Famous Male Pastors
- Martin Luther King, Jr., an iconic figure in the American civil rights movement, was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a Baptist minister and his mother was a schoolteacher. Both instilled in him a strong sense of self-worth and faith. King's childhood was steeped in the African-American Baptist church community, shaping his world views and sowing the seeds of his future activism. Devoted to his studies, King graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, later earning a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951 and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University in 1955. King's leadership in the Civil Rights Movement commenced with his involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, sparked by Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger. As president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, King utilized the principles of nonviolent protest, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy. His stirring speeches and peaceful protests brought national attention to the movement. During this period, King penned his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," a poignant defense of nonviolent resistance to racism. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most famous moment came during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963. Here he delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, calling for an end to racism and envisioning a future where people would be judged by their character, not their skin color. King's relentless pursuit of equality earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. On April 4, 1968, King's life was tragically cut short when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His legacy continues to inspire and influence social justice movements globally.
- Birthplace: Georgia, USA, Atlanta
- Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. (November 13, 1929 – March 19, 2014) was an American minister and civil rights attorney who served as pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church and became known for his extreme views on homosexuality and protests near the funerals of gay people, military veterans, and disaster victims who he believed were killed as a result of God punishing the U.S. for having "bankrupt values" and tolerating gay people. The Westboro Baptist Church, a Topeka, Kansas-based independent fundamentalist ministry that Phelps founded in 1955, has been called "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America". Its signature slogan, "God Hates Fags", remains the name of the group's principal website. In addition to funerals, Phelps and his followers—mostly his own immediate family members—picketed gay pride gatherings, high-profile political events, university commencement ceremonies, live performances of The Laramie Project, and functions sponsored by mainstream Christian groups with which he had no affiliation, arguing it was their sacred duty to warn others of God's anger. He continued doing so in the face of numerous legal challenges—some of which reached the U.S. Supreme Court—and near-universal opposition and contempt from other religious groups and the general public. Laws enacted at both the federal and state levels for the specific purpose of curtailing his disruptive activities were limited in their effectiveness due to the Constitutional protections afforded to Phelps under the First Amendment. Although Phelps died in 2014, the Westboro Baptist Church remains in operation. It continues to conduct regular demonstrations outside movie theaters, universities, government buildings, and other facilities in Topeka and elsewhere, and is still characterized as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
- Birthplace: Meridian, Mississippi, USA
- Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (March 22, 1930 – June 8, 2023) was an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, presidential candidate, and Southern Baptist minister. Robertson advocated a conservative Christian ideology and was known for his involvement in Republican Party politics. He was associated with the Charismatic movement within Protestant evangelicalism. He served as head of Regent University and of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Spanning over five decades, Robertson was the founder of major organizations, including CBN, Regent University, Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation, the International Family Entertainment Inc. (ABC Family Channel/Freeform), the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), the Founders Inn and Conference Center, and the Christian Coalition.[2][3] Robertson was also a best-selling author and the former host of The 700 Club.
- Birthplace: USA, Virginia
- Joel Scott Osteen (born March 5, 1963) is an American pastor, televangelist, and author, based in Houston, Texas. Osteen's televised sermons are seen by over 7 million viewers weekly and over 20 million monthly in over 100 countries.He is the author of ten books which have been ranked number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.
- Birthplace: Texas, USA, Houston
- Harold Egbert Camping (July 19, 1921 – December 15, 2013) was an American Christian radio broadcaster, author and evangelist. Beginning in 1958, he served as president of Family Radio, a California-based radio station group that broadcasts to more than 150 markets in the United States. In October 2011, he retired from active broadcasting following a stroke, but still maintained a role at Family Radio until his death. Camping is notable for issuing a succession of failed predictions of dates for the End Times, which temporarily gained him a global following and millions of dollars of donations.Camping first predicted that the Judgment Day would occur on or about September 6, 1994. When it failed to occur, he revised the date to September 29 and then to October 2. In 2005, Camping predicted the Second Coming of Christ to May 21, 2011, whereupon the saved would be taken up to heaven in the rapture, and that "there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world."His prediction for May 21, 2011 was widely reported, in part because of a large-scale publicity campaign by Family Radio, and it prompted ridicule from atheist organizations and rebuttals from Christian organizations. After May 21 passed without the predicted incidents, Camping said he believed that a "spiritual" judgment had occurred on that date, and that the physical Rapture would occur on October 21, 2011, simultaneously with the final destruction of the universe by God. Except for one press appearance on May 23, 2011, Camping largely avoided press interviews after May 21, particularly after he suffered a stroke in June 2011. After October 21, 2011 passed without the predicted apocalypse, the mainstream media labeled Camping a "false prophet" and commented that his ministry would collapse after the "failed 'Doomsday' prediction".Camping was reported to have retired from his position at Family Radio on October 16, 2011, only days before his last predicted date for the end of the world. However, his daughter later clarified that he had not retired outright, but was maintaining a role at Family Radio while working from home. Camping admitted in a private interview that he no longer believed that anybody could know the time of the Rapture or the end of the world, in stark contrast to his previously staunch position on the subject. In March 2012, he stated that his attempt to predict a date was "sinful", and that his critics had been right in emphasizing the words of Matthew 24:36: "of that day and hour knoweth no man". He added that he was now searching the Bible "even more fervently...not to find dates, but to be more faithful in [his] understanding." After the failure of Camping's prophecies, Family Radio suffered a significant loss of assets, staff and revenue.
- Birthplace: Colorado
- Ted Arthur Haggard (; born June 27, 1956) is an American evangelical pastor. Haggard is the founder and former pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado and is a founder of the Association of Life-Giving Churches. He served as President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 until November 2006. Haggard made national headlines in November 2006 when male prostitute and masseur Mike Jones alleged that Haggard, who had advocated against the legalization of same-sex marriage, had paid him for sex for three years and had also purchased and used crystal methamphetamine. After initially denying the allegations, Haggard claimed to have purchased methamphetamine and thrown it away without using it. Haggard resigned his post at New Life Church and his other leadership roles shortly after the allegations became public. Later, Haggard admitted to having used drugs, participated in some sexual activity with Jones, and engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a young man who attended New Life Church. In 2010, Haggard and his wife, Gayle, founded St. James Church in Colorado Springs; as of September 2018, Haggard continues to serve as founding pastor at St. James Church.
- Birthplace: USA, Yorktown, Indiana, Mount Pleasant Township
- Cornel West was an actor who graced the silver screen many times throughout his Hollywood career. He appeared in a number of television specials, including "The Issue Is Race" (1992-93), "Firing Line Special Debate (09/19/93)" (PBS, 1993-94) and "Firing Line Special Debate (12/17/93)" (PBS, 1993-94). He also appeared in "Violence: An American Tradition" (HBO, 1995-96). He also acted in various film roles at the time, appearing in "A Darker Side of Black" (1995) and the documentary "Black Is... Black Ain't" (1995) with Angela Davis. He next focused his entertainment career on film, appearing in the John Amos documentary "Ralph Ellison: An American Journey" (2002), the Keanu Reeves box office smash action movie "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003) and the Keanu Reeves box office smash action flick "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003). In the early 2000s and the 2010s, West lent his talents to projects like "Black in the '80s" (VH1, 2004-05), "Call + Response" with Daryl Hannah (2008) and "Examined Life" (2009). His credits also expanded to "Ghettophysics" (2010). West most recently appeared on "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary" (2013).
- Birthplace: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
- Jerry Lamon Falwell Sr. (; August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was an American Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. He founded Lynchburg Christian Academy (now Liberty Christian Academy) in 1967 and Liberty University in 1971 and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979. On May 15, 2007, Jerry Falwell died suddenly of cardiac arrhythmia in his office at Liberty University at the age of 73. He was buried in the grounds of the university he founded.
