Colleagues and associates were asked how they first came to know Christian publishing pioneer Robert Walker, to share personal memories, and to comment on his legacy and what they believe to have been his most significant contributions.

Peter Cunliffe

Publishing consultant

I first got to know Robert Walker when he hired me in 1959 as circulation manager for Christian Bookseller magazine (the forerunner of Christian Retailing) and Christian Life magazine (which later merged with Charisma magazine). I worked with him for 12 years—five years at Christian Bookseller and then for another seven years as the first missionary sent out by Christian Life Missions.

Bob’s vision for reaching the world for Christ through the printed page impacted me so much that it changed the whole direction of my life. I trained to be a lawyer, but after I met Bob, God used his vision to cause me to change career directions from law to publishing. I spent the last 51 years of my life so far involved in publishing Christian books and Bibles—five years with Bob Walker at Christian Life magazine in Chicago, 21 years at a publishing house in Brazil, 14 years at a publishing house in France and the last 11 years consulting with international Christian publishers.

Bob was a visionary. He saw the need for a Christian magazine for the family as early as 1956, and published Christian Life magazine, one of the first of this genre.

Many Christian bookstores were also being started at that time. Managers and store personnel lacked retail experience in many cases, so Bob perceived they needed guidance in order to run their store successfully. So he created Christian Bookseller magazine, which included “how-to-do-it” type of articles on many facets of bookstore management, to give much-needed guidance.

I believe Bob Walker’s most significant contribution to publishing was his vision for publishing the Word of God internationally. He created Christian Life Missions, as a missionary arm of Christian Life magazine. Through Christian Life Missions, Christian Life Publishing House was created in Brazil in 1965. Today, Editora Mundo Cristão, as it is known in Brazil, has become the largest publisher of Christian books in Latin America.

God has richly blessed the ministry of this Brazilian publishing house under the leadership of Mark Carpenter. It has a staff of 60 dedicated persons and sells over 3 million Christian books and Bibles annually in Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique and Angola.

Reg Forder

Owner, American Christian Writers

Although I had heard of Bob years earlier, my first time meeting him occurred at a meeting in Steve Strang’s office when we discussed the purchase of Christian Writers Institute (CWI).

At a later date, we sat at the same table with Bob and Barbara as we attended an important anniversary celebration of Charisma magazine. Following that event, Bob and Barbara came with us into our motor home where we had a memorable visit. Before they left, Bob offered a prayer for our ministry of American Christian Writers and our newly acquired Christian Writers Institute that was so moving we recall it to this day. And we have experienced God's answer to that prayer many times over the years.

Bob was a pioneer in our industry. He was a "mover and shaker" of his day. I can still see his fingerprints in many aspects of Christian publishing.

Although I consider all Bob's contributions to be significant, perhaps his most significant was the creation of Christian Writers Institute. That institution continues to train Christian writers even though Bob is no longer with us.

When Steve Strang offered to sell CWI to us, we knew right away that it would be a great fit with our ministry. Even though we had already created a Christian writers school by that time, CWI has consistently had more students than our original school.

Will Norton Jr.

Professor and dean, The Meek School of Journalism and New Media, University of Mississippi; editor of Christian Bookseller, 1969-1970

My father and Robert Walker were good friends. They were at Wheaton College at the same time. So I had known about Robert Walker since I was young. He had been the first editor of HIS magazine, the publication of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, when my father had been an InterVarsity board member.

I was attending seminary part-time when I was working at the Chicago Tribune, and I asked to have an internship at a Christian magazine rather than take an internship at a church. I made an appointment to see Robert Walker and arranged for an internship. I found the internship so exciting that I left the newspaper to work for Robert Walker.

Before Robert Walker entered Wheaton College, he had not known Christ. He was the son of an executive in a major corporation, and he lived a privileged life that included a lot of parties that involved drinking and women.

During the Christian Booksellers Convention of 1968 in St. Louis, he and I were waiting at the airport for Carl Henry, the editor of Christianity Today. We were going to interview him for Christian Bookseller magazine. As we talked, I asked him that I had heard that he had lived a quite wild youth. He reluctantly told me about his partying, and I was shocked by the depth of remorse he expressed. It hurt him to talk about it.

