When Clark Morphew wrote commentary about religion, he raised eyebrows and ire among his readers.
"I've had death threats," he told the Metro Lutheran newspaper in 1999. "Some of the mail is really vile, but a lot of it is positive, even fun."
Morphew, 64, a syndicated religion columnist who wrote for two decades for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, died Tuesday of lung cancer at his home in South St. Paul. His illness had been diagnosed in June.
Among Morphew's early columns in 1981 was a criticism of congregations that failed to affirm their pastors and another that urged the church to welcome gays and lesbians into the fold.
"He was a voice for justice in the world," said the Rev. Lowell Erdahl, retired bishop of the St. Paul area synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Morphew, born in Nora Springs, Iowa, became a Lutheran-school teacher but soon left for Luther Seminary in Minnesota. He was ordained in the old American Lutheran Church, now folded into the ELCA. In 1975, while serving in Cottage Grove, he was divorced. Eventually, he left the church's clergy roster.
He remarried in 1977 and started as a junior-high curriculum editor at Augsburg Publishing House, now Augsburg Fortress Publishers, in 1978. Soon, imitating the work of a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter, he started writing evaluations of local congregations and sending them unsolicited to the Pioneer Press. Though not trained in journalism, he was working full time at the paper by 1981, covering a religious world in ferment.
"Jerry Falwell was in full power," he told the Metro Lutheran. "Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were on the rise. The cults were flowering. It was a pretty amazing atmosphere."
In 1987, his column was syndicated to 250 papers of the Pioneer Press' parent company, Knight Ridder. Erdahl said Morphew told him that writing for a national audience "in some ways cramped his style because he couldn't be locally specific."
Morphew never took himself too seriously, said Pioneer Press medical writer Tom Majeski, who enjoyed his company in the newsroom. A perennial summer column urged churches to install air conditioning, and another pet peeve was long sermons. "You've got to be brief, throw in some humor," Morphew would write, Majeski said.
He retired from the Pioneer Press in 2000 and began a column for the monthly Metro Lutheran in November 2001. His last column appeared in August.
One of Morphew's proudest moments came in 1992 when St. Olaf College in Northfield awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters, his wife, Jeanne, said.
"It made his work credible," she said. "They recognized his journalistic ability."
Said William Seabloom, a Shoreview psychotherapist and longtime friend: "He had a very clear, positive way of presenting his perceptions. I saw him as one of the prophets of the church."
In addition to his wife, survivors include three daughters, Michelle Morphew of St. Paul, Valerie Linzie of South St. Paul and Stacy Osborne of Champlin; three sons, Nathan of St. Paul and Bradley Linzie and Brian Linzie of North Oaks; four grandchildren, and two brothers, Larry of Estherville, Iowa, and Nolan of Nora Springs.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Jan. 4 at Central Lutheran Church, 333 S. 12th St., Minneapolis. No visitation is planned.