Ray was a colleague and friend, who I now realize had become a father figure to me.

My first vivid impression of Raymond Cottrell came when he gave a chapel talk at Southern Adventist University in 1965; I was a sophomore. As I recall that talk, he happened to mention that Jupiter had some 8 moons (we now know of 16), and that was contrary to Ellen White's visionary reference to Jupiter's 4 moons. As a church we've largely worked through such discrepancies now, but in 1965 that discussion was exceptional, and I sensed in Elder Cottrell an unusually perceptive, open mind.

A decade and a half later in 1979, as pastor of the North Hills Church (Claremont, Calif.), I invited Ray to preach. Then, a couple of years later in the early 80's we began a close working and personal relationship. We led out in 3 significant projects: the Association of Adventist Forums Committee on Church Structure, the founding of Southeastern California Conference's Gender Inclusiveness Task Force, and the founding of Adventist Today.

I knew all along that I was working with a great man, but only in the last couple of months have I come to realize Ray's personal eminence. As a father and husband, as well as churchman and scholar, Raymond was exemplary. But further, Ray's intellectual integrity and spiritual serenity were the bedrock of his personal commitment to others and his courageous theological leadership in his church. Truly great persons need not be physically imposing nor vocally loud, and Ray was neither. Ray was a quiet giant.

Ray was so honest and secure that he never developed the art of subtle self-promotion, a skill that many of us acquire quite naturally. He was no church functionary; he marched to the beat of his own Adventist Christian drum. That's why a leader at a denominational press recently said he could not possibly publish a candid biography of Ray, but he eagerly anticipated Adventist Today's biography that is well underway.

Throughout his life Ray was a remarkable thought leader in our denomination. It is usual to be productive in one's prime years, but consider Ray's accomplishments both early and late in his long career. In his 30s, teaching Bible at PUC, he became one of the first Adventist theologians to join a scholarly religious society; and simultaneously, he cofounded the first Adventist Biblical research fellowship, an association that evolved into the current Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference. After formal retirement, in his 70s, Ray advocated the need for a judicial branch of church governance. In his 80s he argued for relative autonomy for the General Conference Divisions in our increasingly diverse world church. And then, just last year, he courageously called for progress beyond our dated sanctuary doctrine.

Was Ray right in all these progressive positions? I suggest that question misses the larger issue. The point is that Ray epitomized the spirit of Adventism and its fearless pioneers in conscientiously advocating what he saw as vital and true. He was not a political leader with his wetted finger to the wind, but neither was he oblivious to the changing needs of his denomination--as seen in his calculated decision to long withhold from publication his 900-page study of Daniel, because he sensed it might unduly disturb people. Ray estimated that he wrote over 10,000 pages of unpublished manuscripts.

Given Ray's prodigious work, you'd think maybe he neglected his children. His son Richard tells of his dad often taking the family to the fine museums and gardens of Washington DC. And Richard chuckled as he reminisced about his dad in a jungle helmet, piloting a motorboat ahead of himself and fellow skiers on Chesapeake Bay.

Peggy was very close to her father through the years. And particularly during the last 5 years, Raymond was especially indebted to Peggy for moving into the family residence to care for her aging parents. Ray often mentioned to me that he and his increasingly ill wife, Elizabeth, couldn't have survived without Peggy's aid.

The Cottrell home, in some respects, may not have been your ideal Adventist home, but Ray persevered, never complaining. The closest he came to that was once when he explained why he couldn't financially help with Adventist Today--he was spending tens of thousands of dollars for the special needs of a relative he and Elizabeth had taken into their home.

With Ray, there was no moral gap between the public person and the private individual. A few days before his death I was speaking with Peggy, and I queried: "My, Peggy, Isn't there anything bad that your father ever did?" She smiled, answering, "Not really. Oh, he'd get silent when he was put out by something." Then she recalled: "Yes, there was one thing he did that was wrong. Years go our family was in Boston. We were navigating those narrow streets, trying to find the North Church. Finally, my desperate father looked both ways and charged the wrong direction down a one-way street!"

Ray's intellectual brilliance was evident very early. While barely a teenager he studied Latin, translating Caesar's Gaelic Wars into four notebooks as a pastime. Then a couple of years later at La Sierra Academy, when his brother needed an instructor for his second year of Latin, Ray was invited to teach. Ray served many years on the denomination's Daniel committee, writing his magnum opus on that book, and memorizing the entire book in its original Hebrew. Then, just a few months ago, when Ray needed to stay in bed later than usual in the morning, he copied Hebrews 11 on flash cards -memorizing them, of course, in the original Greek.

