Introduction:
This is page 2 of a two page series of lesser known people, for the most part, in Church history. You need to read page one first to get the full context and purpose of this list.
MACVICAR, DONALD HARVEY (1831–1902) Canadian Presbyterian clergyman and educator MacVicar was born in Argyleshire, Scotland, and came to Canada with his parents as a child. He was educated at the University of Toronto and Knox College, Toronto, and in 1859 entered the Presbyterian ministry. In 1868 MacVicar helped to found Presbyterian College in Montreal. His appointment as principal in 1868 represented a triumph for those who wanted the appointment of a Canadian-trained Scot rather than one trained in Scotland. From the time of his appointment until his death in 1902, the fortunes of Presbyterian College depended largely upon his energy and devotion. In the early period of the college’s history almost the whole burden of teaching fell on him. MacVicar was a fine preacher. His sermon at a precommunion service in the Glengarry district in Ontario has been vividly recorded by the Canadian writer Ralph Connor in his novel, The Man from Glengarry. MacVicar wrote widely, publishing articles in the Presbyterian College Journal and in magazines in Ontario and New York. MacVicar’s theology was the solid, Calvinist theology of the Reformed faith. His lectures showed the influence of American Calvinists such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Hodge. He was anxious that his students should preach the gospel of salvation and urged them, “You are sent to preach the Gospel, to proclaim the great doctrines of grace in the proportions and relations to each other in which you find them stated in the Word of God.” He was a firm believer in the Presbyterian form of church organization which, he said, afforded “proper rights and powers to clergy and laity alike.” MacVicar was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1881. He was a powerful factor in shaping the church as a Calvinist and evangelizing body.
MCPHERSON, AIMEE SEMPLE (1890–1944) One of America’s most flamboyant revivalists in the 1920s and 1930s Born in Ingersoll, Ontario (Canada), McPherson married the man who had been influential in her conversion, Robert Semple, a Pentecostal preacher, with whom she went to China as a missionary in 1908. When Robert died, Aimee returned to the United States with their son, Robert. She then married Harold McPherson, from whom she was subsequently divorced. A third marriage and another divorce came later. With her mother as companion, Aimee Semple McPherson began after World War I a very successful series of revival tours across the United States. “Sister Aimee,” as she was known to her followers, was a physically attractive woman who knew how to exploit her good looks and vibrant personality to capture the attention of the media. She pioneered in radio evangelism (1922) and may have participated in a staged kidnapping of herself in 1926, a case that remains clothed in mystery. Her teaching was probably not as important as her personality in her great success, but it did include standard fundamentalist and Pentecostal emphases: sanctification, baptism of the Holy Spirit with the gift of tongues, Christ as Savior and healer (hence faith healing), and the imminent return of Christ. In 1922 she settled in Los Angeles, where she preached to thousands each week at her $1.5 million Los Angeles Temple. The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel arose as a result of her ministry in 1927. It continued under the direction of her son after she died. Part of the sensation surrounding McPherson’s career arose from allegations linking her romantically to other men. Even her death in 1944 was not free from sensation—some ascribing it to a heart attack, others to an overdose of sleeping pills.
MURRAY, ANDREW (1828–1917) South-African Dutch Reformed leader; author of many devotional writings Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Murray became a noted missionary leader. His father was a Scottish Presbyterian serving the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, and his mother had connections with both French Huguenots and German Lutherans. This background to some extent explains his ecumenical spirit. He was educated at Aberdeen University, Scotland, and at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. After ordination in 1848 he served pastorates at Bloemfontein, Worcester, Cape Town, and Wellington. He helped to found what are now the University College of the Orange Free State and the Stellenbosch Seminary. He served as Moderator of the Cape Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church and was president of both the YMCA (1865) and the South Africa General Mission (1888–1917), now the Africa Evangelical Fellowship. He was one of the chief promoters of the call to missions in South Africa. This led to the Dutch Reformed Church missions to blacks in the Transvaal and Malawi. Apart from his evangelistic tours in South Africa, he spoke at the Keswick and Northfield Conventions in 1895, making a great impression upon his British and American audiences. For his contribution to world missions he was given an honorary doctorate by the universities of Aberdeen (1898) and Cape of Good Hope (1907). Murray is best known today for his devotional writings, which place great emphasis on the need for a rich, personal devotional life. Many of his 240 publications explain how he saw this devotion and its outworking in the life of the Christian. Several of his books have become devotional classics; among these are Abide in Christ, Absolute Surrender, With Christ in the School of Prayer, The Spirit of Christ, and Waiting on God.
