Baptist historian Robert Handy dies at 90

WEST CALDWELL, N.J. — Robert Handy, who studied under legendary Christian scholars like Paul Tillich before becoming a prominent Baptist historian in his own right, died at a retirement community in West Caldwell, N.J., Jan. 8. He was 90.

Handy was a professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary — the ecumenical Protestant graduate school in New York — from 1950 until 1986. During that time he taught generations of pastors, missionaries, chaplains and other ministers and published works on church history and American religion that scholars still consider standards in the field. He was particularly known for his work on church-state relations in the United States.

Handy was born Jan. 30, 1918, in Rockville, Conn. He graduated from Brown University and earned a divinity degree from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. He later earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago Divinity School as a way of combining his interests in local-church ministry and history.