- Birthplace: Lynchburg, USA, Virginia
- A founding member of ground-breaking hip-hop trio Run-D.M.C., rapper, reality TV staple and Pentecostal minister Joseph 'Rev Run' Simmons also enjoyed solo success as the star of "Run''s House" (MTV, 2005-09) and "All About the Washingtons" (Netflix, 2018-). Born in Queens, NY in 1964 to a truant officer father and teacher mother, Simmons began his music career DJing for pioneering MC Kurtis Blow in his mid-teens where he earned his Run nickname. Simmons then stepped up to the mic when he teamed up with high school friends Darryl McDaniels (DMC) and Jason Mizell (Jam Master Jay) to form Run-D.M.C. Managed by Simmons' brother, and Def Jam founder, Russell, the trio helped to revolutionize the hip-hop scene in the mid-1980s with their harder-edged sound, love of Adidas sportswear and collaborations with producer Rick Rubin and rock royalty Aerosmith. They were also the first hip-hop act to reach gold, platinum and multi-platinum status, pick up a Grammy nomination, become an MTV regular and grace the cover of Rolling Stone, and were the genre's only representative at Live Aid. After 21 years and seven albums, Run-D.M.C. came to a tragic end in 2002 when Mizell was fatally shot at his recording studio in Jamaica, Queens. Simmons retreated from the spotlight for several years, working at Russell's apparel company, Phat Farm, and becoming ordained as a Pentecostal minister. He returned under the new guise of Rev Run in 2005, scoring a UK top five hit with Liberty X collaboration "Song for Lovers" and releasing his first solo LP, Distortion. But it was his first major small screen venture that same year which truly kickstarted the second phase of Simmons' career. "Run's House" (MTV, 2005-09) saw the star invite the cameras to document his home life with wife Justine and his six children, including the tragic moment when daughter Victoria died just two hours after being born. Following the show's end, Simmons turned his hand to hosting numerous factual series including "Rev Run's Renovation" (DIY Network, 2014-15), "Rev Run's Sunday Suppers" (Cooking Network, 2014-16) and "Rev Runs Around the World" (Travel Channel, 2015-16), joined Tyrese Gibson as the co-anchor of talk show "It's Not You, It's Men" (OWN, 2016) and enjoyed sporadic Run-D.M.C. reunion performances with McDaniels at various festivals. Having briefly appeared in hip-hop comedy "Who's the Man" (1993) and horror prequel "Red Dragon" (2002), Simmons landed his first major acting role when he starred alongside wife Justine as retired MC Joey Washington in family comedy "All About the Washingtons" (Netflix, 2018-).
- Birthplace: Queens, New York, USA
- Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and a close confidant to Martin Luther King Jr. Young later became active in politics, serving first as a U.S. Congressman from Georgia, then United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and finally Mayor of Atlanta. Since leaving political office, Young has founded or served in a large number of organizations working on issues of public policy and political lobbying.
- Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German: [ˈdiːtʁɪç ˈboːnhœfɐ]; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has been described as a modern classic.Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp. After being accused of being associated with the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was quickly tried, along with other accused plotters, including former members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office), and then hanged on 9 April 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing.
- Birthplace: Wrocław, Poland
- Richard Duane Warren (born January 28, 1954) is an American evangelical Christian pastor and author. He is the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, in Lake Forest, California that is the sixth-largest megachurch in the United States (including multi-site churches). He is also a bestselling author of many Christian books, including his guide to church ministry and evangelism, The Purpose Driven Church, which has spawned a series of conferences on Christian ministry and evangelism. His subsequent book The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 30 million copies, making Warren a New York Times bestselling author.Warren holds conservative theological views and traditional evangelical views on social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, abstinence-only education over the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS, and embryonic stem-cell research. During the 2008 United States presidential election, Warren hosted the Civil Forum on the Presidency at his church with both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama. Obama later sparked controversy when he asked Warren to give the invocation at the presidential inauguration in January 2009.
- Birthplace: San Jose, California
- Myles Munroe, OBE was a Bahamian Evangelical Christian evangelist and ordained Pentecostal minister who founded and led the Bahamas Faith Ministries International and Myles Munroe International. He was chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the International Third World Leaders Association and president of the International Leadership Training Institute as well as the author of numerous books. Munroe died with his wife and 7 others in a private plane crash on 9 November 2014.
- Birthplace: Nassau, Bahamas
- Norman Vincent Peale (May 31, 1898 – December 24, 1993) was an American minister and author known for his work in popularizing the concept of positive thinking, especially through his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking. He served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church, New York, from 1932 until his death, leading a Reformed Church in America congregation. Peale was a personal friend of President Richard Nixon. Donald Trump attended Peale's church while growing up, as well as marrying his first wife Ivana there. Peale's ideas and techniques were controversial, and he received frequent criticism both from church figures and from the psychiatric profession.
- Birthplace: Bowersville, Ohio
- Charles Rozell "Chuck" Swindoll is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator, and radio preacher. He founded Insight for Living, headquartered in Plano, Texas, which airs a radio program of the same name on more than 2,000 stations around the world in 15 languages. He is currently senior pastor at Stonebriar Community Church, in Frisco, Texas.
- Birthplace: El Campo, Texas
- Daryl Lynn Coley (October 30, 1955 – March 15, 2016) was an American Christian singer. At 14, Coley was a member of the ensemble "Helen Stephens and the Voices of Christ". He began performing with Edwin Hawkins in the Edwin Hawkins Singers and then worked with James Cleveland, Tramaine Hawkins, Sylvester, Pete Escovedo and others. Albums of his include Just Daryl, He's Right On Time: Live From Los Angeles, When The Music Stops and others.
- Birthplace: USA, California, Berkeley
- John Charles Hagee (born April 12, 1940) is the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee is the founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel. His televangelist message is broadcast nationally in the United States as well as elsewhere, via his non-profit corporation Global Evangelism Television and others.
- Birthplace: Texas, USA, Baytown
- Jonathan Edwards was a Protestant preacher, philosopher, and theologian. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian," and one of America's greatest intellectuals. Edwards's theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards delivered the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", a classic of early American literature, during another revival in 1741, following George Whitefield's tour of the Thirteen Colonies.
- Birthplace: East Windsor, Springfield, Connecticut
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was an English Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers". He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day. Spurgeon was the pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years. He was part of several controversies with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and later he left the denomination over doctrinal convictions. In 1867, he started a charity organisation which is now called Spurgeon's and works globally. He also founded Spurgeon's College, which was named after him posthumously. Spurgeon was a great author of many types of works including sermons, one autobiography, commentaries, books on prayer, devotionals, magazines, poetry, hymns, and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime. Spurgeon produced powerful sermons of penetrating thought and precise exposition. His oratory skills held his listeners spellbound in the Metropolitan Tabernacle and many Christians hold his writings in exceptionally high regard among devotional literature.
- Birthplace: Kelvedon, United Kingdom
- Rev. W.R. "Smokie" Norful, Jr. is an American gospel singer and pianist, best known for his 2002 album, I Need You Now and his 2004 release, Nothing Without You, which won a Grammy at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album in 2004. Norful received his second Grammy in 2015 at the 57th Annual Grammy awards for his song "No Greater Love", ten years after winning his first.
- Birthplace: USA, Oklahoma, Muskogee
- Anthony "Tony" Campolo is an American sociologist, pastor, author, public speaker and former spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. Campolo is known as one of the most influential leaders in the Evangelical left and has been a major proponent of progressive thought and reform within the evangelical community. He has also become a leader of the Red-Letter Christian movement, which aims to put emphasis on the teachings of Jesus. Campolo is a popular commentator on religious, political, and social issues, and has been a guest on programs such as The Colbert Report, The Charlie Rose Show, Larry King Live, Nightline, Crossfire, Politically Incorrect and The Hour.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Charles Frazier Stanley (born September 25, 1932) is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the founder and president of In Touch Ministries and also served two one-year terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1984 to 1986. He has an evangelical and dispensationalist theology.
- Birthplace: Dry Fork, USA
- Marvin Lawrence Winans (born March 5, 1958) is an American pastor and gospel singer, and a member of the musical Winans family. He is also known for his recurring role in the hit show Tyler Perry's House of Payne.
- Birthplace: Michigan, USA, Detroit
- Arthur Owen Blessitt (born October 27, 1940 in Greenville, Mississippi) is a traveling Christian preacher who is known for carrying a cross through every nation of the world.
- Birthplace: Greenville, Mississippi
- Bishop Marvin Louis Sapp (born January 28, 1967) is an American Gospel music singer-songwriter who recorded with the group Commissioned during the 1990s before beginning a record-breaking solo career. Sapp is also the founder and senior pastor of Lighthouse Full Life Center Church, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He recorded Perfect Peace in 1995.