MOULTON, WILLIAM FIDDIAN (1835–1898) British Bible scholar and teacher Born of strong Methodist parents, Moulton attended various Methodist schools and graduated from London University. He was ordained in 1858 and became a tutor in classics at Wesley College, Surrey. The position allowed him to devote much time to scholarly research, and in 1870 he published his first work, a translation from German of Winer’s Grammar of New Testament Greek. The same year he was appointed the youngest member of the committee responsible for the Revised Version of the New Testament. He was generally acknowledged to be one of the finest Greek scholars of his generation. In addition to the translation of Winer’s grammar, Moulton’s writings include A History of the English Bible (1878) and a Commentary on Hebrews in the Ellicott series (1879). He also collaborated with William Milligan on a commentary on the Gospel of John (1880) and with A. S. Geden on A Concordance of the Greek New Testament (1897). A respected Methodist leader, Moulton was elected president of the Wesleyan Conference in 1890. He also was appointed the first headmaster of The Leys School, Cambridge (1874), a position he held until his death. He received honorary degrees from Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities for his contributions to the study of Greek grammar.
LAUBACH, FRANK CHARLES (1884–1970) American missionary; apostle of literacy Born in Benton, Pennsylvania, Laubach was educated at Princeton University (A.B. 1909), Union Theological Seminary, New York City (1911–1914), and Columbia University (M.A. and Ph.D., 1915). In 1915 he was sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Mindanao in the Philippines, and there he became interested in the Muslim Moros. He was transferred to Manila to teach in Union Theological Seminary, but in 1929 he returned to Mindanao and set up a program for teaching illiterates to read by phonetic symbols and pictures. He took as a slogan “Each one teach one,” which meant that each illiterate, after learning to read, was expected to teach another. This work proved so successful that it was adopted elsewhere in the Philippines and eventually was officially sponsored by the government. Laubach’s literacy program grew so extensively that finally he had produced more than 300 primers in 235 languages covering 100 countries; and out of his efforts grew the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America. All Laubach’s efforts were undergirded and sustained by fervent prayer, which he regarded as “the mightiest force in the world.”
LAWS, ROBERT (1851–1934) Scottish pioneer missionary Born in Aberdeen and apprenticed to his cabinet-maker father, Laws attended evening school and university classes. Later came study in arts, theology, and medicine; his aim was to follow in David Livingstone’s footsteps. Ordained in 1875 in the United Presbyterian Church, he joined a Free Church expedition charged to found a mission in Central Africa to be named Livingstonia. After an eventful journey, a mission was established near remote Lake Nyasa. Laws, in charge from 1877, planned a series of mission stations at strategic lakeside and interior sites. He opened his first school in 1876; when he left Africa in 1927 there were over seven hundred primary schools plus facilities for further education in theology, medicine, agriculture, and technical subjects—and a Christian community of sixty thousand with thirteen ordained African pastors. Robert Laws of Livingstonia was a clear-sighted pioneer. His goal: a Bible-reading, self-governing, self-supporting, self-extending church, with schools staffed by African Christian teachers, as the basic evangelizing agency. He visited Canada, the United States, Germany, and Nigeria; was United Free Church of Scotland moderator in 1908; and served on the legislative council of Nyasaland (now Malawi).
