Necrology

Richard John Niebanck '54

Jul. 7, 1931-May. 5, 2021

Richard John Niebanck ’54 died at his home in Meredith, N.Y., on May 5, 2021. Born in the southwestern Virginia town of Ivanhoe on July 7, 1931, he came to Hamilton from North Tarrytown, N.Y., High School. A serious student at Hamilton, he majored in anthropology and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Richard’s faith directed the course of his graduate education and career. Departing the Hill, he went to the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, graduating with a master of divinity in 1957. He then proceeded to the University of Chicago Divinity School to study social ethics in 1958. He was ordained in June of that year and was appointed pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in New York City, a position he would hold for five years. It was during this period, in 1959, that he married Shirley Jean McCreary. They would have two sons, Markus and Adam.

From 1963 until 1985, he held a succession of positions within the bureaucracy (his term) of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), first as assistant secretary for research and programs for the Board of Social Ministry, later as secretary for social concerns, and finally as assistant director. During this period, he continued his own graduate education, earning a master’s degree in political science from The New School of Social Research in 1971 and undertaking additional coursework in political economy and political science at The New School and at the City University of New York. On Jan. 1, 1986, he became pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. In November 1993, he became pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Delhi, N.Y. He retired from that position in August 2009. 

Richard was a prolific scholar and was actively engaged in matters important to his denomination. He was the principal drafter of official social statements of the LCA on a variety of subjects including human rights, conscientious objection, capital punishment, the war in Vietnam, and poverty. He was a participant writer on official statements concerning death and dying, the relations between church and state, prayer and Bible reading in the public schools, and race relations. He was the author of 15 publications on various of these topics for the LCA, edited three collections of papers for the church, and was assistant editor of two others. He organized and/or participated in five international conferences of the Lutheran Church and in 10 ecumenical conferences.

Richard was highly respected by Lutheran clergy who shared his perspectives. As one pastor observed in a post on the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau’s online forum: “He was a genuinely humble man who worked quietly and spoke softly but had an unswerving vision of the church and steadfastness in his confession of faith.” Others echoed that sentiment.

By his own testimony in his Hamilton 40th reunion yearbook, his education on the Hill was foundational to his career. “In those blessed days before Deconstruction and Decanonization, Carson and Marsh taught me how to speak; Blythe taught me how to think; Johnston and Nesbitt, how to write; Rudd, how to see and feel. From Long I received a grounding in Greek that has stayed with me to this day.” He further noted in the same yearbook that his most significant experience on the Hill took place, not surprisingly, in a religious setting: “In the College Chapel I heard Reinhold Niebuhr for the first time and had my life’s course set.” 

Richard J. Niebanck is survived by his wife, a brother, two sons, and two grandchildren. 

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