Biography christian women

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh knew they were putting their lives on the line. Islamic laws in Iran forbade them from sharing their Christian beliefs, but in three years, they’d covertly put New Testaments into the hands of twenty thousand of their countrymen and started two secret house churches.

In 2009, they were finally arrested and held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, a place where inmates are routinely tortured and executions are commonplace. In the face of ruthless interrogations, persecution, and a death sentence, Maryam and Marziyeh chose to take the radical—and dangerous—step of sharing their faith inside the very walls of the government stronghold that was meant to silence them. In Captive in Iran, two courageous Iranian women recount how God used their 259 days in Evin Prison to shine His light into one of the world’s darkest places, giving hope to those who had lost everything and showing love to those in despair.

Faith Cook is an author, biographer, and hymn writer. She grew up as a missionary child in war-torn China and has chronicled her story in an autobiography. Her biographical work has been on both men (from the well-known Fearless Pilgrim: The Life and Times of John Bunyan to the little-known William Grimshaw of Haworth) and women (like The Nine Day Queen of England: Lady Jane Grey, Selina: Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening, and Anne Bradstreet: Pilgrim and Poet).

I recently corresponded with her to see if she could provide us with some recommendations of biographies about Christian women in church history. You can read her top five, with recommendations, below. After her list is a bonus list, courtesy of Michael Haykin, who sent along six recommendations, including two from Faith Cook.

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(Men, these are for us, too! But it’s also not too early to think about some Christmas shopping here!)

Edith L. Blumhofer, Her Heart can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby (Eerdmans, 2005).

In Her Heart CanSee Edith L Blumhofer, professor of history at Wheaton College, Illinois, has given us an authoritative and well-researched assessment of the life and hymns of Fanny J Crosby (1820-1915), some