Who are the ten
living, and still active, Christian speakers/writers that you admire/respect
the most? Recently I began to think about that question, and now I am sharing my
(tentative) list with you.
Please note that these
are “professional” Christians who are currently active (or not completely retired).
They are people who primarily speak to or write for a “popular” audience rather than to
academia. Thus, none are full-time religion/theology professors.
(My list of the
contemporary theologians/professors that I admire most would be quite different.)
One more brief caveat:
my list is skewed a bit (but not much) by my desire to include some diversity.
I didn’t want the list to be completely of white, male, Protestants like me.
So here is my list,
presented in alphabetical order (by last name):
Rev. Barber is perhaps
the person on this list I have known about for the shortest time. I probably
heard about him for the first time when working on my 9/30/13 blog article about the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina. I have since seen him on several
YouTube videos and then was impressed anew when I heard him deliver a powerful
sermon in Kansas City last year. Here
is the link to the blog article I wrote about him last September.
AMY BUTLER (b. c. 1970)
Rev. Butler has been pastor of the highly influential Riverside Church
in New York City since 2014. I first met her when I visited a Sunday morning
worship service at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., in 2012 when she
was pastor there, and I regularly see/read her perceptive op-ed articles.
SIMONE CAMPBELL (b. 1945)
Widely
known as “the nun on the bus,” Sister Simone is the executive director of NETWORK,
a nonprofit Catholic social justice lobby. She was the subject of my 9/20/14 blog
article (see here).
TONY CAMPOLO (b. 1935)
Stimulating writer and extraordinarily good speaker, in my 2/18/15
blog article I called Campolo “one of my favorite people.” He is one I
would have long had on a list such as this.
SHANE CLAIBORNE (b. 1975)
The youngest person on
this list, Claiborne is the author of The
Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (2006, 2016). He is a young man worth reading and listening
to.
POPE FRANCIS (b. 1936)
Perhaps this selection speaks for itself.
JAMES FORBES (b. 1935)
A marvelous preacher
and gentleman, I have long admired Rev. Forbes, who was pastor of Riverside
Church in New York from 1989 to 2007.
BRIAN McLAREN (b. 1956)
I have been an admirer
of McLaren since I read his novel A New
Kind of Christian (2001). Then in 2008 I marked that the best theology book
I had read that year was his Everything
Must Change (2007). As a primary leader of the emergent church movement, he
is a very significant contemporary Christian leader.
JIM WALLIS (b. 1948)
Founder, president, and CEO of Sojourners and editor-in-chief
of Sojourners magazine, I have been an admirer of Wallis since the early
1970s—and have written about him and his early activities in this article
on another blogsite.
PHILIP YANCEY (b. 1949)
I have personally met
or seen/heard all of the above persons—except for Pope Francis, for obvious
reasons. But I have never met Yancey; however, I have read, and been impressed
by, several of his books. I especially recommend What’s So Amazing about Grace? (1997) and Soul Survivor (2001).
Since these are contemporary
Christians that I most admire, I have also learned from them--and my faith has
grown, I believe, because of them.
Who's on your list?
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