Rise in Glory: Malcolm Boyd

From The Episcopal News, Diocese of Los Angeles

The Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd — whose human-rights advocacy shaped most of his 30 books including the 1965 best-seller Are You Running With Me, Jesus? — died Feb. 27 while in private hospice care in Los Angeles. Severe complications of pneumonia caused Boyd’s death at age 91, said his life partner, Mark Thompson.

Boyd was ordained 60 years ago in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, which he served since 1996 as writer-in-residence. Bishop F. Eric Bloy made Boyd, then age 31, a deacon in 1954 and a priest the next year. Ordination followed Boyd’s work in television’s early years as a production partner of Hollywood icon Mary Pickford.

“Malcolm lives on in our hearts and minds through the wise words and courageous example he has shared with us through the years,” said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the six-county Diocese of Los Angeles. “We pray in thanksgiving for Malcolm’s life and ministry, for his tireless advocacy for civil rights, and for his faithful devotion to Jesus, who now welcomes him to eternal life and comforts us in our sense of loss.”

A eucharistic celebration of Boyd’s life will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, 840 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, where he also conducted spiritual direction and mentoring with several clergy and lay persons. In these years he completed the most recent of the 30 books that he wrote and six that he edited in addition to writing numerous columns, essays, sermons, and prayers after being named diocesan writer-in-residence by Bishop Frederick H. Borsch.

A full obituary of Canon Boyd is available here.

Malcolm Boyd at 90 by TheLivingChurchdocs

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