CHURCH HISTORY TODAY

What happened in the church today.

June

June 1
1793
Birth of Henry Francis Lyte, Scottish Anglican clergyman, who wrote more than eighty hymns, including "Abide with Me" and "Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken."

1841
Scottish missionary David Livingstone departs for Africa to become a missionary explorer. Livingstone ultimately penetrated the deepest reaches of the continent, where he proclaimed the Good News.

June 2
597
Augustine, missionary to England and first archbishop of Canterbury, baptizes Ethelbert, the Saxon king. Afterward the Christian faith spreads rapidly among the Angles and Saxons.

1946
English Catholic psychiatrist Caryll Houselander concludes in a letter, "Time is never really lost; it is merely that sometimes it is used as God plans instead of as we do, and we consider it to be lost!"

June 3
1162
English Catholic churchman Thomas a Becket is consecrated as archbishop of Canterbury. Becket served for eight years, until increasing ideological conflicts with King Henry II ended with Becket's martyrdom in December 1170.

1726
Birth of Philip William Otterbein, German Reformed pastor, who helped establish the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (an early branch of the modern United Methodist Church).

June 4
1948
In Manila the first missionary radio station (FEBC) built in the Philippines by the Far East Broadcasting Company goes on the air. Today FEBC broadcasts to every country in Asia, in more than 150 languages.

1965
Death of Norwegian Old Testament scholar Sigmund O. P. Mowinckel, who is best known for his work on the Psalms. He also translated much of the Old Testament into Norwegian.

June 5
988
Kiev's Grand Prince Vladimir formally embraces the gospel, ordering his people to be baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith. Considered "the apostle to the Russians," Vladimir became the first Christian ruler of that nation and afterward erected numerous churches, promoted education, and aided the poor.

1900
Birth of William E. Sangster, English Methodist preacher, who published numerous devotional books, including He Is Able (1936), The Pure in Heart (1954), and The Secret of Radiant Life (1957).

June 6
1844
In London young merchant George Williams and twelve coworkers establish the Young Men's Christian Association. Organized to combat unhealthy conditions arising from the Industrial Revolution, the original mission of the YMCA was to improve "the spiritual condition of young men engaged in drapery and other trades."

1915
Death of William H. Cummings, English chorister and composer, who arranged the hymn tune "Mendelssohn" ("Hark! The Herald Angels Sing").

June 7
1913
Ohio-born Methodist evangelist George Bennard introduces his new hymn, "The Old Rugged Cross," during a revival meeting in Pokagon, Michigan.

1959
English apologist C. S. Lewis writes in a letter, "If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a 'wandering to find home,' why should we not look forward to the arrival?"

June 8
632
Death of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, who founded Islam in 622 and wrote the Koran. Though not considered a central figure in Judeo-Christian history, Mohammed's last words are worth noting: "O God, pardon my sins. Yes, I come."

1536
Ten Articles of Religion are published by the English clergy in support of Henry VIII’s Declaration of Supremacy. The Anglican Church thus begins outlining its doctrinal distinctives, following its break with Rome.

June 9
1772
Moravian missionaries build the first Protestant church west of the Alleghenies, at Schoenbrunn, in the Ohio Territory. The Reverend David Zeisberger serves as the church's first preacher.

1894
Birth of Wilbur M. Smith. American Fundamentalist Presbyterian educator. Ordained in 1922, Smith held no academic degrees, but he taught English Bible at Moody Bible Institute (1938-47), Fuller Theological Seminary (1947-63), and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1963-71).

June 10
1692
Bridget Bishop becomes the first person hanged for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. In all, twenty people died as a result of these trials.

1925
Canada's largest Protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada, is officially formed from the union of the Methodist Church, Canada; the Congregational Union of Canada; the Council of Local Union Churches; and about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. The new denomination's government is Presbyterian in form.

June 11
1739
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, records in his journal, "I look upon all the world as my parish."

1799
Richard Allen is ordained as a deacon of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. In 1816 Allen became the founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, making him the first African-American Protestant bishop in the United States.

June 12
1804
Birth of David Abeel, American missionary to the Far East. In 1829 he sailed for China under the auspices of the Seaman's Friend Society and later ministered in Java, Singapore, Siam, Malacca, Borneo, and other parts of Asia.

1914
The first edition of A. T. Robertson's monumental Grammar of the Greek New Testament is published. Its more than fourteen hundred pages make it the largest systematic analysis of New Testament Greek ever produced.

June 13
1793
English missions pioneer William Carey sets sail for India. Within five years, he translates nearly the entire Bible into Bengali. Today Carey is acclaimed as "the father of modern missions."
1972
American Presbyterian apologist Francis Schaeffer exhorts in a letter, "As Christians we are called upon to exhibit the character of God, and this means the simultaneous exhibition of His holiness and His love."

June 14
1837
Birth of William C. Dix, English businessman and composer of several notable hymns, including "What Child Is This?" and "As with Gladness Men of Old."

1966
Pope Paul VI abolishes the Vatican's Index of Prohibited Books, first issued by the Inquisition under Pope Paul IV in 1557. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum comprised a list of books that members of the Catholic Church were forbidden to read or possess.

June 15
1668
Padre Diego Luis de Sanvitores, a Jesuit missionary from Mexico, establishes the first Roman Catholic mission on the island of Guam.

1807
Birth of William Nast, German religious leader and founder of German Methodism. After arriving in America in 1828, Nast organized German settlers in the Midwest into Methodist congregations and later helped establish German Wallace College in Berea, Ohio (which eventually merged to become Baldwin-Wallace University).

June 16
1833
Anglican churchman John Henry Newman pens the words to the hymn "Lead, Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom," while traveling by ship from Italy to France.