- Birthplace: Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Jarvis Edward Cooper, often abbreviated J.E. Cooper, is an American hip hop artist professionally known as BB Jay from Brooklyn, NY famously noted for his vocal similarity to late hip-hop legend The Notorious B.I.G.. He is noted for his music to reflect the Christian views and values of his faith and belief in the divinity of Jesus.
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York
Gregory A. Boyd
Age: 67Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd is an American theologian, pastor, and author. Boyd is Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and President of Reknew.org. He is one of the leading spokesmen in the growing Neo-Anabaptism movement, which is based in the tradition of Anabaptism and advocates Christian pacifism and a non-violent understanding of God. Boyd has also long been known as a leading advocate of open theism. In addition, he is a noted Christian anarchist and is known for his writings on the relationship between Christianity and politics, including his best-selling book The Myth of a Christian Nation, which was written after the New York Times published a front-page cover article on Boyd's criticism of the Christian right. In 2010, Boyd was listed as one of the twenty most influential living Christian scholars. In addition to the New York Times, Boyd has also made appearances on CNN, NPR, the BBC, and The Charlie Rose Show.- Donald James "Don" Moen (born June 29, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter, pastor, and producer of Christian worship music.
- Birthplace: Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005) served three terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1979–1980 and 1986–1988). He was also a Southern Baptist pastor whose church services aired on television, and a conservative author. Rogers was born in West Palm Beach, Florida. He entered Christian ministry at the age of nineteen. He graduated from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Rogers was ordained by Northwood Baptist Church (later known as The Village Baptist Church, now operating as Family Church Village) in West Palm Beach. His first job as a senior pastor was at Fellsmere Baptist Church, a small congregation in Fellsmere, Florida. He performed his first baptism in the C-54 Canal near Fellsmere. He was senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Merritt Island, Florida from 1964 to 1972. In 1972, he became the senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, where he remained until March 2005. During this period, the church's membership grew from 9,000 to 29,000, and the church moved into a new, megachurch facility. Rogers was named pastor emeritus after his retirement in March 2005. Rogers was instrumental in the Southern Baptist denomination's conservative resurgence that began in the late 1970s, as he was elected president of the denomination during a theological controversy within the denomination. He was the chairman of the committee which produced the revised 2000 edition of the Baptist Faith and Message. He published eighteen books and his works are featured on the internationally available radio and television program, Love Worth Finding, which is broadcast in English and Spanish. Rogers was also the founder of the Adrian Rogers Pastor Training Institute for ministers, which is currently headed by his widow, two sons, and a granddaughter. In November 2005, Rogers contracted pneumonia of both lungs as a complication of colon cancer treatments, and died following a period of mechanical ventilation at the age of seventy-four.
- Birthplace: West Palm Beach, Florida
- The Rev. Dr. Arthur M. Brazier (July 22, 1921 – October 22, 2010) was an American activist, author and pastor emeritus of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois. Reverend Brazier served as pastor of the Universal Church of Christ, before merging with ACOG. He was also a bishop, prominent civic leader and founder of The Woodlawn Organization, which was influential in Chicago's civil rights movement in the 1960s.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- David Ray Wilkerson (May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011) was an American Christian evangelist, best known for his book The Cross and the Switchblade. He was the founder of the addiction recovery program Teen Challenge, and founding pastor of the non-denominational Times Square Church in New York City. Wilkerson's widely distributed sermons, such as "A Call to Anguish", are known for being direct and frank against apostasy and serious about making the commitment to obey Jesus' teachings. He emphasized such Christian beliefs as God's holiness and righteousness, God's love toward humans and especially Christian views of Jesus. Wilkerson tried to avoid categorizing Christians into distinct groups according to the denomination to which they belong. Wilkerson was killed in a head-on car crash in Texas on April 27, 2011. He was 79.
- Birthplace: Hammond, Indiana
- David Paul Jeremiah (born February 13, 1941) is an American conservative evangelical Christian author, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch in El Cajon, California, a suburb of San Diego.
- Birthplace: Toledo, Ohio
- Jeremiah Alvesta Wright Jr. (born 1941) is a pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation he led for 36 years, during which its membership grew to over 8,000 parishioners. Following retirement, his beliefs and preaching were scrutinized when segments of his sermons about terrorist attacks on the United States and government dishonesty were publicized in connection with the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Nicholas James Vujicic ( VOY-chitch; born 4 December 1982) is an Australian Christian evangelist and motivational speaker born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder (called phocomelia) characterized by the absence of arms and legs.
- Birthplace: Melbourne, Australia
- Creflo Augustus Dollar, Jr. is an American televangelist, pastor, and the founder of the non-denominational World Changers Church International based in Fulton County, Georgia, Creflo Dollar Ministerial Association, Creflo Dollar Ministries, and Arrow Records. Some sources report that Dollar's real name is Michael Smith, which Dollar has called an "urban legend".
- Birthplace: College Park, Georgia
- Andrew Murray (9 May 1828 – 18 January 1917) was a South African writer, teacher and Christian pastor. Murray considered missions to be "the chief end of the church".[1]
- Birthplace: Graaff-Reinet, South Africa
- Earl Pearly Paulk, Jr. (May 30, 1927 – March 29, 2009) was an American televangelist and the founder of the Cathedral at Chapel Hill, a charismatic/Pentecostal megachurch in Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Noted as "one of the country’s first great independent megachurches", it gained an international reputation for combining liturgical arts, such as dance and drama, with cutting edge social ministry. He was also known for his lifelong crusade against racism. Paulk's reputation was severely tarnished in his later years by allegations of sexual misconduct, including several illicit relationships and accusations that he had molested children.
- Birthplace: Georgia
- Steve K. Munsey is the pastor of the Family Christian Center in Munster, Indiana.
- John Stephen Piper (born January 11, 1946) is an American Reformed Baptist continuationist pastor and author who is the founder and leader of desiringGod.org and is the chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Piper served as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for 33 years. His books include ECPA Christian Book Award winners Spectacular Sins, What Jesus Demands from the World, Pierced by the Word, and God's Passion for His Glory, and bestsellers Don't Waste Your Life and The Passion of Jesus Christ. The organization Desiring God is named for his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986).
- Birthplace: Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Eddie Lee Long (May 12, 1953 – January 15, 2017) was an American pastor who served as the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, from 1987 until his death in 2017. When Long started as pastor for New Birth Church, there were 300 church members, which grew to 25,000. During this time, Long was a subject of a Senate investigation, concerning whether he personally profited from his church's tax-exempt status, which eventually ended without a finding of wrongdoing. Also, civil lawsuits were filed against him alleging sexual abuse of underage male members of his parish. Long denied wrongdoing through his attorneys and privately settled the lawsuits out of court for undisclosed amounts.
- Birthplace: USA, North Carolina, Huntersville, North Carolina
- Lars Levi Laestadius (10 January 1800 – 21 February 1861) was a Swedish pastor and administrator of the Swedish state Lutheran church in Lapland who founded the Laestadian pietist revival movement to help his largely Sami congregations, who were being ravaged by alcoholism. Laestadius was also a noted botanist and an author. Laestadius himself became a teetotaller (except for his ongoing use of wine in holy Communion) in the 1840s, when he began successfully awakening his Sami parishioners to the misery and destruction alcohol was causing them.
- Birthplace: Arjeplog, Sweden
- Robert Holmes "Rob" Bell Jr. (born August 23, 1970) is an American author, speaker and former pastor. Bell was the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church located in Grandville, Michigan, which he pastored until 2012. Under his leadership Mars Hill was one of the fastest-growing churches in America. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Love Wins and the writer and narrator of a series of spiritual short films called NOOMA. In 2011, Time named Bell on its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. He has since become a freelance writer and speaker appearing on various talk shows and national speaking tours on topics related to spirituality and leadership. He also hosts a popular podcast called,'The Robcast.' In 2018, a documentary about Bell called The Heretic was released.
- Birthplace: Michigan
- Donald Andrew "Donnie" McClurkin, Jr. (born November 9, 1959) is an American gospel singer and minister. He has won three Grammy Awards, ten Stellar Awards, two BET Awards, two Soul Train Awards, one Dove Award and one NAACP Image Awards. He is one of the top selling Gospel music artists, selling over 10 million albums worldwide. Variety dubbed McClurkin as a “Reigning King of Urban Gospel”.
