A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a Vimeo video by Evangelical Seminary (my alma mater) President Tony Blair entitled, How the Pietists Made Disciples.
I watched it. It's awesome, but it was all the more fascinating to me because the video traced Pietist disciplining strategies to the seventeenth century German minister Philipp Jakob Spener.
It turns out that, years ago, I began to ask myself who, among all the great heroes of the Christian faith, inspires me most: My Five Greatest Heroes from "Church History"...
...and, Philipp Jakob Spener made my list.
I settled on this list in a relatively short time and the membership of the list has remained the same for a long time even though, for my own amusement, I have reconsidered it many times.
Some of these names are relatively obscure. Spener is probably the most obscure but there are no Luthers or Calvins here.
Here's the list in chronological order. The characteristics that set these (they are all) men, apart, and which I greatly admire, are that they all attacked an existing paradigm and they all advocated for radically righteous lives. These are, of course, characteristics I aspire to, hence the fact that they are heroes to me personally.
1. Tertullian (155?-220?)
2. Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705)
3. John Winebrenner (1797-1860)-well, I am still in love with the Church of God
4. Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
My guess is that no one who reads this blog would be amused for a nanosecond by creating a list of greatest Christian heroes. But, if you have thoughts...
...on or off the blog, of course.
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