Televangelist Andy Stanley is mourning the loss of his father, Charles Stanley. Charles, a former Southern Baptist Convention president and one of the nation’s foremost television and radio preachers who founded In Touch Ministries, passed away on Tuesday, April 18, In Touch Ministry confirmed, sharing, “This morning, God called our beloved pastor, Dr. Charles Stanley, home to heaven. Dr. Stanley lived a life of obedience and is now receiving the joy of his soul-seeing his Savior face-to-face. Please join us in praying for the Stanley family.”
Amid news of Charles’ passing, Stanley took to social media to pay tribute to his father, reflecting on his “final few weeks” in an emotional Instagram post. Alongside a gallery of images of himself and his father, Stanley shared that “these final few weeks with my dad have been precious beyond words.” According to Stanley, “At the end of every visit, he asked me to pray for him. Which of course I did. On my knees beside the big leather chair he was confined to for the past several months.” He went on to reveal that as he was leaving his father’s home on April 15, Charles “asked if he could pray for me. As if he knew.”
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“Then, as was his habit, he said, ‘I couldn’t be prouder of you Andy,’” Stanley recalled. “The source of a word determines its weight. Those were wonderfully weighty words. And his final words to me. I’ll miss him every day until I see him again.”
Born in Dry Fork, Virginia in 1932, according to the In Touch Ministries website, Charles was just 14 when he “received a clear call to the ministry” and began preaching. He went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Richmond in 1956 and was ordained to the ministry at Moffett Memorial Baptist Church in Danville, Virginia that same year. He later went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and earned Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Theology from Luther Rice Seminary. In 1955, Stanley married Anna Margaret Johnson, the two going on to welcome two children together, Andy and Becky.
In 1972, Stanley launched The Chapel Hour, a 30-minute program on Atlanta stations WXIA-TV 11 and WANX 46. He founded In Touch Ministries in 1977. In Touch Ministries was incorporated and began radio syndication in 1982. In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley was broadcast to over 115 million households worldwide. Stanley was inducted into the National Religious Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1988. Throughout his life, he also published 60 books, several of which became New York Times bestsellers, and served as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention for two terms during the 1980s. Stanley is survived by his children.
