Name: Visitation for Dr. E. Frank Tupper Jr.
Start: 2020-03-05T21:00:00.000Z
End: 2020-03-06T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Pearson Funeral Home

Dr. E. Frank Tupper Jr.

Louisville - The Reverend Dr. E. Frank Tupper, Jr., 79, passed away Friday, February 28, 2020, surrounded by friends who are family and family who are friends. Dr. Tupper was a Baptist theologian who taught generations of seminary students that when it comes to the problem of evil and suffering, "God always does the most God can do." Though he spent the last three years of his life confined to a wheelchair as a quadriplegic after a fall in his home, Frank never ceased to live fully with the warmth, faith, and theology that permeated his life and the lives of those he loved.

Elgin Frank Tupper, Jr., was born January 28, 1941, in Greenwood, Mississippi, to Elgin Frank Tupper, Sr., and Frances McMinn Tupper. He attended public schools in Greenwood, graduating from Greenwood High School in 1959.

He married Betty Jean Wilkins of Houston, Mississippi. Betty passed away in 1983 following a battle with breast cancer. Frank is survived by two children, Elgin Frank Tupper III and Elizabeth Michelle Tupper Butler, his son-in-law Brandon Lacy Butler, as well as two grandchildren, Silas Tupper Butler and Betty Ann Butler, and two adult step-grandchildren, Joseph Allen Jordan and Parker Anthony Jordan. He also is survived by his sister, Martha Azalee Finch, and her husband, the Reverend Dr. Marcus D. Finch, his brother George Tupper, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Dr. Tupper was a graduate of Mississippi College, where he excelled in debate and became an advocate in the civil rights movement. He completed his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary before earning his Ph.D. at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. His studies included a year of doctoral research at the University of Munich with Wolfhart Pannenberg, one of the most influential theologians in the 20th century and the subject of Dr. Tupper's dissertation, The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Ordained to the ministry at Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville in 1967, Dr. Tupper served six years as pastor of First Baptist Church of Edmonton, Kentucky. A popular preacher, he served as interim pastor at numerous congregations in Kentucky and Mississippi, including Highland Baptist Church and Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville.

Dr. Tupper joined the theology faculty of Southern Seminary in 1973. He served as Professor of Theology until 1996 when he moved to become a founding faculty member of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity in 1997. He retired from Wake Forest Divinity School in 2016 with the title of Distinguished Professor of Divinity Emeritus. He was a longtime member of the American Academy of Religion and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. In 1995, Dr. Tupper published a groundbreaking book, A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God, which combined more than 15 years of academic research into the providence of God with the lived tragedy of losing a spouse to cancer. His book is an intimately powerful one that all should read.

Dr. Tupper was known for his unique, inimitable creativity and powerful impact in teaching and preaching. He often invoked unusual subject matter, including the gospel of country music and the rejection of "suck-and-blow" preaching of overzealous, uninspiring hucksters. The stories of his classroom teachings will persist beyond his passing. Throughout his career, Dr. Tupper fought for equality of women with men in all positions of ministry, and he advocated for inclusion of LGBTQ individuals in congregations true to God's love for all of humanity.

Frank re-encountered suffering during the night of February 12, 2017, when fell in his home alone and was unable to move. Diagnosed with a catastrophic spinal cord injury with paralysis, he battled back with his stubborn strength and the encouragement of his family to regain a quality of life with years of continued teaching, laughter, and love with his family. In addition to the devoted care of his daughter and son following his accident, Frank received loving care these past three years from Linda Heuermann, Michelle's mother-in-law, Madilyn Hoffman, and Kristina Ushyarova, without whom he could not have embraced his life fully.

Frank found the joy of his life's calling in his family, his students, his faith, and the music of Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. Rejecting all platitudes about suffering and God's "will," Frank believed that faith endured through seasons of doubt and tragedy. As he often said, when he struggled with doubt, he took those doubts to the foot of the cross and allowed Jesus to believe for him.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it.

Visitation is at Pearson's 149 Breckenridge Lane in Louisville, Kentucky, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 5th. Funeral service will be at Highland Baptist Church 1101 Cherokee Road at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 6th.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that Memorial Gifts in honor of Frank Tupper be given to Highland Baptist Church to help the church care and support those living with chronic illness and their families.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Courier-Journal from Mar. 2 to Mar. 3, 2020.

Memories and Condolences
for E. Tupper

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3 Entries

Lonny Poe

March 10, 2020

Dr. Frank Tupper

A friend sent a news clipping last week that brought news of the passing of a mentor. Dr. E. Frank Tupper was one of my professors while I was a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. Dr. Tupper's wife died in 1983. I enrolled at Southern in the fall of 1988. Our lives crossed paths at a time when his life was challenged by his personal loss and during a time when the seminary we both loved was living in the soup of the SBC turmoil. Dr. Tupper was raising two children as a widower. I think his nature and his life experience made him candid, kind, and filled him with questions. Yet, he remained deeply committed to the task of preparing others for ministry. I had the privilege of sitting under his leadership. He made me think deeply and he attached those deep thoughts to the real fabric of life/ministry. Dr. Tupper went on to serve students at The Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Our paths did not cross again.

I was saddened to read of the additional challenges he faced in the later years of his life, a fall that left him confined to a wheelchair. His impact in the classroom and in his writing is substantial. His impact is also personal. I had a paper due in his class and it was not complete. My wife and I were new parents to our first child, Salim, a baby girl that had been labeled, Failure to Thrive at every one of her monthly checkups. She was content and pleasant but not growing at the rate the growth charts deemed as Normal. The medical team started tracking a heart murmur. My wife and I were both working full time jobs, I was enrolled as a full-time student, and we had our newborn. Worried and overtaxed, pretty much the standard issue life of most seminary students, I decided to skip Dr. Tupper's class and go to the library on campus to try to finish the paper. Dr. Tupper caught me in the parking lot later in the day and told me he missed me in class. He listened as I narrated my reason and the challenges of our lives, particularly our fears related to our daughter. When I finished my narrative, he placed his hands on my shoulders and prayed over me and for our baby girl. Then he told me to finish my paper and get it to him ASAP.

In the midst of his own chaotic life filled with deadlines and heartache, he extended grace and ministry. That was his nature. It was also indicative of the nature of the seminary itself in that era. My real life experience with him and the many other wonderful servants of God at Southern prepared me for a life of ministry as much as the reading, writing and lectures. I look forward to a reunion with him on the other shore.

Alexis Belcher

Sent Flowers

Tim Lovett

March 4, 2020

It was my privilege and honor to have Frank Tupper, Jr. as my theology professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary during the time of his wife's illness and death. His teaching was not of a man who taught from a "throne of pious indifference" but from a husband and father who was who was experiencing life with the assurance that..."God always does the most God can do." As the providence of God would have it, I had the opportunity to share life with his daughter, Michelle, at a summer camp the summer before her mother died. His teachings, his life situation and his ability to live life and teach young women and men "in spite of" his wife's impending death powerfully impacted my perspective of "a self-giving God of love." Future generations will miss, but I have not missed, his deep love of family, his compassion for the misunderstood, his penchant for the scandal of Jesus, and his random (to us) rants of brilliance! I look forward to sitting around the King's table to discuss this matter further...Tim Lovett, Class of 1985.

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