CHURCH HISTORY TODAY

What happened in the church today.

August

August 1
1652
Nikita Minin is elected as Nikon, patriarch of Moscow. He was later deposed by the Council of Moscow (1666) and banished. Nikon's view that spiritual power supersedes temporal might was a factor in Peter the Great's decision to abolish the patriarchy.

1953
British literary scholar and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis writes in a letter, "How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible."

August 2
1788
Birth of Joseph J. Gurney, English banker, philanthropist, and leading evangelical Quaker theologian of the early nineteenth century. Gurney was a descendant of Quaker theologian Robert Barclay, and the brother of prison reformer Elizabeth Fry.

1907
The Vatican issues the Ne Tcmere decree, declaring that Catholic marriages are valid only if celebrated before a duly qualified priest and at least two witnesses.

August 3
1785
The Reverend Ashbel Baldwin becomes the first Episcopalian ordained in the United States, in Middleton, Connecticut.

1858
Birth of Maltbie D. Babcock, American Presbyterian clergyman and hymn writer. Babcock is remembered today as the author of the hymn "This is My Father's World."

August 4
1792
Birth of Edward Irving, Scottish theologian, mystic, and religious leader. Irving acquired fame as a preacher, but in 1832 he was condemned as a heretic and compelled to resign from his church because of his acceptance of Pentecostal phenomena.

1874
U.S. Methodist pastor John H. Vincent and manufacturer Lewis Miller establish the Chautauqua Organization, in Fair Point, New York. Beginning as a two-week summer retreat for training Sunday school teachers, the Chautauqua Assembly grew to include additional lectures and entertainment addressing all branches of popular education.

August 5
1604
Baptism of John Eliot, English-born Congregational missionary who came to Massachusetts in 1631 and became the "apostle to the Indians." Eliot translated the scriptures into the Pequot language, and also helped establish the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England.

1900
Death of James A. Healy, the first African-American Catholic bishop.

August 6
1774
English religious leader Ann Lee and a small band of followers arrive in America at New York City. Her sect, the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, is commonly known as the Shakers.

1966
Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth affirms in a letter, "Since God does in fact address man in His Word, He obviously regards him as addressable in spite of the fact that man as a sinner closes his ears and heart to Him."

August 7
1560
Ratification of the Scots Confession by the Scottish Parliament marks the triumph of the Reformation in Scotland, under the leadership of John Knox.

1894
Death of James Strong, American Methodist biblical scholar and editor. His chief contribution to scholarship was as editor of the twelve-volume Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (1867-87). He is also remembered as compiler of Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

August 8
1539
German reformer Martin Luther remarks in a sermon, "Reason does not know that salvation must come down from above; we want to work up from below so that the satisfaction is rendered by us."

1852
The roots of the Baptist General Conference are planted in Rock Island, Illinois, when Swedish immigrant pastor Gustaf Palmquist baptizes his first three converts in the Mississippi River.

August 9
1788
Birth of Adoniram Judson, pioneer American Baptist missionary to Burma. Judson translated the Bible into Burmese and also penned the hymn "Come, Holy Spirit, Dove Divine."

1973
In Asheville, North Carolina, delegates from two hundred congregations vote to sever ties with the Southern Presbyterian Church (PCUS), believing it has become too liberal. A new denomination—the National Presbyterian Church—was formed, and became the Presbyterian Church in America in 1974.

August 10
1933
Wycliffe Bible Translators gets its start at the Day of Prayer for the Tribes of Latin America in Keswick, New Jersey. Founders W. Cameron Townsend and Leonard L. Legters incorporated WBT in 1942, and it has since grown into one of the largest interdenominational missionary agencies in the world.

1960
Death of Ralph S. Cushman, American Methodist bishop, author, and poet. His best-known verse begins, "I met God in the morning when my day was at its best; and His Presence came like sunrise, like a glory in my breast."

August 11
1760
Irish-born English minister Philip Embury arrives in New York, making him the first Methodist clergyman to come to America. In 1768 he founded Wesley Chapel.

1933
Birth of Jerry Falwell, U.S. Baptist clergyman and founding pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1979 Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a Christian political lobbying organization.

August 12
1715
Death of Nahum Tate, British poet and dramatist, who wrote the New Version of the Psalms of David (1696) and authored the popular Christmas carol "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks."

