Who is on the map
Grouped and colour-coded by where they land on the divides that separate them, derived from their own positions rather than a label. Figures sharing a colour agree on most of the map.
Church fathersBefore the divisions the later camps are named for.5 FIGURES
Athanasius of AlexandriaC.296 – 373Defender of Nicene orthodoxy against Arianism through repeated exiles. On the Incarnation is his central work on why God became man.Augustine of Hippo354 – 430Bishop of Hippo. The single most influential theologian in Western Christianity; both Catholic and Reformed traditions claim him. Anti-Pelagian works, the Enchiridion, and On Baptism Against the Donatists.Basil the GreatC.330 – 379Bishop of Caesarea and monastic legislator. Supplied the Trinitarian vocabulary the church still uses — one ousia, three hypostases — and argued the Spirit's deity in De Spiritu Sancto while deliberately never calling him God outright.Irenaeus of LyonsC.130 – C.202Bishop of Lyons, author of Against Heresies. Argued against Gnosticism from the apostolic rule of faith, and framed salvation as Christ recapitulating human life.John ChrysostomC.347 – 407Archbishop of Constantinople and the most prolific preacher of the patristic era — the largest surviving body of Greek expository preaching is his. This entry rests on the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers translations of his homilies on Romans, 1 Corinthians, John, Hebrews and 2 Thessalonians, together with the Instructions to Catechumens.
Catholic & scholasticScripture read with tradition and the teaching office.3 FIGURES
John Duns ScotusC. 1266 – 1308Franciscan, the Subtle Doctor. Argued for the univocity of being and for a will free in its own right rather than moved by the intellect's judgment — the point where the Franciscan schools part from Aquinas.Thomas Aquinas1225 – 1274Dominican friar, author of the Summa Theologiae. Synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine; the reference point for later Catholic theology.William of OckhamC. 1287 – 1347Franciscan, the Venerable Inceptor. Nominalist in metaphysics and voluntarist about God's freedom and the human will; spent his last two decades writing against Pope John XXII from the emperor's court in Munich.
LutheranJustification forensic, the Supper bodily.2 FIGURES
Martin Luther1483 – 1546Augustinian friar whose protest over indulgences opened the Reformation, and the theologian for whom justification by faith and the bondage of the will are the whole of the gospel. This entry rests on his own writings only — The Bondage of the Will (1525), the Smalcald Articles (1537), the Large and Small Catechisms (1529), Concerning Christian Liberty (1520), the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), the Church Postil and his biblical prefaces — and deliberately excludes the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord, which are not his.Philip Melanchthon1497 – 1560Luther's colleague at Wittenberg and the Reformation's systematizer. He wrote the first Protestant systematic theology (Loci Communes, 1521), drafted the Augsburg Confession (1530) and its Apology (1531), and then revised his own work far enough that the Formula of Concord condemned the later version seventeen years after his death. This entry rests on the Augsburg Confession read in Latin and English — Part I less Articles VI-VIII and XIV-XVI, plus Part II Articles XXII-XXIV and XXVIII — on the opening articles of the Apology in English, and on the successive editions of the Loci through Latin sentences preserved by Schaff and Bente; no edition of the Loci itself was read.
Reformed & CalvinistUnconditional election, definite atonement, perseverance.13 FIGURES
Huldrych Zwingli1484 – 1531Reformer of Zurich and the first Reformed theologian to leave a confession — the Sixty-Seven Articles of 1523 predate Augsburg by seven years. He pushed further than Luther on the Supper, which split the early Reformation at Marburg in 1529, further than anyone on the reach of election, and further than any other Reformer on who might finally be saved. This entry rests on the Sixty-Seven Articles (1523), the Declaration Regarding Original Sin (1526), the Fidei Ratio sent to Charles V (1530) and the Exposition of the Christian Faith written weeks before he died in battle — the last of these read only in its chapter on eternal life.John Calvin1509 – 1564Reformer of Geneva and the most systematic of the first-generation Reformers. This entry rests on the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion in Henry Beveridge's translation, checked section by section, with Calvin's own commentaries on 1 John, John, the Harmony of the Evangelists, the Psalms and the Harmony of the Law used where the Institutes are thin.John Owen1616 – 1683The most formidable English Puritan theologian: Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford under Cromwell, later a nonconformist pastor in London. This entry rests on The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647), The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677), Pneumatologia and the Discourse of Spiritual Gifts (1674), and the Two Short Catechisms (1645), read in the Goold edition of the Works.Jonathan Edwards1703 – 1758New England pastor, revival theologian and philosopher of the First Great Awakening, dismissed from his Northampton pulpit in 1750 over who may come to the Lord's Table. This entry rests on Freedom of the Will (1754), Original Sin (1758), Religious Affections (1746), An Humble Inquiry (1749), Distinguishing Marks (1741), Some Thoughts on the Revival (1742), An Humble Attempt (1747) and A History of the Work of Redemption, read in the Hickman edition.George Whitefield1714 – 1770Anglican priest and field preacher of the Evangelical Revival and the First Great Awakening, who crossed the Atlantic seven times and died on his last American tour. Wesley's Oxford companion and, from his 1740 letter answering Free Grace, his public opponent on election — the Calvinist half of the Methodist split, set here beside Wesley and Edwards. This entry rests on that letter and eleven of the sermons printed in the standard selected editions.Charles Haddon Spurgeon1834 – 1892Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, and the most famous preacher of Victorian England — the "Prince of Preachers." Preached roughly 3,500–4,000 sermons across 63 volumes; All of Grace and A Defence of Calvinism state his soteriology directly.Gavin OrtlundLIVINGPastor and author behind Truth Unites. Works on retrieving the church fathers for Protestants and on charitable engagement with Catholic and Orthodox claims.John MacArthur1939 – 2025Pastor of Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, from 1969 until his death in July 2025. Expositional preaching, hard cessationism, dispensational premillennialism. Researched from the church's own Doctrinal Statement, covering all 15 loci in one document.John PiperB. 1946Longtime pastor of Bethlehem Baptist, Minneapolis, and founder of Desiring God. Reformed soteriology combined with continuationism and historic premillennialism.Justin PetersLIVINGDiscernment evangelist whose Clouds Without Water seminar — grown from his Th.M. thesis on Benny Hinn — is the best-known evangelical critique of the Word of Faith movement, and since 2026 senior pastor of a church plant outside Billings, Montana.R.C. Sproul1939 – 2017Founder of Ligonier Ministries and teaching elder in the PCA. Chaired the drafting committee for the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy; best known for The Holiness of God and for popularizing Reformed theology — the five solas and TULIP — for a lay audience.Tim Keller1950 – 2023Founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian, New York. Known for apologetics addressed to urban skeptics and for a notably winsome register.Voddie BauchamB. 1969Pastor, apologist, and dean of theology at African Christian University, Zambia. Reformed, cessationist, and strongly family-discipleship focused.
