Editor’s note: Barry Creamer is president of Criswell College
Perhaps God’s greatest earthly gift to W.A. Criswell was Jack Pogue – the kind of disciple, supporter, advocate, friend and in the end, caregiver few if any would dare to imagine for their own life. I will not rehearse the stories some of you already know about the difference Dr. Criswell made in Jack’s life, or the difference Jack made in his. But I will rehearse this: Criswell College would not exist were it not for Jack Pogue. His financial commitment to the school is the reason it exists to this day.
When powerful and influential leaders – some with the college and some with other institutions – applied all of their considerable leverage to lead to the end of the college as Dr. Criswell’s legacy namesake, Jack Pogue’s incomparable force and dogged commitment to the institution won the day. In the early 2000s, I remained at Criswell College as a professor when courted by another school because Jack Pogue encouraged me with his own belief in the college and what we were doing. I became president because of Jack Pogue’s pivotal support on the search committee.
I told Jack when I first began as president that if he ever asked me to step aside, I would do it thankfully and quietly, and that he was the only individual person who had that sway. In the many conversations we had about the college at the desk he kept covered in manuscripts of W.A. Criswell sermons, he never even nodded in that direction. In fact, during blessed and challenging times, Jack constantly supported and advocated for me – including when I deserved it least.
Through his mid-80s, Jack still had the drive of the youth from Sulphur Springs, Texas, who became a real estate giant in Dallas, the determination to do exactly what God assigned him and nothing else, and the sensitivity to notice everything about the people who spoke to him. No one pulled anything over on him. But when people tried, and there were plenty who did, he might speak of what they tried to do, but he would always speak of what he liked about them – a habit he learned from Dr. Criswell, as he reminded me regularly.
Jack was 90 years old when he passed away a couple of weeks ago. He could be fierce, even curmudgeonly at times. At 90, he deserved the privilege. But the man who cared so long for Dr. Criswell and his legacy also deserved someone to care for him during the most challenging years of his own life. So God gave him Chris Lantrip, a successful entrepreneur and CEO in his own right. Over the past 11 years, Chris has spent more weekends with Jack at Dr. Criswell’s graveside, more daytime trips walking the aisles of a grocery with him, more midnights responding to a crisis of Jack’s health, home or imagination, and more hours being a colleague, friend and son to someone who would otherwise have been very much alone and lonely, than a book would be able to record, much less this little encomium.
The least I can do is acknowledge the sense of debt and gratitude I have toward both men. We each know that as they served the person God put in front of them, they were serving God himself.
Thank you, Jack, and thank you, Chris. May the Lord’s blessings be multiplied on you, and your example in us.
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