List of Famous Evangelists
- Age: 61Joel Scott Osteen (born March 5, 1963) is an American pastor, televangelist, and author, based in Houston, Texas. Osteen's televised sermons are seen by over 7 million viewers weekly and over 20 million monthly in over 100 countries.He is the author of ten books which have been ranked number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.More Joel Osteen
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- Age: 53Kirk Thomas Cameron (born October 12, 1970) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Mike Seaver on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains (1985–1992), a role for which he was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards. As a child actor, Cameron made several other television and film appearances through the 1980s and 1990s, including the films Like Father Like Son (1987) and Listen to Me (1989). In the 2000s, he portrayed Cameron "Buck" Williams in the Left Behind film series and Caleb Holt in the drama film Fireproof (2008). His 2014 film, Saving Christmas, was panned by critics and peaked the IMDb Bottom 100 List within one month of its theatrical release.Cameron is also an active Evangelical Christian, partnering with Ray Comfort in the evangelical ministry The Way of the Master, and has co-founded The Firefly Foundation with his wife, actress Chelsea Noble.More Kirk Cameron
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- Age: 105Known for his profound influence as an evangelical Christian figure, Billy Graham rose to prominence with his charismatic preaching style and commitment to the gospel. Born on November 7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Graham was raised on a dairy farm, where he developed a strong work ethic that would later play a significant role in his ministry. After graduating from Florida Bible Institute and Wheaton College, Graham embarked on a pastoral career and quickly gained recognition for his powerful sermons and magnetic personality. Graham's ministry expanded beyond church walls when he began broadcasting on radio and television, reaching millions of people worldwide. His innovative use of media technology helped him spread his message to a broader audience, transforming him into one of the most influential religious figures of the 20th century. Graham also served as a spiritual advisor to several U.S. presidents, further cementing his status as a key figure in American religious and political life. Throughout his life, Graham remained dedicated to his faith and his mission of spreading the gospel. His crusades, which took place in various parts of the world, attracted large crowds and led many to Christianity. Notably, Graham held steadfast to his principles, refusing to segregate his audiences during a time when racial segregation was prevalent. A prolific author, Graham wrote numerous books, sharing his insights on faith and spirituality. His legacy continues to inspire countless individuals around the globe, marking him as a transformative figure in the realm of religion and spirituality.More Billy Graham
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- Age: 66Thomas Dexter Jakes Sr. (born June 9, 1957), known as T. D. Jakes, is a pastor, author and filmmaker. He is the pastor of The Potter's House, a non-denominational American megachurch. Jakes's church services and evangelistic sermons are broadcast on The Potter's Touch, which airs on Lightsource.com, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Black Entertainment Television, the Daystar Television Network and The Word Network. Other aspects of Jakes's ministry include the annual festival MegaFest which draws more than 300,000 people, the annual women's conference Woman Thou Art Loosed, and gospel music recordings. He hosted the T.D. Jakes Show, a nationally syndicated talk show produced by Tegna Media and distributed by Sony Pictures Television, until the show's cancellation in March 2017.More T. D. Jakes
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- Age: 41Nicholas James Vujicic ( VOY-chitch; born 4 December 1982) is an Australian Christian evangelist and motivational speaker born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder (called phocomelia) characterized by the absence of arms and legs.
