The Rev. Richard Lee Gelwick, Th.D., died on June 29, 2014. He was born on March 9, 1931, in Bristow, Okla., the son of Allen Garrett Gelwick and Lenora Foster Gelwick.

Gelwick graduated from Southern Methodist University, B.A. 1952; Yale University Divinity School, M.Div. 1956; and the Pacific School of Religion, Th.D. 1965. Dr. Gelwick was ordained as a minister in 1957.

In 1955, he married his wife of 59 years, Dr. Beverly Prosser Gelwick. He is survived by Beverly, his brother Allen Garrett Gelwick Jr., and the families of his two children, Jennifer Lee Gelwick- Luecke and Allen Morrison Gelwick, including six grandchildren. Gelwick and his family were avid sailors, enjoying their home in Cundy’s Harbor, Harpswell, Maine.

He was chaplain at Washington and Lee University, Oberlin College, and the University of California, Berkeley. Gelwick taught in the Religion Department of Chapman College and later became chair of the Religion and Philosophy Department at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. He was visiting professor at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, Union Theological Seminary, the University of Dayton and Bowdoin College. He later became Professor and Chair of Medical Humanities and Behavioral Medicine for the College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of New England, and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1998. Gelwick continued to teach as an adjunct professor in theology at Bangor Theological Seminary. He addressed the dilemma of combining modern medical science with religious values and human needs.

He was actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement. Gelwick’s life work was devoted to ways of incorporating Christian faith with the science of the modern world. The thought of Michael Polanyi, an eminent physical chemist and philosopher, became central to Gelwick’s scholarship, and he wrote two books on Polanyi’s thought, “Credere Aude” (1965) and “The Way of Discovery” (1977). He also led in developing an international scholarly organization, the Polanyi Society, and its journal, Tradition and Discovery.

Gelwick chaired the Religion and Ethics in Health Care Group and the Academic Study and Teaching of Religion within the American Academy of Religion. His faith and intellectual life centered on the challenge posed by the rise of moral skepticism in higher education and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Gelwick sought to restore the importance compassionate human values in our dangerous modern world, writing, “If there is nothing to trust, to believe in, how can we solve differences without violence? The fate of the earth is more dependent upon our beliefs than our technology.”

In March 2014, the Hobby Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston honored Gelwick with a yearly lecture series on Ethics and Public Policy in his name. At the time of his death, he was writing two books. The first was titled “A Clue toward Knowing Truth and God: Polanyi’s ‘Forms of Atheism’.” The second, a children’s book, was inspired by the question posed by his grandchildren when young, “What is God?” His answer was, “God is love.”

A celebration of Dr. Gelwick’s life will be held at on July 11, 2014, at 7 p.m. in the Community Hall of the Cundy’s Harbor Volunteer Fire Department. A memorial service will be held on July 12 at 11 a.m. at the First Parish Church in Brunswick, Maine. In lieu of flowers, please consider charitable donations to the Polanyi Society (Charles Lowney, treasurer, Department of Philosophy, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA 24450), the Cundy’s Harbor Volunteer Fire Department (Burr Taylor, 45 Taylor Road, Harpswell, ME 04079), or the First Parish Church (9 Cleaveland St., Brunswick, ME 04011).

For the full obituary, visit www.directcremationofmaine.com.