CHURCH HISTORY TODAY

What happened in the church today.

November

November 1
1512
Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo unveils his 5,808-square-foot masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He had been commissioned in 1508 by Pope Julius II to do a work depicting the story of the Bible.

1963
English linguistic scholar j. R. R. Tolkien summarizes Christian belief in a letter to his son:" In the last resort, faith is an act of will, inspired by love."

November 2
1917
British foreign secretary Arthur J. Balfour issues the Balfour Declaration, calling for "establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people." This document plants a seed that led to the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

1773
Birth of Stephen Greilet, French Quaker clergyman, missionary, and philanthropist. Traveling through Europe and North America, Greilet reported on conditions in prisons and poorhouses, and introduced reformer Elizabeth Fry to her life's work among prisoners.

November 3
1818
Pliny Fisk sets sail for Palestine. Ordained by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fisk was the first American missionary to travel to the Near East.

1759
Martin Luther's male lineage ends with the death of his great-great-grandson, Martin Gottlob Luther, a Dresden attorney.

November 4
1646
The Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law making it a capital offense to deny that the Bible was the Word of God. A person convicted of the offense was liable to the death penalty.

1903
Birth of (Henry) Watchman Nee, Chinese spiritual leader. Converted in 1920. Nee adopted the Plymouth Brethren doctrine of the victorious life and founded an Evangelical Christian group known as the Little Flock. Nee authored several devotional classics, including Sit, Walk, Stand (1958) and The Normal Christian Life (1961). Imprisoned by the Chinese government in 1952,Watchman Nee spent his last twenty years in prison.

November 5
1935
In Nashville the Cooperative General Association of Free Will Baptists (northern United States) and the General Conference of Free Will Baptists (southern United States) merge to form the National Association of Free Will Baptists.

1841
Birth of Daniel C. Roberts, American clergyman and hymn writer. Roberts's name endures as author of the hymn "God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand."

November 6
1789
In Baltimore the first American Catholic diocese is created by Pope Pius VI in the newly independent United States of America. Father John Carroll, is appointed as the first American Roman Catholic bishop.

1935
Death of American revivalist William Ashley "Billy" Sunday. After a professional baseball career from 1883 to 1890, Sunday was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1903. Until the advent of Billy Graham, no other American evangelist preached to as many people nor counted as many conversions as did Billy Sunday.

November 7
1637
Controversial colonial American religious leader Anne Hutchinson is convicted of heresy and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Mrs. Hutchinson moved to Rhode Island with her family and friends.

1918
Birth of American Baptist evangelist William Franklin "Billy" Graham. Converted at sixteen under revivalist Mordecai Ham, Graham began an evangelistic career in 1944 with Youth for Christ. In 1950 he founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and went on to conduct evangelistic crusades all over the world. During his meetings, more than two million individuals have come forward to accept Christ.

November 8
1837
Mt. Holyoke Seminary opens in Massachusetts. Founded by Mary Lyon, it was the first college in the United States established specifically for the education of women.

1931
Newly converted to the Christian faith, British literary scholar C. S. Lewis writes in a letter, "One needs the sweetness to start one on the spiritual life, but once started, one must learn to obey God for his own sake, not for the pleasure."

November 9
1732
In Scala, Italy, St. Alfonso Maria de Liguori establishes the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists). The religious order was officially approved in 1749.

1799
Birth of Asa Mahan, American educator and Congregational clergyman. As the first president of Oberlin College in Ohio (1835-50), Mahan was instrumental in establishing interracial education and the granting of college degrees to women.

November 10
432
Patrick, a young British monk who had once been held captive by the Irish, returns to the land of his captivity and begins a lifelong mission to the Irish people. Ministering there for more than fifty years, St. Patrick came to be known as the "apostle of Ireland."

1483
Birth of Martin Luther, German reformer. His "Ninety-five Theses," posted on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church in 1517 inaugurated the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Luther also translated the Bible into German and authored thirty-seven hymns, including "A Mighty Fortress."

