Bruce Robbins
The Rev. Dr. Bruce W. Robbins attended the special called General Conference in St. Louis, Mo., on Feb. 24, 2019. (Photo by Michelle Hargrave/Facebook)
A United Methodist Insight Special
The Rev. Dr. Bruce Robbins, who died Aug. 3, 2024, after nearly a decade battling multiple myeloma, shared with The United Methodist Church a global vision of Christian compassion that permeated throughout the church from local congregations to scholarly discussions and international assemblies.
Dr. Robbins served as the last top executive of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns as an independent body before ecumenical and interfaith relations were moved to the Council of Bishops. During his tenure as general secretary he represented United Methodists in ecumenical arenas such as the World Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA from an office at 475 Riverside Drive, then known as "the God Box" in New York City for its multiple denominational offices.
Scholarly and self-effacing, Dr. Robbins was also passionate in preaching and compassionate in service to others – traits that his adult children, Adam and Casey Robbins, attributed to his experience of global Christianity from an early age.
"He was a studious and intellectually curious person, a teacher, a passionate preacher," said his son. "He liked to teach and show us religious history. He took us to museums, on service trips, to Honduras." He added that his father frequently took the family to places and events "church-related or academic-related."
According to an obituary provided by his family, Bruce Warren Robbins was born April 29, 1951, to William A. Robbins, a Methodist minister, and Doris Robbins, a nurse. Together with his parents and older sister Betsey, Bruce moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., upstate to New Hartford, N.Y., where he spent his childhood.l
Exchange student
In his junior year of high school, he participated in a three-month student exchange in Colombia. The next year as a senior, he represented his high school at the Model UN program, where students had opportunities to meet world leaders.
Dr. Robbins went on to Oberlin College, where his values were shaped by the spirit of activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with its anti-war marches and the shooting of four students May 4, 1970, at Kent State University. A Rockefeller Fellowship sustained him through two years at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Subsequently he arranged an intern year to learn more about international Christianity.
Dr. Robbins served as staff for the fifth World Council of Churches Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya in 1975, then traveled to India where he worked with the Brothers of Charity, the male counterpart of the Sisters of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, who was canonized in 2016 as Saint Teresa of Calcutta by the Roman Catholic Church. Of his time with Mother Teresa and the Brothers of Charity's House of the Dying Destitutes, Dr. Robbins reflected in 1997, "My debt to Mother Teresa is so great that I want to share with others how she changed my life and set my course in ministry in The United Methodist Church."
His daughter, Casey Robbins, said her father's experience in India fashioned his ability to "honor the vulnerable – to put your heart out there with those who are suffering." She recalled one of her fondest memories from her father's pastorate in East Barnard, Vermont, was the time his children's message involved handing out mustard seeds.
"He planted seeds with us then," she said.
Her brother Adam Robbins concurred, noting that his father's experiences and encouragement prompted him as a young man to spend time with the UMC in the Philippines.
"He brought the ability to understand where people are coming from, to put yourself in their situations experiencing violence and hunger," Adam said. "I'm quite thankful for what his encouragement to go to the Philippines gave me."
Pastor and chaplain
Dr. Robbins served several churches as a young pastor in upstate New York and Vermont. While associate pastor of Montpelier UMC he met Carol Braswell, to whom he was married for 29 years. In 1980 he served as a chaplain to the athletes at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.
In 1986 Dr. Robbins became associate general secretary and then general secretary of the United Methodist General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. While there he became one of the first churchwide leaders to speak publicly in favor of LGBTQ inclusion in the church, including marriage and ordination. He led the UMC's effort to create a Service of Reconciliation with the Historic Black Church. He also led key ecumenical and interreligious dialogues such as the Jewish-Christian Dialogue, which resulted in a churchwide resource on Jewish-Christian relationship.
As the UMC's leading ecumenist, Dr. Robbins' ministry required extensive travel, something that his adult children Adam, an investment adviser, and Casey, an editor, noted was both difficult and beneficial for their family.
"Yes, his travel was tricky, but we traveled with him a lot," Adam told United Methodist Insight in a telephone interview. "As a child, though, my perception was that his travel was really powerful. I understand the world better through seeing it and being part of it."
According to the family's obituary, "Activism infused Bruce’s work as a young pastor and community leader. He played the trombone and sang in the choir of Bread and Puppet Circus, a Vermont-based activist circus, which, in the early 1980s focused on conflict in Central America and spoke out against nuclear power in the Northeast. Understanding more deeply the roots of Central American conflict became the focus of his doctoral research at Southern Methodist University."
After completing the 12-year limit on his tenure as a general secretary, Dr. Robbins served as senior pastor of historic Hennepin Avenue UMC in Minneapolis from 2005 to 2013. He continued his work on unity in Minnesota, becoming active in Downtown Clergy, a group of Jewish, Muslim and Christian faith leaders. He also championed Hennepin's participation in the LGBTQ-advocacy organization, Reconciling Ministries Network.
Active in the arts
After retiring in 2013, he remained active in the arts, serving as a docent at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). He also completed the Camino de Santiago, a historic pilgrimage in Spain, in full after his retirement.
"As Bruce’s world was diminished by multiple myeloma and Alzheimer’s, Hennepin Avenue Church and MIA remained key bases where he continued to teach and share with others his search for wonder," said the family's obituary.
Despite suffering multiple myeloma and cognitive decline from Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Robbins traveled to Europe for 10 days in March 2024 accompanied by his adult offspring. They visited friends he had met at the World Council of Churches Assembly in Nairobi, nearly 50 years ago.
He is survived by his children, Adam and Casey, his sister, Betsey, and his grandchildren, Hannah and Benjamin. He will be buried in East Barnard, Vt., where he was pastor of a "beloved community," his children said.
A memorial service will be held at 1:00 p.m. Sept. 21, 2024, at Hennepin Avenue UMC in Minneapolis. Messages of condolence can be shared via email with Rev. Robbins' children at kathryncaseyrobbins@gmail.com and adambrobbins@live.com, or by mail to Adam Robbins, 285 W. 110th St., Apt. 4H, New York, NY 10026.
Memorial gifts are preferred to the Richard Ormsby School in Sierra Leone, a project of OC Ministries.
Adam Robbins said his father's life and worldwide ministry were foreshadowed in this quote from his application to Union Theological Seminary:
“One day I saw a notice concerning a 'trial year in seminary' scholarship. Suddenly all my old thoughts and interests concerning the church came rushing back, and I wondered what my grounds had been for so quickly rejecting the ministry. I attempted to recall concrete objections to the ministry which I had previously dealt with. 'Ministry' had been a narrowly defined word: the pastor of a church giving sermons, conducting the church rituals, and visiting hospitals. The realization struck me that this definition was exclusive and that I still quite probably knew only a small fraction of what the ministry could entail."
Cynthia B. Astle has reported on The United Methodist Church at all levels since 1988. She serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, an online news-and-views journal which she founded in 2011.