Jin Mingri, who is also known as Ezra Jin, is the pastor of Zion Church of Beijing a very influential independent Chinese Christian church in Beijing, China. The church started in 2007 and soon grew to over a 1,000 worshipers. [1] Journalist Evan Osnos said Jin has a "lively televangelist flair". [2]
Born in Heilongjiang, he is a Korean ethnic minority in China. [3] He is a graduate of Beijing University (BA), Nanjing Union Theological Seminary (MDiv) and Fuller Theological Seminary (DMin). [4] Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, he started attending a Three-Self Patriotic Movement church. Within a few months, he became a Christian convert. [3] In 2018, the authorities shut down the church and put the pastor under house arrest. [5]
James Robert White is a Baptist theologian, the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an evangelical Reformed Baptist Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona and a Christian scholar. He is the author of several books.
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS) is an ecumenical Christian liberal seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York City. It is affiliated with neighboring Columbia University. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's constituent faculty of theology. In 1964, UTS also established an affiliation with the neighboring Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
The Back to Jerusalem movement is a Christian evangelistic campaign that began in mainland China by Chinese believers to send missionaries to all of the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim peoples who live "between" China and Jerusalem. They believe that the Back to Jerusalem Movement is a call from God for the Chinese church to preach the gospel and establish fellowships of believers in all countries, cities, towns, and ethnic groups between China and Jerusalem.
Adrian Pierce Rogers was an American Southern Baptist pastor and conservative author. He served three terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention . 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 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.
John Fullerton MacArthur Jr. is an American Reformed Baptist pastor and author known for his internationally syndicated Christian teaching radio and television program Grace to You. He has been the pastor of Grace Community Church, a non-denominational church in Sun Valley, California since February 9, 1969. He is currently the chancellor emeritus of The Master's University in Santa Clarita and The Master's Seminary.
Stephen Tong Tjong Eng 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 the largest Christian Church building in Southeast Asia. He has preached in countries around the world, and guest lectured at theological seminaries and schools.
Timothy J. Keller is an American pastor, theologian, and Christian apologist. He is the Chairman and co-Founder of Redeemer City to City, which trains pastors for service around the world. He is also 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).
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright Jr. 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 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
John Early was an Irish-American Catholic priest and Jesuit educator who was the president of the College of the Holy Cross and Georgetown University, as well as the founder and first president of Loyola College in Maryland. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to the United States at the age of nineteen. Upon his arrival, he enrolled at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland, and entered the Society of Jesus, completing his education at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Timothy Lin was a China-born pastor and Old Testament scholar. He served as senior pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church of Los Angeles (1962–1980) and as the president of China Evangelical Seminary in Taipei, Taiwan (1980–1990).
Evan Lionel Richard Osnos is an American journalist and author. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008, best known for his coverage of politics and foreign affairs, in the United States and China. His 2014 book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, won the National Book Award for nonfiction. In October 2020, he published a biography of Joe Biden, entitled Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now. In September 2021, he published Wildland: The Making of America's Fury, about profound cultural and political changes occurring between September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021, that culminated in the turmoil of 2020.
P. Andrew Sandlin is a Christian minister, cultural theologian, and author; the founder and president of the Center for Cultural Leadership in Coulterville, California; De Yong Distinguished Visiting Professor of Culture and Theology at Edinburg Theological Seminary in Pharr, Texas; and core faculty at Evan Runner International Academy for Cultural Leadership of the Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity in Grimsby, Ontario. He was formerly president of the National Reform Association and executive vice president of the Chalcedon Foundation.
Haidian Christian Church is a church located in Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing. It is operated by the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a state-registered Protestant Church in Mainland China.
The Nanjing Union Theological Seminary is the flagship theological seminary of Protestant Christianity in China today. It is managed by the China Christian Council.
Bob Fu is a Chinese American pastor. In 2002, he founded China Aid, which provides legal aid to Christians in China, and has been its president since then. Bob Fu was born in Shandong in 1968 and studied English literature at Liaocheng University in the 1980s. He converted to Christianity after an American teacher gave him a biography of a Chinese Christian convert. After his studies, Fu taught English at the Central Party School in Beijing while participating in the house church movement. In 1996, Bob Fu and his family emigrated to Hong Kong and then the United States, after his wife became pregnant without the government permission to have a child. Fu founded the China Aid Association in Philadelphia in 2002, but moved its headquarters to Midland, Texas in 2004. Fu is also known for his role in helping negotiate barefoot lawyer Chen Guangcheng's immigration to the United States; in this sense, has been described as a "liaison" between oppressed groups in China and foreign governments or media that can help them.
Quek Swee Hwa is a Singaporean pastor and theologian. He was the founding principal of the Biblical Graduate School of Theology. He served as the General Secretary of the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), succeeding his father Quek Kiok Chiang in the office. He is currently the Second Vice President of the ICCC.
Jeffery Tribble is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and a professor of ministry with research interests in Practical Theology, Congregational Studies and Leadership, Ethnography, Evangelism and Church Planting, Black Church Studies, and Urban Church Ministry. Academics and professionals in these fields consider him a renowned thought leader. Tribble's experience in pastoral ministry allows for his work to bridge the gap between academic research and practical church leadership.
Ernest T. Campbell was an American Presbyterian clergyman, theologian, and writer. He is most remembered as senior minister of New York City's prominent Riverside Church from 1968 to 1976. A native of New York City, Campbell previously served as minister at churches in Pennsylvania and the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan. After resigning from Riverside Church, he lectured at various seminaries including his alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary, and was Professor of Homiletics at Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary between 1982 and 1989.
Beijing Zion Church was a Protestant church founded in Beijing in 2007 by the pastor Jin Mingri. The church is considered very influential in China with Shouwang Church of Beijing, which has also a pastor with the same surname, Jin Tianming. Zion Church grew to over a 1,000 in a few years. However, the church was closed by the authorities in 2018 with its pastor under house arrest.