Feb. 26, 1953-March 11, 2014
He practiced what he preached.
Keith Roderick was no ordinary preacher.
On the one hand, he served as a priest in Episcopalian parishes throughout central and southern Illinois, low-key enough that his name rarely appeared in local media outside announcements of weddings and funerals he oversaw. He had six children, ranging from a son on the cusp of 40 to an adopted daughter still in grade school when he died of a heart attack in his sleep. He was provost of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Springfield at the time.
On the other hand, Roderick put himself in harm’s way in such faraway places as Kosovo, Lebanon and Syria. Danger was often near and help far away, and he was detained more than once by foreign authorities who didn’t appreciate his life’s mission: helping religious minorities abroad, particularly Christians in Islamic nations.
“He kind of had a double life, but in a good way,” recalls his widow, Mary Beth Roderick. “He put himself in a lot of danger. He was sort of like James Bond, but without the women.”
Mary Beth recalls her husband taking trips to the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and other embattled places to gather information on religious persecution in hopes of building support for religious freedom. He was published in the Wall Street Journal, urging western governments and churches to take stronger stands against religious oppression. He brought food and medical supplies to Kosovo under the protection of United Nations forces that guarded his group against local troops who made throat-slitting signs with their fingers as he passed by.
Roderick’s widow says she is only now discovering some of his exploits as she goes through boxes of his papers. He never told her about the time he drove through southern Lebanon under an assumed name, following a truck that was supposed to make sure the road was clear of mines in the wake of the Lebanese army withdrawing and Hezbollah moving in. He stopped at a village where a Hezbollah leader lived to speak with Christians. Mary Beth believes he didn’t tell her about the trip because he didn’t want her to worry, although she worried plenty nonetheless.
“There were a lot of experiences like that,” Mary Beth says. “He was able to be on the ground and be where he shouldn’t be going and where other people weren’t going.”
Roderick’s fight against oppression began in the 1980s in the Soviet Union, where he once spoke at a human rights conference in Moscow organized by Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear physicist turned dissident who won a Nobel Peace Prize. Over the years, Roderick was interrogated by the KGB, the Mossad and the Egyptian secret police for various things, his widow says, and locals in Macomb would joke about CIA links when he was assigned to a parish there.
“He met with presidents, prime ministers and royalty,” Mary Beth says. “On the flip side, he also met with prisoners and refugees. He regularly had death threats against him and threats from people trying to get him fired.”
He maintained sufficient relations with authorities that Hosni Mubarak once called from Egypt. In 1993, Roderick testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, telling congressmen that Christians in some Islamic nations weren’t allowed to worship or travel. Qatar and Saudi Arabia barred the construction of churches while churches in Egypt were being closed by the government for suspect building code violations, he testified. In Sudan, he said, at least one million non-Muslims were displaced by war, with many living in desert camps and the largest Islamic relief agency denying food unless refugees converted to Islam. And Christians in Muslim countries feared prosecution under blasphemy laws.
“There are also problems related to ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence,” Roderick testified. “The radical supporters of Islamization increasingly view Christians as the main barrier to accomplishing their goals.”
He wasn’t afraid to buck authority within his own church. In 2006, he stood with demonstrators outside the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to protest the appearance of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who had been invited to speak by Episcopalian bishops. Protestors, many from Iran, raged against human rights abuses while Khatami was in office. Roderick, who had called for church officials to allow critics of the Iranian government to appear alongside Khatami, held a sign reading “Shame On You, National Cathedral” while wearing his clerical collar.
“As an Episcopalian, I am very embarrassed and I apologize to everyone here who has lost loved ones in struggling for freedom and democracy in their homeland,” Roderick told a Christian Post reporter. “And that is why it is more comfortable for me to be over here. I think I am the only collar over here. There are a lot over there.”
Despite his outspokenness in public, he was a quiet man, his widow says, so unassuming that you would never guess he organized a 2004 demonstration outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., that lasted for months, with 100 or more protestors gathering each day to draw attention to genocide. More than 50 people were arrested, including at least five members of Congress and celebrities who included Dick Gregory, Danny Glover and Ben Cohen, a founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.
He was optimistic yet realistic, and his passion showed through at a 2012 conference in Mt. Prospect, where he urged attendees to march on Washington and said that Christians abroad were fighting for their existence.
“This is the point that marks the future,” he said. “I’ve been an advocate for almost 30 years. And the existential threat today is as great as it has ever been in that time period. … It is our responsibility to make the effort, to make this a movement that leads to glory and not allow it to diminish into despair.”
Born in Springfield, Roderick graduated from high school in the Rockford area, then enlisted in the Illinois Air National Guard before becoming a reservist in the Navy. His widow recalls that he was given an unexpected honorable discharge from the reserves when his commanding officer learned that he was attending seminary – a seminarian wasn’t allowed to serve unless enrolled in a reserve chaplaincy program. In 1998, he was appointed dean at Spoon River College in Macomb, where he taught world religions and philosophy.
More than 500 people paid respects at visitation services, and pews were full for his funeral at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Springfield. His headstone at Oak Ridge Cemetery is inscribed, “Founding Father International Human Rights Movement” and also includes an excerpt from a speech he gave at a public gathering in Macomb three days after terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“If we are to be strong, we must be good.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