LATOURETTE, KENNETH SCOTT (1884–1968) Church historian Born in Oregon City, Oregon, Latourette was educated at Linfield College and Yale University. He received a Ph.D. from Yale in 1909. He served as a faculty member of Yale-in-China until illness forced him to return to the United States in 1912. After convalescing he taught at Reed College, Oregon (1914–1916), and Denison College, Granville, Ohio (1916–1921). In 1921 he went to Yale as professor of missions, becoming Sterling Professor in 1949. He retired from full-time teaching in 1953. Latourette held several important offices. He was president of the American Society of Church History, president of the American Historical Association, president of Japan International Christian University, and president of the American Baptist Convention. Latourette’s major work was to teach and write church history, particularly the story of Christian missions. He published over three hundred articles and more than thirty books, which may be put into three categories: (1) works dealing with the Far East, especially China (in which he had an abiding interest after his sojourn there)—for example, History of Christian Missions in China (1929) and A History of the Far East (1946); (2) volumes describing the growth and spread of Christianity as a missionary movement—for example, History of the Expansion of Christianity (seven volumes, 1937–1945); (3) books dealing with “the entire spread of Christianity in all its phases and in its setting in the human scene”—for example, A History of Christianity (1953) and Christianity in a Revolutionary Age (five volumes, 1958–1962). Latourette believed that Christianity has exerted a deep influence on the world through the ever-widening impact of Jesus on individuals. His interpretation has not won universal acceptance, but no one doubts that his work on the Christian missionary movement, particularly during what he called “the great century” (1815–1914), will be of lasting significance. Among his many honorary degrees was an Oxford University D.D. awarded him in 1947.
KELLY, WILLIAM (1821–1906) Plymouth Brethren leader Kelly was born in Ulster and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Although at one time he was attracted by the Anglican Tractarian movement, he decided in 1841 to join the new Brethren movement instead. Later he became friends with John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) and edited his writings (thirty-four volumes, 1867–1883). From 1844 to 1871 he lived in Guernsey, and from 1871 to 1906 in Blackheath, Kent. As an editor and writer Kelly exercised a wide influence. He edited The Prospect (1848–1850) and The Bible Treasury (1857–1906). Some of his books were on prophetic subjects, including a commentary on the Greek text of Revelation. He also published studies of Matthew, John, and the books of Moses. Just before his death he gave his library of fifteen thousand volumes to the town of Middlesborough. In theology Kelly had views similar to J. N. Darby’s. He helped popularize the dispensationalist doctrine of the premillennial advent of Christ. Kelly was also an opponent of higher critical views of the Bible, readily engaging in controversy to resist them.
KIMBANGU, SIMON (1889–1951) Zairian prophet and martyr-figure; founder of the Kimbanguist Church Kimbangu, born in the Lower Congo, attended the English Baptist mission school at Ngombe Lutete. At twenty-six he was baptized and named Simon. He became a village teacher and catechist working under the Baptist mission. In 1918 Kimbangu felt a strong sense of God’s call to witness to his African brothers and sisters. He tried to escape the call, finally returning home. In April 1921, he felt an urge to pray for a sick woman nearby. She was healed. Kimbangu’s reputation as a healer spread, causing great excitement in the region. Healings and “wonders” drew large, excited crowds. Kimbangu attributed the healings to God’s power, not his own, and called a group of “helpers” to join him in dealing with the crowds. Fearing nationalistic overtones and anticolonial feelings in the gatherings, the Belgians accused Kimbangu of inciting sedition. He escaped arrest, hiding with his followers for several months. In September 1921, he gave himself up. He was tried, flogged, and sentenced to death. Due to the intervention of Protestant missionaries and the Belgian king, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He died a prisoner in Elizabethville.
KUYPER, ABRAHAM (1837–1920) Theologian and statesman of the Netherlands Widely recognized as historian, theologian, philosopher, writer, and professor-educator, Kuyper was born in Maassluis, the son of a State Church (Reformed) pastor, later to accompany his family to the university town of Leyden, where his father accepted a charge. In 1862 Kuyper was awarded the doctor of theology from Leyden University. Having fully embraced orthodox Calvinism, Kuyper held pastorates in Utrecht, Amsterdam, and elsewhere. Prompted by his interest in the legitimacy of private schools, he became affiliated with the Anti-Revolutionary Party (opposition to godless revolution and support for the Word of God and its implications for life), ultimately becoming its head. He edited a weekly, De Heraut (The Herald), “for a free church and a free church school in a free land,” as well as a daily party organ, De Standaard (The Standard). Beginning in 1874, Kuyper served repeatedly as a member of one or the other of the two houses of the Netherlands’ legislature. He continued to champion the recognition of private education (common and higher) by government. On October 20, 1880, through the work of Kuyper and cofounders, the Amsterdam Free University was opened, dedicated to a Calvinistic orientation, a tribute to Kuyper’s persistence in striving for the right of private higher education in the Netherlands. In 1886 he led the break from the State Church, establishing the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. Kampen became the seminary of the denomination. Kuyper’s close association with Herman Bavinck, professor of systematic theology at the seminary, came during this period. In 1901 Kuyper became prime minister of his homeland, a position he held for four years. Kuyper’s copious writings include some 16,800 Standard editorials, nineteen major convention addresses, sermons, Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology (1898), Calvinism (1899), and The Work of the Holy Spirit (1900).
