John Steinbruck

Who is John Steinbruck?

John Frederick Steinbruck is an ordained Lutheran minister who served for 28 years as the senior pastor of Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C. Luther Place is an historic, red-stone church located at Thomas Circle, 1226 Vermont Avenue, N.W., in the heart of Washington's red-light district. Less than a mile from the White House, the church sits between the symbols of world power and some of the nation's worst urban blight. As spiritual leader of Luther Place and what is now known as N Street Village, a diverse consortium of shelters and services for homeless women and their families, Steinbruck became an articulate and passionate preacher of the Social Gospel and a leading voice locally and nationally for the homeless, Central American refugees, and the victims of persecution and prejudice.

Steinbruck has received many honors and much media recognition, and he has occasionally been the instigator of controversy and acts of civil disobedience. To admirers, he is a "prophetic visionary" out to remake the world; to detractors, he is an "unbending, self-righteous true believer with a Messiah complex."