Richard Gist is a product of a small, prairie town in southwest Minnesota, and still lives in that State. In 1952, following graduation from high school, he entered military service, serving in Air Force Special Intelligence as a Russian language specialist. In preparation for that he spent a year of intensive study at the University of Syracuse.
His credentials also include a B.A. from Westmar College in Le Mars, Iowa, and a Master of Divinity degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. While there he won the 1969 National Award for Historical Research. He also holds a Master's Degree in English Literature from the University of Minnesota, and is a certified Gestalt therapist.
While in school Mr. Gist served congregations in both Iowa and Ohio, joining the Minnesota Conference of the United Methodist Church full-time in 1969. He retired in 1997. In retirement he has used a more relaxed schedule to study and research (active clergy persons do not have the time), focusing largely on the Bible. He teaches adult Sunday school in his home church, and speaks and teaches on a variety of subjects, but mostly on biblical themes. Among his books are two award-winning pieces, Ayshus on the Inside (a children's book) and You Don't Understand the Bible Because You are Christian.
After a six year hiatus from serious writing, Richard was rudely reminded of the gulf existing between conservative and fundamentalist approaches to Scripture and his own. Reacting to what he considered ill-founded affronts to his own beliefs, he sat down to express his reaction to same, and in his words, just kept writing (for another two-hundred pages and his new book, Faith Without Fear).
Richard and his wife Norma are in their seventh decade of marriage, and peacefully live in Princeton, Minnesota. They have five children.
