Yesterday, a couple other CT editors and I were attempting, audaciously, to name the most influential evangelicals in public life today. These are people we were calling “bridgebuilders,” those who have an activist impulse to reach beyond the walls of the church to shape the broader culture for Christ.
The ones that came to our minds first: pastors Rick Warren and Tim Keller political leaders Joshua DuBois, Richard Land, Jim Wallis, and Frank Page conservative pundits James Dobson and Chuck Colson apologists Dinesh D’Souza and Lee Strobel the hard-to-categorize Richard Mouw and Joel C. Hunter
We then spent several minutes trying to find a woman to add to this list of fine leaders, and we left the conversation fruitless. Sure, we could think of a few who had tremendous influence within the church, writing books and teaching the Bible, such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Anne Graham Lotz. But in terms of women doing influential work in American public life, we came up short.
Perhaps our endeavor was based on a faulty premise, that Christians who appear in The New York Times and FOX News are more worthy of our attention here at CT than are those ‘normal’ Christians who go about the work of ministry in a down-to-earth, local context. Still, can you help us think of the women we have forgotten who are shaping the broader culture for Christ?