- Birthplace: Amityville, New York, USA
- William Eugene Scott (August 14, 1929 – February 21, 2005) was an American pastor and teacher who served for almost 50 years as an ordained minister and broadcaster in Los Angeles, California.
- Birthplace: Buhl, Idaho
- Charles Obadiah "Chuck" Baldwin (born May 3, 1952) is an American politician, radio host, and founder-former pastor of Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. As of July 2014 he was pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana. He was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 U.S. presidential election and had previously been its nominee for U.S. vice president in 2004. He hosts a daily one-hour radio program, Chuck Baldwin Live, and writes a daily editorial column carried on its website, on VDare and was formerly carried on the News with Views site. As a Republican Party member, Baldwin was state chairman of the Florida Moral Majority in the 1980s. However, during the 2000 campaign of Republican George W. Bush for U.S. President, Baldwin left the party and began a long period of criticism of Bush. Baldwin endorsed U.S. Representative Ron Paul for the 2008 Republican nomination for president, and Paul in turn endorsed Baldwin for the presidency in the 2008 general election. He identifies as an anti-Zionist, believing that Zionism is the main threat to America. He writes that Zionists control the media, "the mainstream Christian religion, and the U.S. government" and that Zionism is responsible for the ills of American society and culture..
- Birthplace: La Porte, Indiana, USA
David Yonggi Cho
Age: 88David Yungi Cho is a Korean Christian minister. He is Senior Pastor and founder of the Yoido Full Gospel Church, the world's largest congregation with a claimed membership of 830,000. In February 2014, he was convicted for tax evasion, given a 3-year suspended prison sentence, and fined the equivalent of almost US$5 million.- Birthplace: Ulsan, South Korea
- Walter Lee Hawkins (May 18, 1949 – July 11, 2010) was an American gospel music singer and pastor. He was consecrated to the bishopric in 2000.
- Birthplace: Oakland, USA, California
- Mark A. Driscoll (born 1970) is an American evangelical pastor and author. He serves as Senior and Founding Pastor of The Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was founded in 2016.In 1996, Driscoll co-founded Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. As of March 2014, Mars Hill Church had 14,000 members in five states and fifteen locations. He also founded The Resurgence (a theological cooperative) and co-founded other parachurch organizations, such as Acts 29 Network, Churches Helping Churches, and The Gospel Coalition. He has written for the "Faith and Values" section of the Seattle Times, OnFaith, and the Fox News website. Driscoll has also authored a number of popular Christian books, including A Call to Resurgence. Driscoll has been described as "an evangelical bad boy, a gifted orator and [a] charismatic leader" who is "hip yet hard-line". A conservative evangelical, he favors "vintage" aesthetics and a "down to earth", "aggressive" preaching style. Controversy has often surrounded his complementarian view of gender roles, Calvinist theology, perceived misogyny, plagiarism accusations, and the culture of fear that allegedly existed during his tenure at Mars Hill.In the summer of 2014, Driscoll faced public criticism and formal complaints from Mars Hill staff members and congregants due to his perceived abusive behavior. In August 2014, the board of Acts 29 Network removed him from its membership and urged him to step down from ministry. On October 14, 2014, Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill Church. Within three months of Driscoll's resignation, Mars Hill Church was dissolved.
- Birthplace: Grand Forks, North Dakota
- John Hillery Osteen (August 21, 1921 – January 23, 1999) was an American pastor and founding pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, from its beginnings in 1959 until his death in 1999. His television program, John Osteen, ran for 16 years and was broadcast to millions in the U.S. and nearly 50 countries weekly.
- Birthplace: Siloam Springs, Arkansas
- Robert Anthony Schuller (born October 7, 1954) is an American author, televangelist and pastor and the only son of Crystal Cathedral founders Robert H. Schuller and Arvella Schuller. He was formerly a minister on the Hour of Power weekly television program broadcast from the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, California. He appeared on the program almost every week since 1976. He was installed as the senior pastor in January 2006. According to the Hour of Power website, he resigned as senior pastor on November 29, 2008. He continues his ministry with Robert Schuller Ministries.
- Birthplace: Blue Island, Illinois
- Michael Louis Pfleger (born May 22, 1949) is a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and a social activist in Chicago, Illinois.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Kerry Shook is an American minister, best-selling author, and Senior Pastor of Woodlands Church in The Woodlands, Texas.In February 2008, Shook released One Month to Live: 30 Days to a No-Regrets Life, a book he wrote with his wife, Chris. The book became a New York Times Best-Seller.
- Birthplace: The Woodlands, Texas
- Frederick Lee "Fred" Shuttlesworth (born Fred Lee Robinson, March 18, 1922 – October 5, 2011) was a U.S. civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, initiated and was instrumental in the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, and continued to work against racism and for alleviation of the problems of the homeless in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he took up a pastorate in 1961. He returned to Birmingham after his retirement in 2007. He helped Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. The Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport was named in his honor in 2008. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award is bestowed annually in his name.
- Birthplace: Mount Meigs, Alabama
- Bishop Frederick Douglas Washington (January 1, 1913 - January 12, 1988) was a Pentecostal minister of the Washington Temple Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in Brooklyn, New York. His most famous protege is Rev. Al Sharpton, whom acknowledged his call as a minister at the age of nine.
- Doug Batchelor is an evangelist and the author of several books including The Richest Caveman, the story of his early life and conversion to Christianity. His primary ministry is Amazing Facts - a worldwide television, radio, and publishing ministry based in Roseville, California, United States. He also pastors the Granite Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rocklin, California. His long and winding journey from anti-social drug user to president of a worldwide ministry has helped shape him into an engaging speaker with whom audiences the world over can identify. Today he is the senior pastor of Granite Bay Church in California and the president of Amazing Facts. He hosts the weekly television program Amazing Facts Presents and the Bible Answers Live radio broadcast.
- Actor Roger Mobley started his entertainment career when he was just six years old. Mobley marked his early career with roles in "Fury" (1955-1966), "The Boy Who Caught a Crook" (1961) and the John Wayne adaptation "The Comancheros" (1961). Later, Mobley acted in "I'm Dickens... He's Fenster" (1962-64), "Jack the Giant Killer" (1962) and "Dime With a Halo" (1963). He also appeared in the comedy "Emil and the Detectives" (1964) with Walter Slezak. Later in his career, Mobley acted on "Gallagher" (NBC, 1964-67).
- Birthplace: Evansville, Indiana, USA
Casey Treat
Age: 69Casey Treat is an American pastor, televanglist, author and motivational speaker. He is also the co-founder and co-pastor of the Christian Faith Center in Seattle and president of Vision College. He is the founder of the Vision Conference, an annual leadership/spiritual life conference, and Vision Ministries Fellowship. He also hosts his own television program called Your Unlimited Life, which can been seen on both the Internet through podcasts, and on various Christian TV networks such as Daystar TV and the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Traveling extensively, Pastor Treat speaks at conventions and churches. His books and CDs/DVDs are distributed worldwide.- Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
- Green Clay Smith (July 4, 1826 – June 29, 1895) was a United States soldier and politician. Elected to the Kentucky state house before the American Civil War, he was commissioned as a Union officer when he volunteered, advancing to the rank of brigadier general before he resigned to go to Congress. He was promoted to Major General by brevet on March 13, 1865. He was elected to the US Congress from Kentucky in 1862 representing the Unionist Party, serving until 1866. That year, Smith was appointed as the Territorial Governor of Montana, serving from 1866 to 1869. He returned to Washington, DC, where he was ordained as a Baptist minister and became active in the temperance movement.
- Birthplace: Richmond, Kentucky, USA
- Rodney Lee Parsley (born January 13, 1957) is a prominent American Christian minister, author, television host and evangelist. He is senior pastor of World Harvest Church, a large Pentecostal church in Canal Winchester, Ohio; a suburb of Columbus, which has a sister campus in Elkhart, Indiana. Parsley is the founder and chancellor of Valor Christian College. He is the founder and president of The Center for Moral Clarity, a Christian grassroots advocacy organization, as well as the founder of Breakthrough (a media ministry), the Bridge of Hope missions organization, Harvest Preparatory School, World Harvest Ministerial Alliance, The Women's Clinic of Columbus, and RODPARSLEY.TV, a 24/7 online streaming channel. His television program, Breakthrough with Rod Parsley, airs daily on the Daystar TV Network, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and The Word Network.
- Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio
- Robert Gibson Tilton (born June 7 1946) is an American televangelist of the prosperity gospel widely known for his infomercial-styled religious television program Success-N-Life, which at its peak in 1991 aired in all 235 American TV markets (daily in the majority of them), brought in nearly $80 million per year, and was described as "the fastest growing television ministry in America."Within two years after ABC's Primetime Live examined Tilton's fundraising practices, beginning a series of investigations into the ministry, his program was taken off the air. Tilton later returned to television via his new version of Success-N-Life airing on BET and The Word Network.
- Birthplace: Dallas, Texas
- Brian Houston ( (listen) HEW-stən, born 17 February 1954) is an Australian pastor and evangelist. He is the founder and senior pastor at Hillsong Church, based in Sydney with locations around the world. He was the National President of the Australian Christian Churches, the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God, from 1997 to 2009.
- Birthplace: Auckland, New Zealand
- John Calvin Maxwell (born 1947) is an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership. Titles include The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. His books have sold millions of copies, with some on the New York Times Best Seller List.
- Birthplace: Garden City, Michigan
- William Herbert Gray III (August 20, 1941 – July 1, 2013) was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who represented Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district from 1979 to 1991. He also served as chairman of the House Committee on the Budget from 1985 to 1989 and House Majority Whip from 1989 to 1991. He resigned from Congress in September of that year to become president and chief executive officer of the United Negro College Fund, a position he held until 2004. As an African American, he was the fourth-highest-ranking member of the House at the time of his resignation and a minister in Philadelphia. He was co-founder of the government lobbying and advisory firm, Gray Loeffler LLC, headquartered in Washington D.C.
- Birthplace: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
- Daniel Keauhou Matsu "Danny" Yamashiro (born December 5, 1967) survived a 400-foot (122 meters) fall from the ridge of the Nuʻuanu Pali in Honolulu, Hawaii, at 18.
- Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii
Mark Batterson
Mark Batterson is an American pastor and author. Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. NCC was recognized as one of the Most Innovative and Most Influential Churches in America by Outreach Magazine in 2008. Batterson is also the author of the books In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase and blogs daily at www.evotional.com. Batterson's latest book The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears was released in December 2011.- Scott Douglas Lively (born December 14, 1957) is an American activist, author, attorney, and former Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate. He is the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, a conservative Christian organization based in Temecula, California which is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group. He is a cofounder of Watchmen on the Walls, an international evangelical ministry based in Riga, Latvia that describes itself as "the international Christian movement that unites Christian leaders, Christian and social organizations and aims to protect Christian morals and values in society." He was the state director of the California branch of the American Family Association and a spokesman for the Oregon Citizens Alliance.Lively has called for the criminalization of "the public advocacy of homosexuality" as far back as 2007. He gave "a series of talks" to Ugandans and met with Ugandan lawmakers immediately before anti-gay legislation in Uganda was drafted, and he allegedly helped engineer the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. He appeared in Russian television channel Russia-1's documentary titled Sodom in September 2014.He has been interviewed in radio and television about his involvement in the ex-gay movement and his opposition to LGBT rights. According to a January 2011 profile, Lively "has not changed his view that gays are 'agents of America's moral decline,' but he has refocused his approach to fit his parishioners in Springfield, Massachusetts", and "is toning down his antigay rhetoric and shifting his focus to helping the downtrodden."
- Andraé Edward Crouch (July 1, 1942 – January 8, 2015) was an American gospel singer, songwriter, arranger, record producer and pastor. Referred to as "the father of modern gospel music" by contemporary Christian and gospel music professionals, Crouch was known for his compositions "The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power", "My Tribute (To God Be the Glory)" and "Soon and Very Soon". He collaborated on some of his recordings with artists, such as Stevie Wonder, El DeBarge, Philip Bailey, Chaka Khan, Sheila E. and vocal group Take 6, and many recording artists covered his material, including, Bob Dylan, Barbara Mandrell, Paul Simon, Elvis Presley and Little Richard. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was known as the "go to" producer for superstars who sought a gospel choir sound in their recordings, appearing on a number of recordings, including Michael Jackson's "Man In the Mirror", Madonna's "Like a Prayer", and "The Power", a duet between Elton John and Little Richard. Crouch was noted for his talent of incorporating contemporary secular music styles into the gospel music he grew up with. His efforts in this area helped pave the way for early American contemporary Christian music during the 1960s and 1970s.Crouch's original music arrangements were heard in the films The Color Purple, for which he received an Oscar nomination, and Disney's The Lion King, as well as the NBC television series Amen. Awards and honors received by him include seven Grammy Awards, induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1998, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- Birthplace: USA, California, San Francisco
- Tony Alamo may refer to: Tony Alamo (evangelist) (1934–2017), American founder of Alamo Christian Foundation Antonio Alamo, Jr., known as Tony Alamo, American physician and Nevada gaming official
- Birthplace: Joplin, Missouri
Olav Fykse Tveit
Age: 64Olav Fykse Tveit (born 24 November 1960) is a Norwegian Lutheran theologian. He was elected to the post of general secretary of the World Council of Churches on 27 August 2009. He entered office on 1 January 2010, for a proposed term of five years, and was re-elected to a second term in July 2014.- Charles Aubrey Eaton (March 29, 1868 – January 23, 1953) was a Canadian-born American clergyman and politician who led congregations at Natick, Massachusetts, 1893–1895; Bloor Street, Toronto, 1895–1901; Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, 1901–1909; and Madison Avenue, New York City, 1909. Eaton served in the United States House of Representatives from 1925 to 1953, representing the New Jersey's 4th congressional district from 1925 to 1933, and (as a result of redistricting based on the 1930 Census) the 5th district from 1933 to 1953. He participated in the creation of the United Nations.
- Birthplace: Pugwash, Canada
Danny Nalliah
Age: 61Daniel "Danny" Nalliah (born 1964) is a Sri Lankan Australian evangelical Christian pastor and young earth creationist. He is the leader of the Rise Up Australia political party and the president of Catch the Fire Ministries. Nalliah defended against a lawsuit brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria under Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. In this case, Judge Michael Higgins found in favour of the Islamic Council of Victoria, which took the action against Catch the Fire, but his decision was overturned by the Victorian Court of Appeal. Nalliah used to be associated with the Australian Christian Churches.- Birthplace: Sri Lanka
- Cline Rex Paden (August 22, 1919 – May 26, 2007) was a prominent Churches of Christ evangelist and missionary who, in 1962, founded what became the Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas. The institute offers college-style instruction in Lubbock and a series of satellite schools in forty-six states and in such countries as Austria, Bahamas, Belarus, Bermuda, Canada, Cuba, El Salvador, England, Germany, Ghana, Guyana, Indonesia, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, and Trinidad. Such schools allow individuals to study the Bible in depth with instruction adapted to their schedules and particular circumstances.
- Birthplace: Texas
- Kurtis Blow worked on a variety of projects during his entertainment career. Blow worked on a variety of projects during his early entertainment career, including "Knights of the City" (1985), "Krush Groove" (1985) and "The Blue Iguana" with Dylan McDermott (1988). He also contributed to "The Jerky Boys" (1995) starring Johnny Brennan. In the nineties, Blow devoted his time to various credits, such as "The Show" with Craig Mack (1995), "In Dark Places" (1997) and "Rhyme & Reason" (1997). He also worked on "Soul Food" (1997) starring Vanessa Williams. Blow's music was most recently featured in the Keir Gilchrist dramatic adaptation "It's Kind of a Funny Story" (2010). Blow had a number of different projects under his belt in the early 2000s, including "VH1 Presents the '80s" (VH1, 2001-02), "Empire" (2002) starring John Leguizamo and "Slippin: Ten Years With the Bloods" (Showtime, 2005-06). His credits also expanded to "Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America" (VH1, 2009-2010).
- Birthplace: Harlem, New York, USA
- Clarence Edward Noble Macartney (September 18, 1879 – February 19, 1957) was a prominent conservative Presbyterian pastor and author. With J. Gresham Machen, he was one of the main leaders of the conservatives during the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
- Birthplace: Northwood, Ohio
- Birthplace: Denver, Colorado
- Richard John Neuhaus (May 14, 1936 – January 8, 2009) was a prominent Christian cleric (first in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, then ELCA pastor and later as a Roman Catholic priest) and writer. Born in Canada, Neuhaus moved to the United States where he became a naturalized United States citizen. He was the longtime editor of the Lutheran Forum magazine newsletter and later founder and editor of the monthly journal First Things and the author of numerous books. A staunch defender of the Roman Catholic Church's teachings on abortion and other life issues, he served as an unofficial adviser to 43rd President George W. Bush on bioethical issues.
