Vocation : Religion : Other Religion

Walter Wink (May 21, 1935 – May 10, 2012) was an American Biblical scholar, theologian, and activist who was an important figure in Progressive Christianity. Wink spent much of his career teaching at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. He was well known for his advocacy of and work related to nonviolent resistance and his seminal works on "The Powers", Naming the Powers (1984), Unmasking the Powers (1986), Engaging the Powers (1992), When the Powers Fall (1998), and The Powers that Be (1999), all of them commentaries on the Apostle Paul's ethic of spiritual warfare described here: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Breaking with Christian hermeneutic tradition of Christian demonology, he interprets Paul's hierarchy of "rulers" to refer to imperial powers, with corresponding and political theologies and ideologies of state violence. Giving examples from ancient Babylon through the popular media of today, these are supported by, in a phrase he coined "the myth of redemptive violence".

Clyde Taylor Francisco (June 2, 1916 – August 21, 1981) was born in Virgilina, Virginia and was the John R. Sampey Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He taught Old Testament for over 30 years and his book titled Introducing the Old Testament remained in print for more than 25 years.

James Leo Garrett Jr. (November 25, 1925 – February 5, 2020) was an American theologian. He held the position of Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Hedwig Conrad-Martius (Berlin, 27 February 1888 – Starnberg, 15 February 1966) was a German phenomenologist who became a Christian mystic.

Friedrich von Rabenau (10 October 1884 – 15 April 1945) was a German career-soldier, general, theologian, and opponent of National Socialism.

Maxine Shields Grimm (née Tate; May 18, 1914 – February 10, 2017) was a prominent American religious figure. She played a role in re-introducing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to the Philippines after World War II. She was instrumental in restoring the Benson Grist Mill as a historical site in Tooele County, Utah. She has served on several advisory boards and committees.

Martin Franz Dibelius (1883–1947) was a German Protestant theologian and New Testament professor at the University of Heidelberg. Dibelius was born in Dresden, Germany, on September 14, 1883. Along with Rudolf Bultmann he helped define a period in research about the historical Jesus characterized by skepticism toward the possibility of describing Jesus with historical certainty. In this capacity he is often regarded as an early pioneer of New Testament form criticism, a highly analytical review of literary forms within the New Testament. After studying at multiple universities, he eventually ended up as a teacher of New Testament exegesis and criticism at Heidelberg University. He is well known for portraying Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as reflecting ideals that are impossible to live up to in what he considered a fallen world. He died in Heidelberg on November 11, 1947.

Albert B. Cleage Jr. (June 1911 – February 20, 2000) was a Black nationalist Christian minister, political candidate, newspaper publisher, political organizer, and author. He founded the prominent Shrine of the Black Madonna Church, as well as the Shrine Cultural Centers and Bookstores in Detroit, Michigan, and Atlanta, Georgia, and Houston, Texas. All locations are still open and functioning under the BCN mission. Cleage, who changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman in the early 1970s, played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement in Detroit during the 1960s and 1970s. He became increasingly involved with Black nationalism and Black separatism during the 1970s, rejecting many of the core principles of racial integration. He founded a church-owned farm, Beulah Land, in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, and spent most of his last years there. He was the father of daughters Kristin Cleage and writer Pearl Cleage.
He died on February 20, 2000, at 88 while visiting Beulah Land, his church's new farm.

Karl Ludwig Schmidt (Frankfurt am Main 5 February 1891 – Basel, 10 January 1956) was a German Protestant theologian and professor of New Testament studies at the University of Basel. He taught that the accounts of the New Testament were to be regarded as fixed written versions of oral Gospel tradition.
In 1919, his book Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu ("The Framework of the Story of Jesus") showed that Mark's chronology is the invention of the evangelist.
Using form criticism, Schmidt showed that an editor had assembled the narrative out of individual scenes that did not originally have a chronological order.
This finding challenged historians' ability to discern a historical Jesus and helped bring about a decades-long collapse in interest in the topic.He was professor of New Testament Studies from 1921 to 1925 in Giessen; 1925 to 1929 in Jena; from 1929 to 1933 in Bonn. He was dismissed from his position as a professor at Bonn in September 1933 by the Nazi regime due to his resistance to the Aryan paragraph. He was involved in church administration from 1933 to 1935 in Switzerland. From 1935 to 1953 he was a professor of New Testament in Basel.
From 1922 to 1937 he was an editor of Theologische Blätter and from 1945 to 1953 he was an editor of Theologische Zeitschrift. He wrote the article on the meaning of the Greek word ekklesia (church) for the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. In 1959, Karl Barth wrote this about him after his death: "K. L. Schmidt, far superior to me in both learning and pugnacity, but always so stimulating."