Tim Keller gives update on cancer fight, asks for ongoing prayers

By Brandon Showalter, Opinion writer and social commentator Friday, August 28, 2020

Author and Pastor Tim Keller said he's making progress in his fight against cancer, telling his social media followers that this health situation has caused him to seek God and depend on Him.

In a Twitter thread posted Friday, Keller thanked his friends for their prayers and support, noting that as of yesterday he has finished his sixth round of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer.

"[W]hile there are indeed some side effects, my doctor says I’m tolerating the treatment very well. I have not been seriously debilitated and I can still do some work and ministry," Keller shared.

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"Yesterday we also met with my oncologist to go over the scans taken on Monday to assess the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. The report is very encouraging. There has been shrinkage of the tumors and so we are continuing the chemo in order to diminish the cancer further."

He added: "Our situation has driven us to seek God’s face as never before. He is giving us more of his sensed presence, more freedom from our besetting sins, more dependence on his Word — things that we had sought for years, but only under these circumstances are we finding them."

Keller is asking for continued prayers for the treatment to be effective with minimal side effects.

The now-retired pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and co-founder of The Gospel Coalition is also a survivor of thyroid cancer, which he had in 2002.

His latest book, Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference, features contributions of several authors and focuses on how Christians ought to engage the fractured world around them.

Keller told The Christian Post in an interview earlier this year that he was not sure of what God is saying to the church through COVID-19, but believes that the real test for Christians “will come several months down the road when presented with opportunities to witness that we can’t even envision just yet.”

Keller stressed that many — both secularists and Christians — have a flawed view of American history. Secularists do not want to admit the positive contributions Christianity has had on society whereas conservative Christians tend to think too rosily about the past in light of evils and injustices such as slavery and segregation, he said.

However, “[m]odern Christians feel like we had a Christian society in the past,” he elaborated.

“It was influenced by Christianity, but was it really that Christian? We had slavery, segregation, we mistreated people — as a society we’ve done a lot of things wrong. Modern conservative evangelicals don’t want to admit how flawed our past American society had been.”