Dr. Ron Sider's Biography
Ron Sider grew up in rural southern Ontario, the child of a Canadian Brethren in Christ pastor. He attended the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, and received a BA in European history.
It was there that Ron came in contact with the apologetic work of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and set his sights on a career in academia. Upon graduating in the late '60s with an MDiv and Ph.D. in history from Yale, Ron expected to teach early modern European history on secular university campuses, and continue his apologetic work for IVCF.
Declarations and Confessions
Faced with the glaring needs and blatant injustice of the inner city, Ron began to work toward developing a biblical response to social injustice. He brought together a network of similarly concerned evangelicals, which in 1973 became the Thanksgiving Workshop on Evangelical Social Concern. It was this conference that issued the now historic "Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern." 20 years later, a similiar gathering of evangelical leaders resulted in the Chicago Declaration II: A Call for Evangelical Renewal. In 2004 he was a signatory of the "Confessing Christ in a World of Violence " dcoument.
Family
Ron is the father of three and lives in Philadelphia's Germantown section with his wife Arbutus, a family counselor.
Dr. Ron Sider's Prominent Writing
In 1977, Ron's ground-breaking book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, was published. Hailed by Christianity Today as one of the one hundred most influential books in religion in the twentieth century, Rich Christians has sold over 350,000 copies. 1978 also saw the formation of ESA, a movement that continues to shape and influence North American Christian thinking on issues of biblical justice and spirituality.
Other book publications in recent years include Good News Good Works, (published by Baker Book House). This is an invigorating and passionately biblical call to the church to embrace the whole gospel through the combination of evangelism, social engagement and spiritual formation. Its companion book tells stories about effective ministries that bring both evangelism and social transformation together. Cup of Water, Bread of Life, was published in 1994. Living Like Jesus (1999) has been called Sider’s Mere Christianity.
Just Generosity: A New Vision for Overcoming Poverty in America (1999) offers a holistic, comprehensive vision for dramatically reducing America’s poverty. And Churches That Make a Difference (2002) with Phil Olson and Heidi Rolland Unruh provides concrete help to local congregations seeking to combine evangelism and social ministry. Sider has published over 22 books and has written over 100 articles in both religious and secular magazines on a variety of topics including the importance of caring for creation as part of our biblical discipleship. He is a founding board member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.
References and External Links
Last updated: 05-31-2005 01:36:27
