April 27, 1934 - April 12, 2013
Evangelist and Author
From New York City
Served in many settings as a traveling preacher
Affiliation: Evangelical
"The temptation of the age is to look good without being good."
Eugene Peterson
November 6, 1932 - October 22, 2018
Pastor, Author, Professor
From Stanwood, WA
Served in Bel Air, Maryland and Vancouver, British Columbia
Affiliation: Presbyterian
"It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement."
Johnny Cash
February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003
Singer, Songwriter and Author
From Kingsland, Arkansas
Served in Nashville, Tennessee
Affiliation: Christian
"I don't have Paul's calling - I'm not out there being all things to all men to win them for Christ - but sometimes I can be a signpost. Sometimes I can sow a seed. And post-hole diggers and seed sowers are mighty important in the building of the Kingdom."
Flannery O'Connor
March 25, 1925 - August 3, 1964
Author
From Savannah, Georgia
Served in Milledgeville, Georgia
Affiliation: Catholic
"What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you fell you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God."
John Stott
Truett Cathy
P.D. James
John Paul II
May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005
Bishop of Rome
From Wadowice, Poland
Served in Vatican City, Italy
Affiliation: Catholic (Roman Rite)
"Only in Christ can men and women find answers to the ultimate questions that trouble them. Only in Christ can they fully understand their dignity as persons created and loved by God. Jesus Christ is "the only Son from the Father…full of grace and truth."
Ruth Graham
Billy Graham
November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018
Evangelist
From North Carolina
Served around the world
Affiliation: Baptist
"During all my years as an evangelist, my message has always been the Gospel of Christ. It is not a Western religion, nor is it a message of one culture or political system. … It is a message of life and hope for all the world."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
December 11, 1918 - August 3, 2008
Writer and Historian
From Kislovodsk, Russian
Served in Germany and Russia
Affiliation: Russian Orthodox
"This is certainly true. Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul. That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life. We have arrived at an intellectual chaos."
Walker Percy
Thomas Merton
January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968
Trappist Monk and Writer
From Prades, France
Served in the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky
Affiliation: Catholic (Franciscan)
"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
February 4, 1906 - April 9, 1945
German Lutheran Pastor, Theologian and Anti-Nazi Dissident
From Wrocław, Poland
Served in Germany
Affiliation: Confessing Church
Death: Executed by hanging as the Nazi regime collapsed
"Man no longer lives in the beginning--he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end."
Harold J. Ockenga
June 6, 1905 – February 8, 1985
Pastor, author, and founding president of both Fuller Seminary and Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary
From Chicago, Illinois
Served in Boston and Pasadena
Affiliation: Congregational
There has evolved today a different emphasis … one that is able to say, ‘Christ is the answer. Christ is the answer to your sin problem. Christ is the answer in the biblical framework of reference because there is no other Christ. Christ is the answer when he and his teachings and biblical Christianity become translated into the framework of the social picture in which we live.”
Malcolm Muggeridge
Karl Rahner
C.S. Lewis
November 29, 1898 - November 22, 1963
Professor and Author
From Belfast, Ireland
Served in Oxford, England
Affiliation: Anglican
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."
