Joel Carl Hunter (born April 18, 1948 in
Shelby, Ohio) is the former senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, a congregation of 20,000 that worships at three sites in Central Florida. He is the author of ''A New Kind of Conservative'' (Regal 2008), ''Church Distributed'' (Distributed Press 2008) and ''Inner State 80: Your Journey on the High Way'' (Higher Life 2009). Hunter accepted the presidency of the
Christian Coalition in 2006, but resigned before taking the office.
[Fitzgerald, Francis (30 June 2008), "The New Evangelicals," The New Yorker]
Hunter delivered the closing benediction on the final day of the
2008 Democratic National Convention
The 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for president and vice president. The conventi ...
,
[Van Biema, David (6 November 2008), "Who Is Joel Hunter, and Why Is Obama Praying with Him?," Time] prayed with Senator Obama on the day of the 2008 presidential election
[ and offered a blessing for President-elect Obama at the Pre-Inaugural Worship Service at St. John's Church on January 22, 2009.][Branigin, William (20 January 2009), "Obama Sworn in as 44th President of U.S.," The Washington Post] On February 5, 2009, he was appointed to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.[The White House: Office of the Press Secretary (5 February 2009). "Obama Announces White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships." Press release. Retrieved 25 October 2009.] In April 2011, he was named a member of the . On October 2, 2020, Hunter officially endorsed Joe Biden for President of the United States. On December 13, 2022, he traveled to the White House to witness the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act.
Biography
Hunter was born April 18, 1948 in Shelby, Ohio. His parents were Wilbur Hunter, a decorated World War II veteran, and Jean Hunter, a homemaker. When his father died in 1952, he spent much of his time with his maternal grandparents, Lena and Carl Bashore. He graduated from Shelby High School in 1966.
He then attended Ohio University. While there, he became involved in the civil rights movement. In April 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7 ...
, he had a crisis of faith and felt called into ministry. He graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Science degree in education.
He then attended Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1970, and received his Master of Divinity
For graduate-level theological institutions, the Master of Divinity (MDiv, ''magister divinitatis'' in Latin) is the first professional degree of the pastoral profession in North America. It is the most common academic degree in seminaries and divi ...
in 1973. After starting towards his Doctor of Ministry degree, he took his first church appointment as a youth minister at Bradley United Methodist Church in Greenfield, Indiana. There he met his wife, Becky. He stayed at Bradley for one year, and then became a minister at Southport United Methodist and remained there until obtaining his Doctor of Ministry degree in 1974.
Northland Church
In 1985, Hunter moved to Northland Community Church in Longwood, Florida. He stepped down in October, 2017.
Climate change activism
Hunter was asked in February 2006 to sign the Evangelical Climate Initiative, a document recognizing global warming based on the findings of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
(IPCC). Fellow signatories included Rick Warren, the presidents of 39 Christian colleges, and the president of the Salvation Army
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
. In the spring of 2006, he was asked to host a TV advertisement by the group . In the summers of 2006 and 2008, Hunter was invited to symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...
s on creation care at Windsor Castle. He has since been named by Grist Magazine as one of the top 15 religious leaders in creation care, along with Pope Benedict XVI and the Dalai Lama.
President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Hunter served in the inaugural year on the Advisory Council for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (2009–2010), which advised President Barack Obama on substantive policy issues including interfaith relations, strengthening the role of fathers in society, and reducing the number of abortions.[
]
References
External links
http://joelhunter.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Joel
1948 births
Living people
People from Shelby, Ohio
People from Longwood, Florida
American United Methodist clergy
Ohio University alumni
Activists from Ohio