Henri Nouwen's Friend and Editor, John Mogabgab, dies at 67
John Stevenson Mogabgab died on August 8, 2014 at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. He was
born in New York City on Christmas Eve, 1946. Raised in New Canaan, Connecticut, he graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine. Post-graduate work included an M. Div. from Union Seminary in New York, and an M. Phil. from the Yale University Religious Studies Department followed by Doctoral studies in Systematic Theology.
While at Yale, he became acquainted with the renowned priest Henri Nouwen. John became Henri's teaching and research assistant for five years, editing several of the books Henri
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| Henri and John at Notre Dame University, 1978.
Photo by E. Kronstein |
wrote during that period and forging a life-long friendship with him. In his last year at Yale, John met Marjorie Thompson who came to Yale Divinity School as a Research Fellow to study with Henri. Two years later, on August 8, 1981, John and Marjorie were married. They lived in Stamford, Connecticut while Marjorie served as Associate Pastor of First Presbyterian Church and John continued with his doctoral dissertation.
A life-long Episcopalian, John began leading spiritual life retreats for the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut. In 1982, he was recruited to serve an advisory group from which the Academy for Spiritual Formation emerged. The Academy remains a distinctive program of The Upper Room, an ecumenical ministry of the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church. John designed the curriculum for the original two-year model of the Academy and became its first Theologian in Residence.
In 1985, John and Marjorie moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where John was invited to begin a new journal for The Upper Room. John became the founding editor of Weavings, A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, which soon became an award-winning journal for content, design, and original artwork. John guided the development of Weavings for twenty-five years, cultivating a remarkable stable of spiritual life authors and contributing his own wise editorials to each issue. In the last several years of his life, John served as an editor with Upper Room Books.
From the time his friend and mentor Henri died in 1996, John served on the Board of the Henri Nouwen Society. He fostered a partnership between the Nouwen Society and
St. Mary's Retreat Center in Sewanee, TN. He was also instrumental in establishing a partnership between the Nouwen Society and The Upper Room, editing four books in the Henri J. M. Nouwen Spirituality Series from Upper Room Books, based on Henri's unpublished teachings and writings.
John was avidly interested in fly-fishing, and loved the quiet beauty of his home in Kingston 
Springs. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie; his sister Mary; his nieces Zenobia and Jessica; and their children Bethany and Rupert.
A Memorial Service for John will be held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Nashville at 2pm on Saturday, August 16, 2014. Visitation will begin at 12:30pm in the church parlor prior to the service. In lieu of flowers, contributions to honor John may be made to: The Academy Leadership Endowment Fund (Upper Room Ministries), the Henri Nouwen Society, or Trout Unlimited (his favorite environmental organization).
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