April 27, 1921 - July 27, 2011
Pastor, Theologian and Author
From London, England
Served in London, England
Affiliation: Anglican
"We should not ask, 'What is wrong with the world?' for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, 'What has happened to the salt and light?'"
Bob Lindsey
August 16, 1917 - May 31, 1995
Pastor or Narkis Street Congregation and Co-founder of Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research
From Norman, Oklahoma
Served in Jerusalem, Israel
Affiliation: Protestant
"The significance of the Gospels and the variety of current opinion regarding them make it incumbent on both the ordinary reader and the dedicated scholar to acquire as much knowledge as possible if he or she wishes to form an accurate portrait of Jesus and, indeed, the very origins of the Christian movement."
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."
Reinhold Niebuhr
Paul Tillich
August 20, 1886 - October 22, 1965
Existentialist Philosopher, Theologian and Founding Member of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture
From Brandenburg, Germany
Served in Germany and the United States
Affiliation: Lutheran
"The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God disappears in the anxiety of doubt."
Karl Barth
G.K. Chesterton
Søren Kierkegaard
John Henry Newman
February 21, 1801 - August 11, 1890
Minister and Leader of the Oxford Movement
From London, England
Served in London, England
Affiliation: Anglican
"A religious mind is ever looking out of itself, is ever recalling to itself Him on whom it depends, and who is the centre of all truth and good... The dividing line between God and the world goes through each man's heart. The worldly man is one whose heart is so earthbound that he has forgotten that he is made for heaven... The sinner would not enjoy heaven if he went there; not til he has turned from his sin and is once more looking towards God."
John Newton
July 24, 1725 - December 21, 1807
Slave Ship Captain turned Minister and Writer of "Amazing Grace"
From London, England
Served in London, England
Affiliation: Anglican
“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”
John Wesley
June 28, 1703 - March 2, 1791
Itinerant Preacher and Founder of Methodism
From Lincolnshire, England
Served in London, England
Affiliation: Anglican and Methodism
"Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth."
Jonathan Edwards
October 5, 1703 - March 22, 1758
Pastor during the America's First Great Awakening
From South Windsor, Connecticut
Served in Northampton, Massachusetts
Affiliation: Reformed
"Godliness in the heart has as direct a relation to practice, as a fountain has to a stream, or as the luminous nature of the sun has to beams sent forth, or as life has to breathing…"
Isaac Watts
John Calvin
Ignatius of Loyola
October 23, 1491 - July 31, 1556
Founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and Author of Spiritual Exercises
From Spain
Served in Italy
Affiliation: Catholic
"To give, and not to count the cost, to fight, and not to heed the wounds, to toil, and not to seek for rest, to labor, and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do thy will.”
Thomas Cranmer
July 2, 1489 - March 21, 1556
Leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I, wrote/compiled the Book of Common Prayer
From Nottinghamshire, England
Served in England
Affiliation: Anglican
Death: After a trial for treason by Mary I, he was executed
"What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies."
Jan Hus
1369 - July 6, 1415
Reformer and Theologian
From Czech Republic
Served in Germany
Affiliation: Hussite
Death: Burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of the Catholic Church
"I hope, by God's grace, that I am truly a Christian, not deviating from the faith, and that I would rather suffer the penalty of a terrible death than wish to affirm anything outside of the faith or transgress the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Catherine of Siena
John Wycliffe
1320 - December 31, 1384
Theologian, Preacher, and Translator of the Bible into English
From Yorkshire, England
Served in England
Affiliation: Catholic (Early Reformer)
Death: At mass he suffered a stroke while and died, but in 1415 his body was exhumed and his bones burned because of herasy
"Do not let friars enter your wine cellars for fear they will bless every barrel and change the wine into blood."