Rev. Hycel B. Taylor II, a former head of PUSH and influential minister, dies

• Reprints

Rev. Hycel B. Taylor II

Updated: February 21, 2012 8:16AM

The Rev. Hycel B. Taylor II was a preacher who pastored famed churches from north suburban Evanston to Chicago’s South Side and could set hearts and minds afire from the pulpit.

He was a community activist who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the ’60s, and as head of Operation PUSH in the ’80s, advocated civil disobedience as an occasionally necessary means to an end.

But most of all, family, friends and colleagues say, he was a theologian with an unrivaled grasp of the gospel.

“He was an eminent theologian and a profound preacher who developed quite a reputation among ministers across the country because he reached out so far,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Jackson turned over the reins of PUSH to Taylor in 1985 when he stepped down to build the Rainbow Coalition.

“He was deeply involved in the struggle for social justice, and attracted so many ministers to PUSH because they loved to sit at his feet and learn. To be around him was to take out your notepad. He was a teacher preacher.”

Rev. Taylor, who shepherded Evanston’s 130-year-old Second Baptist Church for 29 years and later Chi­cago’s Pilgrim Baptist Church — birthplace of gospel music — for four years, died Jan. 13 of prostate cancer at his Glenview home. He was 75.

He was born April 21, 1936, in Columbus, Ohio, to devoutly religious parents. He first set out to become a professional artist, studying at the Columbus Professional School of Fine Arts and earning a bachelor’s degree in fine and professional arts from Kent State University, where he majored in painting and sculpture.

But he also minored in philosophy, which was life-changing, turning him toward a calling to Christian ministry.

He entered Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College in Ohio and later received his master’s of divinity and doctorate of ministry degrees from Oberlin/Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn.

But he always saw life through an artistic lens.

“Theology to him was a linguistic art,” said his daughter, the Rev. Chandra Taylor Smith. “He was one of those individuals that was so talented that everything he did was creative, whether it was his art or his preaching — which was poetry. He encouraged me and all of my sisters and brothers to live out our artistic expression with excellence.”

In the ’60s, Rev. Taylor became involved in the Civil Rights Movement, participating in sit-ins across the South and marching with King in Georgia. He moved to Chicago in 1970 and joined the staff of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, where he taught theology and homiletics for 15 years. He was appointed senior pastor at Second Baptist, the 10th in the church’s history, in 1972.

“He was a stellar giant of a man, a prophet, preacher and pastor, not withstanding any other person of this century,” said the Rev. Mark Dennis, the church’s 11th pastor. “He was a man ahead of his time, a man who saw doors opening for women in ministry, who saw God as the center and common ground of all humanity, and challenged everyone to rethink their theological positions as it related to power, freedom, teamwork and community.”

During the one year the Rev. Taylor held the position of PUSH national president, he worked with the late Mayor Harold Washington and black politicians to unify the black community, a key theme he hammered on in his preaching and in his prolific writings, many deemed controversial.

“He is a great loss, not just for the city, but for the larger church in general, because he was a prophetic theologian, and sadly, those prophetic voices are diminishing and vanishing,” the Rev. Michael Pfleger said. “He was a man committed to justice, seeing justice as not just something tagged onto the gospel, but as the gospel.”

In 2001, Rev. Taylor was named senior pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church, the 116-year-old landmark that burned down in 2006.

In latter years, he founded the Christian Life Fellowship in Skokie and returned to his first love, painting and poetry — often combining art exhibits and poetry readings with music and theological lectures on spiritual and social/political movement.

“Me and my dad texted almost every day, and I’ve been scrolling through some. On July 21, 2011, at 12:09 p.m., he texted, ‘Join me today in being at peace, realizing and actualizing the undistorted presence of God within us, which is the only and end of true religion and life itself. Love You, Dad.’ He was so deep. That was my dad.”

Other survivors include his wife, Phyllis; daughter, Audreanna Taylor; son, Hycel Taylor III; sister, Naomi Ferguson; brother, Robert; former wife, Ann Dallas; stepson, the Rev. Christophe Ringer, and three grandchildren.

A community tribute and prayer service will be from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at Cosmopolitan Community Church, 5249 S. Wabash, with a 6 p.m. reception preceding. A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Northwestern University’s Alice Millar Chapel, 1870 Sheridan Rd., Evanston.