JEWEL, JOHN (1522–1571) Bishop of Salisbury; defender of the Protestant Church of England Born in Devon, Jewel was educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he was introduced to recent English translations of the New Testament. Later he moved to Corpus Christi College. There he worked so hard that he damaged his health. His Protestant opinions were strengthened through the influence of Peter Martyr, the new professor of divinity. When Mary Tudor, a Roman Catholic, became queen in 1553, Jewel was deprived of his position at Corpus Christi. Jewel was prepared at first to compromise with Roman Catholicism, but later decided to join other Protestants in exile. He arrived in Frankfurt (present-day Germany) in 1555. The British exiles there were divided into an advanced reforming party (future Puritans) and a moderate party, with whom Jewel worked. After visiting other centers of reform and learning, he returned to England when Elizabeth became queen. The letters he wrote to Peter Martyr reveal the problems that faced the queen as she worked for a way to settle religious conflicts. In 1559 Jewel made his famous challenge as he preached at St. Paul’s Cross, London: “If any learned man of our adversaries be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old doctor or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the holy scripture, or any one example out of the primitive church for the space of six hundred years after Christ [that is, in proof of specifically Roman doctrine and practices] I will go over to him.” In 1560 Jewel was appointed bishop of Salisbury. Apart from his work as a preacher and visitor of the diocese, he decided that he would take up the pen to defend the Protestant faith. The result was his celebrated Apology for the Church of England (1562), which, in the light of the Council of Trent (1545–1563), set forth the Church of England’s claims to be the true church of Christ. The book was written in Latin since it was intended for scholars, but archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, required that it be translated into English. Since then it has often been reprinted. The leading Roman Catholic opponent of Jewel’s teaching was Thomas Harding (1516–1572), a contemporary at Oxford. In their battle of words the main points of the controversy between Protestants and Roman Catholics over the next several centuries were put forth. Jewel also promoted the education of poor, bright boys. One of them was Richard Hooker, whose book Ecclesiastical Polity extended and developed his benefactor’s teaching.
JAFFRAY, ROBERT A. (1873–1945) Noted Alliance missionary who pioneered in South China, Indo-China, and the Netherland East Indies Born in 1873 in an influential Canadian family, Jaffray declined the prestige and wealth promised him and worked his way through A. B. Simpson’s Missionary Training Institute in New York. Upon graduation he and other new recruits, including Robert H. Glover, joined a small Christian and Missionary Alliance contingent who had just opened a work in Wuchow, China. For over forty years Wuchow became both home and headquarters for Jaffray and his ever-expanding ministries. He served as chairman of the Wuchow Bible School, editor of The Bible Magazine, founder and director of the South China Alliance Press, and author of numerous articles and booklets written in flawless Cantonese. In 1916 Jaffray added to his duties the direction of the new French Indo-China field and in 1927 was responsible for the missionary outreach to the East Indies with strong support from Chinese nationals through the Chinese Foreign Missionary Union, which Jaffray helped found. All this from a man who suffered from diabetes and heart disease! Increasingly burdened for the expanding East Indies work that spread from Sumatra to New Guinea and from Borneo south to the island of Lombok, Robert and Minnie Jaffray left their much-loved land of China and their only child, Margaret, who had since returned to the land of her birth as an Alliance missionary. They moved to the Celebes (Indonesia) in 1931. The terrors of World War II brought havoc to missions in the South Seas and eventual imprisonment and death to scores of dedicated missionaries, among them Jaffray. He died in 1945, weakened from starvation rations and ill treatment in a Japanese concentration camp.
