The emerging church, sometimes wrongly equated with the "emergent movement" or "emergent conversation", is a Christian movement of the late 20th and early 21st century. Emerging churches can be found around the globe, predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. Members come from a number of Christian traditions. Some attend local independent churches or house churches while others worship in traditional Christian denominations. The emerging church favors the use of simple story and narrative. Members of the movement often place a high value on good works or social activism, including missional living. Proponents of the movement believe it transcends labels such as "conservative" and "liberal"; it is sometimes called a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its range of standpoints, and commitment to dialogue. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. Disillusionment with the organized and institutional church has led participants to support the deconstruction of modern Christian worship and evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.
Lee Patrick Strobel is an American Christian author and a former investigative journalist. He has written several books, including four that received ECPA Christian Book Awards and a series which addresses challenges to the veracity of Christianity. He also hosted a television program called Faith Under Fire on PAX TV and runs a video apologetics web site.
Doug Pagitt is a progressive evangelical pastor and author associated with the emerging church movement.
Donald Arthur Carson is an evangelical biblical scholar. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and president and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He has written or edited about sixty books and served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2022.
Norman Leo Geisler was an American Christian systematic theologian, philosopher, and apologist. He was the co-founder of two non-denominational evangelical seminaries.
Brian D. McLaren is an American pastor, author, speaker, and leading figure in the emerging church movement. McLaren is also associated with postmodern Christianity.
Darrell L. Bock is an American evangelical New Testament scholar. He is executive director of Cultural Engagement at The Hendricks Center and Senior Research Professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) in Dallas, Texas, United States. Bock received his PhD from Scotland's University of Aberdeen. His supervisor was I. Howard Marshall. Harold Hoehner was an influence in his NT development, as were Martin Hengel and Otto Betz as he was a Humboldt scholar at Tübingen University multiple years.
John Henry Gerstner was an American Reformed and Presbyterian theologian and professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. He was an expert on the life and theology of Jonathan Edwards.
Harold John Ockenga was a leading figure of mid-20th-century American Evangelicalism, part of the reform movement known as "Neo-Evangelicalism". A Congregational minister, Ockenga served for many years as pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a prolific author on biblical, theological, and devotional topics. Ockenga helped to found the Fuller Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, as well as the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).
Robert Holmes Bell Jr. is an American author, speaker and former pastor. Bell founded Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, and pastored it until 2012. Under his leadership, Mars Hill was one of the fastest-growing churches in America. Bell 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.
Shane Claiborne is an evangelical Christian leader, an author, one of the founding members of the non-profit organization, The Simple Way, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, cofounder of the Red-Letter Christians. Claiborne is also a social activist, advocating for nonviolence and service to the poor. He is the author of the book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.
Bruce K. Waltke is an American Reformed evangelical professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. He has held professorships in the Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, and Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Scot McKnight is an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, and author who has written widely on the historical Jesus, early Christianity and Christian living. He is currently Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. McKnight is an ordained Anglican deacon and canon theologian for the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others with anabaptist leanings, and has also written frequently on issues in modern anabaptism.
Lawrence J. Crabb, Jr. was an American Christian counselor, author, Bible teacher, spiritual director, and seminar speaker. Crabb wrote several best-selling books and was the founder and director of New Way Ministries and co-founder of his legacy ministry, Larger Story. He served as a Spiritual Director for the American Association of Christian Counselors and taught at several different Christian colleges, including Colorado Christian University.
Timothy C. Tennent is an American Methodist theologian. He is the current president of Asbury Theological Seminary.
Mark Lehman Strauss is an American biblical scholar and professor of the New Testament at Bethel Seminary San Diego, which is part of Bethel University, Minnesota. His areas of expertise include New Testament Gospels and Bible translation.
Craig Alan Blaising is the former executive vice president and provost of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Blaising earned a Doctor of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, a Master of Theology Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a recognized authority in patristic studies and eschatology and is one of the primary proponents of "progressive dispensationalism."
Clinton E. Arnold is a New Testament scholar who was the dean at Talbot School of Theology until 2023 and 2011 president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Arnold's research interest is in the Pauline writings, the book of Acts, Graeco-Roman religions, the rise of Christianity in Asia Minor, and the theology of sanctification. He has authored six books, dozens of scholarly articles, and several entries in biblical dictionaries and study Bibles. In the past, he served as a regular columnist for Discipleship Journal, and is the general editor of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary Series.
M. Craig Barnes is an American Presbyterian minister and professor who served as president of Princeton Theological Seminary.
Edward Kimball was an American Sunday School teacher known for converting 19th-century evangelist Dwight L. Moody to Christianity. Kimball also assisted churches across the United States in eliminating significant financial debts. He had assisted 21 churches in "liberating" debt by the age of 45.