1950
Pope Pius XII issues the Humani Generis encyclical, which denounces certain modernist intellectual tendencies within Catholic theology, including existentialism, excessive emphasis on scripture to the detraction of reason, contempt for the authority of the Church, distrust of scholastic philosophy, and denial that Adam existed as a historical person.

August 13
1682
The first Welsh immigrants to the American colonies arrive in Pennsylvania and settle near modern-day Philadelphia.

1919
Birth of Rex Humbard, American pioneer radio and television evangelist. In 1958 he established the Cathedra! of Tomorrow in Akron, Ohio, which became the base for his early television ministry.

August 14
1248
Rebuilding of the Cologne Cathedral—the largest Gothic-style cathedral in Northern Europe—begins in Germany. The cathedral was first built in 873 but was destroyed by fire. The rebuilding project was completed exactly 632 years later, on August 14, 1880. The cathedral was damaged again during World War II.

1810
Birth of Samuel Sebastian Wesley, English organist and hymn composer. The grandson of Charles Wesley, Samuel Wesley composed more than 130 original hymn tunes, including "Aurelia" ("The Church's One Foundation").

August 15
1456
After a two-year printing process, Henry Cremer finishes binding the first volume of the two-volume Gutenberg Bible. At its completion, the Gutenberg Bible became both the first full-length book to be printed in the West, and the first printed edition of the scriptures.

1613
Birth of Jeremy Taylor, English bishop, theologian, and devotional writer. Two of Taylor's writings became classic expressions of Anglican spirituality: The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living (1650) and The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying (1651).

1900
During China's Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the twentieth century, no foreigner was safe. The Boxers opposed all foreign influences, including Christian missionaries. Diplomats fled to a compound in Beijing, but missionaries in the outer provinces had few choices.
    Local officials in Fenzhou, Shanxi province, were relatively accepting of missionaries, so a number of missionaries fled there in hope that they would be safe until the uprising ended. After they arrived, the governor of Shanxi, a noted Boxer sympathizer, assigned a new magistrate to Fenzhou. The magistrate promptly posted an armed guard over the foreigners.
    One of the missionaries, Lizzie Atwater, was pregnant at the time. She wrote a final letter to her parents on Aug. 3,1900: "Dear ones, I long for a sight of your dear faces, but I fear we shall not meet on earth,... The Lord is wonderfully near, and He will not fail me. I was very restless and excited while there seemed a chance of life, but God has taken away that feeling, and now I just pray for grace to meet the terrible end bravely. The pain will soon be over, and oh the sweetness of the welcome above! My little baby will go with me. I think God will give it to me in Heaven, and my dear mother will be so glad to see us. I cannot imagine the Savior's welcome. Oh, that will compensate for all of these days of suspense. Dear ones, live near to God and cling less closely to earth. There is no other way by which we can receive that peace from God which passeth understanding. ...My married life, two precious years, have been so very full of happiness. We will die together, my dear husband and I. I used to dread separation. If we escape now it will be a miracle. I send my love to all of you, and the dear friends who remember me."
    Twelve days later, Lizzie, her husband, their unborn baby and six other missionaries were hacked to death by their guards.

August 16
1942
Birth of Don Wyrtzen, American contemporary Christian songwriter. Among his most enduring compositions are "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow," "Worthy Is the Lamb," and "Love Was When."

1972
Philip A. Potter, a West Indian Methodist clergyman, is named general secretary of the World Council of Churches.

August 17
1635
English Puritan Richard Mather arrives in Boston. A staunch defender of congregational church government, Mather was the father of a ministerial "dynasty" that included his son, Increase Mather (born in 1639) and grandson Cotton Mather (born in 1663)

1761
Birth of William Carey, pioneer English missionary to India. Carey taught at Fort William College in Calcutta from 1801 until his death in 1834, and helped establish Serampore Press, which made the Bible accessible to more than 300 million people.

August 18
1927
Twenty-year-old Theodore Epp is converted to a living faith. A pioneer in Christian radio broadcasting, Epp founded Back to the Bible, an evangelistic radio program, in 1939. Back to the Bible is now heard on more than six hundred stations around the world.

1959
Death of Haldor Lillenas, American hymn writer, who founded Lillenas Music Company (1924) and authored nearly four thousand gospel texts and hymn tunes, including "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" and "Peace, Peace, Wonderful Peace."

