Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson stands as one of the most enigmatic figures of the American Civil War, a man whose legend looms as large as the battles he fought. A proud Virginian, Jackson’s tactical brilliance was unparalleled on the field, yet he was also a man of deep conviction, his unwavering faith as central to…
Read MoreHarry Emerson Fosdick
Harry Emerson Fosdick was one of the most influential Protestant voices of 20th-century America. A pastor, writer, and public intellectual, he became the face of liberal Protestantism during the nation’s great theological divide known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy. With clarity, conviction, and a deep belief in both faith and progress, Fosdick challenged the rigidity of…
Read MoreJames Wilson
James Wilson was born on September 14, 1742, into a family of tenant farmers who lived near Cupar, Scotland. His father worked tirelessly, but the Scottish soil refused to yield large harvests. Hence, after the rent was paid, there was little left over to fill the family’s coffers. As well, the Wilson’s dwellings were cramped…
Read MoreEugene Peterson
Eugene Peterson is one of the best known theologians of our time. Most famous for penning The Message, a contemporary rendering of the Bible, he is also author of many popular books such as A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. With the release of his memoir, The Pastor, Peterson has begun reflecting on life and the ways in which…
Read MoreJacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul adhered to the maxim “think globally, act locally” throughout his life. He often said that he was born in Bordeaux by chance on January 6, 1912, but that it was by choice that he spent almost all his academic career there. After a long illness, he died on May 19, 1994, in his…
Read MoreMarshall McLuhan
McLuhan was still a twenty-year old undergraduate at the University of Manitoba, in western Canada, in the dirty thirties, when he wrote in his diary that he would never become an academic. He was learning in spite of his professors, but he would become a professor of English in spite of himself. After Manitoba, graduate work…
Read MoreKarl Rahner
One of the most important theologians of the 20th century, Karl Rahner was born in March 1904. He was the fourth of seven children, the son of a local college professor and a devout Christian mother. In 1922 Karl followed his older brother Hugo and entered the Jesuit community. As a Jesuit novice Rahner was…
Read MoreC.S. Lewis
Few authors of fantasy literature are as beloved as C.S. Lewis, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 29, 1898. Time magazine has listed the first of his Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as one of the top 100 English language novels written in the twentieth century. Time had earlier…
Read MoreJ.R.R. Tolkien
Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, a brilliant philologist, and a self-described “hobbit,” J.R.R. Tolkien created two of the best-loved stories of the 20th century, “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”, recently made into a multiple award-winning movie by the director Peter Jackson for New Line Cinema. Early Life John Ronald Reuel Tolkien…
Read MoreReinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was born 21 June 1892 in Wright City, Missouri, to Lydia Hosto and Gustav Niebuhr, a minister of the German Evangelical Synod of North America. At age fifteen Niebuhr entered the Synod’s proseminary, Elmhurst College. Three years later he enrolled at Eden Theological Seminary, where he received his B.Div. and was…
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