The world has lost a towering figure of American freethought, a man who was both on the cutting edge of secular humanist thought as well as the foremost caretaker of its rich history. The entire Center for Inquiry (CFI) family is anguished by the sudden and unexpected death of our colleague, teacher, and friend Tom Flynn. He died at his home in Williamsville, New York, outside of Buffalo, on August 23, 2021. He was only sixty-six.
Flynn held numerous leadership roles during his more than thirty years with CFI. Most prominently he was editor of Free Inquiry, “America’s bimonthly journal of humanist ideas,” a sister publication to the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER dealing with reason and humanity. Its current issue at the time of his death featured articles on Christian nationalism and on the State of the Planet, plus Flynn’s own op-ed, “Will World Population Drop Far Enough, Fast Enough?” He wrote such thoughtful op-eds, editorials, reviews, and feature articles in virtually every issue of Free Inquiry.