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Home > 1996 > November 11Christianity Today, November 11, 1996  |   |  
Up & Comers, Part 1
Fifty evangelical leaders 40 and under.



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What will evangelicalism look like in the next century? No one can paint the future, of course, but one good indicator is the quality and vitality of a movement's younger leaders—those who will shape and reshape the founders' original vision.
In September, CT's fortieth anniversary celebrated those who had molded modern American evangelicalism in the years following World War II. In this issue we look to those 40 and under who are now taking the reins of leadership. To find them, we asked nearly 1,000 respected Christian leaders for their nominations, then undertook the daunting task of selecting 50. At the end of the job, we realized more than ever that those pictured here represent merely a sampling of the many faithful disciples God has raised up to lead the church into the new millennium. All are bright, talented visionaries and doers, and each seeks the Spirit's leading.
What is evangelicalism's future? Read on. We think you will be encouraged.

Danny and Luis Cort豬 35, 39
Danny - Program officer, Pew Charitable Trusts
Luis - Executive Director, Hispanic Century Fund and Hispanic Clergy




These two Newyorican (New York Puerto Ricans) brothers, now based in Philadelphia, share a vision: to fund evangelical Latino organizations and leaders. As a Pew program officer, Danny has helped steer $10.5 million in grants since 1990 to Latino evangelical organizations, including the newly founded and influential Alianza de Ministerios Evang諩cos Nacionales and the Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana. And through the Hispanic Theological Initiative, Danny aims to churn out in the next four years 75 Latinos with master's degrees and 50 with Ph.D.'s in religion and related fields. "Half of evangelical Latinos who have come through Ph.D. programs so far have done so because of Danny," says church historian Justo González.

Luis, through his Nueva Esperanza, Inc., and the Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia, has sponsored health clinics, job-training programs, house rehabilitation, and leadership development. By 2000 he wants to raise $5 million for the Hispanic Century Fund, which would help finance the creation of a Latino evangelical publishing house and a community college that would prep Latinos for elite universities. "Institutions are the vehicles through which wealth, knowledge, power, and culture are transferred," explains Luis. "We Hispanic Christians need to own and control the institutions serving our community. And that means creating our own."


L. Gregory Jones, 35
Theology professor, Loyola College

Greg Jones claims ministry is his family's business: there are Methodist pastors for several generations on his mother's side, his brother is a Methodist pastor, his father was one, and Jones himself is a part-time minister of discipleship in the parish where his wife, Susan, is the head pastor. Jones's "day job," however, is teaching theology at Loyola College in Maryland. He also writes: his latest book, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Eerdmans, 1995), won a CT Book Award last April, and reviewers for New Theology Review and The Expository Times have already labeled this book a contemporary classic. What excites Jones, a Wesleyan teaching at a Catholic school, is helping laypeople to think theologically. In Embodying, he did this by making readers wrestle personally with Jesus' counsel to "forgive those who trespass against us." Two new books in the works reflect his interest in having Christians see the triune God at the center of life: The Desire to Know God: Theology as a Way of Life and Mending Lives. The latter, coauthored with his wife, popularizes Embodying Forgiveness and incorporates hope-inspiring stories about people being healed through Christian forgiveness.





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