August 19
1843
Birth of Cyrus I. Scofield, American Congregational lawyer and biblical lecturer, who taught that seven distinct dispensations of God's relationship to man are revealed in scripture. Scofield's most enduring contribution to Christian studies was his Scofield Reference Bible (1909).

1886
Baptist clergyman Richard G. Spurling establishes the Christian Union in Monroe County, Tennessee. In 1923 this Pentecostal denomination changed its name to Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee).

August 20
1553
Protestant reformer John Calvin concludes in a letter, "Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness."

1874
Theodore Tilton, American newspaper editor, poet, and abolitionist, files charges against renowned Congregational clergyman Henry Ward Beecher for alleged adultery with Mrs. Tilton. Beecher was exonerated by the Congregational Council in 1876, after a sensational trial ended with a hung jury.

August 21
1841
Birth of Frederick C. Atkinson, English sacred organist and choirmaster. Atkinson composed several Anglican anthems, instrumental pieces, and hymn tunes, including "Morecambe" ("Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart").

1912
William Bramwell Booth, son of founder William Booth, becomes head of the American Salvation Army.

August 22
1953
English psychiatrist Caryll Houselander confides in a letter to a friend, "What a wonderful thing God's love is, always overflowing, always following you and, if one may say so, spoiling you."

1968
Pope Paul VI arrives in Colombia for the first ever papal visit to South America.

August 23
1882
Death of Charles W. Fry, original bandmaster of the English Salvation Army. Fry is remembered today as the author of the hymn "Lily of the Valley" (or "I Have Found a Friend in Jesus").

1948
The World Council of Churches is founded in Amsterdam, with 147 member churches. It soon establishes its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

August 24
1747
Birth of John A. Dickins, pioneer church leader who first suggested the denominational name Methodist Episcopal Church.

1970
Editors and scholars at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC publish the New American Bible, which replaces the traditional 1610 Rheims-Douay version of the scriptures.

August 25
1817
Joseph Mohr begins serving as pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria. In 1818, on Christmas Eve, Mohr and church organist Franz Gruber created the enduring Christmas carol "Stille Nacht ("Silent Night").

1864
Birth of John Henry Jowett, English Congregational clergyman and pastor of Westminster Chapel in London (1918-23).

August 26
1832
Death of Adam Clarke, British Wesleyan preacher and theologian. Clarke helped to establish Methodism in the Shetland Islands and served on the British and Foreign Bible Society. He is best known as the author of an eight-volume commentary on the Bible (1810-26), which is still reprinted today.

1901
The New Testament of the American Standard Version Bible is published. This U.S. edition of the 1881 English Revised Version comprises the first major American Bible translation.

August 27
1876
Thirteen-year-old G. Campbell Morgan delivers his first sermon. He later became one of the most renowned expository preachers and writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

1910
Birth of Albanian nun Agnes G. Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She joined the Sisters of Lore to in 1928, and from 1948 spent her life ministering to the poor of India. Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

August 28
430
Death of Augustine of Hippo, an early Latin church father and one of the outstanding theological figures of the ages. It was Augustine who wrote, "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee."

1953
Founder Bill Bright incorporates Campus Crusade for Christ, in Los Angeles. Today CCC trains evangelical Christian leaders in more than ninety countries around the world.

August 29
1792
Birth of American revivalist and educator Charles G. Finney, who served as president of Oberlin College from 1851 to 1866

1867
The Social Brethren, a small, evangelistic denomination, officially organized in Illinois.

August 30
1856
The Methodist Episcopal Church establishes Wilberforce University, in Xenia, Ohio. Ownership of the school was transferred to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1863.

1859
Birth of John Taylor Hamilton, British West Indies-born American Moravian bishop, educator, and historian of the Moravian Church. Hamilton taught at Moravian College and Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1886— 1903), and later served as its president (1918-28).

August 31
1954
The second assembly of the World Council of Churches closes in Evanston, Illinois. The fifteen hundred participants included five hundred delegates from 163 Protestant and Orthodox churches. (Roman Catholics were banned from attending by Cardinal Samuel A. Stritch, archbishop of Chicago.)

1688
Death of English separatist clergyman John Bunyan, author of two English-language masterpieces: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).