Raymond J. Bakke

Raymond J. Bakke is senior associate of Ray Bakke Associates, a nonprofit organization that partners with those who are passionate about empowering the church to be creatively missional in an urban world. He is the former chancellor and professor of global urban studies at Bakke Graduate University and former executive director of International Urban Associates in Chicago, Illinois.

CBE Endorsement: I truly cannot remember ever believing women could not be pastors or leaders of mission and ministry, because it was quite common in my rural Lutheran tradition, and my parents were married by a Pentecostal woman pastor in 1936. One of my predecessors in my first Seattle church when I arrived in 1959 as assistant was the Rev. Ethel Ruff, who had been pastor of that Swedish Baptist Church in 1938 the year I was born, and she was considered a much better preacher than her husband according to my old timers. 

Ray Bakke serves on CBE’s Board of Reference.