- Birthplace: Pembroke, Canada
- Gilbert Earl Patterson (September 22, 1939 – March 20, 2007) was an American Pentecostal-Holiness leader and minister who served as the international Presiding Bishop and Chief Apostle of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Inc. Bishop Patterson was the second youngest person to ever be elected Presiding Bishop of COGIC at the age 60 in 2000, second to his predeceased uncle Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr who was 56 when he was elected Presiding Bishop in 1968.
- Birthplace: Tennessee, USA, Humboldt
- Marcos Witt is an American Christian music singer and pastor. Marcos is considered the most influential and famous Spanish speaking figure of Christian music.
- Birthplace: Texas, USA, San Antonio
- John Charles Ryle (10 May 1816 – 10 June 1900) was an English evangelical Anglican bishop. He was the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool.
- Birthplace: Macclesfield, United Kingdom
Mark Finley
Age: 80Mark A. Finley (born 1945) is the former host and director of It Is Written (from 1991–2004), for which he traveled around the world as a televangelist, and spoke on the weekly television show It Is Written. He was the first Seventh-day Adventist pastor to do a satellite evangelistic series. He also served as one vice-president out of nine for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and has written over 74 published books. Evangelism is where Finley made his mark on the world, presenting more than 150 evangelistic meeting series around the globe in about 80 countries with resulting baptisms numbering in the thousands. His best known association is as a television speaker for the current series Experience Hope, a weekly broadcast of the Hope Channel; for the It Is Written telecast of 13 years; and also for the first two NET evangelism satellite series broadcast in North America. He was again televised for the fourth time in the autumn of 2008 as speaker for the annual North American NET series. He has preached 17 NET series broadcast throughout the world. He uses his preaching and evangelism gifts to teach others in seminars, field schools and evangelism institutes. He has written more than 70 books, as well as numerous seminar presentations, major evangelistic series, teaching manuals, and magazine articles. His recorded seminars and series, available for purchase in various media formats, numbers about 20. He also writes a series of Bible studies published monthly in Adventist World. Finley and his wife, Ernestine “Teenie,” have three children. Finley's parents, James and Gloria Finley, started and managed two businesses through the years: Finley Screw Machine Products and James Wright Industries. Finley has three younger sisters.- Birthplace: Norwich, Connecticut
- Benajah Harvey Carroll, known as B. H. Carroll (December 27, 1843 – November 11, 1914), was a Baptist pastor, theologian, teacher, and author.
- Birthplace: Mississippi
- Mal Fletcher (born 1957 in Melbourne, Australia) is a media/social futurist and commentator, keynote speaker, author, business leadership consultant and broadcaster currently based in London. He holds joint Australian and British citizenship. From 1985, Fletcher was the founding National Director of Youth Alive Australia, a large faith-based organization teaching positive values to young people. Prior to the founding of the national organization, he was the State Director for Youth Alive Victoria, which began in 1981. At a time when Australia had one of the highest teenage suicide rates in the developed world, this movement – a large network of local youth groups and charities – grew from a few thousand in Melbourne to an estimated 60,000 young people across the nation in its first decade. Since that time, the movement has grown further and has helped to spark other youth movements including PlanetShakers and Hillsong United. The model has also inspired similar movements in Europe and South-East Asia.Fletcher left Australia in 1994, to found Next Wave International, a communications group which helps European community organizations and charities to deal with future change and move society forward in a positive direction. Based for ten years first in Copenhagen, then in London, he also launched the Euro Youth Events network, hosting ongoing, alcohol-free concerts in eight major European capitals over ten years. He also founded the Strategic Leadership Consultation, an annual summit for European community and church leaders from 20 nations. The summit focuses on engaging the future of society in a proactive way. Guest speakers at this think-tank forum have included social justice campaigners Steve Chalke MBE, Tim Costello, OA and Dr. Joel Edwards; futurists Dr. Patrick Dixon and Dr. Tom Sine; ethics campaigner Bishop Michael_Nazir-Ali; theologian Alister McGrath and others including Reinhard Bonnke. In 2008, he launched the 2020Plus organization to assist civic authorities, companies, charities and media groups as they prepared for rapid change during a near-global recession. The group produces research and publications dealing with future social change and innovative leadership solutions. Since 1997, Fletcher has also written and hosted the EDGES TV documentaries, which cover a wide range of social issues. More than 80 documentaries in the series can be seen on satellite, cable and terrestrial stations in various parts of the world. They have aired, for example, on the Nine Network and Seven Network in Australia and on SABC1 in South Africa. Since the late 1990s, they have also attracted a following on the internet.In 2006, Fletcher also began fronting the Catalyst TV series, featuring recorded interviews with social campaigners and activists. Guests have included anti-poverty campaigner Dr. Tony Campolo, youth activist Winkie Pratney and human trafficking activist Steve Chalke MBE. The programs are broadcast mainly on satellite TV in various parts of the world. Mal Fletcher's media comment on social issues has featured on BBC World News (global), BBC Breakfast TV (UK), Sky News, ABC Radio National (Australia), BBC Radio 5 Live (UK) and other TV and radio outlets and in the press. He has also written and presented for BBC Radio 4 in the UK.Fletcher is the author of ten books and regularly contributes to magazines and internet publications.In more than 25 years of leadership and keynote presenting, Fletcher has featured in marketing campaigns for such groups as the Benenden Healthcare Society and at many well-known leadership and other events, including Hillsong Conference (Australia), Grapevine (UK), Spring Harvest (UK), Rhema Conference (South Africa) and Planet Shakers (Australia). Fletcher studied architecture at Deakin University in Melbourne, followed by theology and Christian apologetics. He is also an ordained Christian minister with the Australian Christian Churches, though he does not pastor a church.
- Birthplace: Australia
- Erwin Raphael McManus (August 28, 1958) is an author, futurist, filmmaker, and designer. He is the lead pastor of Mosaic, a Southern Baptist affiliated emerging church in Los Angeles, California. Erwin is a speaker on issues related to postmodernism and postmodern Christianity, and also writes and lectures on culture, identity and change, and other topics.
- Birthplace: El Salvador
- William W. "Bill" Gothard, Jr. (born November 2, 1934) is an American Christian minister, speaker, and writer, and the founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). His conservative teachings encourage Bible memorization, large families, homeschooling, aversion to debt, respect for authority, conservative dress, and extended principles related to identity, family, education, healthcare, music, and finances. In 2014 he stepped down from the IBLP after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and molestation were made against him. In 2016 Gothard and IBLP were sued by a group of alleged victims; the lawsuit was dismissed in 2018 by the plaintiffs, who cited complexities with the statute of limitations.At the height of his popularity during the 1970s, the Basic Youth Conflicts seminar with Bill Gothard was regularly filling auditoriums throughout the United States and beyond with attendance figures as large as ten thousand and more for a one-week seminar. In this way, he reached many in the evangelical community from the Baby Boomer generation during their teen years and years of young adulthood. Other seminars during this time included an advanced youth conflicts seminar and as well as seminars for pastors, physicians, and legislators. Bill Gothard has credited a large influence to his parents. His mother, Carmen Christina Gothard (née Torres), was of Mexican-American descent. His father, William Gothard, Sr. was a speaker at many seminars during the early years, and held high positions at organizations that included the Gideons, Child Evangelism Fellowship, and Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago.
- Birthplace: Illinois
- Chris Oyakhilome (also known as "Pastor Chris") (born December 7, 1963) is the founder and president of LoveWorld Incorporated, also known as Christ Embassy, based in Lagos, Nigeria.
- Birthplace: Edo State, Nigeria
- Charles Harrison Mason Sr. (September 8, 1864 – November 17, 1961) was an American Pentecostal–Holiness pastor and minister. He was the founder and first Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, based in Memphis, Tennessee. It developed into what is today the largest Pentecostal church denomination and one of the largest predominantly African-American Christian denominations in the United States.
