Biography
Roy Clements grew up in the East End of London and earned a PhD in Chemical Physics, before working for the University Colleges Christian Fellowship in Nairobi and serving as pastor of Nairobi Baptist Church in Kenya. [5] He returned to the UK in 1979 when he became pastor of Eden Baptist Church, Cambridge, where he developed a highly successful ministry to students. [6] Over a period of some twenty years, he gained a reputation within the international Christian movement as an accomplished preacher and teacher. [5] Until 1999 he served on the boards of a number of leading evangelical organisations, including the management council of the Evangelical Alliance, which represents more than a million British Christians across 30 denominations. [1]
In 1999, his ministry within British evangelicalism ended. He had entered a relationship with another man; Chris, a Christian student who had originally sought his help with unwanted same-sex attraction. Clements had planned to leave his pastorate and undertake new career "as a Christian thinker engaged in the public communication of science". He confessed to his wife about his same-sex attraction and she gave him an ultimatum: undergo conversion therapy to cure his homosexuality and cease all contact with gay friends. He suggested that they should try to work on their marriage while he undertook a master's degree. Neither came about, as the Evangelical Alliance published a press release stating that he had left his ministry and marriage to begin a relationship with a man, and multiple stories were followed in the press. [7] [8] [9]
With the uproar, Clements went into hiding. He resigned from his church ministry and left his wife and four children. His funding from a Christian charity for his master's was revoked, and the Inter-Varsity Press had his books withdrawn from sale. He and his wife officially divorced in 2001. [9]
He has now been in a relationship with Chris for more than 20 years, and they entered into a civil partnership in 2015. [9] [10]
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that puts primary emphasis on evangelization. The word evangelic comes from the Greek word for 'good news'. The Gospel story of the salvation from sin is considered "the good news". The process of personal conversion involves complete surrender to Jesus Christ. The conversion process is authoritatively guided by the Bible, the God in Christianity's revelation to humanity. Critics of the conceptualization of evangelicalism, argue that it is too broad, too diverse, or too ill-defined to be adequately seen as a movement or a single movement.
Frank Stagg was a Southern Baptist theologian, seminary professor, author, and pastor over a 50-year ministry career. He taught New Testament interpretation and Greek at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1945 until 1964 and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky from 1964 until 1978. His publications, recognitions and honors earned him distinction as one of the eminent theologians of the past century. Other eminent theologians have honored him as a "Teaching Prophet."
No one...has ever taken the New Testament more seriously than Frank Stagg, who spent his entire life wrestling with it, paying the price in sweat and hours in an unrelenting quest to hear the message expressed in a language no longer spoken and directed toward a cultural context so foreign to the modern reader.
Expository preaching, also known as expositional preaching, is a form of preaching that details the meaning of a particular text or passage of Scripture. It explains what the Bible means by what it says. Exegesis is technical and grammatical exposition, a careful drawing out of the exact meaning of a passage in its original context. While the term exposition could be used in connection with any verbal informative teaching on any subject, the term is also used in relation to Bible preaching and teaching. The practice originated from the Jewish tradition of the rabbi giving a "Dvar Torah", explaining a passage from the Torah, during the prayer services. Expository preaching differs from topical preaching in that the former concentrates on a specific text and discusses topics covered therein; whereas, the latter concentrates on a specific topic and references texts covering the topic.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh Congregationalist minister and medical doctor who was influential in the Calvinist wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London.
John Fullerton MacArthur Jr. is an American pastor and author who hosts the national Christian 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.
Sinclair Buchanan Ferguson is a Scottish theologian known in Reformed Christian circles for his teaching, writing, and editorial work. He has been Chancellor's Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary since 2017, commuting from Scotland, where he was an assistant minister at St. Peter's Free Church of Scotland, Dundee. He is currently a preaching associate at Trinity Church, Aberdeen.
Graeme L. Goldsworthy is an Australian evangelical Anglican theologian specialising in the Old Testament and Biblical theology. His most significant work is a trilogy: Gospel and Kingdom, Gospel and Wisdom, and The Gospel in Revelation. Goldsworthy has authored several other books including According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible, and Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. He holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge in England, and Master of Theology and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia.
Terry Virgo is a prominent leader in the British New Church Movement, formerly known as the House Church Movement. He is the founder of the Newfrontiers family of neocharismatic evangelical churches, which has grown into an international apostolic network of over 1500 churches in more than 70 nations. He is a leading Calvinist Charismatic. He has five grown up children and twelve grandchildren.
Timothy James Keller was an American Calvinist pastor, preacher, theologian, and Christian apologist. He was the chairman and co-founder of Redeemer City to City, which trains pastors for service around the world. He was also the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City 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).
Robert Tillman Kendall is a Christian writer, speaker, and teacher who was pastor at Westminster Chapel for 25 years. He is author of more than 50 books, including Total Forgiveness. Kendall was part of the Word, Spirit, Power team, a non-denominational charismatic ministry.
Mark E. Dever is a theologian and the senior pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and the president of 9Marks, a Christian ministry he co-founded "in an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America. Dever also taught for the faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and also served for two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge."
Andrew Sach is a contemporary evangelical Christian pastor, speaker and author. He is an ordained Church of England minister and holds a doctorate in neuroscience. He has written several Christian books and is a regular speaker at Word Alive and other conferences.
David Jackman is a British evangelical speaker, and former president of The Proclamation Trust. He founded the Cornhill Training Course in 1991 and was previously Minister of Above Bar Church, Southampton from 1976 to 1991.
Derek John Tidball is a British theologian, sociologist of religion, and Baptist minister. From 1995 to 2007 he was the principal of London Bible College which later took the name London School of Theology.
Bryan Chapell is an American pastor and theologian who currently serves as the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America. He was previously the senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois. Prior to that he was president and chancellor of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri for twenty years. Chapell is also an author, lecturer, and conference speaker specializing in homiletics. He served as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America in 2014.
Gregory Kimball Beale is a biblical scholar, currently a Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He has made a number of contributions to conservative biblical hermeneutics, particularly in the area of the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament and is one of the most influential and prolific active New Testament scholars in the world. He served as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2004. In 2013, he was elected by Westminster Theological Seminary to be the first occupant of the J. Gresham Machen Chair of New Testament. At his inauguration he delivered an address titled The Cognitive Peripheral Vision of Biblical Writers.
Inter-Varsity Press (IVP) was previously the publishing wing of Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship. It supported the publishing or distribution of well over one million books each year to over 150 countries, including the translation of titles into over 90 different languages. Following a UCCF-wide strategic review in 2005, IVP was divested. It was intended that this would reduce the financial burden on UCCF. By 2015, IVP was nearly insolvent. The trustees transferred its assets and liabilities to religious publisher SPCK, with an agreement to use the imprint for evangelical Christian publishing.
The Rev. Samuel Eyles Pierce was an English preacher, theologian, and Calvinist divine. A Dissenter from the Honiton area, Pierce was an evangelical church minister aligned with Calvinist Baptist theology. He wrote more than fifty books and many sermons.
Derek W. H. Thomas is a Reformed pastor and theologian known for his teaching, writing and editorial work. He retired in December, 2023 as the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina. He is currently serving as interim preacher at First Presbyterian Church in Yazoo City, MS. He continues as distinguished visiting professor of systematic and historical theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.
David G. Peterson, is a scholar of the New Testament. He was senior research fellow and lecturer in New Testament at Moore Theological College in Sydney and is an ordained minister of the Anglican Church of Australia. He now lectures at the college part-time.