- Age: 67Ted Arthur Haggard (; born June 27, 1956) is an American evangelical pastor. Haggard is the founder and former pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado and is a founder of the Association of Life-Giving Churches. He served as President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 until November 2006. Haggard made national headlines in November 2006 when male prostitute and masseur Mike Jones alleged that Haggard, who had advocated against the legalization of same-sex marriage, had paid him for sex for three years and had also purchased and used crystal methamphetamine. After initially denying the allegations, Haggard claimed to have purchased methamphetamine and thrown it away without using it. Haggard resigned his post at New Life Church and his other leadership roles shortly after the allegations became public. Later, Haggard admitted to having used drugs, participated in some sexual activity with Jones, and engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a young man who attended New Life Church. In 2010, Haggard and his wife, Gayle, founded St. James Church in Colorado Springs; as of September 2018, Haggard continues to serve as founding pastor at St. James Church.More Ted Haggard
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- Age: 71William Franklin Graham III (born July 14, 1952) is a Christian evangelist and missionary, and political pundit. Graham frequently engages in Christian revival tours and political commentary. He is currently president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization. Graham became a "committed Christian" in 1974 and was ordained in 1982, and has since become a public speaker and author. He is also known for being a son of the American evangelist Billy Graham.More Franklin Graham
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- Dec. at 53 (1890-1944)Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or simply Sister, was a Canadian-American Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s, famous for founding the Foursquare Church. McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, because she used radio to draw on the growing appeal of popular entertainment in North America and incorporated other forms into her weekly sermons at Angelus Temple, one of the first megachurches.In her time she was the most publicized Protestant evangelist, surpassing Billy Sunday and her other predecessors. She conducted public faith healing demonstrations before large crowds; testimonies conveyed tens of thousands of people healed. McPherson's articulation of the United States as a nation founded and sustained by divine inspiration continues to be echoed by many pastors in churches today. News coverage sensationalized her misfortunes with family and church members; particularly inflaming accusations she had fabricated her reported kidnapping, turning it into a national spectacle. McPherson's preaching style, extensive charity work and ecumenical contributions were a major influence on Charismatic Christianity in the 20th century.
- Age: 74Ray Comfort (born 5 December 1949) is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist who lives in the United States. Comfort started Living Waters Publications, as well as the ministry The Way of the Master, in Bellflower, California, and has written several books.
- Age: 70Richard Duane Warren (born January 28, 1954) is an American evangelical Christian pastor and author. He is the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, in Lake Forest, California that is the sixth-largest megachurch in the United States (including multi-site churches). He is also a bestselling author of many Christian books, including his guide to church ministry and evangelism, The Purpose Driven Church, which has spawned a series of conferences on Christian ministry and evangelism. His subsequent book The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 30 million copies, making Warren a New York Times bestselling author.Warren holds conservative theological views and traditional evangelical views on social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, abstinence-only education over the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS, and embryonic stem-cell research. During the 2008 United States presidential election, Warren hosted the Civil Forum on the Presidency at his church with both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama. Obama later sparked controversy when he asked Warren to give the invocation at the presidential inauguration in January 2009.
- Dec. at 88 (1926-2014)Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014), was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland. He became a Protestant evangelical minister in 1946 and remained one for the rest of his life. In 1951 he co-founded the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and was its leader until 2008. Paisley became known for his fiery sermons and regularly preached and protested against Roman Catholicism, ecumenism and homosexuality. He gained a large group of followers who were referred to as Paisleyites. Paisley became involved in Ulster unionist/loyalist politics in the late 1950s. In the mid-late 1960s, he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. This contributed to the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, a conflict that would engulf Northern Ireland for the next thirty years. In 1970 he became Member of Parliament for North Antrim and the following year he founded the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which he would lead for almost forty years. In 1979 he became a Member of the European Parliament. Throughout the Troubles, Paisley was seen as a firebrand and the face of hardline unionism. He opposed all attempts to resolve the conflict through power-sharing between unionists and Irish nationalists/republicans, and all attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in Northern affairs. His efforts helped bring down the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974. He also opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, with less success. His attempts to create a paramilitary movement culminated in Ulster Resistance. Paisley and his party also opposed the Northern Ireland peace process and Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In 2005, Paisley's DUP became the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland, displacing the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which had dominated unionist politics since 1905 and had been an instrumental party in the Good Friday Agreement. In 2007, following the St Andrews Agreement, the DUP finally agreed to share power with republican party Sinn Féin. Paisley and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness became First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively in May 2007. He stepped down as First Minister and DUP leader in mid-2008, and left politics in 2011. Paisley was made a life peer in 2010 as Baron Bannside.
