EDS at Union joins GAIA Global Health and friends and family across The Episcopal Church in mourning the passing of the Very Rev. Dr. William Rankin. Dr. Rankin served as dean of Episcopal Divinity School from 1993-1998 and was the author of two books, “The Nuclear Arms Race: Countdown to Disaster” and “Confidentiality and Clergy: Churches, Ethics and the Law.” He died peacefully and surrounded by family on the morning of Friday, July 22. A memorial service is being planned for Fall.
Dean Kelly Brown Douglas noted, “Dr. Rankin was a man of profound kindness and deep moral imagination, one whose work and witness will live on through both EDS at Union and the organization he founded in 2000, GAIA Global Health. I had the privilege of speaking with him on several occasions during my tenure and learned from his wisdom. His legacy as Dean of EDS will remain a north star for this institution.”
In an emailed announcement, retired Bishop Peter Selby ’66 added, “And so passes from among us one of the most remarkable of friends and colleagues, a huge blessing in his time to our seminary, latterly to a multitude of Malawians in need of healthcare, to a church in need of critical friends and to the promised Kingdom. There passes also a joyful, wise, witty and empathetic human being, for whom friendship was just his natural mode.”