JEROME OF PRAGUE (c. 1370–1416) Bohemian reformer After acquiring a basic education in Prague (present-day Czechoslovakia), Jerome pursued his studies at Paris and then at Oxford. At Oxford he became imbued with the teachings of an early reformer, John Wycliffe (c. 1329–1384), whose views encouraged a degree of opposition to the papacy and stressed apostolic poverty. Both emphases fit well with a resurgent Czech nationalism that resisted German imperial domination. On his return to Prague Jerome began to expound his new ideas. They were similar to, but evidently independent of, those of John Huss, another slightly younger Czech reformer, with whom Jerome had a friendly relationship. Because of his teaching and other activities, Jerome had to leave Prague. He went from one city to another, meanwhile gaining a considerable reputation. The king of Poland was impressed enough to invite him to establish a university at Kraków. It was not long, however, before the Polish bishops took offense—so Jerome resumed his wanderings. When Huss was arrested and put on trial at the Council of Constance (1414–1418), Jerome courageously went to that city to see him. Before the council Jerome offered a spirited but unsuccessful defense of his countryman. That act sealed his own doom. In 1415 he was arrested and held for trial. During the prolonged questioning he was impelled to renounce his opinions. Later his courage revived and he retracted those statements, an action that resulted in his condemnation as a lapsed heretic. Almost a year after Huss’s death, Jerome of Prague, too, was burned at the stake.
ISAAC, HEINRICH (c. 1450–1517) Composer of church music A versatile genius in an age when musical giants abounded, Isaac was born near the present-day Dutch-Belgian border. About 1484 he entered the service of Lorenzo di Medici in Florence (Italy), where Isaac was known as Arrigo Tedesco (“Harry the German”). When Savonarola came to power in 1494, Isaac moved to the imperial court in Vienna. Later he returned to Italy and died there. Isaac was a truly international composer, writing music to Latin, German, and Italian texts with equal facility. His output was tremendous. His Chroalis Constantius,consisting of over a thousand works for the diocese of Constance, included music appropriate to every occasion of the Christian year. That work was completed after Isaac’s death by his pupil, Ludwig Senfl, who was admired by Martin Luther. The melody of Isaac’s beautiful song, “Innsbruck,” became a Lutheran hymn tune.
IRVING, EDWARD (1792–1834) Scottish Presbyterian Pentecostalist Born in Annan (Scotland), Irving was educated at the University of Edinburgh. He then worked as a schoolmaster, learning foreign languages while waiting for ordination. In 1819 he became Thomas Chalmers’s assistant at St. John’s Church, Glasgow. Finding his powerful oratorical gifts somewhat overshadowed by Chalmers, in 1822 Irving accepted a call to London, becoming minister of the Scottish church in Hatton Garden and chaplain of the Caledonian Asylum. His preaching attracted large numbers of fashionable London society. His friends included writer Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881). Irving gave himself enthusiastically to the study of prophecy, then common in evangelical circles. He translated from Spanish a book by a Jesuit priest entitled The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty (1827). From 1826 onward, he took part in a series of prophetic conferences held at the home of banker Henry Drummond at Albury in Surrey. Irving wrote for The Morning Watch, a journal on unfulfilled prophecy. Meanwhile Irving’s church had moved into a large building in Regent Square. His sermons continued to fill the church even when his views on basic doctrines began to change. His doctrine of baptism appeared to include baptismal regeneration. His doctrine of Christ attributed to Jesus a fallen human nature. Irving’s Christology was the basis for his trial for heresy by the Church of Scotland and his removal from its ministry (1833). In the late 1820s prophetic study had led Irving to teach that churches could expect a spiritual renewal with the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit. He was thus somewhat prepared for the claims of divine healing and speaking in tongues occurring first in Scotland and then in his own congregation in 1831. Irving supported those who claimed to exercise such gifts. That unpopular position, plus the heresy charges, cost him his post at Regent Square. Other believers in the validity of the gifts of the Spirit soon organized what was known as the Catholic Apostolic Church, in which Irving was ordained as a minister. His last two or three years of life were sad; he had lost his previous fame and was a member of a strange new sect.
