Robert Lee

Robert Lee, 87, son of Lee Soon (Harry Lee) and Sue Lin Lee, died February 29, 2016, at VMRC after a long battle with cancer.
The oldest son of the only Chinese family in their neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, Robert Lee grew up knowing three worlds: his family, his school, and the Mennonite mission church and Sunday School just down the block from his home.
These worlds broadened to his major in electrical engineering at Oregon State University (B.S. in 1949), employment as a system engineer at the Bonneville Power Administration in Oregon, service in Europe and Korea under the Mennonite Central Committee from 1951 to 1956, and biblical studies at Goshen Biblical Seminary (B.D. in 1959), where he met and married one of the English teachers at Goshen College, Nancy Burkholder (from Harrisonburg, VA), who survives him.
After language study in Tokyo, the two then served in Hokkaido, Japan, under the Mennonite Board of Missions (MBM) from 1959 to 1964. There he pastored two small Mennonite churches and helped to develop an itinerant teaching program for the lay leaders.
After Lee's graduation from Harvard University (Ph.D .in the Study of Religion in 1974), he taught in the religion departments at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN) and Amherst College and held the Wilson-Craven Professor of Religion Chair at Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX). He was a University Professor at Boston University and a member of The Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ.
When, in 1986 MBM invited the couple to return to Asia in 1986, Lee taught in the Department of International Studies at Meiji Gakuin University until being invited to teach in the Asia Graduate School of Theology/Japan and at the Tokyo Biblical Seminary.
There, with the support of both the Tokyo Biblical Seminary and MBM, he became the founding director of the Tokyo Mission Research Institute (TMRI), which developed a publication program, as he wrote, "to introduce new ideas into Japan in missiology, biblical studies, history, theology, ethics, counseling, and conflict transformation."
TMRI also published the seminary faculty's set of essays,The Japanese Emperor System: The Inescapable Missiological issue, and the translation of works by John Howard Yoder and David Bosch and those of the Summer Pastors Study Conference's guest lecturers, e.g., Alan Kreider, David Augsburger, Gerald Stassen, Howard Zehr, Wilbert Shenk, Norman Kraus, and Willard Swartley. He was also grateful to learn in 2005 that the staff of TMRI were founding members of the Japan Missiological Society (JMS) and had given leadership to its first three years, including the publication of the new annual Journal of the Japan Missiological Society. At the seminary he was also invited to preach at the twice-monthly meeting of the English worship service.
He is the author of The Clash of Civilizations: An Intrusive Gospel in Japanese Civilization.
He cherished his many friends at the seminary, in the Japanese Mennonite Church, among his missionary colleagues, in ecumenical groups, and also in China.
After moving to the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community in Harrisonburg, he became a founding member of the Anabaptist Center for Religion and Society at Eastern Mennonite University. Here, he and his wife edited the first two books of memoirs of church and educational leaders: Making Sense of the Journey: The Geography of Our Faith and Continuing the Journey: The Geography of Our Faith.
He was a member of Park View Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, where he served on the planning committee of the Faith and Issues Sunday School class for six years. Indeed, wherever he and his family lived in the U.S., he was active in the local Mennonite congregation, and both he and his family attended the Methodist church when he taught at Amherst College. In Tennessee, the Knoxville Mennonite Church members chose him to lead their move to a better area. He invited them to join him in task forces, and the congregation was ultimately successful in moving to their present beautiful location.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children: Steven Lee of Arlington, MA; Suelyn and Douglas Swiggum, of Fitchburg, WI; and Robert J. and Elaine Meyer-Lee, of Decatur, GA; four grandsons and a granddaughter-in-law; two sisters, Jean Hawley of San Francisco, CA, and Florence Guimary of West Linn, OR, and one brother, William Lee of Tustin, CA; five nephews, one great-niece, and one great-nephew.
Pastor Phil Kniss along with VMRC Chaplain Steve Landis will conduct a memorial service on Tuesday, March 8, at 3:00 p.m. at Park View Mennonite Church. Burial will be private. McMullen Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Mennonite Mission Network (www.MennoniteMission.net) or to VMRC's Compassion Fund.
The family wants to express special appreciation to the compassionate caregivers in Sentara Hospice Services.