Given Ray's erudition, I often wondered why he never got a Ph.D. I never directly asked him, just reasoning that Ray didn't need that "union card" to get an academic post or prove scholarly legitimacy. And that is true, but it's not the whole story.

It's a sad story, but with a good ending--for Adventism. The story was discovered just ten days before Ray's death. It concerns a folder, penciled "Personal," and discovered by daughter Peggy and Doug Hackleman, who were at the Cottrell home researching documents for Ray's biography. I only disclose this most personal story because one of Ray's last decisions was that this file's contents should be included in his biography.

For fifty years Peggy and most all others thought that Ray had left teaching at Pacific Union College because of an invitation from F.D. Nichol to join him at church headquarters in Takoma Park, Maryland, to be an associate editor of the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary.

This folder contains originals or copies of eight letters between Ray and two college presidents at PUC and one he wrote to C.L. Bauer, college board chairman. These letters show that Ray gave his all to PUC as a religion teacher, receiving only one scheduled four-day vacation in at least 5 years. But Ray craved going to graduate school, and he evidently had a special contact at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, where Ray desired to study Old Testament and Biblical archeology.

Ray cites eight times that he requested leave to pursue his doctorate--twice while teaching in the preparatory school, and six times while at the college. He was promised; but others went on to graduate school as Ray worked hard at the college. The academic slighting hurt Ray, but it was minor compared to what followed. Evidently in early 1952, PUC President J.E. Weaver accosted Ray, berating him for not having accepted an invitation to teach at Glendale Academy. Ray's soul was yanked from his frame. But let Ray speak for himself, as he writes a three-page, heartfelt letter to a friend, the board chairman. Ray is not angry; he's almost contrite:

"May I assure you that in what follows there is no personal animus toward any individual or group of individuals. I am confident that the intentions of all concerned have been above question, and I am not now seeking to raise a question of any kind; I do think, however, that certain aspects of the problem have not entered the thinking of some....

"I have always and will always cooperate with such an approach to the problem (sitting down and 'explaining the matter fully'). But to meet the matter head-on as an angry reprimand for not leaving the college--Elder Bauer, that is a deep wound...That night I could not sleep, and it was several nights before I could sleep with any measure of repose...I do not have words in my vocabulary to describe how I felt. The sharpness of the sting has gone, but the wound is still there.

"May I make it clear that there is no feeling on my part against Dr. Weaver; there was not then, there is not now. He knew nothing then and knows nothing now of how I felt. I have gone out of my way since then to demonstrate friendship by such things as taking him berries from our garden and of doing many things for him that I am not required to do. So far as he is aware, we are better friends than before the incident; and in a certain sense at least this is true. I have not said anything to him about this because I do not believe he would understand; P.U.C. is just another stopping place for him on his journey around the world, it means no more to him than any other college in the country. But to some of us who have spent years here it is a part of our very being. I have known for years that I would not choose to accept even a major promotion elsewhere unless convinced that the Lord wanted me to; position and honor mean nothing to me. I simply want to do my humble tasks in the best way I can to the honor of God and the advancement of his kingdom."

I am in awe of Ray's life. It's not that I see his rueful behavior as the ethical ideal for dealing with injustice. Rather, I see a man who was so individually strong and committed that he rose with great equanimity above the pettiness and cruelty of others. Ray's thwarted longing to earn his doctorate at Chicago was a secret pain he lived with for the last 50 years-evidently never discussing it with anyone. But I'm convinced the whole denomination benefited: Rather than being absorbed in scholarly study of antiquity, Ray contributed to the whole church and its significant theological needs. It's not too much to see Ray as our 20th century suffering servant: through his pain we all have benefited.

Now if Raymond Cottrell were a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I'm convinced he would be eligible one day for sainthood. The Catholics don't have a corner on saintly living, and Ray was a 20th-century Adventist saint. Now, I'm not saying that Ray's self-effacing life is the ideal for our lives. Ray's behavior under duress didn't model justice-only saintliness. But let's not demand too much of our saints. Mother Theresa personified a spirit of self-giving for the poor, but she wasn't a model for feeding the starving millions in the developing world. Ray's virtual silence in the face of personal injustice is not what he envisioned as decent relations in outlining a judicial system for our denomination, but Ray's standard for himself went beyond justice.

Just as that fiery St. Paul could look back at his life with satisfaction, so could the generous Raymond, and he must have, for one of his favorite Bible passages comes from Paul's letter to Timothy: "The time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing."

This is the Advent hope that Ray held dear.