My father, Donald Dayton, died May 2, 2020. I am writing this page to collect resources about his death. This page, at least for a while, will be a living document as more tributes are written.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois while his dad was a student at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, where my dad later went on to teach. He graduated from Houghton College (BA), Yale Divinity School (BD), the University of Kentucky (MLIS), and The University of Chicago (PhD). He also studied at Columbia University, Asbury Theological Seminary, and many other places.
He taught at North Park Seminary, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Drew Seminary, and Azusa Pacific University with permanent appointments. He also taught at Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos (ISEDET, in Buenos Aires in Argentina)
We held a memorial service for him via Zoom. Here it is.
Several tributes have been written about him:
- His student, Christian Collins Winn, wrote this at Christianity Today. “Donald Dayton: The Heart Makes the Theologian.”
- The Wesleyan Church, my dad’s home denomination, wrote this in tribute. In the memorial, the previous head of the Wesleyan Church, Jo Anne Lyon, spoke about a 2016 General Convention in which he said he finally felt at home.
- Northern Seminary, where he taught when it was Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote a tribute, calling him “One of Northern’s Finest.”
- The Society of Pentecostal Studies, of which he was a former head, sent an email.
- Messiah College professor John Fea wrote about him on his blog.
- His student, Scott Kisker, wrote a tribute in the new Wesleyan magazine Firebrand.
In addition, there have been some great Twitter threads. I have collected them in this thread
Stories about my father who died this weekend. https://t.co/iyyVRqJoQs
— Soren Dayton (@sorendayton) May 5, 2020
The best are:
From Anthea Butler, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania:
So I’m going to tell two stories about Donald Dayton, who in his own disheveled, gruff way impacted the lives and scholarship of many “riff-raff” that he influenced and trained. (thread)
— ProfB (@AntheaButler) May 3, 2020
From John Schmalzbauer, a professor at Missouri State
RIP, historian Donald Dayton, creative contrarian in religion and politics. https://t.co/v1Ceeso4v3
— John Schmalzbauer (@OzarksWatcher) May 13, 2020