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Beverly Jean Davenport LaHaye (1929—2024) was an influential American evangelical Christian, conservative political activist, best-selling writer, and wife of Dr. Tim Francis LaHaye (1926—2016). Her husband was a fellow evangelical activist, minister, and author of the widely popular Left Behind fiction book series. The couple hosted many Christian radio and television programs promoting traditional family values and published numerous Christian growth, marriage, and Bible study books. Beverly LaHaye is best remembered for founding Concerned Women for America (CWA), the foremost conservative women’s political action organization in the United States.
Beverly grew up in Southfield, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. When she was two years old, her father suffered a ruptured appendix and died suddenly. The family had no options but to move in with a kindhearted neighbor couple, and Beverly’s mother took a job at the Michigan telephone company. By the time Beverly turned four, her mother had remarried to a forty-year-old bachelor, Daniel Ratcliffe, who lived nearby and worked in the Detroit automobile industry. At this time, Beverly and her older sister, Blanche, adopted their stepfather’s surname.
When her mother experienced a debilitating health crisis, Beverly stayed home from school temporarily to help manage the household and care for her mother. Although not exceptionally devout, the family attended a missions-focused church in Highland Park, Michigan. As a teenager, Beverly’s relationship with the Lord deepened, and she began to feel called to the mission field. At eighteen, after graduating from Highland Park Community High School in 1946, Beverly left home to study at Bob Jones University (BJU), a conservative Christian college in Greenville, South Carolina. Soon, she befriended Tim LaHaye, who was also a first-year student. Within a year, the two were married in July 1947.
Tim completed his education and began ministering as a pastor, while Beverly dropped out of college when their first child was born. She also worked to supplement her husband’s meager ministerial salary. By 1956, the family had moved from South Carolina to Minnesota, finally landing in California. Tim became the senior pastor of Scott Memorial Baptist Church in El Cajon, near San Diego. He would serve in this position for two and a half decades. By 1958, Beverly had given birth to the couple’s four children: Linda, Larry, Lee, and Lori.
Once settled in California, Tim and Beverly LaHaye’s lives changed drastically. The church soon grew from a congregation of three hundred to two thousand. The couple started a television show called The LaHayes on Family Life that aired weekly for thirty minutes until 1959. As their marriage and family ministry developed, they began hosting Family Life Seminars in 1972. These popular seminars were offered across the nation and in more than forty other countries, giving the couple an expanding pulpit to inspire and activate conservative evangelicals in politics and policy.
In 1976, with her children all grown, Beverly began to write. She published The Spirit-Controlled Woman as the companion book to her husband’s The Spirit-Controlled Temperament (1966). That same year, Tim and Beverly co-wrote The Act of Marriage (1976), a descriptive guidebook on sexual intimacy for married couples that sold millions of copies. Over the next several decades, Beverly LaHaye wrote or co-wrote more than thirty books, including Who but a Woman? (1984), Understanding Your Child’s Temperament (1997), and The Desires of a Woman’s Heart (1993).
Beverly, quiet and shy by nature, began to overcome her reluctance to speak in public. As she listened to voices of the radical feminist movement gaining traction in the United States, Beverly felt called by God to provide a place for the average Christian woman in America to stand up for traditional family values. In 1979, LaHaye founded Concerned Women for America, which sought to protect biblical values for Christian women and families through prayer, education, and advocacy.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Tim and Beverly LaHaye’s influence on the conservative social agenda was profound. Their radio and television programs, such as Beverly LaHaye Live and Beverly LaHaye Today, were platforms for their advocacy for traditional family values. Their views, endorsed by millions of evangelicals, carried significant weight in shaping the social and political landscape of the time.
In 1985, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., to better support their activist causes and establish the American Coalition for Traditional Values. By then, CWA had become the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization. The group’s chief concerns involve guarding the sanctity of human life for the unborn, defending traditional families, reforming public education by returning authority to parents, protecting religious liberty in the US, safeguarding national sovereignty, stopping sexual exploitation in the world, and standing with Israel.
Beverly LaHaye retired as president of the CWA in 2006, the same year her husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Tim LaHaye died in 2016 after 69 years of marriage. He had been his wife’s biggest supporter and encourager.
Ronald Reagan called Beverly LaHaye “one of the powerhouses” of the conservative political movement who helped change the face of American politics (https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-annual-convention-concerned-women-america, accessed 7/23/24). Tim and Beverly were named “The Christian Power Couple” by TIME magazine in 2005.
Beverly LaHaye passionately defended conservative Christian politics, becoming a leading voice for evangelical women in America. Her work significantly influenced the conservative political movement, particularly in the areas of traditional family values, pro-life advocacy, and religious liberty. She died in April 2024 at age 94, leaving behind a legacy that continues to shape the landscape of conservative Christian activism.
