I want you to look at this face again.
Yes, Will Campbell was a Civil Rights leader, a Baptist preacher, a Southern red-neck farmer, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a hell-raiser (in the sense of actually elevating any poor damned s.o.b. he ran into), and a very good man.
But I'm amazed at what this brief obit doesn't say: he was also an anti-abortion advocate for whom the adjective "pro-life" had very big dimensions; and he was not so much an activist as a minister --- a "man who ministered" ---who had a genius for friendship.
I had the privilege of sharing the back seat with him on a long car ride from a Kansas City Right to Life meeting. He got to passing a paper bag with a bottle of George Dickel back and forth amongst us (the driver didn't imbibe) and translating Scriptures from Greek "from the air," so to speak, sharing hilarious stories sacred and profane.
He'd counseled, lovingly cudgeled and prayed with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dick Gregory, Jules Feiffer and Studs Terkel; he had friends who were red as the Russian flag and black as Bayard Rustin, and white, Anglo-Tennessee and Southern Partisan to the highest possible distillation. He ministered to members of the Ku Klux Klan and visited Martin Luther King's murderer, James Earl Ray, in prison.
That made many civil-rightsers, black and white, turn away from him. He also spoke out frequently against abortion to anyone who would listen to him, at which time many on the stopped listening; but some didn't.
Being "correct" in other people's eyes meant nothing to him; but the person in front of him meant everything. And why? Because he was a Christian and a pastor of souls.
He wrote about 2 dozen books, all of which are priceless, even though some of them are down to $0.01, used, at Amazon.com
A man of tough leathery mercy and personal integrity bordering on obstinacy (much like Jesus Christ Our Lord).
May he regale the choirs of Archangels; may his ardent intercessions aid us here below.