Arminian & WesleyanConditional election, universal atonement, prevenient grace.3 FIGURES
Jacobus Arminius1560 – 1609Dutch Reformed pastor whose questioning of unconditional election produced the Remonstrance and, in reply, the Synod of Dort. Often caricatured; he affirmed total depravity.John Wesley1703 – 1791Anglican priest and founder of the Methodist movement. His Standard Sermons and Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament are Methodism's own doctrinal standards. The map's first researched Arminian figure, set against an otherwise Reformed-heavy list — his signature move is prevenient grace: total depravity by nature, but no one actually left in that bare state, because grace merited for everyone reaches everyone first.Charles Grandison Finney1792 – 1875Law student turned revivalist of the Second Great Awakening, licensed and ordained by a Presbyterian presbytery in 1824, later professor of theology and president at Oberlin College. His Lectures on Revivals of Religion argued that a revival is the right use of means and not a miracle. His Systematic Theology built a doctrine of salvation on moral government and on the sinner's natural ability, and denied original sin as a sinful nature, imputed righteousness, and that the atonement paid what sinners owed. This entry rests on that Systematic Theology (1878 edition), the Revival Lectures, one chapter of the Memoirs, three Oberlin Evangelist pieces and one letter.
Evangelical & unalignedNo confessional camp claims them outright.3 FIGURES
Billy Graham1918 – 2018Evangelist of the citywide crusades from 1947 to 2005, ordained a Southern Baptist minister, founder, with L. Nelson Bell, of Christianity Today (1956) and convener of the 1974 Lausanne Congress. He is generally reckoned to have preached in person to more people than anyone before him and was the public face of postwar evangelicalism. This entry rests on sermon texts dated 1951 to 2005 that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association republishes on the Decision magazine website, his recorded Billy Graham Minutes, his daily devotions, interviews he gave to Time, Christianity Today, Newsweek and Robert Schuller, and the My Answer column that ran under his name. By the standard account the column was written with staff, so cells that rest on it say so.Josh HowertonLIVINGSenior pastor of Lakepointe Church, Dallas–Fort Worth, and host of the Live Free podcast. Researched from primary-source transcripts — see the Live Free Podcast folder.Michael S. Heiser1963 – 2023Old Testament and Semitic languages scholar (PhD, Wisconsin, 2004), Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife/Logos, and host of the Naked Bible Podcast. Argued that the Hebrew Bible assumes a real divine council of lesser elohim under Yahweh, and held that this reading defends rather than threatens the deity of Christ.
Councils & confessionsDocuments, not people. They hold positions the same way.7 DOCUMENTS
Council of ChalcedonDefined one person in two natures — unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably — against Eutyches. Received Leo's Tome and issued 30 canons.Council of Constantinople ICompleted the creed with a full article on the Holy Spirit as Lord and Giver of Life, proceeding from the Father. Condemned the Pneumatomachi and Apollinarians.Council of EphesusAffirmed Mary as Theotokos and the unity of Christ's person against Nestorius. Closed creed-making beyond Nicaea, and condemned the Pelagian Celestius.Council of Nicaea ISettled that the Son is homoousios — of one substance — with the Father, against Arius. Also fixed a common date for Easter and issued 20 disciplinary canons.Second London Baptist ConfessionThe confessional standard of the Particular Baptists, first printed 1677 and adopted by the London General Assembly of 1689. It takes over the Westminster Confession chapter by chapter and rewrites it at four points that matter: the covenant (ch. 7), the gospel and the extent of its grace (ch. 20, which Westminster has no counterpart to), the church (ch. 26), and baptism (ch. 29). This entry rests on the 1677/1689 printing with its own Scripture proofs, read against the Westminster text clause by clause.Westminster ConfessionThe confessional standard of English-speaking Presbyterianism, completed by the Westminster Assembly in 1646 and adopted with its Scripture proofs. This entry rests on the 1646 text from the manuscript of Cornelius Burges as edited by S. W. Carruthers (1937) for chapters 1-24, and on the 1647 text for chapters 25-33; the Assembly's own proof texts attached to each paragraph supply every reference below.The Church of Eleven22 Statement of FaithThe confession of a multi-campus Jacksonville church founded by Joby Martin in 2012 and belonging to the Acts 29 network — Reformed on sin and justification, continuationist on the gifts, and conspicuously silent on election.