Favorite Progressive Missional Voices

Peter Rollins is a widely sought after writer, lecturer, storyteller and public speaker. He is also the founder of ikon, a faith group that has gained an international reputation for blending live music, visual imagery, soundscapes, theatre, ritual and reflection to create what they call ‘transformance art’.
Peter gained his higher education from Queens University, Belfast and has earned degrees (with distinction) in Scholastic Philosophy (BA Hons), Political Theory (MA) and Post-Structural thought (PhD). He is currently a research associate with the Irish School of Ecumenics in Trinity College, Dublin and is the author of the much talked about How (Not) to Speak of God. His most recent work is entitled Insurrection. He was born in Belfast but currently resides in Greenwich, CT and is employed by The Olson Foundation.

Rachel Held Evans is an award-winning author and popular blogger from Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.

Rachel’s first book, Evolving in Monkey Town (Zondervan, 2010), explores the relationship between faith and doubt and recounts the challenges of asking tough questions about Christianity in the context of the Bible Belt.

In October, Rachel finished a yearlong experiment in “biblical womanhood” in which she attempted to follow all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible. That experiment will be documented in a book published by Thomas Nelson in 2012.

In addition to her writing, Rachel has maintained a busy speaking schedule across the country for retreats, conferences, universities and churches. Some of her most recent events have included, The Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, Baylor University, Abilene Christian University Summit, Gordon College, Eastern Nazarene College, Hope International University, Big Tent Christianity, The Southern Festival of Books, and Soularize.

She has also been featured in interviews on NPR, Slate, The BBC, The Washington Post, The Guardian (UK), The Times London, The Huffington Post, and Oprah.com.

Rachel is a skeptic, a creative, and a follower of Jesus. She is a lifelong Alabama Crimson Tide fan, and happily married to her husband Dan.

Nicholas Thomas Wright is an Anglican bishop and a leading New Testament scholar. He is published as N. T. Wright when writing academic work, or Tom Wright when writing for a more popular readership. His books include What St Paul Really Said and Simply Christian. Wright was the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England from 2003 until his retirement in 2010 to take up a new appointment as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews in Scotland, which will enable him to concentrate on his academic and broadcasting work.

My desire is to equip and mobilize creatives and collaborators in the way of Jesus. I do this as the Host and Curator for MissionPlanting.com - "Streamline Learning in a Seamless Network". We develop voices that embrace diversity, justice, beauty, humility, hospitality and value restoration, redemption, resurrection, and reconciliation to embody Shalom. Past projects have been creating TheOOZE.com, hosting Soularize - a learning party, writing - "Heretics Guide to Eternity", co-founding The Damah Film Festival. I love photography and I invite views to reflect on life/issues with "Monotation" - one image, one word. I live in Newport Beach, CA with my wife Lisa of 27 years, son Alden (14) and daughter Grace (10).

Anne Lamott is a novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a political activist, public speaker and writing teacher. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, Lamott's writings cover such subjects as alcoholism, single motherhood, depression and Christianity. Lamott's life was documented in Freida Lee Mock's 1999 documentary Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott. Because of the documentary and her following on Facebook and other online networks, she is often called the "People's Author".

Founding Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good (www.faithvoices.org). She was a professor for twenty years, directed the Fellowship Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, a prominent advanced research institute, and from 2001-2002, was a Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School Center for Values in Public Life. Her latest book, Saving Paradise, co-authored with Rebecca Parker, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 2008.

Caputo is a specialist in contemporary continental philosophy, with a particular expertise in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Over the years he has developed a deconstructive hermeneutics he calls radical hermeneutics. Additionally, Caputo has developed a distinctive approach to religion he calls weak theology. Recently, his most important work has been to rebut the charges of relativism made against deconstruction by showing that deconstruction is organized around the affirmation of certain unconditional ethical and political claims.
Caputo has a special interest in continental approaches to the philosophy of religion. Some of the ideas Caputo investigates in his work include the religion without religion of Jacques Derrida; the "theological turn" taken in recent French phenomenology by Jean-Luc Marion and others; the critique of ontotheology; the dialogue of contemporary philosophy with Augustine of Hippo and Paul of Tarsus; and medieval metaphysics and mysticism. In the past, Caputo has taught courses on Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Lévinas, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida.
Caputo's book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida has provoked a widespread rereading of Derrida's work and has also sparked considerable interest in deconstruction in theology and religious studies.

Eugene H. Peterson is a pastor, scholar, author, and poet. He has written over thirty books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Navpress Publishing Group, 2002), a contemporary translation of the Bible. He earned his B.A. in philosophy from Seattle Pacific University, his S.T.B. from New York Theological Seminary, and his M.A. in Semitic languages from Johns Hopkins University.[2] In 1962, Peterson was a founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Bel Air, Maryland, where he served for 29 years before retiring in 1991. He was Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia until retiring in 2006. He now lives in Montana.

Pastor of Missiongathering Christian Church in San Diego, California.

Rasberry is my favorite Jello flavor. My wife is a blue belt. My daughters make me feel old.I have had fifty kidney stones, but still drink too much coffee. I like art museums, red wine, dancing and quiche. I can bench press 275 lbs, except when I am on the OG then I bench press twice as much. CROWNTOWNPUNKS I like Thai food better than Thai boxing. I don't love the smell of Napalm in the morning. I think Chuck Palahniuk is a poor mans David Foster Wallace. Bukowski makes me want to be a writer. Rothko makes me want to be a painter. Jesus makes me want to be a better man. I really like peanut butter on a hot English Muffin. Soccer is stupid. Cricket is better than baseball. Wrestling is the toughest olympic sport, but sometimes it looks pretty gay, not that there is anything wrong with that. Beating up pacifists is like shooting fish in a barrel. The Tick was a great cartoon. my brother Keith is funny. I am scared of horses.