November 11
1620
The Mayflower Compact is signed by the forty-one English separatists among the 101 passengers aboard the Mayflower. The document serves as the basis for organizing the Pilgrims into "a civil body politic." Democratic in form, the Compact comprised the first written American constitution and remained in force until 1691.

1561
Death of Hans Tausen, advocate of the Danish Reformation. Known as the "Danish Luther," Tausen served as Protestant bishop in Ribe (1542-6!) and translated the Pentateuch into Danish.

November 12
1899
American evangelist Dwight L. Moody begins his last evangelistic campaign in Kansas City, Missouri. Becoming ill during the final service, Moody was unable to complete his message. He died on December 22.

1556
Dutch Anabaptist reformer Menno Simons writes in a letter,"I can neither teach nor live by the faith of others. I must live by my own faith as the Spirit of the Lord has taught me through His Word."

November 13
1564
Pope Pius IV orders his bishops and scholars to subscribe to "Professio fidei," the profession of the tridentine faith formulated at the Council of Trent (1545-63) as the new and final definition of the Roman Catholic faith,

1913
Birth of Alexander Scourby, American actor. His most memorable screen role was in Giant (1956), but he became better known for his resonant bass voice, which he loaned to some of the first readings of the King James Bible on audiocassette.

November 14
1864
Birth of Helen H. Lemmel, English-born sacred vocalist and hymn writer. She penned five hundred hymns (many for children), including the still-popular "Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus."

1941
Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship is incorporated in Chicago. An interdenominational youth organization with chapters established at both colleges and schools of nursing, IVCF provides Christian fellowship, nurture, and discipleship among Christian college students.

November 15
1626
The English separatists known to history as the Mayflower Pilgrims, having lived in their American colony for six years, buy out their London investors for £1,800—the equivalent of $300,000 in today's dollars.

1917
Death of Oswald Chambers, Scottish Bible teacher and author. During the last years of his life. Chambers served as a chaplain to British troops stationed in Egypt during World War I. His posthumous devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, has become a classic.

November 16
1828
Birth of Timothy Dwight. American Congregational clergyman. Dwight was a renowned New Testament scholar and served on the revision committee of the American Standard Version of the Bible.

1946
The Church of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church merge to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

November 17
1758
English churchman Philip Embury marries Margaret Switzer. After emigrating to America, Embury was encouraged by his cousin, Barbara Heck, to establish a Methodist society in New York City (1768). Embury thus became the first Methodist preacher in North America.

1808
Death of David Zeisberger. Moravian missionary to Native Americans. He established Indian congregations in Pennsylvania. Ohio, and Canada, but the churches he founded did not survive.

November 18
1800
Birth of John Nelson Darby, Irish-born English spiritual reformer. Darby was a gifted exponent of the early Plymouth Brethren movement. Following a schism that began in 1845, Darby became the leader of the stricter Exclusive Brethren.

1866
English devotional writer Katherine Hankey pens the verses we sing today as the hymn "I Love to Tell the Story."

November 19
1910
Swedish Pentecostal missionaries Daniel Berg and Adolf Vingren arrive in Brazil. In 1918 they established the
first Pentecostal church in Brazil, which grew into the country's largest Protestant body, the Assemblies of God.

1672
Richard Baxter, preaching illegally in his own home after a ten-year silence, says, "I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men."

November 20
1850
Frances Jane "Fanny" Crosby, blind from the age of six months, undergoes a dramatic spiritual conversion at age thirty. Fifteen years later she began writing the first of more than eight thousand devotional verses. Many of these remain popular today as hymns, including "Blessed Assurance," "All the Way My Savior Leads Me," "Rescue the Perishing," and "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross."

1741
Birth of Samuel Kirkland, American missionary to the Oneida Indians. Kirkland was influential in keeping the Six Nations neutral during the American Revolution. He also was the founder of the Hamilton Oneida Academy (1793), which later became Hamilton College.

November 21
1907
Birth of James Alonzo "Jim" Bishop, American journalist, syndicated newspaper columnist, and editor of Catholic Digest. Bishop gave new life to great moments in history through his "day" books, including his 1957 chronicle The Day Christ Died.

