Glen Charles Knecht was born in 1929 in Ogdensburg, St Lawrence, NY and graduated from Maryville College, TN in 1950. After receiving a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, he pastored Union United Presbyterian Church in Lancaster County, PA (1954-57). With his wife Betty Jane he then served as a missionary evangelist in Iran, where his daughter Janet Lynn was born, in Tabriz, in 1961.
Returning to the States, he pastored Oxford Presbyterian Church, PA for eight years and then Wallace Memorial Presbyterian Church, College Park, MD. It was while at Wallace that Knecht was involved in the infamous ‘Kaseman trial’ in 1980 – he was one of those who brought charges against National Capital Union Presbytery for its reception of Mansfield Kaseman, a candidate who could not affirm the deity of Christ.
In 1983 the family moved to Columbia, SC, when Glen Knecht was called to be Senior Pastor of the historic First Presbyterian Church, just after the congregation had requested and received dismissal from Congaree Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the United States and affiliated itself with Catawba Presbytery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. While at First Presbyterian, Glen Knecht was awarded a DD from Covenant College, TN (1986).
When his daughter, Janet Dick, who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 16, had a son in 1996, Glen and Betty Jane moved to Maryland to be better able to help with caring for her and their grandson, Jamie. Dr Knecht became Assistant Pastor (Minister of Visitation) for Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD, and in 2000 was called as Associate Pastor for Congregational Care. He has since served as pastor of Christ Reformed Evangelical Church, Annapolis, MD. Now retired, he lives in Laurel, MD. His book, The Day God Made, was published by the Trust in 2003.