Rob Bell is an internationally known speaker and writer. Rob is the author of Love Wins, Velvet Elvis, Drops Like Stars, Sex God, and co-author of Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Rob and his wife Kristen founded Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI where Rob was a teacher and pastor for 12 years. He is also featured in a series of spiritual short films called NOOMA. Rob and Kristen live in Los Angeles and have 3 children.

With tears and laughter, Shane Claiborne unveils the tragic messes we’ve made of our world and the tangible hope that another world is possible. Shane graduated from Eastern University, and did graduate work at Princeton Seminary. His ministry experience is varied, from a 10-week stint working alongside Mother Teresa in Calcutta, to a year spent serving a wealthy mega-congregation at Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago. During the recent war in Iraq, Shane spent three weeks in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team. Shane is also a founding partner of The Simple Way, a faith community in inner city Philadelphia that has helped to birth and connect radical faith communities around the world.

Shane writes and travels extensively speaking about peacemaking, social justice, and Jesus. He is featured in the DVD series “Another World Is Possible” and is the author of the several books including The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus for President, and Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers.

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province. He founded the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1971, and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1986. He presently serves the Center for Action and Contemplation as Founding Director. Some of his best known books are Everything Belongs, Adam’s Return, Hope Against Darkness, From Wild Men to Wise Men: Reflections on Male Spirituality, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, The Naked Now: Learning to See As the Mystics See and Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps (September 2011) is his most recent book.

Donald Miller is a best-selling American author and public speaker based out of Portland, Oregon who focuses on Christian spirituality as "an explanation for beauty, meaning, and the human struggle" Miller was the editor of an online Christian magazine called roadsearching.com and the owner of a small Portland-based publishing company called Coffee House Books, which published home schooling textbooks. Miller became a New York Times Bestselling Author when he published Blue Like Jazz in 2003. In 2004, Miller released Searching For God Knows What, which explores how the life of Jesus illustrates the human personality. In 2006, he added another book, To Own A Dragon, which offered Miller's reflections on growing up without a father. This book reflected an interest already present in Miller's life, as he founded the Mentoring Project (formerly the Belmont Foundation), a non-profit that partners with local churches to mentor fatherless young men.

Barbara Brown Taylor is the Butman Professor of Religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia, An Episcopal priest since 1984, she is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World, published by HarperOne in February 2009. Her first memoir, Leaving Church, met with widespread critical acclaim, winning a 2006 Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association. Taylor and her husband Ed live on a working farm in the foothills of the Appalachians with wild turkeys, red foxes, two old Quarter horses and too many chickens.

Dallas Albert Willard is an American philosophy professor and author born in Buffalo, Missouri. His work in philosophy has been primarily in phenomenology, particularly the work of Edmund Husserl. His more popular work has been in the area of Christian spiritual formation, within the various expressions of historic Christian orthodoxy. In addition to teaching and writing about philosophy, Willard gives lectures and writes books about Christianity and Christian living. His book The Divine Conspiracy was Christianity Today’s Book of the Year for 1999. Another of his books, Renovation of the Heart, won Christianity Today’s 2003 Book Award for books on Spirituality and The Association of Logos Bookstores' 2003 Book Award for books on Christian Living.

C. René Padilla was born in Quito, Ecuador, and reared and Bogota, Colombia. He has been living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since 1967. He received a B. A. in Philosophy from Wheaton College, an MA in Theology from Wheaton College Graduate School, and a PhD in New Testament from the University of Manchester, England. In 1992 he was given a DD by Wheaton College. He is a founding member of the Latin American Theological Fellowship (FTL is its acronym in Spanish) and of the Kairos Foundation in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is President of the Micah Network and Executive Director of Ediciones Kairos, the publishing arm of the Kairos Foundation. He has lectured in many countries around the world and has written or edited several books. He is married to Catharine Feser and has four daughters, one son, and twenty grandchildren.

John M. Perkins is a sharecropper’s son who grew up in New Hebron, Mississippi amidst dire poverty. Fleeing to California at age 17 after his older brother’s murder at the hands of a town marshal, he vowed never to return. However after converting to Christianity in 1960 he returned to Mendenhall, Mississippi to share the gospel of Christ. While in Mississippi, his outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings and imprisonment. He again was arrested in 2005 year while protesting in Washington D.C. against U. S. Government defunding of programs aiding the poor. In 1983, while yet in California, Perkins and his wife, along with a few friends and other major supporters, established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development, Inc for the sole purpose of supporting their mission of advancing the principles of Christian community development and racial reconciliation throughout the world.

He is an American New Testament scholar, theologian and author. He is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar.

Karen Armstrong FRSL is a British author and commentator known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith.

Bruce Sanguin, Christian minister and author of popular books on Evolutionary Christianity, explores the intersection of evolution, spirit, and the church.

For those seeking to experience Christianity in a new and vibrant way, Bishop John Shelby Spong offers fresh spiritual ideas.

He is an American Episcopal priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Roman Catholic Church, he is now a member of the Episcopal Church. Fox was an early and influential exponent of a movement that came to be known as Creation Spirituality.