- Dec. at 72 (1862-1935)William Ashley Sunday (November 19, 1862 – November 6, 1935) was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.Born into poverty in Iowa, Sunday spent some years at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home before working at odd jobs and playing for local running and baseball teams. His speed and agility provided him the opportunity to play baseball in the major leagues for eight years, where he was an average hitter and a good fielder known for his base-running. Converting to evangelical Christianity in the 1880s, Sunday left baseball for the Christian ministry. He gradually developed his skills as a pulpit evangelist in the Midwest and then, during the early 20th century, he became the nation's most famous evangelist with his colloquial sermons and frenetic delivery. Sunday held widely reported campaigns in America's largest cities, and he attracted the largest crowds of any evangelist before the advent of electronic sound systems. He also made a great deal of money and was welcomed into the homes of the wealthy and influential. Sunday was a strong supporter of Prohibition, and his preaching likely played a significant role in the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. Despite questions about his income, no scandal ever touched Sunday. He was sincerely devoted to his wife, who also managed his campaigns, but his three sons disappointed him. His audiences grew smaller during the 1920s as Sunday grew older, religious revivals became less popular, and alternative sources of entertainment appeared. Nevertheless, Sunday continued to preach and remained a stalwart defender of conservative Christianity until his death.
- Age: 71Kent E. Hovind (born January 15, 1953) is an American Christian fundamentalist evangelist and tax protester. He is a controversial figure in the Young Earth creationist movement whose ministry focuses on denial of scientific theories in the fields of biology (evolution), geophysics, and cosmology in favor of a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative found in the Bible. Hovind's views, which combine elements of creation science and conspiracy theory, are dismissed by the scientific community as fringe theory and pseudo-scholarship. He has been criticized by Young Earth Creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis for his continued use of discredited arguments that have been abandoned by others in the movement. Hovind established Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) in 1989 and Dinosaur Adventure Land in 2001 in Pensacola, Florida. He frequently spoke on Young Earth creationism in schools, churches, debates, and on radio and television broadcasts. His son Eric Hovind took over operation of CSE after Hovind began serving a ten-year prison sentence in January 2007 for federal convictions for failing to pay taxes, obstructing federal agents, and structuring cash transactions.
- Dec. at 62 (1837-1899)Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 – December 22, 1899), also known as D. L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher connected with the Holiness Movement, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts (now Northfield Mount Hermon School), Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers. One of his most famous quotes was “Faith makes all things possible... Love makes all things easy.“
- Age: 62Creflo Augustus Dollar, Jr. is an American televangelist, pastor, and the founder of the non-denominational World Changers Church International based in Fulton County, Georgia, Creflo Dollar Ministerial Association, Creflo Dollar Ministries, and Arrow Records. Some sources report that Dollar's real name is Michael Smith, which Dollar has called an "urban legend".
- Dec. at 55 (1714-1770)George Whitefield (; 27 December [O.S. 16 December] 1714 – 30 September 1770), also spelled Whitfield, was an English Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement.Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford in 1732. There he joined the "Holy Club" and was introduced to the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, with whom he would work closely in his later ministry. Whitefield was ordained after receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree. He immediately began preaching, but he did not settle as the minister of any parish. Rather he became an itinerant preacher and evangelist. In 1740, Whitefield traveled to North America, where he preached a series of revivals that became part of the "Great Awakening". His methods were controversial and he engaged in numerous debates and disputes with other clergymen. Whitefield received widespread recognition during his ministry; he preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million listeners in Great Britain and the American colonies. Whitefield could enthrall large audiences through a potent combination of drama, religious rhetoric, and imperial pride.
