Ronnie McBrayer

Ronnie McBrayer was born in the foothills of the North Georgia Appalachians. He claims he barely survived the fire-and-brimstone, fundamentalist indoctrination of his hard shell Baptist-reared childhood. But in the great comedy of God, Ronnie has spent his adulthood in ministry, both preaching in and protesting against; both loving and leaving; both running away from and returning to the church. The faith he is trying to keep isn’t in organized religion, however. It is in Jesus.

Ronnie has been a pastor, chaplain, leader in social justice ministries, and a writer. His post-Katrina relief work with Habitat for Humanity was featured by the CBS Evening News and the New York Times, and his writings have been featured in various media outlets. He holds degrees in Christian Education and Theology, with post-graduate studies in Bio-Ethics and Critical Incident Stress Management.

McBrayer’s weekly syndicated column “Keeping the Faith” is a past Florida Press Association award winner in Religion, and a collection of those articles was published in book format under that same title in 2008. Also released in 2008 was Ronnie’s book But God Meant it for Good, based on the Old Testament character of Joseph, by Smyth and Helwys Publishers of Macon, Georgia. In 2009, Smyth and Helwys released two more of Ronnie’s works: Leaving Religion, Following Jesus, and “The Book of Esther” a Formations Curriculum Teaching and Study Guide. Ronnie’s latest work, The Jesus Tribe, will release in the winter of 2011.