ISIDORE OF SEVILLE (560–636) Spanish archbishop and scholar Isidore was educated by his older brother Leander, who was then archbishop of Seville. Isidore succeeded Leander in that office in 600. An able administrator, Isidore presided at a number of important church councils, founded schools in each diocese under his supervision for training young clergymen, and forbade the forcible baptism of Jews in Spain. His major importance lay in his scholarship and in his successful attempt to prepare summaries of ancient knowledge for the benefit of the Visigothic peoples. By contemporaries he was looked on as the most learned man of his age. Isidore’s literary output was amazing in view of the troubled times in which he lived and his preoccupation with administrative affairs. He wrote Bible commentaries, spiritual exercises, theology, and history. His most extensive and famous work was his Etymologiae (Etymologies), a treatment of the liberal arts, medicine, law, the divisions of times, the Bible, theology, natural science, agriculture, warfare, games, architecture, and other matters. That work became an encyclopedic authority for a thousand years of European history; much of what medieval people knew of learning came from Isidore’s compilation. The title derives from Isidore’s assumption that knowledge of a subject begins with a precise consideration of the word that describes it. Some of Isidore’s encyclopedia is naive, but much of it is substantial.
HUNT, JOHN (1812–1848) Pioneer Wesleyan missionary to Fiji Born in Lincolnshire, England, Hunt was the first missionary to Fiji to have had theological training (Hoxton, 1835). Ordained in 1838, he proved an effective evangelist in Oxford and Australia before he went to Fiji in 1838. He stated his goals for Fiji were (1) the conversion of the Fijian people, (2) the translation of the Fijian Scriptures and training of men to interpret them, and (3) the revival of the doctrine of Scriptural Holiness. He was effective in each of these respects. The Great Awakening in mainland Fiji began under his ministry at Viwa and spread through his trained preachers. He translated the New Testament into beautiful Bauan idiom (1848) from the Greek. His training program (the Viwa Plan) became the model for all Fiji, and his Short Sermons the indigenous teacher’s textbook. He wrote a memoir of his colleague, William Cross. His Letters on Entire Sanctification (1848) became prescribed reading for Australian Wesleyan ministerial trainees for fifty years. No missionary did more to shape Christianity in Fiji. His notebooks are full of missiological and anthropological insights. Hunt communicated well to the cannibal world. He died at Viwa, Fiji, and was buried with a Fijian ceremonial dirge.
HOWE, JULIA WARD (1819–1910) Social reformer and author; popularly known for her “Battle Hymn of the Republic” Julia Ward was born to a wealthy New York couple, Samuel and Julia Rush Cutler Ward. Her mother, a poet, encouraged her writing when she was a child. She later pursued studies in the field of law and literature, receiving the doctorate of law from Tufts and Smith colleges and the doctorate of letters from Brown University. She married philanthropist and reformer Samuel Gridley Howe in 1843. After extensive travels, they settled in Boston, where they raised a family of six children. Julia Howe was active in the Unitarian Church, occasionally preaching in congregations throughout New England. An ardent abolitionist, she and her husband edited the Boston Commonwealth, an antislavery periodical (1851–1853). She also campaigned for child welfare, prison reform, and equal education. She presided over the New England Woman Suffrage Association and the Woman’s International Peace Association. A prolific writer, she published volumes of poetry, biography, drama, and travel. She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
HILL, ROWLAND (1744–1833) English evangelical leader Hill attended Eton School and St. John’s College, Cambridge. While at St. John’s he preached the gospel to many of his classmates. He also visited the sick and then later was engaged in itinerant preaching—the latter activity causing six bishops to refuse to ordain him. At last the Bishop of Bath and Wells ordained him deacon. But, because he continued to preach outside the parish to which he was licensed, he found it impossible to persuade a bishop to ordain him priest. So he continued his work as an itinerant preacher of the Evangelical Revival. As he was such a gifted preacher, rich laity built two chapels for him. One was in Wotton, Gloucestershire, and the other was the Surrey Chapel in London, opened in 1783. Attached to the Surrey Chapel were thirteen Sunday schools and a very large congregation, which he delighted with his humorous yet challenging rhetoric. His interests and concerns were interdenominational, and thus he was known as an “irregular” clergyman (i.e., not keeping to a regular parish). He was the first chairman of the committee of the Religious Tract Society, and he helped to promote the British and Foreign Bible Society and the London Missionary Society. He was concerned with social problems and actively encouraged the use of vaccination for smallpox