- Dec. at 91 (1918-2009)Granville Oral Roberts (January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009) was an American Charismatic Christian televangelist, ordained in both the Pentecostal Holiness and United Methodist churches. He is considered the godfather of the charismatic movement and one of the most recognized preachers worldwide. He founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University. As one of the most well-known and controversial American religious leaders of the 20th century, his preaching emphasized seed-faith. His ministries reached millions of followers worldwide spanning a period of over six decades. His healing ministry and bringing American Pentecostalism into the mainstream had the most impact, but he also pioneered televangelism and laid the foundations of the prosperity gospel and abundant life teachings. The breadth and style of his ministry, including his widely publicized funding appeals, made him a consistent subject of contention among critics and supporters.More Oral Roberts
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- Age: 83Arthur Owen Blessitt (born October 27, 1940 in Greenville, Mississippi) is a traveling Christian preacher who is known for carrying a cross through every nation of the world.
- Dec. at 79 (1934-2013)Paul Franklin Crouch (March 30, 1934 – November 30, 2013) was an American television evangelist. Crouch and his wife, Jan, founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in 1973.
- Dec. at 43 (1949-1993)Lonnie Ray Frisbee (June 6, 1949 – March 12, 1993) was an American Charismatic evangelist and self-described "seeing prophet" in the late 1960s and 1970s. He maintained a hippie appearance and struggled with homosexuality (according to his own report). He was notable as a minister and evangelist in the signs and wonders movement of the 1970s and 1980s.Frisbee was a key figure in the Jesus movement and eyewitness accounts of his ministry documented in the 2007 Emmy-nominated film Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher explain how Frisbee became the charismatic spark igniting the rise of Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard Movement, two worldwide denominations and among the largest evangelical denominations to emerge in the last thirty years. It was said that he was not one of the hippie preachers, "there was one." The term 'power evangelism' comes from Frisbee's ministry. Some of his harshest critics for heavy use of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit came from the churches he helped found. He also influenced many prophetic evangelists including Jonathan Land, Marc Dupont, Jill Austin and others. Frisbee co-founded the House of Miracles commune and was its main architect, converting many. The House of Miracles grew into a series of nineteen communal houses that later migrated to Oregon to form Shiloh Youth Revival Centers, the largest and one of the longest-lasting of the Jesus People communal groups. Frisbee functioned both as an evangelical preacher also privately socialized as a gay man before and during his evangelism career. This is held in tension with the fact that he said in interviews that he never believed homosexuality was anything other than a sin in the eyes of God and both denominations prohibited gay sexual behavior. Both churches later disowned him because of his active sexual life, removing him first from leadership positions, then ultimately, firing him. He was shunned and "written out of the official histories." As part of his ostracism from his former churches his work was maligned but he forgave those who tried to discredit him before his death from AIDS in 1993.
- Age: 89Luis Palau Jr. (born November 27, 1934) is an international Christian evangelist living in the Portland area in Oregon, United States. He was born in Argentina and moved to Portland in his mid-twenties to enroll in a graduate program in Biblical studies. Palau had a long and close relationship with evangelist Billy Graham, and has been characterized by many as Graham's successor. "One of the world’s leading evangelical Christian figures," he is known for his strong appeal to young people, and for his efforts to reach out to secular leaders to address issues like homelessness. In 2007, he was estimated to have shared the message of Jesus Christ with 25 million people in 70 nations. Palau's ministry employs 70 people in their headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon and another 25 around the world which include offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina and London, England.On Thursday January 18, 2018 Luis Palau shared on Facebook that he had stage four lung cancer. In late November 2018, he told a reporter for the Beaverton Valley Times that his cancer had "stablized for now".
Tammy Faye
Dec. at 65 (1942-2007)Tamara Faye Messner (née LaValley, formerly Bakker; March 7, 1942 – July 20, 2007) was an American Christian singer, evangelist, entrepreneur, author, talk show host, and television personality. She initially gained notice for her work with The PTL Club, a televangelist program she co-founded with her then-husband Jim Bakker in 1974. Prior to founding The PTL Club, they had hosted their own puppet show series for local programming in Minnesota in the early 1970s, and Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.Messner would garner significant publicity when Jim Bakker was indicted, convicted, and imprisoned on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989, resulting in the dissolution of The PTL Club. After divorcing Bakker in 1992, she remarried to Roe Messner. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, of which she suffered intermittently for over a decade before dying of the disease in 2007.Over the course of her career, Messner was noted for her eccentric and glamorous persona, as well as for her moral views that diverged from those of many mainstream Evangelists, particularly her acceptance of the LGBT community and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.More Tammy Faye- #46 of 52 onThe Last Known Photos of 52 Famous People
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- Dec. at 84 (1883-1968)Robert Reynolds Jones Sr. (October 30, 1883 – January 16, 1968) was an American evangelist, pioneer religious broadcaster, and the founder and first president of Bob Jones University.
- Dec. at 84 (1877-1961)Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr. (April 2, 1877 – November 1, 1961), was an American Independent Baptist evangelist and temperance movement leader. He entered the ministry in 1901 and in 1936 began a radio broadcast reaching into seven southern states. Early in his ministry, he was ordained at Burton Memorial Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The son of Tobias Ham and the former Ollie McElroy, Ham was born on a farm in Allen County near Scottsville in southern Kentucky, north of the Tennessee state line. Descended from eight generations of Baptist preachers, his namesake grandfather was Mordecai F. Ham, Sr. He once stated that "From the time I was eight years old, I never thought of myself as anything but a Christian. At nine, I had definite convictions that the Lord wanted me to preach...." Ham studied at Ogden College in Bowling Green and relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where he engaged in business from 1896 to 1900. There, he married the former Bessie Simmons in July 1900. In December 1900, he closed the business to devote full-time to the ministry.One target of Ham's sermons was alcohol abuse, particularly before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He believed that problems involving liquor could best be resolved by conversion to Christianity and the placement of new believers in churches which stress abstinence of alcoholic beverages.Ham was publicly and virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. He was "a revivalist who considered Jews 'beyond redemption'".In 1928, though many in his congregation were Democrats, Ham supported Republican Herbert Hoover for the American presidency: "If you vote for Al Smith, you're voting against Christ, and you will all be damned". Smith was the Roman Catholic and Democratic governor of New York who lost the election to Hoover. In November 1934, Billy Graham was converted under Mordecai Ham's preaching in a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina. Through Ham's influence with William Bell Riley in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Graham was launched onto a national and international platform of influence and prestige among evangelical ranks. Ham had held his greatest number of meetings in Texas. Graham joined a Texas church, First Baptist of Dallas, then the largest Southern Baptist congregation in the nation and pastored by W.A. Criswell.
- Age: 84Reinhard Bonnke (born April 19, 1940) is a German Pentecostal evangelist, principally known for his gospel missions throughout Africa. Bonnke has been an evangelist and missionary in Africa since 1967. Bonnke has overseen 75 million recorded conversions to Christ.
- Age: 93Jack Leo Van Impe (born February 9, 1931) is an American televangelist who is known for his half-hour weekly television series Jack Van Impe Presents, an eschatological commentary on the news of the week through an interpretation of the Bible. The program airs around the world through both religious broadcasters and the purchase of paid programming time on commercial television stations. He is known as the "Walking Bible,” having memorized many scriptures. His wife, Rexella, shares his TV ministry as co-host.
Jesse Duplantis
Age: 74Jesse Duplantis (born July 9, 1949) is a prosperity gospel preacher from the Christian Evangelical Charismatic tradition based in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, and the founder of Jesse Duplantis Ministries.- Age: 65Juanita Bynum is an American Pentecostal televangelist, author, actress and gospel singer.
- Age: 94Harold Lee Lindsey (born November 23, 1929) is an American evangelist and Christian writer. He is a Christian Zionist and dispensationalist author and television host. He is most famous for writing a series of popular apocalyptic books suggesting that the rapture was likely to occur in the 1980s.
- Age: 75Richard Lee Roberts (born November 12, 1948) is chairman and chief executive officer of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and previously served as president of Oral Roberts University (ORU) for 15 years.