Robert Walker was a handsome man. He could have been a movie star. I considered him to be a swashbuckler in that he cut quite a swath in life, and I was moved by the grief and shame he felt about his earlier life. Many of my Christian friends seemed proud of their misspent youths. He truly was grieved, and it won my heart.

He was a mainstream editor in the non-charismatic evangelical movement. He could have been a major editor in the secular media. Perhaps his legacy is the hundreds of young persons who he attracted to the media business and who he mentored and supported.

I owe so much of my career to him. I was attracted to his strong personality. He represented a model of modern manhood, yet we differed on so many approaches, but I would not have had a career in media without the deep teaching, the encouragement and the support of Robert Walker. At times I could not stand the thought of him. At times I was blown away by his grace and his forgiveness. And always I was amazed that he could take a very good manuscript and make it better. I hope to have a Robert Walker scholarship at Ole Miss in the near future as an expression of my gratitude to him for what he did for me and for hundreds of other young persons.

He was a visionary who knew how to put feet to his dreams.

Perhaps he, more than any other person, brought acceptance of the charismatic movement to the evangelicals. Before his publication covered the charismatic movement, mainstream evangelicals considered it sectarian.

William J. Petersen

Retired author and senior acquisitions editor, Revell; founding editor, Christian Bookseller

Robert Walker was my first journalism instructor at Wheaton College in 1947. Because of his day job at Sunday Magazine in Chicago, he taught evening courses only; I had my first three journalism classes from him.

When Sunday Magazine merged with Christian Life and Times in 1948, the emerging publication became Christian Life Magazine, and Robert Walker was its founding editor. After my graduation from Wheaton, where I edited the campus magazine, I edited two small weekly newspapers, not knowing at the time that Walker required his editors to have a newspaper background, even as he had.

So in 1953 I was hired and soon became executive editor of Christian Life until 1957. Walker’s other requirement was that his editors further their education in night courses either at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism or at the University of Chicago. It was in a night course at Northwestern that I developed Christian Bookseller magazine, now Christian Retailing. Though Walker wasn’t convinced about the marketability of such a publication at first, he soon got behind it and launched it in 1956.

He did not promote himself, so most Christians do not know the name of Robert Walker. But he revolutionized Christian communications. Rudolph Flesch had just published a book called The Art of Readable Writing, advocating shorter words and sentences, and personal instead of abstract nouns and pronouns. Walker applied Flesch’s principles to Christian communications in general and to Christian Life magazine in particular. If people could not understand the Christian message, who was it helping?

From Time magazine, he borrowed the idea that even abstract ideas can be made personal when related to people. Soon book publishers as well as magazine editors were following Walker’s approach. In addition, Walker made clear that the Christian publishing of magazines and books are business ventures as well as spiritual ministries. In the magazine field, which he knew best, publishing was a three-legged stool, and the legs were editorial, advertising and circulation. In most cases, all three are essential to be profitable in business as well as to be successful spiritually.

Most significant contribution? Maybe what I mentioned above: (1) that effective communication is no less important than orthodoxy and (2) that God honors sound business practices in publishing. In addition, and maybe I’m biased, but Bob Walker’s publishing of Christian Bookseller (now Christian Retailing) was extremely significant, for it encouraged a struggling industry and made it blossom for many years.

Doug Ross

President emeritus, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association

The first Christian magazine I ever read was Christian Life. At the time I had no idea it was such a pioneer effort. Later I came to realize that Bob was a risk-taker, an innovator, a leader and a strong voice for Christians across America. His magazine for Christian bookstores gave voice to those stores in the early years and continues today as Christian Retailing. Today with so much information available it is hard to remember that just a few years ago a Christian publication—like Christian Life—was such a lone voice crying in the wilderness. He paved the way for all of us who enjoy ministering in this wonderful world of Christian communications!

Jack Savage

Owner, Jack's Religious Gift Shop, Salisbury, Md.; former chairman and board member, CBA

Over the 52 years of being in Christian retailing, I have had the honor to meet and work with Robert Walker. He was a man of integrity, a man who knew what he wanted and accomplished the project. He was an example of a Christian who cared very much for others as well as himself.

