sunday magazine (precursor of Christian Life)—the first pocket-size Christian publication. Time and Newsweek took note by featuring the event.

Walker also established the Christian Writers' institute, a correspondence school which has graduated upwards of 25,000 students, and Creation House, a book publishing entity with such titles as A New Song, by Pat Boone, and Finger Lickin' Good, by Colonel Sanders.

Christian Bookseller magazine (later to become Christian Retailing) also was a brainchild of Walker, along with Christian Life Missions, a world-wide outreach.

Walker was born April 30, 1912 to Lena (Orman) and Forrest Walker who, with his brother Willard, invented the electric dishwasher. After a year at the University of Illinois and another (rebellious) year at Wheaton (IL) college, Walker enrolled in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL).

The summer before his senior year he vacationed on the shore of Lake Superior. After reading a stack of philosophy books, he came to the bottom of the pile: a Bible.

"I had included it only because I thought journalists should have some knowledge of it," he says.

That reading changed his life. He wrote Northwestern's dean saying he would be going to seminary in the fall. The dean convinced him that the world needed writers with religious convictions.

Walker received his B.S. from Northwestern in 1936; his M.S. in 1941. He was given the honorary degree of Litt.D. by John Brown U. in 1947, and an LL.D. by Taylor U. in 1962. He also received an award from Oklahoma Baptist U. in 1948, and has been listed in Marquis Who's Who in America since 1972.

Despite his decision to follow Christ, Walker did not immediately go into Christian journalism. His first job was as telegraph sports editor for the Menominee (Mich.) Herald Leader (1936). From 1937-1938 he was a copy editor for the Rosenow Company of Chicago. From 1941-1945 he was assistant to the president of Club Aluminum Products, Chicago.

Walker also served as general secretary of Herb Taylor's Christian Workers Foundation, and on the boards of numerous other Christian organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

He was an assistant professor of journalism at Wheaton College from 1941 to 1951, and served in various capacities at Scripture Press Foundation (1945-1956).

Other notable accomplishments include the launching of an International Sunday School Contest, and the introduction of prefabricated church buildings to help struggling congregations. He also introduced personality profiles to the Christian reading public.

Walker married the late Jean Browning Clements in 1937. They had five children: Gwyneth, Telford, Rob, Kent and Cherry. Walker married Barbara Melin in 1995. They have homes in Wheaton, IL and in Boca Raton, FL. He currently is Editor Emeritus of Charisma and Christian Life (a Strang Communications publication) and speaker at various Christian writers conferences. His "Robert Walker Scholarship Fund" also helps young Christians whom God has called into the ministry of Christian journalism.

Friends, family and industry acquaintances remember the pioneering journalist as a giant whose legacy will outlive his years on earth.

"He was one incredible man," said Boone, the popular entertainer whose 1970 book, A New Song, sold 2.5 million copies after Walker helped him shape his story. "There was an Old Testament quality to him, like I was talking to a modern Gideon or one of the patriarchs."

Among his many professional accolades was receiving the first Magazine Publishers Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association in 1994.

Born April 30, 1912, in Syracuse, N.Y., Walker attended a boarding school in Massachusetts and then enrolled in the University of Illinois. But after two years there he decided his football talents were better suited to a smaller school and transferred to Wheaton College.

Walker accepted Christ while at Wheaton and considered enrolling in seminary, but opted to continue studying journalism instead and enrolled in Northwestern University. After graduation, he worked at two newspapers in Michigan and for two years as a copywriter for a Chicago-based advertising agency. He then returned to Wheaton to start a journalism department and served as an associate professor there from 1941-51.

During that time, Walker responded to an invitation from a friend with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to start a campus magazine titled HIS, which would be the first of his many publishing endeavors. In 1941 he started a magazine called Sunday, which he renamed Christian Life in 1948 after acquiring Christian Life & Times from a friend. Christian Life would merge with Charisma in 1986.

To report on the then-fledgling Christian Booksellers Association in the mid-1950s, he started Christian Bookseller, which was renamed Christian Retailing after its acquisition by Strang Communications. Creation House Books followed in 1970; the company lives on as one of several imprints under the Strang book division’s flagship, Charisma House.

Walker’s vision didn’t stop with profitable enterprises. When he saw a need to help Christian writers, he started the Christian Writers Institute; when he saw a need for missions outreach, he helped missionaries and founded Christian Life Missions, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Raised in the Methodist church, Walker was present in 1942 when the National Association of Evangelicals held an organizing conference in Chicago. That brought his first exposure to Pentecostals, who stirred up controversy over whether they should even be considered part of the evangelical camp.

A few months later, Walker was invited to the Assemblies of God (AG) headquarters in Springfield, Mo., to lead a seminar on communications. For the first time he saw people speaking in tongues. The experience sparked a hunger in Walker’s heart for a closer walk with God. Still, a decade passed before he was baptized in the Holy Spirit after meeting with a Spirit-filled Presbyterian minister.

“I went through one of the most deeply spiritual, satisfying experiences wherein the Word of God, which had led to my conversion, seemed to fill me,” Walker said. “Now, here was the Word of God, the object of truth, and, on the other side of the coin, was the subject of truth, the witness and the Spirit of God with my spirit.”

Walker was known for his pioneering nature. He printed the first national cover story on Graham in 1948, withstood criticism from some evangelicals for first reporting on the AG’s Sunday school program, and broke new ground by profiling a living cartoonist at a time when Christian magazines restricted such stories to profiles of the deceased.

Despite such efforts, Walker was quick to credit others, praising the late George Otis Sr. for persuading Boone to agree to publish A New Song. And remembering the late Herbert Taylor—a prime mover in launching the National Association of Evangelicals—as one of his primary mentors.

“I would like people to think that I was sort of the chap who responded to what God wanted done,” Walker said. “I sometimes kicked, and I often blew it by taking off in the wrong direction. [God] had to bring me back.”

Walker is survived by second wife Barbara—whom he married in 1995 after the death of his first wife, Jean; five children; two stepchildren; 18 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held March 14 at Wheaton Bible Church in Illinois.

** Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent of ANS, is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. Michael's involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- Michael Ireland Media Missionary (MIMM) -- of ACT International at: Artists in Christian Testimony (ACT) International. His weblog appears at: Michael Ireland Media Missionary.