Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove


Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a Christian and preacher who has graduated both from Eastern University and Duke Divinity School. He associates himself with New Monasticism. Immediately prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he and his wife, Leah, were members of a Christian peacemaking team that traveled to Iraq to communicate their message to Iraqis that not all American Christians were in favour of the coming Iraq War. Wilson-Hartgrove wrote about this experience in his book To Baghdad and Beyond: How I Got Born Again in Babylon. Also in 2003, he became one of the co-founders of Rutba House, a Christian intentional community in Durham, North Carolina's Walltown Neighborhood. In 2006, he founded the , a popular education center committed to "making surprising friendships possible." He taught workshops there alongside his mentor and freedom teacher, Ann Atwater, until her death in 2016.
In his 2008 book Free to Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line, Wilson-Hartgrove writes about racism and the central importance of racial reconciliation to Christianity. He co-wrote the 2008 book Becoming the Answer to Our Prayer: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals with fellow New Monastic Shane Claiborne. They also collaborated on the popular daily prayer guide Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals.
Wilson-Hartgrove wrote two books that were published in 2012: The Awakening of Hope: Why We Practice a Common Faith and The Rule of St. Benedict: A Contemporary Paraphrase. In 2013, he wrote a book about his experiences with hospitality called Strangers at My Door: A True Story of Finding Jesus in Unexpected Guests. During Holy Week 2015, Wilson-Hartgrove was one of approximately 400 Christian theologians and leaders who signed a public statement arguing that capital punishment in the United States should cease. He has worked closely with the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II in Moral Mondays and the and is co-author of The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement. After the 2016 election, Wilson-Hartgrove began teaching about the legacy of in American Christianity and published Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion.