April 30 - Resisting Change

April 30 – Resisting Change

While the world was changing like crazy, there was one small portion of it that did not want to see any type of change at all.  It may be hard to imagine, but until the mid 1800s, individual nations were not a strong force in the world.  However, at this point, people began to assert their rights to have their own countries.  France, Italy and others threw off outside rule and set forth their nations based on language and geography.

Pope Pius IX tried to create an Italian-speaking state, giving the Papal States a constitution.  Assassinations sent him scurrying away from Rome until the French military helped him return.  Italy wanted the Vatican to become financially reliant on the country and he refused.  At this point, he set up treaties with many other countries – establishing the Vatican as the main church ruling body for the world.  The churches in these countries supported the Vatican financially, a system that continues to exist.  He had lost the Papal States, but built worldwide support for the Holy See in Rome as Pius centralized all power for the church in Rome and in the papacy.

In 1869, he convened the first Vatican Council.  Many of the priests and bishops were questioning the power of the pope.  The church was fragmented throughout the world due to the growth of so many different denominations.  He had lost religious and political power.

At the Council, he set forth the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception – that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin.  This had been a source of disagreement between several factions of the church and was now set forth as dogma.

There was the Syllabus of Errors – a list of things that Catholics were not allowed to believe in: modern thought, civil marriages and other forms of religious tolerance.  And following this, Pius established papal infallibility.  The pope was given full, direct power over the entire church and when he spoke ‘ex cathedra’ – from the chair, he was infallible.

Though many disagreed with these changes in doctrine, many others were glad to have some form of absolute truth set before them and were ready for the pope to establish the rules from which they would go forward.  The Catholic Church would not make any changes in its structure until the second Vatican Council the early 1960s.

April 29 - War

April 29 – War

The third Great Awakening exploded in 1857 and lasted until the early 1900s.  Another Methodist – Phoebe Palmer began holding prayer revivals in the northeastern US and one of the outcomes was a passion for bringing the entire world to Christ to hasten the return of Christ.

A new focus on missions and the Social Gospel was formed out of this movement affecting missionary work in the US and beyond its borders.  Child labor laws were changed and women were offered protection from harsh factory work, compulsory elementary education was placed into law and crusades across the nation for prohibition against alcohol, pornography and prostitution were held.

While cities were beginning to respond to this Great Awakening, it couldn’t stop the splits that happened, even within churches over the issue of slavery.  Americans on both sides claimed that God supported them.  The war was on. 

After the war, Moody began his revivals in earnest, colleges that were associated with churches grew exponentially across the nation, youth groups grew out of a desire to bring kids to Christ.  The Great Awakening spawned the Pentecostal and Holiness movements

Evangelism was a priority.  The return of Jesus Christ to earth was on the minds of everyone.  A new millennium was approaching and the fever was growing.

April 28 - Sing a Song

April 28 – Sing a Song

One of the great early gospel singers was known as “The Sweet Singer of Methodism.”  Ira Sankey became a Christian at the age of 16, served in the Civil War, worked for the IRS and then the YMCA.  Later he became a part of Dwight Moody’s evangelistic crusades, traveling with him as a singer and composer.

He was with Moody at a revival meeting in Chicago when the fire broke out.  The two men barely escaped with their lives.  He traveled to England with Moody and worked with him to build Carubbers Street Mission in Edinburgh, a building that is still being used for the same purpose today.  He met Charles Spurgeon, who began promoting his songs within his services.

He compiled over 1200 songs into a collection called “Sacred Songs and Solos” which is still in use today and became president of Biglow and Main publishing company until his death in 1908. 

One of the people that he worked with often was the blind composer, Fanny Crosby.

Another Methodist, Fanny Crosby was one of the most prolific hymnwriters ever with over 8000 songs coming from her pen.  She was not only a composer/lyricist, but was a very popular speaker and for a time was one of the best known women in America.

Fanny Crosby was blinded by a quack physician when she was just six years old and spent her entire life helping the blind.  She lobbied congress for additional support for education for the blind.  She had enrolled in the New York Institute for the Blind and while there, learned to play the guitar, the piano and how to sing.

She began writing poetry as a child and made her living writing secular songs which were set to music by popular musicians of the day.

William Bradbury approached her about writing for him and over the years she wrote lyrics for hymns for many different composers including Philip Bliss, Robert Lowry and Ira Sankey.  She played “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,” one of her own compositions at President Grant’s funeral.

Some of her most well known songs are “Blessed Assurance,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus,”  “To God Be The Glory,” “Draw Me Nearer.”

April 27 - Soup, Soap, Salvation

April 27 – Soup, Soap, Salvation

The industrial revolution was in full swing and along with it came terrible abuse.  In England the factories drew thousands of people to London.  With them came poor working conditions and even worse living conditions. 

It would make sense that the church should reach out to help, but then as now, they really had no idea what to do.  The Church of England had already established its parishes and would require an act of Parliament (not kidding) to recreate the lines.  The Methodists were no longer a church of the people but had become a church for the middle class.  No one was reaching into the slums.

In 1865 William and Catherine Booth set up a tent to begin helping those in need on the East End of London.  Rather than simply preach to the people, who in their terrible living conditions were engaging in the worst of society’s evils – violence in the home, alcoholism, prostitution, etc., etc. – they recognized the need for immediate assistance which would leave hearts open to hear the Word of God.

Booth had been a Methodist and employed those organizational methods to his mission.  He took it a little further and began implementing military order.  Because he was so strict, people began calling him ‘general’ and others had advertised a meeting as “The Hallelujah Army Fighting for God.” 

He endorsed the name and the Salvation Army in 1878 existed with marching brass bands, uniforms, officers and a mission.  Upper crust churches were upset with the fact that the bands were playing popular songs reset with Christian words.  Booth asked, “Why should the devil have all the best tunes?”

The Salvation Army transformed England, stopping enough people from drinking that the Brewers Union went after the Salvation Army, damaging buildings and assaulting officers.

William and Catherine had many children, who continued his work, spreading it throughout the world.  He traveled millions of miles and preached tens of thousands of sermons, bringing 16,000 people into service with him.  He encouraged the people of Victorian England to reach out in their own land as missionaries, they didn’t need to go to foreign lands.

April 26 - Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

April 26 – Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

David Livingstone’s heart remains in Africa.  On his last trip to Africa, he went for years without having any contact with the world.  One day, Henry M. Stanley of the New York Herald found him in Ujiji and said those famous words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”  Livingstone wasn’t ready to come home and two years later, died on his knees in a hut.  While his remains were returned to England, his heart was buried in the land he loved.

Livinstone grew up in Scotland.  His father was a strong Christian and rejected science’s attempts to explain life.  Livingstone was fascinated with science and while he read the religious books his father put before him, ended up moving to Glasgow to enroll in medical school.  He applied to the London Missionary Society to make a difference in the world, and intended to travel to China, but the Opium War stopped travel and he adjusted after meeting Robert Moffat, making plans to travel to Africa in 1841.

He was fascinated by the African continent and felt that simply establishing a mission station and church in place after place took too long to reach the entire continent.  He was restless and desired to explore what lay before him.

David Livingstone despised slavery and saw the distrust that this placed in the hearts of the African people.  The missionaries that were coming into Africa had no knowledge of their culture and could not move past the African’s resistance.  He decided that it would be better to travel further inland, help the Africans build trade and set up conditions that would lead to better chances for later generations to evangelize.

On one trip, he had been mauled by a lion. His arm was a mess, but his life had been saved.  Moffat’s daughter, also in Africa, nursed him back to health and they married.  He sent her and their family back to England and began exploring Africa.  He discovered the Zambezi River and began looking for an inland river route that would open up trade between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic.  He reached the Atlantic Ocean and rather than sailing for England, set back to find the Indian Ocean.  Two years later he got there and sailed for England as a hero.  He was writing maps of uncharted territory, his was opening up the mission field and working to eliminate slavery.  His book “Missionary Travels” became an instant best seller.

He returned to Africa in 1858, no longer as a missionary with the London Missionary Society, but as a British government official.  This trip didn’t go quite as well.  He couldn’t find the inland route across Africa, back in England his wife had become a terrible alcoholic.  She traveled to meet him and died soon after they got back together.  He went back to England as a failure.

Once more, he went back to Africa, looking for the source of the Nile.  He discovered and mapped several inland lakes and then lost contact with the world.

David Livingstone wanted more for the people of Africa.  He didn’t want to see them colonized, but he did want to bring them Christ.  His work did end up laying the foundation for the beginnings of the African church throughout the continent.

Apri 25 - Got shoes?

April 25 – Got shoes?

A widow with nine children in rural Massachusetts.  D L (Dwight Lyman) Moody was one of those children.  He didn’t receive much education at all, but he didn’t want to live out his life without going for the gusto.  He headed for Boston and got a job as a shoe salesman in his uncle’s shop.  However, he was lonely in that huge city, so he joined the YMCA and then began attending a Congregational Church.  He fell asleep one Sunday morning and was jolted awake by someone beside him in time to hear the preacher speaking directly to him – or so he thought.  Moody was certain that someone had told the preacher about him.  At the same time, his Sunday School teacher refused to let Moody stay away from class and kept a pretty close eye on him.

It was this man that brought Moody to Christ in his shoestore and though Moody had a difficult time articulating the why of his belief, he was a changed man and he definitely could articulate his belief, even with his poor education and lack of good reading ability.

Boston was not the home for Moody and soon he left for Chicago.  The wildness of the city of Chicago suited his personality much better and he gathered children together at the North Wells Street Mission for a Sunday School class.  Crowds of children came to learn from him.

He gathered some financial support and in 1864 his mission became a church and by 1871 he was leading a very comfortable ministry in Chicago.  God had called him to be an evangelist, but Moody was comfortable with his life and didn’t plan to upset it.  God did.  The Great Chicago Fire burned his church, his home, the YMCA and the businesses of his supporters.  He had nearly lost his life, but that along with his Bible were all that were saved.  He began traveling and preaching to raise funds to rebuild the Chicago ministry.

In 1873 he went to England and held evangelistic meetings that transformed many people.  After two years there, he returned to America and preached all through the country.

Moody understood businessmen.  He preached without denominational ties and preached a very simple to understand, clear Gospel message.  He recognized that business leaders would be the leaders of the new generation – not preachers and made strong connections with these men around the country.  He brought business organization to his events and pushed business leaders to put their wealth towards good causes.

Moody established two schools in Massachusetts – the Northfield Seminary for girls and Mount Hermon School for boys.  They have been combined to the present day Northfield Mount Hermon School.  His church in Chicago became Moody Church and he founded Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers as well.

He was influential in mission work around the world, raising funds to support Hudson Taylor and China Inland Mission and pushed his congregation to volunteer for oversees mission activity.  When he was in England, he helped to establish a Christian Center in Ireland and published books of hymns there.

Though Chicago was the foundational base for his ministry, Northfield, Massachusetts remained his hiding place and he died there in December of 1899.

April 24 - The Direct Approach

April 24 – The Direct Approach

Inauspicious beginnings.  Born to parents that couldn’t afford to raise him, Charles Haddon Spurgeon lived with his grandparents.  His grandmother and his father were Congregationalist ministers, but he rejected that life and attended an agricultural school.  Sometimes God just doesn’t release people to their desires, though.

One Sunday morning, as Haddon trudged through a blizzard, he ended up in a Primitive Methodist church.  As he listened to the preacher, God spoke to his heart and he gave himself up to the Lord.  Two years later, he found himself the pastor (at the age of 18) of a small church.  The people that attended weren’t fine or cultured, so Haddon adjusted to a more direct style.  He told them what the Bible said and they responded.  His talent for speaking became legendary and within a year, a large church in London asked him to preach.

At the age of nineteen, Spurgeon preached his first sermon in the prestigious New Park Street Chapel.  Though it had been a powerful church at one time and could hold over a thousand, there were barely a hundred showing up on Sunday mornings.  Spurgeon changed that.  People were attracted to his preaching style and soon there was no room for the congregation, they had to rent a hall which would hold 4500 people. 

While the people loved Spurgeon, he was taunted in the press as speaking with theatrics, using coarse language (the colloquial language of the day as opposed to that used by academics) and speaking roughly and rudely.  He ignored them.  His plain speech and direct approach drew people to God.  More than 5000 people began attending and soon the numbers had exploded to over 10,000 people each week.  There were times when the 12,000 seat Surrey Music Hall was packed with over 10,000 people outside waiting to get in.

Each week, Spurgeon published his sermons.  He wrote them out completely, but spoke only using a small notecard.  A stenographer would take notes, then give those to him.  These were transformed and by Monday morning were ready to be shared with the world.  By the time he died in 1892, he had preached over 3600 sermons, with 49 volumes of commentaries, dissertations, devotions and sermons published.  He is one of the most prolifically published pastors ever known.

A favorite story that is told of Spurgeon comes from a day he was testing acoustics in The Crystal Palace in London.  He would preach two days later to over 23,000 people, but on this day, he tells:

“In 1857, a day or two before preaching at the Crystal Palace, I went to decide where the platform should be fixed; and, in order to test the acoustic properties of the building, cried in a loud voice, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." In one of the galleries, a workman, who knew nothing of what was being done, heard the words, and they came like a message from heaven to his soul. He was smitten with conviction on account of sin, put down his tools, went home, and there, after a season of spiritual struggling, found peace and life by beholding the Lamb of God. Years after, he told this story to one who visited him on his death-bed.”

Spurgeon went on to establish a pastor’s college and Stockwell Orphanage.  The Metropolitan Tabernacle was finally built to hold all of the people that came to hear him speak and still exists.  He preached sermons all through the week and while he never had an altar call, always invited people to come to his office and it never failed, there was always someone there who had found Jesus through his teaching.  He published over 140 books and continued to preach throughout his life.

April 23 - Leap of Faith

April 23 – Leap of Faith

My father loved Kierkegaard.  Every possible chance that he got to quote him in a sermon, he took.  I didn’t know much about him as I grew up, but I certainly knew that dad liked the way he thought.

This man thought!  Soren Kierkegaard had an amazing mind.  Out of that mind came profound ideas, ideas that changed how we look at our faith.

Kierkegaard grew up in a wealthy family under a father who exposed him to brilliant people, challenged his mind with puzzles and games and hoped for him to become a priest.  He attended the University of Copenhagen and managed to keep attending, becoming a kind of perpetual student.

Then he met a woman.  Regina Olsen.  They fell in love, he asked her to marry him. She accepted.  Then, he became an idiot.  For some unknown reason, he decided they couldn’t marry.  Maybe he felt unworthy, who knows.  He pushed her away, forcing her to finally decide that she wouldn’t marry him.  Throughout all of this, the anguish of a young man burst forth in philosophical writings.  He questioned everything.

The fun thing that Kierkegaard did was to publish in journals and different areas, profound questions about things of the world.  But he published these questions under pseudonyms.  He would then respond to those questions under his own name.  He looked deeply at life from both sides and was able to communicate clearly all of these ideas.

Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism.  He also influenced how others began to think about the church.  Many of his later writings attacked the Danish church (Lutheran) for its empty rituals and complete lack of life.  He questioned how a person could really be a Christian in such a fallen world.  His conclusion was that it was only through miracles of God that we can be saved.

Kierkegaard accused the church of being more interested in the system than in Jesus Christ, worship money and power rather than God.  He saw God as a living, acting Being who wanted to save mankind – not an object to be analyzed.  He recognized that philosophy was trying to deal with abstract truths, and taught that religion was about how to live. 

Coming out of the age of reason, he realized that mankind couldn’t reach God through reason – reason only takes us so far.  At that point, we had to leap out into the darkness, having faith that God would meet us there.

Soren Kierkegaard brought humanity back into the conversation about our relationship with God.  He recognized human frailty and the overwhelming power of God’s miracles.

April 22 - Mission to China

April 22 – Mission to China

Hudson Taylor was the son of a Methodist pastor, but it took him awhile to realize God was calling him to something amazing.  When he did, he flung himself into his calling with great gusto.  He was just seventeen years old in 1849 when he committed to going to China as a missionary.

He immediately began preparing himself for a life in China by studying its history and four of its languages.  He moved to a poor neighborhood and worked as a medical assistant, while practicing open air preaching and handing out gospel tracts.  Taylor then began studying medicine seriously and finally signed on as the first missionary with the ‘Chinese Evangelisation Society’ out of London.

Before he finished his medical training and prior to his 22nd birthday, Hudson Taylor was on a ship bound for Shanghai.  When he arrived in China, he made many evangelical missions that were poorly received by the Chinese.  With this behind him, he recognized that since he dressed differently than they and looked so different, he was unable to connect with the people.  He was the first missionary to adopt the traditional dress of the people and work to blend in and understand their traditions.

While in China he met the daughter of another missionary and married her.  They returned to England in 1860 due to his health problems and while there he began promoting missions in China.  He finished his medical degree and also found time to translate the New Testament into a local Chinese dialect.  He went on to create the China Inland Mission and returned to China in 1866.

After the death of his first wife and several children, he returned to England, but came back to China in 1876 with eighteen other missionaries, traveling throughout the country establishing mission stations.

He retired to Switzerland, but his descendants continue to work as missionaries in China, bringing Christ to the people right where they are, knowing that faith will support them in the mission field.

April 21 - Brethren

April 21 – Brethren

But, what (you might ask) is happening in Ireland? 

In Ireland, it was still improper to meet outside of the church for worship, and to share communion without a clergy member present was abhorrent!  But, as rebels would have it, there was always a group ready to test the waters and try new ideas.

John Nelson Darby was a member of one of those groups who met in Dublin, Ireland in 1829.  As spiritual excitement continued to grow, Catholics converted to the Anglican other churches as they searched for ways to be free with their worship.  Many Christians were beginning to look to the Bible as their guide, apart from the Church.  Men who were training to be in the pastorate began asking themselves why they were going through all of that training, when what they most wanted to do was teach the Bible.  Disillusionment with the organized church was growing.

Darby was a lawyer, but became ordained within the church.  He grew tired, though, of the church’s emphasis on membership and numbers as well as the closed door policies that the church held.  Following an accident, he left the church to recuperate and began hanging out with different groups of people.  As he listened to them speak, he began formulating ideas for change within the church. 

As he studied scripture, he decided, though that one of the main aspects that had been ignored was prophecy.  He was intrigued by the teachings of the end times and in the 1830s, a series of conferences on prophecy were held.

At the time, the prevailing view on the end times was post-millennialism – a belief that the church would bring the era of peace and then Christ would return.  Darby felt that a pre-millennial return of Christ was closer to the truth.  The world would head for destruction, Christ would return and set up a thousand year reign.  The teaching that Darby was reading also taught that Christ would remove the faithful before the worst of the tribulation. 

Darby and B.W. Newton were the founders of a new church, one that believed in simplicity and stripping away anything that was unbiblical.  The Brethren Church emphasized that everyone was welcome, there were no ministers, communion was celebrated weekly, they were pacifists and prophecy as well as the other gifts of the Holy Spirit were lifted up.

Divisions grew between different members and separations occurred within the Brethren, but the Plymouth Brethren Church has continued to grow throughout the world.

April 20 - Anxious Seat

April 20 - Anxious Seat

Revivals were happening across the country, but the Presbyterians (along with other Calvinists) weren’t about to have anything to do with all of that emotional hullabaloo. Then, along came Charles G. Finney. 

He had joined the Presbyterian Church after finding God in the Bible due to the references that he kept discovering in his law books.  He took his talent for speaking clearly in court to the highways, traveling on horseback preaching God’s Word.  While other preachers were gaining notoriety for using emotionalism to grab a crowd, Finney knew that the Holy Spirit was working and unlike his fellow Presbyterians, had no qualms about allowing people to get excited.

By 1830, he had led several successful revivals and brought them to the larger cities in the east.  He moved into a large church in New York City, but disagreed with the extreme Calvinistic beliefs and moved to a Congregational church.  While there, he set up the ‘anxious seat,’ a bench set out front where people who were ‘anxious’ about their sins could come to request prayer.

Finney had all night prayer meetings and even gave women permission to pray publicly, something that was still unheard of in America.  There were still detractors to the emotional outbursts that occurred at revivals, but Finney kept moving forward, confident that the Holy Spirit was working in the hearts of the people.

He brought organization to the revival, visiting a town first and recruiting ministers to help promote the event and asking them to design programs for follow-up and teaching of the newly converted.  Supporters printed advertisements and promotion became a large part of evangelism.  This new type of pre-event planning saw great success.  In 1835, Finney published a treatise on “Lectures on Revivals of Religion” teaching how to do it correctly.

In 1835, Finney went to Oberlin College to teach and became its president in 1851.  He continued to hold revivals until he died in 1875.

April 19 - A Woman Brings Reform

April 19 – A Woman Brings Reform

In the 1800s, England’s prisons were abhorrent!  The children of imprisoned families ended up in the same conditions, living with their mothers in filth and with little to eat.  While there had been several attempts to change things, not much happened.  That is, not much happened until a woman came along and decided to make change happen.

Elizabeth Fry came from wealth.  Both of her parents came from banking families and she ended up marrying another man from a wealthy banking family.  She had eleven children and during this time became involved with the Quaker church in England, growing in her faith and beginning to question how life could be so difficult for others less fortunate.  She collected clothing and items for the poor, began Sunday Schools for children and cared for the sick that lived in her area.

In 1814, she visited a jail near London and was floored by what she saw.  She returned, bringing clothes for the children and food for everyone.  Most of the women that were in prison at the time were there because of poverty and debt, many times brought on by their husbands who had either died or run out on them.  The prisons were overcrowded.

She began organizing groups to bring relief to the prisons, reading the Bible to the women there, teaching them to sew and working with their children.  Because of her connections, people in London began to pay attention and support her in her efforts.  She then targeted areas outside of the city and in 1821 established the British Society for Promoting Reformation of Female Prisoners.  Along with Thomas Buxton, she began approaching the government to work towards reform of the prison system.  Finally, Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, pushed through the Prison Act of 1823, limiting the number of death penalty offenses to 500 and began cleaning up the prisons. 

Just as a side note, Robert Peel established the police force and they were named ‘bobbies’ because of his nickname.

Elizabeth Fry also established a night time homeless shelter and a Visiting Society, which put people into the homes of the poor and sick, caring for them.  In 1840 she opened a nurse’s training school, which then became the inspiration for Florence Nightingale.

The impact that she made on England because of her faith continues to be felt.  She is honored by many groups and is depicted on 5 pound notes in honor of her work in the prisons.

April 18 - Can't pray with white folk

April 18 – Can’t pray with white folk

It didn’t matter that the United States had just been created, that the founding fathers purported all men were created equal.  The idea of slavery and that blacks were somehow worth less than whites was such a pervasive lie, it held even in churches.

The Methodist church was one of the first groups to recognize slaves as people, needing to know Jesus.  In fact, the Methodist church assigned missionaries to work among slaves and freed men.  They taught blacks and brought them up within the church to leadership positions so that they could preach and teach among their brothers.

But, all of this still couldn’t stop inherent bigotry and it came to a head in 1787 in Philadelphia.  The blacks had their own section, but one Sunday morning it was unavailable and as they were seated, they managed to get into the wrong section.   As people knelt to pray, ushers noticed they were in the wrong place and rushed to move them.  Reverend Absalom Jones was grabbed by an usher and told to move.  He asked that they wait until prayer was over.  They refused to wait.  He asked once more for them to wait until prayer was over and he would be glad to move.  But, they didn’t.  They dragged him and another away.

That Sunday, another black man was in the worship service.  Richard Allen, a Methodist preacher was in the gallery and saw everything happen.  The blacks all walked away from that service, never to support the church again.  The group had given a great amount of money to the church, donating the floor that they were kneeling upon.  But, they were finished.

The two men began to have services in a rented location until they were able to buy land and build a church.

Jones left the Methodist Church in 1793, forming the Colored Protestant Episcopal Church, but Allen had grown up as a Methodist and didn’t want to leave.  In 1794, he started the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.  The white church tried to get control of his church, but he managed to hold onto their independence.  He was ordained a deacon in 1799 and in 1816, became an elder, something that no other black man had done. 

He finally chose to leave the Methodists and begin a new denomination – the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).  He brought several other independent black churches into the denomination and created it with much of the same organization of the Methodist Church.

Richard Allen traveled throughout the country, planting churches and offering a sense of independence to all who had been oppressed by the white church in America. 

April 17 - Missionaries from America

April 17 – Missionaries from America

Now, this is a love story.  Adoniram and Ann Judson met after he had already committed himself to a life of mission work.  From the moment that he became a Christian and began reading about Asian lands, God put the call on his heart to teach the Gospel. 

He received a commission from the Congregational Church in Boston, but couldn’t raise funds.  At that point, he traveled to London to try to get money from the London Missionary Society, but was captured by the French, who were at war with England while sailing there.  He finally was released and made it back to Boston.  By the time he was there, the money had been raised and he was ready to go.

Ann and he met and he promised her a life filled with adventure, but it would be difficult.  She was ready to go.  During their trip across the Pacific, the two of them spent time discussing and arguing points of scripture – including baptism.  By the time they reached, Calcutta, both Ann and Adoniram knew that they were better prepared to be Baptist missionaries than Congregationalist missionaries, so sent a letter of resignation home to one and a plea to begin a Baptist mission society in America in order to raise financial support.

It worked!  They were the first American missionaries on foreign soil and the next years would prove to be exhausting, frustrating, and difficult to say the least.  Ann had to return to America to deal with some health issues.  After she returned to Burma, Adoniram was arrested during the Anglo-Burmese war and imprisoned for two years.  Her health continued to decline and when the British liberated him, she soon died.  Adoniram stayed for twenty-four more years, establishing sixty-three churches in Burma and Siam and in essence creating two separate mission societies in the United States.

Ann’s work in the Burmese language produced a translation of the New Testament, a catechism and Scripture translations into Siamese.  They began the work of Christian missions in Southeast Asia, bringing the Gospel to hundreds of thousands of people.

April 16 - Simple, Frontier Faith

April 16 – Simple, Frontier Faith

The New World was filled with contrasting movements and the church was no different.  People were exploring the land and were exploring ways of life.  As the church moved west, ideas moved with it.  In the east, Calvanism was prominent with one of its great American leaders in Jonathan Edwards.  Methodists took to the roads on their horses and moved west with the pioneers.  Denominations were allowed to develop and so they did as people differed in their understanding of doctrine and theology.

But even during this time, there were those who were upset by the divisions within the church and tried to insist that it return to its New Testament roots.  Thomas and Alexander Campbell both came from the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and when their teachings were radically different from the Presbyterians began their own church.  Many of their teachings fell down along the lines of the Baptists, so they joined that affiliation.  Alexander Campbell established a Baptist Seminary in Virginia and published a magazine for the denomination. 

However, the beliefs that they carried with them were quite Calvinistic and Baptists were uncomfortable with some of them.  While the Campbells saw the Biblical reasoning behind immersion baptism and away from infant baptism, they disagreed firmly with the purpose for baptism.  Baptists taught that baptism was an affirmation of salvation, Campbell believed that it was a condition for forgiveness.

Because the Campbells also believed that doctrine coming from anything other than strict Biblical sources was not to be accepted, ideas and understanding of the Trinity were not allowed in its explanation.

They soon moved away from their Baptist affiliation and merged with Barton Stone of the Cane Ridge Revival movement, calling themselves either “Christians” or “Disciples of Christ.”  They moved west with the pioneers and grew rapidly with their simple, straightforward Biblical message.  They set formal religion aside and taught that a personal faith was necessary to be part of the Kingdom of God.

April 15 - Revival

April 15 – Revival

One of the things we know about the land where our cabin rests is that there was probably a time when old fashioned camp-meeting revivals were held in the meadow here.  Preachers and evangelists traveled throughout the countryside bringing messages of hope and life change to people wherever they would gather.  At different times there were grist-mills on the river and people gathered regularly in this area making this the perfect location for revival.

In Cane Ridge, Kentucky, a camp meeting was announced and while a large crowd was expected, over 20,000 people from many different denominations came together and fell under the power of the Holy Spirit.  Hundreds of people came forward to begin a relationship with Jesus. 

The second Great Awakening had begun and these camp meetings would be held across America for the next thirty years, reaching pioneers where they lived.

One of the ideas that came from the Cane Ridge Revival (and its pastor – Rev. Barton W. Stone) was that if Christians left everything behind except the Bible, they would be able to live like New Testament Christians.  He joined a man – Alexander Campbell and together they formed a group which would only call themselves ‘Christians’ or ‘Disciples.’  They wanted Christians to once again be a unified group, eliminating all denominational differences.  The only problem was, this group itself soon divided into varying sects.  This was the Restorationist movement and it would impact several different denominations that we know today.

April 14 - Mission Field

April 14 – Mission Field

The mission field was beginning to grow. Christians from all over Europe felt the call to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world.

One young man, William Carey, heard the call and managed to get into the mission field though he had to overcome many different obstacles.

Carey grew up in England, the son of a weaver turned teacher. He loved reading, but was never a strong, healthy boy. He managed to get himself apprenticed to a shoemaker and learned the trade. He joined a church outside the Anglican fellowship and ticked his father off. He got married and began preaching – sometimes walking eight miles to get to the church he served.

The group of ministers that he associated with did not believe in foreign missions, insisting that God would save the heathen without their intervention, but Carey couldn’t believe that and began focusing on his vision of ministry outside his immediate location.

Soon things began to look promising. A doctor volunteered to serve in India and needed someone to go with him – Carey volunteered. But, then the obstacles began to arise. Carey’s wife was pregnant and they had three children. He wasn’t healthy. The doctor had unpaid bills and creditors were searching for him and then the threat of war with France stopped the ship they would sail on.

Carey managed to coerce his family to join him and soon they sailed. In 1793 they arrived in Calcutta. Things weren’t great. No one was paying attention to his message, the oldest children were always in trouble, the doctor’s debts continued to follow him. But, Carey wasn’t dissuaded. He moved to another location, joining Danish missionaries. A church was built and Carey translated the New Testament into Bengali.

He spent thirty years as a missionary, translating the Bible into forty-four languages or dialects. He started several schools and mission stations. Carey believed that rather than bringing British religion to India, he needed to respect the culture. Instead of condemning Hindu religion, he simply emphasized the death and resurrection of Christ.

William Carey lived a life in mission and helped establish foreign missions as a strength for the church.

April 13 - Ring the Bell

April 13 – Ring the Bell!

Every Sunday morning, I sat in Sunday School doing myriads of projects, singing songs, reading Bible stories, acting in little plays, doing different things that teachers hoped would anchor my faith.

This beginnings of this tradition looked nothing like what we recognize as Sunday School today.

In 1780, a newspaper editor named Robert Raikes couldn’t bear to see what was happening to children in Gloucester, England. The street urchins were stuck in dark, dank mills for six days out of the week and on Sundays they turned into terrors on the streets.

He paid a woman to bring the children into her kitchen, feed them, teach them how to read and recite the Bible. The children didn’t shape up, but he refused to stop. After terrorizing the first woman, he moved them to another home and they were there for seven hours a day, learning. He required that they wash their hands and comb their hair and before long, the children couldn’t wait to learn. He started with twenty kids but soon there were ninety children attending Sunday Schools around the city.

Raikes had been trying to reform the prisons for quite some time, but realized that at some point, rehabilitating adults was nearly impossible. He recognized that poor children might be able to move past the poverty and loss of life if they just received some education. After three years, he figured that his experiment was a success and began writing about it in his newspaper.

The idea caught on. John Wesley incorporated it into his Wesleyan groups. Merchants began supporting the idea (it kept their shops safe on Sundays when the children were free). The Queen caught the vision and helped with fund-raising. By 1787, 250,000 children were attending Sunday Schools and fifty years later there were more than 1 ½ million around the world.

Teachers were paid at first, but soon became volunteers. While early Sunday Schools taught everything, public education soon grew to the point where they were able to focus more on Bible teaching.

There were many benefits of the Sunday School program. While the Great Awakening was occurring in England and America, the religious fervor was sweeping across both countries. Many believe that this spared England a bloody civil war. At the same time, wealthy Christians began to understand their responsibility to the poor and to the children that worked terrible hours in hideous circumstances.

This was the beginning of public education and the revolution of religious education.

April 12 - Founding Fathers

April 12 – Founding Fathers

I would have to say that one of the most inaccurate views of our founding fathers is that they were Christian and based our democracy on Christian principles. While most of them believed in God, they were not evangelical or even orthodox Christians in reality. One of the prevalent forms of religion among the founding fathers was called Deism.

Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe, but believe that reason and nature show this to be true and there is no need for faith or religion. Most deists tend to reject the intervention of God into human affairs or into the world and with this reject the idea of miracles and revelation.

Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, called Jesus’ miracles “vulgar ignorance … and fabrications.” Benjamin Franklin didn’t think it was important to consider Jesus’ divinity and publicly proclaimed his doubt with it. The Declaration of Independence refers to ‘Nature’s God,’ which is clearly teaching of Deism.

Deism came about as a result of the Enlightenment. Scientists were making great strides toward understanding how life worked, philosophers were questioning man’s interaction with the world and reason rather than faith began to be emphasized, creating a clear divide.

For hundreds of years, God’s truth as found in Scripture was the only possible response to the question “What is truth?” But, during the Enlightenment, doubt was created surrounding the Ancient truths. They didn’t seem to be working so people set them aside and declared that truth was whatever worked for them at the time, an idea which still permeates society.

These were the Deists and though they had very different ideas from the Christians, they respected and honored the idea that religious faith was a personal issue and one that could not be determined by the state. The third article of the Bill of Rights stated, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

While we take this for granted, this was an entirely new concept. Until this point in history, the state had always had an established religion and anything that smacked of difference would be shut down and its leaders persecuted. When America was still simply colonies of England, the Anglican Church was the State Church and with the Revolution, it was disestablished in the colonies and had to be re-established as one of many different forms of worship.

Today, we may take great offense at the government enforcing this right in ways that we think take away our right to proclaim our religion, but the safety that this third article of the Bill of Rights has granted to anyone within our borders to practice their religion without fear of persecution is one of the great decisions made by our founding fathers.

April 11 - From Actor to Preacher

April 11 – From Actor to Preacher

George Whitefield was born to a widow, an owner of an inn in England. In his young life, he fell in love with the theater. Later in life, his talent for acting would be featured in his sermons when he delivered them with great passion and re-enacted Biblical stories to the delight of his audiences.

Because he came from a poor background, he entered Oxford University as a ‘servitor.’ While this granted him a free education, he was responsible for taking care of many of the higher ranking servants, doing everything from waking them in the morning to helping them write their assignments. Whitefield joined the Holy Club, which John and Charles Wesley were also a part of and at some point during those years met God in a very personal way and become fully converted to lead a Christian life.

His preaching style incorporated his talent for acting and his passion for Jesus. He was soon ordained into the Anglican Church, but found that he reached more people by taking to open-air preaching. He followed the Wesleys to America and became a parish priest in Savannah, Georgia. After a year, he returned again to England. He joined up with the Wesley brothers in establishing Methodist Churches throughout England, but differed with them regarding Calvinism, predestination and slavery. He formed the first Methodist Conference in England, but left to become an evangelist and soon traveled to America to begin preaching a series of revivals.

Benjamin Franklin attended one of his revival meetings and could not believe the reports that Whitefield could be heard by ten thousand people at once in an open air venue. He moved further and further from the speaker, listening closely for the clarity of speech. When he got to the point that he could no longer hear Whitefield clearly, he realized that the man’s voice carried an incredible distance and that the reports were not exaggerated.

Whitefield preached to the slaves, but at the same time believed that no business could exist without them, so refused to side with the abolitionists and even owned several, though he treated them well and they were said to be devoted to him.

He traveled back and forth from America to England, then traveled into Scotland where he held several great revivals. In his mid 50s, he continued to travel and preach in open air services, ignoring his health. At the age of 55, he told his friends he would rather wear out than rust out and died from severe respiratory problems the morning after a successful service.

April 10 - Strangely Warmed

April 10 – Strangely Warmed

Every time I read about John Wesley, I find it easy to be proud of the heritage of faith I grew up in. I’ve grown up knowing his stories, how he was pulled from a fire in the rectory at age five and recognized that he was a ‘brand plucked from the burning,’ that God had a purpose for his life. I knew that his mother, Susanna had 19 children, seven of whom lived, that she educated the children at home in their early years, that his father was a pastor who had graduated from Oxford, that he had gone to school and come away without his faith because of the things that had happened to him there and his doubts that God loved him.

He and his brother, Charles, started a religious club at Oxford and were laughingly called ‘Methodists’ because they were so methodical in their approach to learning and to God. I learned about his trip to America with the Moravians and how their deep faith shook him because he was unsure that he had that faith. When he doubted his faith, upon his return from America to England, he returned to the Moravians and attending a service one evening, was struck by teaching from Romans and felt his heart ‘strangely warmed.’ At that moment, he realized that God loved him.

John Wesley spent time studying in Herrnhut with the Moravians and came back to England. He wasn’t allowed in many of the churches, so began preaching outside along with his friend, the evangelist, George Whitefield. He used his organizational skills to begin gathering groups of people wherever he preached into societies. These societies multiplied throughout England and Scotland and soon garnered the attention of the Anglican Church.

While Wesley never separated from the Anglicans, he also recognized that they weren’t reaching the populace. They also had refused communion to Americans following the Revolutionary War because they were no longer sending ordained pastors to America.

Wesley ordained Thomas Coke (who later ordained Francis Asbury) and gave them the charge of training and ordaining pastors in the United States. He did the same in England and Scotland and soon created an ecclesiastical system outside of the Anglican Church.

Wesley and Whitefield disagreed quite strongly about Calvinism and the argument spread to other leaders within their scope of reference. Whitefield ended up founding the Calvinistic Methodist Church. While this argument was made public, the two men came together and re-established their friendship. It is John Wesley who first put into print the words, “agree to disagree.”

Wesley traveled over 200,000 miles on horseback. He gave away nearly every cent he ever owned and died a poor man. Through his entire life, he continually doubted that God could love him and constantly strived to make his life worthwhile. He was a prolific writer and his teachings are still used throughout the world. Wesley spoke out strongly and clearly against slavery. With his brother, Charles, he introduced hymn singing into the church, once again separating himself from the Anglicans.

John Wesley’s greatest gift to the world was his teaching on personal holiness. His life was lived to fulfill God’s purpose. He died at the age of 87, surrounded by friends and family. His final words, “The best of all is, God is with us.”

April 9 - Jonathan Edwards

April 9 – Jonathan Edwards

The mid-1700s were a period of great spiritual growth in America as well as Europe. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John & Charles Wesley all taught of the great love that God has for us and our response to that love.

Jonathan Edwards was an incredibly brilliant man, entering Yale College at the age of 13. When he left there at 18, he returned to Northampton, Massachusetts to co-pastor a church there with his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. At his grandfather’s death, Edwards took the position as lead pastor.

Edwards was a devout Calvinist, a scholar, an author and a man of deep prayer. His grandfather had seen five different periods of great spiritual change during his 60 years in ministry and Jonathan Edwards began praying for that to occur again within the church. He began to preach on changed lives and devotion to God and in 1734, the Holy Spirit fell upon the people of Northampton. The church was filled with people, the town began to transform as nearly everyone came to worship and hear the words of God.

He didn’t preach using emotions, simply the truth of God. Outsiders mocked the response of the congregation, the wailing and physical responses from the people, and though Edwards admitted that it might have been emotionally excessive, he recognized that it was the Holy Spirit moving among the people.

This was the first Great Awakening in America. Itinerant pastors took this message throughout the colonies and invigorated the hearts of the people. This period of time was a precursor to the American Revolution, teaching equality between men rather than the class system of England and stressing the importance of religious freedom.

Edwards’ scholarly interest crossed many boundaries. He believed in the importance of studying so much so that he attempted to dedicate at least thirteen hours/day to that. He wrote essays on natural philosophy, even exploring atomic energy. He was fascinated with Isaac Newton and studied light and optics.

His descendants played a very active role in the development of America throughout the next century both in religious and political venues. One of these was Aaron Bur, the Vice President under Thomas Jefferson. There were at least 13 college presidents that came from his line, 65 professors, and untold numbers of pastors. His writings continue to influence pastors and scholars today.

When he left Northampton, he began to preach to the American Indian and then traversed the States, bringing the message of hope and eternity through Jesus Christ.

April 8 - 100 Year Prayer Vigil

April 8 – 100 Year Prayer Vigil

Do you remember John Hus (God In History – March 4)? In the early 1400s, his death at the stake energized the Bohemians and they began to oppose hypocrisy and heresy. When forced to rejoin the church, many split off and began a group called the Union of the Brethren.

Three hundred years later, they were still being persecuted until they found a home on the estate of a wealthy man near Dresden, Germany. Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf was Lutheran, but opened his lands to this small group of Moravians. They called the community Herrnhut or ‘the Lord’s watch’ and by 1725 there were nearly 100 people living there.

Zinzendorf was a devout man and soon left his castle and joined the people, leading them as they grew closer to God. He helped the Moravians design rules to live by, established charity work and small groups that would help the people continue to grow.

On August 13, 1727, they planned a twenty-four-hour prayer vigil. The light on the altar was never extinguished and this continual prayer lasted for much longer the twenty-four hours, it lasted for a hundred years!

The Moravians made contact with other groups throughout Europe, trained leaders to visit them and share what was happening at Herrnhut. In 1732, Zinzendorf met an African slave and a group of Eskimos that had been led to Christ and knew that his group was being called into mission. Within the next hundred years, the Moravians sent more than 300 missionaries throughout the world and baptized more than 3000 people.

Zinzendorf tried to make the Moravian church legal in Germany, but ended up being banished. He traveled to America, settling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for a time and setting up a base of missions to the Native Americans. He then moved to London and a center for Moravians was established.

John Wesley was on a ship filled with Moravians, heading to America when a storm struck. While others were terrified, the Moravians quietly sang Psalms. For him, it was ‘the most glorious day he had ever seen.’

It was a Moravian that asked him if he knew Jesus Christ. Wesley wasn’t able to give a firm answer, wondering who might convert him if he was converting others. But, that’s another story for another day.

Zinzendorf, the Moravians, Herrnhut. The world was changed through their mission, their passion for a personal relationship with Jesus and through prayer.

April 7 - Hymns and Spiritual Songs

April 7 – Hymns and Spiritual Songs

It’s pretty amazing that short-lived traditions become so ingrained we can’t consider doing anything else. When you consider that Christianity has been around for over 2000 years, and hymn-singing in church has only been strongly adopted for less than 300 years, it seems funny that people insist the ‘traditional’ style of worship is the best way to sing to God.

Martin Luther tried to insist that hymns be used in worship. He wrote several to get things started. The Anglicans didn’t actually use music in their liturgy. By 1562 there was a collection of Psalms that had been metered out for singing and in 1696 a New Version showed up, but if it wasn’t from the Psalms, it might not be a good idea to sing it.

In 1623, a hymnbook was produced, but no one used it.

By the 1700s, people were still only singing Psalms and generally this wasn’t happening in the Anglican churches.

Isaac Watts was a pastor and decided that the people needed something to sing. The Psalms were great, but they didn’t teach much about Christianity. He published “Hymns and Spiritual Songs” in 1709. He published “Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament” and said that he made David speak like a Christian.

Watts wrote more than six hundred hymns. He wrote from the Psalms – “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun” from Psalm 72 and “Joy to the World” from Psalm 98. Some of his other hymns are very well known: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “O God Our Help in Ages Past,” and “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.”

He became known as the Father of English Hymnody and his hymns were unmatched until Charles Wesley came along.

It wasn’t until 1861 when the Anglican Church finally published a hymnbook, “Hymns Ancient and Modern” that they began to incorporate hymn singing into their services.

April 6 - The Devil Made Me!

April 6 – The Devil Made Me!

A little girl with epilepsy, a group of people ready to believe the Devil was at work, religious zealots, a court run by those religious zealots and fear all add up to a year of incredible pain for many people from a small area of Massachusetts.

In 1692, the Puritans were facing new generations of people who didn’t believe in Jesus. They saw evil everywhere they turned as people moved away from the church and began living lives without religious fervor.

A small pox outbreak had just occurred; the threat of Indian attacks was always at hand and the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter had just been revoked. The colonists were in terror and believed that God’s wrath was coming down on them for some reason or other. Witchcraft just had to be the reason.

A local pastor – Samuel Parrish – had a daughter who had a seizure. The local doctor couldn’t find anything physically wrong with her and after a great deal of pressure, she began accusing women in the community of witchcraft. It was the only thing that made sense to anyone. Soon there was mass hysteria and by the time a year had passed, over 150 people had been accused of witchcraft.

Many of the accused simply acquiesced, admitted that they had done it and repented. They were set free. There were, however, nineteen people that couldn’t be forced to confess to something they hadn’t done. All of them ended up being hanged for the crime of witchcraft. One man was killed by stones pressing on him as they tried to force him to confess and at least thirteen others died while in prison.

Increase Mather was one of the pastors that began to be concerned that perhaps innocent people were being condemned. As more and more became outspoken, the Governor finally stepped in, dissolved the accusing court and pardoned the remaining people still in prison.

The Puritans in America were never able to quite get over this blot on their reputation as Christians. There was never any hard proof that the condemned had performed witchcraft, it was all hearsay and hysteria.

April 5 - Providence

April 5 – Providence

The Puritans were all for religious freedom until it smacked them in the face.

Roger Williams was offered a position as a pastor and teacher at the Congregationalist Church in Massachusetts, but he refused it based on the fact that he believed civil judges shouldn’t enforce religious beliefs. He began preaching among the Native Americans which was fine with everyone until he pushed a little harder by declaring that the Natives were the true owners of the land. That got him banished from Massachusetts.

The year was 1635. Winter was coming. His wife was pregnant and his daughter was just two. He didn’t have a horse and he had to get out of town fast. He left them in safety and traveled for 2 ½ months until a native tribe gave him shelter.

The next year, he purchased a small bay just to the south of Massachusetts and brought his family and several friends to live there. He named it “Providence” and wrote a charter declaring that a person of any faith would be welcome there.

Three years later, he became the first Baptist in the New World and founded the first Baptist church in the thirteen colonies. Eight months later, questioning his beliefs, he left the Baptist church.

One of the first people to arrive in Providence was a woman named Anne Hutchison, who fled Boston because of the strength of her beliefs. She led a group of six women who met weekly to discuss the Sunday sermon. Pretty soon large numbers of people began to gather with her.

Soon, her intelligence and boldness got her into trouble when she claimed that Christians weren’t bound by human law. As she attempted to explain Paul’s doctrine of grace, she missed his teaching on obedience to civil authorities. She was accused of treason. During her trial, it became quite clear that she was much more knowledgeable of the Bible than her accusers and they couldn’t prove any charges against her. However, she managed to send them over the edge by her claim that God had spoken to her. They banished her. She took her family and left for Providence.

Rhode Island would always be the smallest of the colonies, yet this was the birth of the idea that civil government should never favor any religious belief.

April 4 - Enslaved

April 4 – Enslaved

As hideous as it may seem to us today, slavery has been part of mankind’s history for eons and continues in many parts of the world.

When Europeans came to the New World, they discovered sugar. This became an immensely profitable industry, but they needed workers and didn’t want to pay them. The natives became prey. The settlers were supposed to be teaching the natives about Jesus, instead they became slaves to greedy profiteers.

In 1510, Bartolome de Las Casas was the first priest to perform Mass in the New World. He built a plantation in Haiti to help his income and enslaved many natives. But, in 1514, he had a change of heart – released his slaves and returned to Spain to campaign for their rights. A code of law written by him limited Spain’s power over the natives, but these were ignored for the most part.

In Mexico, the diseases that the Europeans brought with them killed nearly 90% of the people there. Spanish and Portuguese settlers could no longer run their plantations, so they began importing Africans – even using scripture sometimes to justify their doings, connecting Africans with “Canaan” from Genesis 9:25.

Another man, Pedro Claver, saw how heinous slavery was and began working against it. Though he had no idea how to speak any of the African languages, he became a Jesuit priest and worked among them. He baptized any of them who wanted to become Christians and helped the Africans in any way that he could.

In Paraguay, Jesuit priests built settlements for the Mexicans who had lived through the European diseases and slavery, offering them safety and care. In 1628, though, Portuguese and Spanish plantation owners attacked the Jesuit missions and enslaved the people again. The Jesuits moved further inland, ending up by arming the missions and teaching the natives to defend themselves. They protected nearly 150,000 natives, but in 1767 were forced by Spain to leave the New World.

Slavery was too comfortable a vice to lose … and as the New World grew … many more men, women and children would have their humanity stripped away in the name of progress.

April 3 - Music of the Spheres

April 3 – Music of the Spheres

The year 1685 saw the birth of two of two great composers – Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel. They never met each other, though they were born only one hundred miles from each other and would create some of the most incredible music the world would ever hear.

Bach came from a family of musicians. His father and brother were his teachers. He began his professional career as a violinist, but soon became a church organist. He had twenty children, four of whom also became well known composers.

Bach was a devout Lutheran and inscribed every single one of his works with phrases of praise to God. His compositions were prolific, but many were undiscovered until Felix Mendelssohn discovered them and made them popular in the 1800s. As a church musician, composing music was part of his daily work. He was temperamental and was very confident in his own talent.

Handel’s father was a barber-surgeon who forbade the study of music. This caused him to sneak into the attic at night to practice. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but was eventually persuaded to allow him to study music. The court at Berlin offered to help Handel in his quest for music education – when his father refused, the pressure continued until he relented.

Another prolific composer, Handel’s earliest works were mainly secular – opera and instrumental pieces. He composed a new opera each season for demanding audiences. He moved to England from Germany. In the summer of 1741, over just 24 days, he wrote the score to the “Messiah.” He borrowed from earlier works of his own and used a libretto written by Charles Jennes. The text is primarily from the Old Testament, the Book of Common Prayer with the words for the “Hallelujah Chorus” coming from Revelation.

Handel died a wealthy man and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

April 2 - A Man Called Christian

April 2 – A man called Christian

One of the treasured of Christianity’s classics is “The Pilgrim’s Progress” written by John Bunyan.

The author was a simple man, with nothing more than a grammar school education. His father was a tinker, pushing his cart down the roads of England, fixing metal pots in homes along the way. John began as a tinker, but was soon conscripted into Cromwell’s army.

After he left, he married a woman who tried to help him reform his life. He had his ups and downs, much like anyone who tries to live rightly, but fails miserably. He and Mary were so both so poor, that her entire dowry consisted of two books. They had no household items at all, not even flatware or dishware.

In 1653, he was baptized by a Baptist pastor and soon began to dive into the scripture. He read the Bible and Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” as well as Mary’s two books over and over. He laid his old life aside when he was completely convicted of God’s assurance of grace. He then became a traveling preacher, but would not refuse communion to anyone based on their denomination.

Though King Charles II had promised freedom of religion, the Anglican Church was truly the only acceptable church in England and anyone who believed differently was punished. John spent 11 years in jail for his preaching without permission. In 1672, a Declaration of Indulgence was made and granted leniency to non-Anglicans.

John was released from jail, called as a pastor to another church and received a license to preach. But, in 1675, he was again jailed and this time while there, wrote “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” This little book struck a chord with many Christians as they recognized themselves in the actions of the lead character who travels from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City.

A man who was never considered a scholar wrote several other books, but “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was his most famous and has touched many lives. He died in 1688, just months before a new ruler would bring religious tolerance back to England.

April 1 - Christian Artist

April 1 – Christian Artist

In a time when religious art was growing, a young man from Holland began to look at it quite differently. Catholic artists generally painted the saints. Artists tended to paint scenes from the Bible with the people viewed as nearly god-like, much like the Greek and Roman art that depicted the various pantheons of deities. Protestants believed that the Bible alone should be used for religion and avoided artistic depictions.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, a Protestant, discovered his passion in art and after training with many famous artists, began to develop his own style which blended very earthy images with scriptural references. He painted portraits of street people, his family, even inserting himself into his paintings. A beggar in a turban became a king of Israel, an old Jewish man became Paul the Apostle. In one of his paintings, he put himself as one of those who crucified Christ.

Rembrandt did not paint to teach people about Jesus Christ, he painted because it was his passion. He painted secular and sacred themes, but there was always a sense of God in his art.

He saw humanity in a very realistic sense and when he painted Biblical stories, the sense of emotion and human sin is portrayed. When he painted landscapes, he showed the ugliness and the beauty of nature.

Rembrandt met with great success as a youth, he taught most of the great artists of the period in Holland. He married well and had extensive art collections. But, he was unable to manage all of this and after having outlived his wife, son and two mistresses, he ended up dying alone and being buried in an unmarked grave.

He has been called a ‘great prophet of civilization’ due to his love for and understanding of humanity. His art gave us a very Protestant view of Scripture and a gorgeous look at how this man saw the way mankind interacted with Scripture.