VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 6/10/14)—Four American Baptists have been included in the “Christian Educators of the 20th Century Project,” an online database of influential 20th-century Christian education leaders.
They are Orlando E. Costas, Linda R. Isham, Ella P. Mitchell and Virginia Sargent—all past employees of the former Educational Ministries, the work of which continues under the auspices of American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS).
“I have benefitted by studying under or serving with each of these 20th-century American Baptist education luminaries. They made an indelible mark on an entire generation of seekers and seasoned saints,” says ABHMS Executive Director Dr. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III. “The heirs of these American Baptist educators continue to develop disciples and shape the spiritual formation of people in both the pew and the pulpit.”
The project is that of Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, La Mirada, Calif.
According to the school’s website, the project is “an effort to pull together information on influential Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian/religious education leaders of the 20th century and make it available to people all over the world for research and as a reference work. It is a web-based database providing biographical and bibliographical information on these leaders to assist others in understanding the development of Christian religious education in North America over this past century.
“The project covers approximately 160 Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox [educators], who have helped shape Christian/religious education since the founding of the Religious Education Association in 1903,” the website continues. “Entries include: biographical essays, pictures, bibliographies of their publications and others about them and their work, excerpts of their works demonstrating their ideas…and assessments of their influence within the field of Christian education. The project has a peer-review board and is designed to help facilitate historical, philosophical, and theological research in the broad field of Christian religious education.”
American Baptist Home Mission Societies—the domestic mission arm of American Baptist Churches USA—ministers as the caring heart and serving hands of Jesus Christ across the United States and Puerto Rico through a multitude of initiatives that focus on discipleship, community and justice.
American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with over 5,200 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.