Church pastor and author Voddie Baucham, Jr. is being remembered as a bold preacher and a soft-hearted soul who cared about the lost.
Baucham’s death from a medical emergency was announced online Thursday by his ministry, Founders Ministries. He was 56.
Born in Los Angeles to a single mother, he rose to prominence as a church pastor before become dean of theology at African Christian University in Zambia, according to The Christian Post. A prominent figure in the Reformed movement, God’s divine plan for the family was a frequent topic in Baucham’s sermons. A husband and a father of nine children, his book Family Driven Faith urges parents to take on a primary role in raising their children in the Christian faith.
Remembering his friend, theologian Owen Strachan wrote on X that Baucham was a bold preacher behind the pulpit but also a warm and kind man. “Voddie was a Reformed preacher who loved the truth. But note what you see in his sermon videos: tears. He had a soft heart,” Strachan wrote.
Strachan also shared a YouTube link to Baucham preaching a sermon on the gospel in 2022. The title of the message is “Gospel Clarity.” “This is how I will forever remember Voddie: tears running down his cheeks,” Strachan shared.
Baucham’s final book, Fault Lines, warned the Church to reject the social justice movement and its secular, humanistic roots. It became a best-seller in 2021. "We are living in a time, in an era when there are people who are desperately wicked, and in desperate need of repentance and faith, in desperate need of the Gospel. And we're being told that the wickedness is, in fact, the Gospel," Baucham, in a 2024 interview, told The Christian Post,
