The evangelical church today is tragically ahistorical. Too many Christians act as though Christianity began with them and their generation. This lack of historical rootedness is tragic on many levels: 

(1) it permits people to wrongly think they are going through things that no one has gone through before
(2) it allows a runaway pessimism where a never-ending, sky-is-falling, outrage culture permeates every cultural moment 
(3) on the other hand, it can also produce an exaggerated cultural optimism that lacks sufficient sobriety. 

In short, when we lose our historical footing, we become victims of the emotions and moods of the moment in a way that is not true for those who have matured through historical awareness. Amnesia about the past often produces an eclipse in our ability to reckon with the future rightly.

The seven Christians in church history I have listed have profoundly impacted how I think about life and ministry. I consider each of them a companion as I attempt to walk in line with the gospel in my generation. I will chronologically list these seven people from church history with whom I would most want to spend a day.

1. Irenaeus (125-202)

Second-century theologian Irenaeus’ defense of the gospel in the face of the Gnostic heresy and his emphasis on the Christ-centered organic unity and eschatological-orientation of Scripture have impacted my pastoral ministry and academic scholarship. His book, On Apostolic Preaching, is one I read every year. Irenaeus’ commitment to the unity of the Bible meant that the Son of God, the last Adam, would recover all that was lost in the first Adam. Jesus, the eschatological Adam, was the one in whom the entirety of redemptive history would be summed up. Thus, Jesus Christ was both the center and telos (end) of the biblical drama of redemption because Jesus is the only lens through which the Scriptural witness can be rightly understood. I would love to talk with him about the early church and the process of his theological formation.

2. Andrew Fuller (1754-1815)

No historical author outside of the Bible has influenced my thinking as significantly as Andrew Fuller. What draws me to Fuller’s life and writings is that he addresses everything with the sober-minded clarity of a working pastor. His work as a theologian, apologist, and missionary never lost sight of Jesus, his church, and his gospel. No topic that Fuller addresses is treated abstractly and hypothetically. Still, instead, he treats every subject as having concrete implications for week-by-week gospel preaching, congregational worship, pastoral care, and church governance. I read a portion of Andrew Fuller’s Complete Works almost every day. Fuller’s life and ministry taught me that we must seek “the truth as it is in Jesus” (a phrase he used incessantly) in every aspect of his life and ministry. I would love to hear about the daily disciplines that fed his soul and made him so productive for the church in many ways. 

3. James M. Pendleton (1811-1891)

Pendleton was born in 1811 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and was raised from the age of one in Christian County, Kentucky. He pastored churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He was a prominent Southern Baptist whose life coincided with the racial debates surrounding the founding of the SBC and the American Civil War. He had everything to gain by siding with his denominational brethren on the slavery issue, but he courageously chose to argue for the end of slavery. His son would die in battle as a Confederate soldier, but Pendleton believed the Bible, when interpreted correctly, could not be co-opted into a pro-slavery agenda. I would love to hear his stories and ask about his struggles when he stood virtually alone for racial justice.

4. Lottie Moon (1840-1912)

I think that Lottie Moon would probably be the individual on this list who would be the most fun person to spend a day with. She was feisty, passionate, convictional, and courageous. When I read the book of her letters, I would go from laughing to nearly weeping again and again. I am fascinated by a woman who introduced herself as Charlotte D. Moon and said that the “D” stood for devil as a teen and became the most well-known missionary in Southern Baptist life. I would love to talk to her about almost being married to Crawford Toy, but deciding not to because of his move away from the Bible as the inerrant word of God. What a woman! As the father of five girls, I would love to have that conversation.

5. Branch Rickey (1881-1965)

Branch Rickey loved Jesus and was thankful for the baseball game, which he cherished (as do I). Rickey said, “A man could play baseball as a call of God.” In 1945, Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the MLB color barrier. What I find so amazing about the story is that in 1903, he was a 21-year-old head baseball coach at Ohio Wesleyan and had a black catcher named Charles Thomas. OWU traveled to South Bend, Indiana, for a game against Notre Dame. When they arrived, the hotel clerk refused to allow Thomas to stay because of a whites-only policy. Rickey persuaded the hotel to allow Thomas to go to his room. That evening, Rickey found his catcher sobbing and convulsively rubbing his hands and arms while muttering, “It’s my skin. If only I could wipe off the color, they could see I am a man like everybody else!” Rickey told him to “Buck up!” and said, “We will beat this one day!” but later noted he never felt so helpless and vowed at that time that he would do whatever he could to end such humiliation. I would love to ask him why he thought that, as a 21-year-old small college baseball coach 61 years before the Civil Rights Act, he had the audacity to believe he could do something about systemic racial injustice. I would love to hear him talk about the foundation of his audacious, hopeful courage!

6. George Eldon Ladd (1911-1982)

Reading Ladd made my understanding of the Bible more cohesive and holistic as I began to recognize the “already / not yet” tension of the Kingdom and the difference it makes in interpreting the entire Bible. Jesus did not simply bring a new teaching; instead, his presence was the inauguration of the eschatological kingdom. One of the reasons I am drawn to want to spend a day with Ladd is that his enormous theological influence was matched by a personal and family life that was deeply troubled. John A. D’Elia’s biography of Ladd, A Place at the Table, was one of the most disturbing reads of my life. I would love to talk to him about his faith and many struggles.  

7. Edmund Clowney (1917-2005)

In his preaching, academic labors, and writings, Edmund Clowney taught a generation how the whole Bible bears witness to Christ. Clowney influenced a generation of preachers to apply evangelical biblical theology to its preaching, treating the entire Bible as a narrative that finds its meaning in Jesus. He wanted to bridge the gap between study and pulpit and opposed moralistic preaching and lifeless doctrinal preaching. His writing and preaching ministry reinforced that preaching Christ from all the Scriptures is not simply an automatic product of an abstract hermeneutical method but reading the Bible instinctively with Jesus the Messiah as the hero of the redemptive-historical narrative. I would love to spend the day with Clowney, simply talking and asking him questions about Jesus in all of the Scripture.