Doug Trouten

Executive director, Evangelical Press Association

I first met Robert Walker in the press box at a Promise Keepers event in Minneapolis. He was well into retirement by then, but still interested in following significant developments in the Christian world. I later interviewed him about the early days of the Evangelical Press Association (EPA), a professional association for the Christian periodical publishing industry that he helped found. Bob was the last of EPA’s founding members to die, so he was an invaluable source of historical information.

It’s hard to say which of his many accomplishments was the most significant. He was an innovator and an entrepreneur—always looking for new ways to serve God [and] share the gospel. Perhaps because he was a journalism student before he found Christ, he brought a professional journalist’s eye to his publishing work. He helped the Christian publishing industry learn from their secular counterparts—including introducing the personality profile article to the Christian publishing world. And it’s impossible to count the college students whose lives were changed when they encountered InterVarsity’s HIS magazine, the collegiate outreach publication Walker founded for students on secular campuses. In the same way, we’ll never know how many lives were touched by the thousands of Christian writers who trained through his Christian Writers Institute.

David W. Welday III

President, Higher Life Development Services

Back in the spring of 1978, I had just gotten married and needed a job. While I’d been a Christian since my teens, I wasn’t looking to enter the world of Christian publishing. On the contrary, I was determined to land a job at a major ad agency. But circumstances coupled with the pressure of needing a full-time job brought me to Christian Life Missions in Wheaton, Ill., where Robert Walker became my first real full-time boss. Wow! What an amazing education I received. Being green as grass, I had little concept that I was working for a Christian publishing pioneer and legend.

Bob took me under his wing and mentored me in magazine marketing and writing compelling copy. It was a wonderful, powerful growing season in my life. Bob had the rare ability to both inspire me and, as most young twentysomethings require, knock me down a few notches now and then.

He taught me how to write benefit copy and avoid cliché, always looking for a way to “hook” the reader with the promise of something that would make their life better.

He gave me the latitude to stretch and apply my creativity, to think outside the box, make mistakes and hone my craft as a direct-response marketing expert. I learned so much in those early years and will always be grateful for the inspirational and personal leadership that Bob showed to me.

Bob Walker is probably best known and loved as a pioneer in Christian journalism. However, since my role in the ministry was to develop and promote the circulation of Christian Life magazine, which was a flagship publication at that time, my interaction with him primarily focused on marketing and promotions.

I remember one time as Bob was coaching me on why we add underlining in color to a subscription offer letter, and why we work so hard to make the letter read like it was personally written to that one potential subscriber, he said; “Dave, always remember that good direct mail is like good theater. You’re not trying to trick the reader into thinking this is a real, personalized letter any more than when you watch a movie, you think what you are viewing is real life. However, in the same way that a compelling, well-scripted movie will draw you in, stir up your emotions and cause you to become engaged with the plot, a good direct-mail letter will do the same thing. It will engage you, stir emotion and draw you in as if it was a personal letter written by a close friend.”

I believe Bob Walker set a standard of excellence in the Christian products industry. He was not willing to settle for things being just “good enough” because, well, after all, this is just a “Christian publication” or this is just a “ministry.” No, Bob wanted, he demanded excellence—excellence in writing, in editing, in graphic design and layout, in print quality. He never wanted anything he did to be just “good enough” or considered less than excellent just because it focused on Christian content or “ministry.” To some, he had a reputation of being “tough-minded,” even a “rascal” if you will. But what drove him was a desire for excellence and for doing everything in a way that brought honor to Jesus.

I believe Bob will be most known for the significant stories he broke. He published the amazing story of a teenage boy who was captured by savage tribal people in Columbia in his crude attempts to evangelize them. The result is a signature work called Bruchko that has become “required reading” for young missionaries around the world.

He broke the story of a Hollywood entertainer (Pat Boone) who was dis-fellowshipped from his denomination because of his experiences with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That book, A New Song, and others he published became part of a charismatic renewal that swept our nation and has had significant impact on the body of Christ to this day.

He introduced America to a young evangelist named Billy Graham. He told us the faith story of a colonel who made chicken “Finger-lickin' Good.” Throughout his career, Bob Walker was willing to break with tradition and report on significant people, places, events and institutions, whenever and wherever he sensed God was up to something!

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