Fredrick Carlson Holmgren

An entire generation of students at North Park Theological Seminary and pastors within the Evangelical Covenant Church were challenged by Fred’s passion for the Hebrew Scriptures. Students who struggled with the sometimes difficult learning process, whether in Hebrew language classes or the study of the Torah, were supported by his patience and love. But Fred’s influence went beyond North Park and the Evangelical Covenant Church. His contribution to the field of Old Testament studies was highly significant and his pioneering work in Jewish/Christian dialogue profoundly important.

Fredrick Carlson Holmgren was born April 1, 1926, in Cadillac, Michigan. He met his wife-to-be Betty when she moved to Cadillac as a teenager. They were married on June 12, 1948. Their partnership of more than 70 years ended with Betty’s death in 2019. They had two children, Mark and Margaret, and five grandchildren. Their marriage occurred about a year before Fred completed his bachelor’s degree at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After studies for both Fred and Betty at North Park, they moved to New Rochelle, New York, where Fred was a Covenant pastor and student at Union Theological Seminary.

The 1950s were a time of giants at Union. Among Fred’s teachers were James Muilenburg, Frederick C. Grant, and W. D. Davies. He received a bachelor of divinity (predecessor of the master of divinity), a master of sacred theology, and doctor of theology (summa cum laude) from Union. In 1960 Fred began what would be a nearly 40-year teaching career at North Park. Like many in the 1960s, Fred and Betty were moved by the challenges of social justice and the scourge of racism in this country. This brought Fred in 1965 to Selma, Alabama, to march with Dr. Martin Luther King in the famous march from Selma to Montgomery. Among the persons participating in the march was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a noted Jewish writer and thinker. Moved by his presence, Fred began reading Heschel’s work when he returned home. His appreciation for Heschel led to a lifelong interest in Jews and Judaism and in Jewish/Christian dialogue.

In 1979 he published The God Who Cares: A Christian Looks at Judaism. The 1970s were a time of genuine reckoning for Jews and Christians. The so-called “Holocaust Theologians” were laying bare the Christian contributions (both physical and theological) to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews by the Nazis. Within both the Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant worlds, this painful reckoning was far advanced. Within evangelicalism, however, high level dialogue was just beginning and would continue in fits and starts for decades. Fred’s book was one of the first from a scholar in an evangelical school to speak honestly and compassionately about Jews and Judaism. Although Fred faced unjust criticism within the Christian community, the book was, and is, highly regarded by Jews. He would also collaborate with Rabbi Hermann Schaalman in 1995 in Preaching Biblical Texts: Expositions by Jewish and Christian Scholars. Many of his scholarly and more popular articles over the decades confronted the struggles of Christian preachers and teachers to speak knowledgably and justly of Jews and Judaism. Fred’s many academic and pastoral contributions focused on the reading and interpreting of the Hebrew Scriptures. Especially significant was his editorship of the multi-volume International Theological Commentary (28 volumes), to which he contributed a volume (on Ezra and Nehemiah). He continued to publish articles in academic journals and do original research into his 80s.

In 1997 Fred was honored with a festschrift (a book of essays by students and friends of a scholar, often upon their retirement). Scholars from around the United States and Europe, especially Germany, honored Fred by their contributions. His former students Bradley J. Bergfalk and Paul E. Koptak were its editors. When the Brandel Library at North Park was built, friends raised money to name one of the study spaces in honor of both Fred and Betty.

Fred was not the only one who made a contribution to the school. Betty had served as an administrative assistant to the academic deans of North Park University for many years. For a decade after his retirement Fred and Betty would spend three months every year in Freiburg, Germany, where Fred continued his research and writing on behalf of scholars, pastors, and students and consulted with many German colleagues, especially Professor Peter Fiedler.

In the last years of his life Fred, ever the learner, began taking piano lessons. He relished phone calls, notes, and emails from his many friends and former students. Rev. Douglas Johnson shared with me part of his last email with Fred. They had been discussing music (among other things), and Fred replied that a song by German pianist and vocalist Siegfried Feitz, based on a poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was “one of the best. It really touched my heart. So simple, a piano, an appealing singer and beautiful lyrics which bring comfort in a troubled world.” It is a fitting epitaph to a life well lived in service of God and God’s people.

Surrounded by God’s silent faithful, angels,
We wait expectantly for what may be.
God is with us from evening until morning,
And will remain through all eternity.

Sometimes our hearts are frightened by past mem’ry
Sometimes the days are long and full of care.
But Lord, you give us souls which cannot falter.
Salvation is our hope, you’ll bring us there.

Lord, when you send the cup of tears and sorrow.
It is so full we often wonder why,
To take the cup you offer with thanksgiving
Is living in the grace, for which you died.

When silent death comes knocking on our doorstep,
Then let us hear the full triumphant sound.
The world we cannot see breaks through earth’s bounds.
And all your children sing the glorious song.

Peace be to the memory of God’s faithful servant Fred Holmgren. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.