1948
The Sunday morning religious program Lamp unto My Feet debuts on CBS television. It becomes one of TV's longest-running network shows, airing through January 1979.

November 22
1633
Irish Catholic Cecilius Calvert (Lord Calvert) sends two ships (the Ark and the Dove) from Ireland to establish a colony in America as a refuge for Catholics. Calvert's work earned him the nickname "Colonizer of Maryland."

1963
Death of C. S. Lewis, English literary scholar, novelist, critic, and Christian apologist. Well known for authoring The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56), Lewis also wrote other Christian classics, including The Screwtape Letters (1942), The Great Divorce (1945), Miracles (1947), and Mere Christianity (1952).

November 23
1947
Eliezer L. Sukenik of Jerusalem's Hebrew University receives word of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The ancient documents (ca. 200 BC-AD 70) had been discovered the previous winter by two Bedouin shepherds in the vicinity of Qumran.

1906
Death of Wilhelm Wrede, German Lutheran New Testament scholar. He was named in the title of Albert Schweitzer's classic christological study, The Quest for the Historical Jesus: From Reimarus to Wrede.

November 24
1713
Birth of Junipero Serra, Spanish-born Franciscan missionary to western North America. Serra arrived in Mexico in 1749, extended his labors to northern California in 1769, and established nine of the first twenty-one Franciscan missions founded along the Pacific coast, including San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and San Juan Capistrano. Serra has been aptly called the "apostle of California."

1880
In Montgomery, Alabama, more than 150 delegates from Baptist churches in eleven states meet to form the Baptist Foreign Missions Convention of the United States. The Reverend William H. McAlpine is elected as the organization's first president.

November 25

2348 BC
According to the reckoning of Irish archbishop James Ussher, the "Great Deluge" (Noah's flood) began on this date. Ussher's Chronology of the Old and New Testaments is the source of the dates inserted in the margins of many editions of the King James Version of the Bible.

1787
Birth of Franz Gruber, Austrian Catholic musician and choral director. Gruber wrote more than ninety musical compositions yet is remembered today for a single hymn tune, written for his pastor, Joseph Mohr, on Christmas Eve in l8l8:"Stille Nacht" ("Silent Night").

November 26
1789
President George Washington proclaims this date (a Thursday) as the first national Thanksgiving Day holiday. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln established the fourth Thursday in November as a permanent annual Thanksgiving Day.

1858
Birth of (Catherine Drexel, American Catholic missionary and founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. In 1915 she founded Xavier University in New Orleans.

November 27
1921
The first church of the airwaves is established when services of the Radio Church of America are broadcast by Walter J. Garvey from his home in the Bronx.

1862
Birth of Adelaide Pollard, American Presbyterian hymn writer and mystic. Of the several hymns she penned, "Have Thine Own Way, Lord" is perhaps the most popular.

November 28
1918
Birth of Madeleine LEngle. American author, who won the 1963 Newbery Medal for A Wrinkle in Time.

1950
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America is established in Cleveland, Ohio, by a constitutional convention comprising fourteen Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox denominations. Today the NCCC serves to administer disaster relief, strengthen family life, provide leadership training, and promote world peace.

November 29
1847
Marcus Whitman, American Presbyterian medical missionary to the American Northwest Indians, is murdered by a party of Cayuse Indians in present-day Washington State. Along with Whitman, his wife, Narcissa and twelve others were also massacred.

1970
In Nagpur, India, six church entities— the Anglicans, the United Church of Northern India, the Baptists, the Methodists, the Church of the Brethren, and the Disciples of Christ— merge to form the Church of India.

November 30
1725
Birth of Martin Boehm, American church founder and Mennonite bishop. Boehm was later excluded from the Mennonite communion for associating with persons of other sects. In 1789 he joined with German Reformed pastor Philip Otterbein to establish the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.

1894
In Naperville, Illinois, seven groups withdraw from the Evangelical Association to form the United Evangelical Church.