1948
Death of Rufus M. Jones, American Quaker scholar, educator, philosopher, humanitarian, and mystic, who taught philosophy at Haverford College in Pennsylvania (1904-34) and was a founder of the American Friends Service Committee (1917).

June 17
1859
Birth of U.S. Presbyterian evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, first director of the Winona Lake Bible Conference Center in Indiana. Chapman also wrote the hymns "One Day When Heaven Was Filled with His Praises" and "Jesus,What a Friend of Sinners!"

1968
At a meeting in Winona Lake, Indiana, the Pilgrim Holiness Church (organized in 1897) votes to approve a merger with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America (organized in 1843).

June 18
1464
Pope Pius II leads a brief crusade into Italy against the Turks. He becomes ill, however, and dies before the rest of his allies arrive.

1830
Birth of Elizabeth C. Clephane, an orphan who grew up in the Free Church of Scotland and became a humanitarian and a poet. Clephane authored two of the more haunting hymns in the church today: "Beneath the Cross of Jesus" and "The Ninety and Nine."

June 19
325
The Council of Nicaea closes. By the end of the month-long assembly—the church's first ecumenical council, called by Pope Sylvester I and Roman emperor Constantine I—the three hundred assembled bishops had formulated the Nicene Creed, condemned the Arian heresy (which denied the deity of Christ), and established the method for calculating the date of Easter.

1834
Birth of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, English Baptist preacher and one of the greatest public speakers of his day. His London congregation grew to six thousand members, and his published sermons fill more than fifty large volumes.

June 20
1779
Birth of Dorothy Ann Thrupp, English devotional writer. She is best remembered as the author of the hymn "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us."

1885
A band of Moravian missionaries lands on the shores of Alaska and establishes the Bethel Mission. During their first year of mission work among the natives, winter temperatures fell to fifty degrees below zero.

June 21
1821
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is formally constituted in New York City, with nineteen clergymen present, representing six African-American churches from New York, Philadelphia, New Haven, and Newark.

1821
Birth of Henry W. Baker, English clergyman, musicologist, and compiler of Hymns Ancient and Modern—regarded today as the unofficial Anglican church hymnal. Baker also authored a hymn based on Psalm 23:"The King of Love My Shepherd Is."

June 22
1745
David Brainerd. colonial-era missionary to New England Native Americans, writes in his journal,"! am often weary of this world, and want to leave it on that account; but it is more desirable to be drawn, rather than driven out of it"

1750
New England Congregational clergyman Jonathan Edwards is dismissed from his pulpit in Northampton, Massachusetts, after twenty-three years. Edwards's ultraconservative theology had become too theologically and administratively inflexible for his congregation.

June 23
1683
English Quaker colonizer William Penn signs his famous treaty with the Native Americans of Pennsylvania.

1738
Birth of Samuel Medley, English Baptist clergyman and author of the hymns "O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth" and "I Know That My Redeemer Lives."

June 24
1542
Birth of St. John of the Cross, Spanish Carmelite monk, mystic, and poet. A founder of the Discalced Carmelites, he authored the religious classic The Dark Night of the Soul. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726.

1941
The two-day Constitutional Assembly of the Nippon Kirisuto Kyodan opens, during which the United Church of Christ in Japan is formed. Today one-third of all Japanese Protestants belong to the United Church.

June 25
1530
The principal creed of Lutheranism, the Augsburg Confession, is first presented to Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg. Prepared chiefly by Philipp Melanchthon, its Twenty-one Articles later influenced the Anglicans' Thirty-Nine Articles and John Wesley's Twenty-three (Methodist) Articles.

1842
Birth of Daniel S. Warner, American churchman and founder of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana).

June 26
1839
Scottish clergyman and missionary Robert Murray McCheyne writes in a letter, "Joy is increased by spreading it to others."

1968
The Wesleyan Church (a non-charismatic American holiness denomination) is formed by the union of the Wesleyan Methodist Church (organized in 1843) and the Pilgrim Holiness Church (which began as the International Holiness Union and Prayer League in 1897).

June 27
1736
As a member of the Holy Club (to which John and Charles Wesley also belonged), future English revivalist George Whitefield preaches his first sermon, at the age of twenty-one. Whitefield went on to preach thousands more sermons and became a force in colonial America's "Great Awakening."

1818
Birth of James L. Breck, American Episcopal missionary to the Wisconsin Territory. In 1859 one of Breck's converts, Enmegahbowh, became the first Ojibwa Indian to be ordained in the Episcopal Church. Breck was also a founder of Seabury Seminary, near St. Paul, Minnesota.

June 28
1629
The Peace of Alais is signed, ending the Huguenot Wars in France. By this treaty, French Protestants obtained religious freedom of conscience but lost military advantage in their French homeland.

1851
Birth of Eliza E. Hewitt, American Presbyterian church worker and devotional author. Four of her hymns are still sung: "Will There Be Any Stars?" "More about Jesus Would I Know," "When We All Get to Heaven," and "Sunshine in the Soul."

June 29
1757
Anglican clergyman and hymn writer John Newton offers this encouragement in a letter: "Whatever we may undertake with a sincere desire to promote His glory, we may comfortably pursue. Nothing is trivial that is done for Him."

1875
The first holiness conference opens at Keswick, England, emphasizing a non-charismatic "crisis" form of sanctification, in contrast to the older, Calvinist view of sanctification as a lifelong process.

June 30
1315
Martyrdom of Raymond Lull, a Spanish mystic, who devoted his life as a missionary to the Islamic people. Lull first traveled to North Africa in 1291.

1629
The settlers of Salem, Massachusetts, appoint Samuel Skelton as their pastor. Their church covenant, composed by Skelton, establishes Salem as the first non-separating Congregational Puritan Church in New England.