- Birthplace: Bartlett, Tennessee
- Timothy J. Keller (born September 23, 1950) is an American pastor, theologian, and Christian apologist. He is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, New York, and the author of The New York Times bestselling books The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (2008), Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (2014), and The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008). The prequel for the latter is Making Sense of GOD: An Invitation to the Skeptical (2016).
- Birthplace: Pennsylvania
- Bishop Hezekiah Walker (born December 24, 1962) is a popular American gospel music artist and pastor of prominent Brooklyn New York megachurch, Love Fellowship Tabernacle. Walker has released several albums on Benson Records and Verity Records as Hezekiah Walker & The Love Fellowship Crusade Choir.
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York
- In his overlapping roles as a filmmaker and as an associate pastor with Sherwood Baptist Church, Alex Kendrick has been, since 2003, one of the most visible figures in the growing field of faith-based American movies. Working outside the traditional infrastructure of the studio system, but with the support of the Baptist community, the multi-tasking Kendrick has made four features in eight years, as director, writer, and actor. He's also produced (or executive produced) three of the four, and taken up editing duties, as well. Setting his stories in varied but readily identifiable environments such as a high school football team ("Facing the Giants"), an urban fire station ("Fireproof"), or a used car dealership ("Flywheel"), Kendrick's stories tend to illustrate Baptist cultural values of honesty, piety, as well as unity in a workplace, family, or town. His films also tend not to express spirituality in genre terms (by contrast, Cloud Ten's immensely popular "Left Behind" adaptations weave science fiction elements into their "end times" stories), but in a grounded, "realistic" framework, introducing only the kinds of dramatic elements that viewers might encounter in their own day-to-day lives. His most recent film,2011's "Courageous," is set in an Albany, Georgia police station, and deals with family and fatherhood crises, which are resolved or addressed via spiritual means.
- Birthplace: Athens, Georgia, USA
John Harvard
Dec. at 30 (1607-1638)John Harvard (1607–1638) was an English minister in America, "a godly gentleman and a lover of learning" whose deathbed bequest to the "schoale or Colledge" founded two years earlier by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was consequently ordered "that the Colledge agreed upon formerly to be built at Cambridgeg shalllbbe called Harvard Colledge." The institution considers him the most honored of its founders – those whose efforts and contributions in its early days "ensure[d] its permanence," and a statue in his honor is a prominent feature of Harvard Yard.- Birthplace: Southwark, London, England
- Harold Guy Hunt (June 17, 1933 – January 30, 2009) was an American politician and pastor who served as the 49th Governor of Alabama from 1987 to 1993. He was the first Republican to serve as governor of the state since Reconstruction.
- Birthplace: Holly Pond, Alabama, USA
Mark Dever
Age: 64Mark E. Dever (born August 28, 1960) is the senior pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and the president of 9Marks (formerly known as the Center for Church Reform), a Christian ministry he co-founded "in an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America." He is known as a Calvinist preacher.- Isaac Taylor Tichenor (November 11, 1825 – December 2, 1902) was President of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, now known as Auburn University, from 1872 to 1881.
- Birthplace: Kentucky
- William Clyde Martin (July 28, 1893–August 30, 1984) was a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, The Methodist Church and the United Methodist Church. He distinguished himself in military service during World War I as a Methodist Pastor and held ecumenical ministries with the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.
- Birthplace: Randolph, Tennessee
Barry Welsh
Age: 66- Birthplace: Rushville, Rushville Township, Indiana
Greg Laurie
Age: 72Greg Laurie is an actor, producer, and writer who appeared in "Steve McQueen: American Icon," and "The Jesus Music."- Birthplace: Long Beach, California, USA
- Erwin W. Lutzer (born October 3, 1941) is an evangelical Christian pastor, teacher and author. He was the senior pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois, from 1980 to 2016.
- Birthplace: Regina, Canada
- Birthplace: British Columbia, Canada
- John Newton (; 4 August [O.S. 24 July] 1725 – 21 December 1807) was an English Anglican clergyman and abolitionist who served as a sailor in the Royal Navy for a period, and later as the captain of slave ships. He became ordained as an evangelical Anglican cleric, served Olney, Buckinghamshire, for two decades, and also wrote hymns, known for "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken". Newton started his career at sea at a young age, and worked on slave ships in the slave trade for several years. After experiencing a period of Christian conversion Newton eventually renounced his trade and became a prominent supporter of abolitionism, living to see the UK's abolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just before his death.
- Birthplace: London, United Kingdom
- Temitope Balogun Joshua (born June 12, 1963), commonly referred to as T. B. Joshua, is a Nigerian pastor, televangelist and philanthropist. He is the leader and founder of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations (SCOAN), a Christian organisation that runs the Emmanuel TV television station from Lagos. Joshua is known for his popularity across Africa and Latin America and his social media presence with 3,500,000 fans on Facebook. His YouTube channel, Emmanuel TV, has over 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers and is the world’s most viewed Christian ministry on the platform. Described as the "Oprah of evangelism" and "YouTube's most popular Pastor", Emmanuel TV is among the world's largest Christian television networksHe has been awarded various accolades, notably receiving the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) by the Nigerian government in 2008 and being voted the Yoruba man of the decade by Pan-Yoruba media outlet Irohin-Odua. He has been called one of Africa's 50 most influential people by Pan-African magazines The Africa Report and New African MagazineAs of 2011, according to Forbes, Joshua was Nigeria's third-richest pastor, although the claim was immediately denied in a statement by the church. He is known to be controversial, and was even 'blacklisted' by the government of Cameroon in 2010.
- Birthplace: Nigeria
- Gary W. Kubly (November 12, 1943 – March 2, 2012) was a Minnesota politician and a member of the Minnesota Senate who represented District 20, which includes portions of Big Stone, Chippewa, Kandiyohi, Lac qui Parle, Lincoln, McLeod, Meeker, Renville, Swift and Yellow Medicine counties in the west central part of the state. A Democrat, he was first elected to the Senate in 2002, and was re-elected in 2006 and 2010. Prior to that, he served in the Minnesota House of Representatives representing the old District 15B from 1997 to 2003.Kubly was a member of the Senate's Agriculture and Veterans Committee and Capital Investment Committee. He also serves on the Finance subcommittees for the Agriculture and Veterans Budget and Policy Division, the Economic Development and Housing Budget Division, the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Budget Division, the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Budget Division-Energy Subdivision (which he chairs), and the State Government Budget Division. His special legislative concerns include agriculture, rural communities, rural education, rural health care, rural transportation, energy, jobs, and education.Kubly obtained his B.A. degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato. He also served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968, during which time he worked in the research division of the School of Aerospace Medicine. After serving as a public school teacher from 1968 to 1970, he went on to Luther Theological Seminary, where he obtained his M.Div. degree. A Lutheran pastor, he and his wife, Patricia, are the parents of three children.In 2010, Kubly was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease. On February 29, 2012, he was admitted to Regions Hospital in Saint Paul during a "medical crisis" and was listed in "critical condition." He died on Friday, March 2, 2012.
