Missiologist Justice Anderson dead at 83

FORT WORTH—Justice Anderson, veteran Baptist missionary and retired seminary professor of missions, died Dec. 29. He was 83.

Anderson—known as “Uncle Justo” to friends and students worldwide—served 17 years in Argentina with the Southern Baptist Convention Foreign Mission Board as a church planter and professor at International Baptist Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires.

He taught 27 years at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort, including 20 years as director of the seminary’s World Missions Center.

On sabbatical leaves, he taught and preached in Nigeria, Spain and Mexico City, and he also lectured in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Russia, Peru, Colombia and Canada.

After he retired, he continued to teach classes as an adjunct professor at Dallas Baptist University, Truett Theological Seminary and the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute.

He is the author of a three-volume Spanish-language history of the Baptist movement, in addition to numerous other books and articles in both Spanish and English.

He and his wife of 63 years, Mary Ann, worked with the Karen refugee community at Agape Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

Born in Bay City, Anderson was ordained to the ministry at age 19. He earned his undergraduate degree and master’s degrees in English literature and history at Baylor University. He earned his master of divinity and doctor of theology degrees from Southwestern Seminary while serving student pastorates at churches in Stranger, Osage and Franklin.

He is survived by his wife; children, Sandi Phillips and husband, Thomas, Timothy Anderson and wife, Aurora Pulido, Brad Anderson and wife, Ann, and Suzie Person and Husband, Kirk; numerous grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and a brother, Gene Anderson.

Memorial services will be at 10 a.m., Jan. 2, at Agape Baptist Church in Fort Worth, with interment at 4 p.m. at New Baden Cemetery near Franklin.