Influential conservative leader Dr. D. James Kennedy died Wednesday morning, church officials reported.
Kennedy, whose retirement as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida was recently announced, died “peacefully, in his sleep, at home” around 3 a.m., said the Rev. Ronald Siegenthaler of the megachurch, according to Sun-Sentinel.com. Kennedy was 76.
Also founder of a conservative multi-media ministry – Coral Ridge Ministries – that reaches 3 million listeners and viewers worldwide, Kennedy had been dubbed by evangelicals as one of the Church’s “truly significant figures,” as Dr. James C. Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, said.
On Aug. 26, Kennedy’s daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, had announced her father’s retirement at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Kennedy has suffered cardiac arrest last December and had been unable to return to the pulpit. He preached his last sermon on Christmas Eve.
A tribute website to the life and ministry of Kennedy can be found at http://www.djameskennedy.org/. A Memorial Service open to the public will be held at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. The date is yet to be announced.