Keith Miller (In Memoriam)

Keith Miller (1927-2012) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma April 19, 1927 to parents Earle T. Miller and Mable Olivia Davis Miller.  He graduated from Tulsa Central high School in 1945, then served in the Navy at the end of World War II.  In 1950 Keith graduated with a degree in Finance from Oklahoma University with honor, Beta Gamma Sigma (the Phi Beta Kappa equivalent for the Business Administrative School.)  He received a degree in Business Administration and also lettered in basketball.

After graduation from Oklahoma University, he married and began a fifteen-year period working in the Oil Exploration business in Texas and Oklahoma.  He worked for Standard of Indiana oil companies: Stanolind, Pan American Petroleum and Amaco.  He then helped form two independent oil companies:  King Resources and Yinger Petroleum.

During this time Keith and his wife had three daughters, Leslie Williams, Kristin Huffman, and Mary-Keith Dickinson.

In 1956 Keith became the founding director of Laity Lodge, and with Howard E. Butt, Jr. developed programs to help business and professional people take their faith into all areas of their lives.

With Bruce and Hazel Larson, Keith hosted the founding conferences at Majorca Spain for the Medicine of the Person movement for physicians and psychologists in the United States.  This movement was an offshoot of the Groupe Medecine de la personne movement pioneered by Dr. Paul Tournier of Geneva, Switzerland.  Dr. Tournier, a general practitioner, recognized that many patients needed help going deeper than drugs and surgery, and developed an approach that integrated medical knowledge with living focused on spiritual principles resulting from a commitment to God.

Keith also co-led conferences with Dr. Tournier in Athens, Greece; Sorrento, Italy; Lisbon, Portugal and Munich Germany.

During those years Keith studied theology at Berkeley Divinity School, an Episcopal Theological school now merged with Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT.  Later he went to the Earlham School of Religion to study with Elton Trueblood and Alexander Purdy, becoming the first graduate in history (in a class of one) from a Quaker theology seminary.  Afterward, Keith was a lecturer in residence at Earlham School of Religion for three terms.  He has also been a guest lecturer at Princeton Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY, Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, TX and a number of other seminaries over the years.  He was a residing fellow at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest.

Keith went on to receive a Master’s degree in Psychological counseling from the University of Texas in Austin.

In 1965, Keith’s first book, The Taste of New Wine, was published.  He has been a full time writer and lecturer since that time. To date, over two million copies of this book have been sold, and a new edition was released in 2010.

In 1970, Keith was made an honorary chief of the Creek Indian tribe in Oklahoma.

For ten years Keith worked with Bruce Larson as Bruce was developing the ideas and books about Relational Theology, a renewal of the concept of a personal relationship with God that permeates all other relationships—with others and within oneself.

In 2009 Keith received the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.

Books:  All together Keith has written or co-authored 24 books on subjects including 1) Christian living, 2) addictions and codependence, 3) the process of spiritual transformation, 4) discovering and achieving one’s vocational and bucket-list dreams, 4) devotions, and 5) business—related to the entrepreneurial process.

Media: In addition, Keith wrote, co-directed and performed in two television series for Trinity Productions at Trinity Parish, New York, NY (“A Hunger for Healing” and “Wrestling with Angels”).  He also wrote and recorded on video a writing course for non-fiction writing, entitled “Write from the Heart” that is now on DVD.

Poetry and Music:  Keith wrote a book of ballads (about Texas), and the lyrics and stories for two musicals for young people.

More than four and a half million copies are in print and his various books have been translated into as many as 25 languages.  (Of these books, four have been number one on the religious bookseller’s list.)  A complete list of these titles is on Schedule A.

In 1976 Keith and his wife were divorced.  Several years later he married Andrea Wells.  Keith and Andrea were married for thirty years and lived in Austin, TX.

Keith passed away in 2012.

In addition to his three daughters, Keith has three sons-in-law, The Rev. Stockton Williams, Michael Huffman and Karl Dickinson.  He is also the grandfather of six grandchildren and at this writing three great grandchildren.

Visit Keith Miller’s website here.