TIM LAHAYE Biography - Religious Figures & Icons

 
 

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TIM LAHAYE

Name: Tim LaHaye                                                                   
Born: 27 April 1926 Detroit, Michigan                                               
                                                                                   
Timothy F. LaHaye (b. April 27, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American           
evangelical Christian minister, author, and speaker. He is best-known for the       
Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction, which he co-wrote with Jerry B.         
Jenkins. He has written over 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction. Time           
magazine named LaHaye one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America and   
in the summer of 2001 the Evangelical Studies Bulletin named him the most           
influential Christian leader of the preceding quarter century.                     
                                                                                   
LaHaye's mother was the former Margaret Palmer. and his father, Frank LaHaye,       
was a Ford auto worker. He died of a heart attack in 1936 and his death had a       
significant influence on LaHaye, just nine years old at the time. He had been       
inconsolable until the minister at the funeral said "This is not the end of         
Frank LaHaye; because he accepted Jesus, the day will come when the Lord will       
shout from heaven and descend, and the dead in Christ will rise first and then     
we'll be caught up together to meet him in the air." LaHaye later said that,       
upon hearing those remarks, "all of a sudden, there was hope in my heart I'd see   
my father again."                                                                   
                                                                                   
LaHaye enlisted in the Air Force in 1944 at the age of 17, after finishing night   
school. He and served in Europe as a machine gunner aboard a bomber.               
                                                                                   
LaHaye received a B.A. from Bob Jones University in 1950. He also holds a Doctor   
of Ministry degree from Western Seminary. In 1958, the LaHaye family moved to       
San Diego, California, where he became pastor of the Scott Memorial Baptist         
Church (since renamed "Shadow Mountain Community Church") in El Cajon, serving     
there for almost 25 years. In 1971 he founded the San Diego Christian College.