Samuel H. Moffett, 98, missionary and seminary professor

Samuel H. Moffett, 98, who after completing a missionary career in China and Korea was a professor at his alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary, died Monday, Feb. 9, at the Princeton Windrows retirement community.

Dr. Moffett was the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Ecumenics and Mission there from 1981 to 1987, when he retired, according to seminary communications director Michelle Roemer-Schoen.

Born of missionary parents in Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea, Dr. Moffett earned a bachelor's summa cum laude in the classics at Wheaton (Ill.) College in 1938.

In 1942, he married Elizabeth Tarrant and earned a bachelor of divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1945, he earned his doctorate in religion at Yale University.

In 1947, Dr. Moffett joined the faculty at the former Yenching University in Beijing, in 1949 moved to Nanking Theological Seminary, and in 1951 was expelled by the People's Republic of China.

He returned to the Princeton Theological Seminary as a visiting lecturer from 1953 to 1955, but during this time his wife died.

Dr. Moffett went to South Korea as a missionary in 1955, married Eileen Flower, a former Princeton Seminary student, in 1956, and in 1959 joined the faculty at Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Seoul.

He was graduate school dean there from 1966 to 1970, copresident from 1970 to 1981, and director until 1981 of the Asian Center for Theological Studies and Missions there, which he founded and for which he was the first president.

Darrell Guder, who retired Feb. 1 as professor of missional and ecumenical theology at Princeton Seminary, first heard Dr. Moffett speak at the Hollywood (Calif.) First Presbyterian Church in the 1950s - "probably the first missionary statement I experienced."

"He had a profound understanding of the universal significance of the Christian Gospel," Guder said, "and he communicated it with grace and modesty and conviction."

Every two or three years, Guder said, Dr. Moffett would return to the States to speak to congregations that were supporting his work.

Especially because of his historical writings, Guder said, "he was a theological giant."

HarperCollins published the first volume of his History of Christianity in Asia in 1992 and Orbis Books published the second volume in 2005.

Friendship Press in 1953 published his history of mission work, Where'er the Sun.

Princeton Seminary named him a distinguished alumnus in 1977 and named his wife a distinguished alumna in 1997, the only couple so honored, communications director Roemer-Schoen said.

The government of South Korea awarded him its Peony Medal in 1981.

The Moffetts and other former missionaries visited Pyongyang in 1997, sponsored by the Eugene Bell Foundation, whose website states that it works "to end multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in North Korea."

Dr. Moffett is survived by wife Eileen; a brother, Thomas; and 21 nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by three brothers, all missionaries.

A memorial service is planned for an undetermined date and time at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton.

Donations may be sent to the Samuel H. and Eileen F. Moffett Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 24441, Los Angeles 90024.

Condolences may be offered to the family at the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Ave., Princeton, 08542 or www.matherhodge.com.