Eugene Peterson

Eugene Hoiland Peterson (1932-2018) was an American Presbyterian pastor, scholar, poet, and translator best known for his contemporary-language paraphrase of the Bible, The Message. He pastored Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, for nearly thirty years (1962-1991) before serving as professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancouver until his retirement in 2006.

Peterson's pastoral writing—shaped by long obedience, the spiritual disciplines, and a deep suspicion of the celebrity-and-program culture of American evangelicalism—has reframed how a generation of pastors think about their vocation. His five-volume Spiritual Theology series and his memoir The Pastor remain standard reading in pastoral theology courses, and The Message has been read in churches and homes around the world.