- Birthplace: Fort Dodge, Iowa, USA
James MacDonald
Age: 64James S. MacDonald is a Canadian-born evangelical Christian pastor, Bible teacher, and author. He was senior pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, and was the Bible teacher for the former broadcast ministry, Walk in the Word. MacDonald was fired from Harvest Bible Chapel in 2019 after over 30 years as senior pastor following allegations that he had engaged in conduct "harmful to the best interests of the church".- Birthplace: London, Canada
Larry Davis
Age: 77Larry Davis (born January 10, 1948) is an American Baptist minister who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from misappropriation of church funds.Bob Enyart
Age: 66Bob Enyart () is an American talk radio host and pastor of Denver Bible Church. In 1999, he bought nearly $16,000 worth of O. J. Simpson memorabilia at an auction benefiting the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. He then led a group that set fire to the items on the steps of the Los Angeles courthouse where Simpson was acquitted in protest of the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder case.Enyart has picketed the homes of doctors performing abortions resulting in one Colorado town banning such protests in residential neighborhoods. Enyart also angered families of AIDS victims when he read the men's obituaries on his television show calling the deceased a sodomite. Enyart has also led residential protests against executives of a company which provided construction services for Planned Parenthood offices leading to similar neighbor complaints. Enyart has criticised presidential candidates who do not share his view on abortion. He is a proponent of corporal punishment of children saying that their "hearts are lifted" by spanking. He was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse in 1994 after beating his girlfriend's child with a belt so hard that the beating broke the skin.A series of late night phone calls by Enyart to the general manager of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, station that carried his program but publicly disagreed with Enyart's views prompted Senator Russ Feingold to call for a Federal Communications Commission investigation to see if any laws had been broken by the talk show host.In June 2009, Enyart was convicted of criminal trespass following a protest at Focus on the Family.Enyart promotes the idea that homosexuals should be put to death.Enyart has been called a mid-Acts ultradispensationalist. "Ultradispensationalism" is the point of view that the Church was founded later than on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).- Birthplace: Paterson, New Jersey, USA
- Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (Danish pronunciation: [ˈnekolaɪ̯ˀ ˈfʁæːˀðʁæk ˈsɛvəʁin ˈkʁɔntvi]; 8 September 1783 – 2 September 1872), most often referred to as N. F. S. Grundtvig, was a Danish pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher and politician. He was one of the most influential people in Danish history, as his philosophy gave rise to a new form of nationalism in the last half of the 19th century. It was steeped in the national literature and supported by deep spirituality.Grundtvig holds a unique position in the cultural history of his country. Grundtvig and his followers are credited with being very influential in the formulation of modern Danish national consciousness. He was active during the Danish Golden Age, but his style of writing and fields of reference are not immediately accessible to a foreigner, thus his international importance does not match that of his contemporaries Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard.
- Birthplace: Vordingborg Municipality, Denmark
- John P. Kee (born John Prince Kee on June 4, 1962) is an American gospel singer and pastor.
- Birthplace: USA, North Carolina, Durham
Michael Chamberlain
Age: 81Michael Leigh Chamberlain (27 February 1944 – 9 January 2017) was a New Zealand-Australian writer, teacher and pastor falsely implicated in the August 1980 death of his missing daughter Azaria, which was later demonstrated to be the result of a dingo attack while the family was camping near Uluru (then usually called Ayers Rock) in the Northern Territory, Australia. Chamberlain's then-wife Lindy was falsely convicted of the baby's murder in 1982 and he was convicted of being an accessory after the fact. The findings of a 1987 royal commission ultimately exonerated the couple, but not before they were subjected to sensationalist reporting and intense public scrutiny.- Birthplace: Christchurch, New Zealand
- Joseph or Joe Watkins may refer to:
- Birthplace: Bayside, New York City, New York
- John David Pawson (born 25 February 1930) is a prominent Bible teacher based in the United Kingdom. He is the author of more than 75 books, has produced more than 300 teaching videos and more than 1500 audio recordings. All recordings can be downloaded free of charge from his website www.davidpawson.org
- Birthplace: United Kingdom
- José Sigfredo Landaverde (born September 2, 1971) is a community organizer, activist, and priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Catholic Church, located in the largely Mexican neighborhood of Little Village in South Side Chicago. He is a former executive director of the Latino Union.
- Birthplace: La Reina, Chalatenango, El Salvador
- Aníbal González Irizarry (February 25, 1927 – November 14, 2018) was a Puerto Rican educator, journalist and news broadcaster.
- Birthplace: Sabana Grande, United States, with Territories
Joseph Twichell
Dec. at 80 (1838-1918)Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell (November 30, 1838 – December 20, 1918), writer and Congregational minister in Hartford, Connecticut, is notable as the closest friend of writer Mark Twain for over forty years. He is believed to be the model for the character "Harris" in A Tramp Abroad as "Harris". Twain and Twichell met at a church social after the Civil War when Twichell was pastor of Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, where he served for almost 50 years. Reverend Twichell performed Twain's wedding and christened his children. He counseled the author on literary as well as personal matters for the rest of his life. A scholar and devout Christian, Twichell was described as "a man with an exuberant sense of humor, and a profound understanding of the frailties of mankind."- Birthplace: Southington, Connecticut
- David William Breese (October 14, 1926 - May 3, 2002) was an evangelical Christian pastor and theologian from the mid-20th century to the early 21st century.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- David Joseph Platt is an American pastor. He is the Pastor-Teacher at McLean Bible Church, and he is also the author of the New York Times Best Seller Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Platt released a follow-up book, Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God in 2011. In 2013, he released Follow Me: A Call to Die, a Call to Live. Platt founded a resource ministry, Radical.net.
- Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia
- Floyd Harold Flake (born January 30, 1945) is the senior pastor of the 23,000 member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, New York, and former president of Wilberforce University. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1987 to 1997.
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA
- Christopher Oghenebrorie Okotie (born 16 June 1958) is a Nigerian televangelist and the pastor of the Household of God Church International Ministries, a Pentecostal congregation in Lagos since February 1987.
- Birthplace: Nigeria
- Joseph Bates (July 8, 1792 – March 19, 1872) was an American seaman and revivalist minister. He was a co-founder and developer of Sabbatarian Adventism, a strain of religious thinking that evolved into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Bates is also credited with convincing James White and Ellen G. White of the validity of the seventh-day Sabbath.
- Birthplace: Rochester, Massachusetts
- John Bachman (February 4, 1790 – February 24, 1874) was an American Lutheran minister, social activist and naturalist who collaborated with John James Audubon to produce Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America and whose writings, particularly Unity of the Human Race, were influential in the development of the theory of evolution. He was married to the painter Maria Martin. Several species of animals are named in his honor.
- Birthplace: Rhinebeck, New York
Corey J. Hodges
Age: 54Corey J. Hodges (born December 14, 1970 in St. Petersburg, Florida) is an African-American preacher and the chaplain for the NBA Utah Jazz professional basketball team. He was a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune faith section for five years. He was also a regular host of the television program This week in the Word which aired weekly on Utah's KTMW. Hodges is currently the pastor of The Point Church, a Multicultural Christian Community in Salt Lake City, Utah that has membership from over 40 different nations and holds weekly services in both English and Spanish. His church is affiliated with both the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. and the Southern Baptist Convention. Hodges is the Vice-President of the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention, and he served six years as the president of the Intermountain General Baptist Convention Inc., which covers three states: Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. Hodges is a member of the Utah State Ethics Commission, appointed by Utah Governor Gary Herbert (the Commission investigates ethics allegations against officials in any political subdivision in the state). In 2006, Hodges was appointed to serve on the Initiative on Utah Children in Foster Care (IOU) board by Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine M. Durham. He previously served on the Governor’s Olene Walker Board of Economic Development. Hodges is a 2006 recipient of the Community of Peace Award given to outstanding citizens who model peace and make a personal commitment towards making Salt Lake County a community of peace. In 2009, he received the City of Taylorsville, Utah citizen’s award and in 2010, Utah Governor Gary Herbert presented him with an award for his outstanding service to the Utah community. Pastor Hodges is also the 2010 recipient of the NAACP Salt Lake Branch Albert B. Fritz Civil Rights/Humanitarian Worker of the Year Award. He is the founder of the New Pilgrim School of Fine Arts. On July 14, 2007 Hodges wrote a column for The Salt Lake Tribune titled, "Women face many difficulties leaving abusive spouses," in which he stated that Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly blamed Nancy Benoit and Jessie Davis for their deaths. O'Reilly retorted by calling Hodges' claim an "outrageous lie" on the July 16 O'Reilly Factor "Most Ridiculous Item of the Day." Hodges responded with another column in the Salt Lake Tribune on July 21 titled, "Perhaps I misunderstood O'Reilly's comments about murders," in which he argued that his statements were "probably more accurately characterized as a misinterpretation rather than a lie." On his July 23 show, O'Reilly again said that Hodges statements were a "flat out lie." Hodges holds an associates and bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Marketing and a Masters of Arts in Divinity from Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia.- Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Florida
- Stephen Tong Tjong Eng (Chinese: 唐崇榮; pinyin: Táng Chóngróng; Jyutping: tong4 sung4 wing4, born 1940) is a Chinese Indonesian Reformed pastor, evangelist, teacher and musician. He heads the Reformed Evangelical Church of Indonesia, which houses the megachurch Messiah Cathedral, and is one of the largest Christian Reformed church facilities in Southeast Asia. He has preached in countries around the world, and guest lectured at theological seminaries and schools.
- Birthplace: Gulangyu Subdistrict, China
