Commentary: My father helped decode Biblical mysteries

Re. “Gerald A. Larue dies at 98; former minister debunked biblical stories,” Sept. 24: On Sept. 17, my father, Dr. Gerald A. Larue, passed away at Hoag Hospital, surrounded by family. At 98 years old, his passing marked the end of a long life filled with scholarly academic and social pursuits.

I was always interested in the controversy in my father’s life. How as a dedicated minister, with pastorates in Canada and California, and a bachelor’s and doctoral degree in religious studies, he had become a spokesman for the “atheist” secular humanist movement, eventually named the Humanist of the Year in 1989. How early on he embraced the “death with dignity” movement and became the founding president of the Hemlock Society. How he argued that people using the Bible to support arguments against homosexuality, were in fact selectively choosing their arguments, because the Bible also said equally negative things about divorce, women’s access to the church and other issues that are now socially acceptable. How he argued that the media would run religious stories without any fact checking that might be done for any other type of media story. These stories of controversy fascinated me.

But as a person, he was not focused on controversy at all. He pursued a life as a minister, he told me, because he wanted to help people. He saw the church as an excellent means to reach out. He was interested in death and dying because he had lectured on the subject for his classes at USC, and students had told him of personal experiences with death and dying. There he saw the link between what he was teaching, near Eastern and Biblical history and current cultural mores.

His focus was not controversy, but helping people deal with their emotions and educating them to better understand their beliefs. His work “debunking” religious claims (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Religion, which he co-founded), was not aimed at dashing people’s religious beliefs, but ensuring that what they believed in was real and not the work of charlatans. Similarly, his heart went out to minorities, many of whom were being treated poorly based on what he believed was mis-interpretation or selective interpretation of Biblical passages. His real focus was on the education of people, with the goal of enriching their lives. It was this focus on helping people attain wisdom that made him a popular professor at USC, where he received several teaching awards, a Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award and the Leibovitz Award.

I was very close to my father and got to see him every day for the past seven years or so, because he lived next door to us in the Port streets in Newport Beach. Most every day, he and I would go to the local pool, and he would do water aerobics while I swam laps, and people at the pool would cheer him on. Later, in the evening, we would exercise, watch MSNBC together and complain about politics. Periodically, the grand-kids would troop in and demand cookies, to use the exercise machines, or to argue politics.

All this he loved. He had a devoted and loving family, including sons Gerald Alexander Larue Jr. (deceased), me, grandsons Gerald Alexander Larue III (deceased), Gerald Alexander Larue IV, and grand-daughter Susan Larue. His extended family includes daughter-in-laws Lisa Larue and Susan Rempel, step-grandchildren Catherine and Jordan Black, and former wives Lois Larue (deceased) and Emily Perkins.

DAVE LARUE lives in Newport Beach.