Interfaith Insight - 2025
Permanent link for "Living an Active Life in Your 90s" by Douglas Kindschi, Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Founding Director, Kaufman Interfaith Institute, GVSU on March 4, 2025
For a long time, I have been impressed by people who lived into their 90s. My father lived to 94. His father lived with us shortly before his death at 92. Following our move to Michigan, our new house had room for our two young children as well as an extra bedroom. My grandfather was living in a nursing home in Indiana but was healthy enough to live with us for a brief time his 90s, so we invited us to move into that extra bedroom.
Recently the entire country celebrated the life of Jimmy Carter, who completed his 90s decade and celebrated his 100th birthday. We had the privilege of hearing him speak at one of the annual conventions of the Islamic Society of North America in 2014. Later we were invited to a dinner with Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in Grand Rapids. On a trip to Florida, we stopped by Plains, Georgia, where he lived in a modest home during his impressive post-presidential life of service.
Another impressive nonagenarian, Martin Marty, died last week at the age of 97. Marty was my teacher at the University of Chicago Divinity School when I took a two-year detour during my graduate studies. Later while attending board meetings of the McCormick School of Theology, I would frequently visit Marty at his high-rise condo in the Hancock Center in downtown Chicago.
Marty was widely respected worldwide as a church historian and leading expert on modern Christianity. He was known by his thousands of lectures, articles, and essays during his faculty years at the University of Chicago Divinity School as well as during his retirement years, when he wrote 30 of his 60 books.
Marty was also an important influence at the beginning of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Muskegon founded by Sylvia Kaufman. In 1994, he dialogued with David Hartman, founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and was the featured speaker at the Interfaith Academic Consortium in 2011.
When the dialogue was moved to Grand Valley State University and became the Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue, Marty was the moderator for the first two daylong sessions in 2006 and 2009. My contacts with Marty renewed as I took responsibility for the Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Interfaith Institute, and I have frequently referred to Marty as the “Godfather of the institute.” The Kaufmans had moved to Chicago just a few blocks from Marty’s residence and they continued their friendship, now as near neighbors.
Another important influence on me, active into his 90s, is the late Richard (Dick) Kaufman, co-founder along with his wife, Sylvia, of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. Following Dick Kaufman’s retirement from his business and move to Chicago, he attended classes at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where at age 86 he completed his master’s degree in Judaic studies. At age 91 he attended the triennial interfaith dialogue in 2018, while also making last-minute revisions for his doctorate thesis defense at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland to be held in a couple of months. Just two weeks after the dialogue, while on a family vacation, he fell and never recovered. We all grieved to learn of the accident that led to his death shortly following his lively and vigorous interaction at that year’s interfaith dialogue.
Dick Kaufman’s involvement in his studies and in the development of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute are missed to this day. His widow Sylvia continues her support and interest in the institute’s mission and programs. She turns 90 this coming June.
My Interfaith Insight from December 6, 2018, about Dick Kaufman can be read here.
Wisdom comes with age, it is said. Knowing these persons who lived actively into their 90s has certainly demonstrated that to me. For that I am extremely grateful.