Notable Theologians “S...-”
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Girolamo Savonarola
b. 9-21-1452; Ferrara, Italy
d. 5-23-1498; execution in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence.

Savonarola, a Dominican priest, is remembered for calling for religious reform, anti-Renaissance preaching, book burning, and destruction of what he considered immoral art - the Bonfire of the Vanities. Though he is considered as a precursor of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, he remained a Roman Catholic during his whole life.

• Fire in the City: Savonarola in Renaissance Florence

Albert Schweitzer
b. 1-14-1875; Alsace-Lorraine, Germany;
d. 9-4-1965, Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a theologian, philosopher, and widely acclaimed as an organist for interpreting the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Deciding “man can no longer live his life for himself alone,” he left his career in Europe to finance, build, and equip a hospital in Equatorial Africa.

He articulated a philosophy of ‘reverence for life’ to get beyond an improverished understanding of reality. Insisting nothing comes to pass without inwardness, he proclaimed a “faith in a new humanity, casting it as a torch into the darkness of our age.”

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.
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• more Albert Schweitzer posters

Joseph Smith
b. 12-23-1805; Sharon, Vermont
d. 6-27-1844; Carthage, IL

Joseph Smith, Jr. gathered a religious following known as the Latter Day Saints or Mormonism after announcing that an angel had shown him a set of golden plates describing a visit of Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Joseph Smith, and his brother Hyrum, were attacked and killed by a mob while in jail in Carthage, IL, for advocating the destruction of local newspaper that claimed Smith practiced polygamy and was setting himself up as a theocratic king. At the time Smith was the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, and running for President of the United States.

• Six Presidents of the Mormons Art Print

Abbot Suger
b. c. 1081; France
d. 1-15-1151

Suger, as the abbot or head of the monestary of Saint-Denis, was a statesman - historian involved in secular affairs which included the rebuilding of St. Denis in the new Gothic style of architecture.

• The Deeds of Louis the Fat, Abbot Suger

Emanuel Swedenborg
b. 1-29-1688; Stockholm, Sweden
d. 3-28-1772; London

Swedenborg was a Swedish philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian who had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. Notable people who were influenced by Swedenborg include William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung, August Stindberg, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, William Butler Yeats, John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman, William James, and Helen Keller.

Emanuel Swedenborg quotes ~
• “True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.”
• “Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own.”

• Collected Works of Emanuel Swedenborg