GROOTE, GERARD (1340–1384) Dutch scholar; founder of the Catholic lay community Brethren of the Common Life Gerard (Geert) Groote was born in Deventer (the Netherlands). His father, a prosperous cloth merchant, left him a substantial inheritance, making his academic pursuits possible. Groote eagerly delved into Greek, Latin, Hebrew, astrology, medicine, law, philosophy, and theology. After studying in Paris and Cologne, he received a canonry at Aachen. That appointment, combined with successes in public disputations, paved the way for further advancements. His career was interrupted in 1372, however, by serious illness. When he recovered, he began to pursue a life of living by the Spirit. Seeking to follow the way of Christ, he began preaching his devotio moderna, a “modern devotion” based on inner spirituality and charitable service. Soon he established one household for women and another for men devoted to cultivating that practical piety. He briefly stayed in a Carthusian monastery, but soon returned to Deventer. Groote’s spiritual renewal, evidenced by his convincing preaching, raised up defenders and opponents to his ministry. When the bishop forbade him to preach publicly, he withdrew to Windesheim near Deventer and founded an order of Augustinian canons. It was at the Windesheim monastery that the scholar Desiderius Erasmus studied. Groote kept a diary, which has been entitled The Following of Christ. Some scholars believe this is the same work called the Imitation of Christ, usually attributed to Thomas à Kempis, who attended the Common Life School at Deventer as a youth.
GLAS, JOHN (1695–1773) Founder of the Glasites, a splinter group from the Reformed Church of Scotland Glas was educated at St. Andrews and Edinburgh, and in 1719 became a minister in Tealing near Dundee. In his parish, he introduced the practice of monthly Communion and stressed the concept of the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom. His Testimony of the King of Martyrs (1728) brought him before the Scottish ecclesiastical courts. Glas argued three points: (1) a national church had no New Testament basis, (2) civil officials had no right to prosecute people as heretics, and (3) the two Scottish covenants (National, 1638, and Solemn League, 1643,) lacked biblical support. Glas opposed “founding the Church . . . upon any act of Parliament, or covenant, formed by the wisdom of man.” Deposed for heresy, Glas ministered to an independent group first in Dundee, then from 1733 in Perth, where the Glasites’ first meeting house was set up. Faith to Glas was an intellectual asset, and he held that Scripture did not authorize missionary tasks. The Glasites followed a strict discipline of dietary laws, caring for the poor, footwashing, giving the kiss of peace, and keeping the “love feast” followed by Communion. A genial man, Glas remained remarkably serene in the face of trial. Neither he nor his wife regretted leaving the national church for conscience’ sake despite subsequent hardships for their family of fifteen. Leadership of the Glasites gradually passed to his son-in-law, Robert Sandeman.
GOMAR (GOMARUS), FRANCES (1563–1641) Dutch Calvinist theologian Born at Bruges, Gomar studied at Strassburg under Johannes Sturm and at Neustadt-on-Hardt under Girolamo Zanchius, and also at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, taking his doctorate at Heidelberg in 1593. Between 1587 and 1593 he was pastor of the Dutch community at Frankfurt am Main, and in 1594 was appointed professor of theology at Leyden University. There he emerged as a strong defender of rigid Calvinistic orthodoxy and engaged in controversy concerning predestination with Jacob Arminius (1560–1609) after the latter joined the Leyden faculty in 1603. On Arminius’s death in 1609, Conrad Vorstius, an Arminian, was appointed as his successor—whereupon Gomar left the university. From 1614 to 1618 he taught at the French Huguenot seminary of Saumur, and from 1618 to his death was a professor at Groningen. Gomar was a delegate to the Synod of Dort (1618–1619), and he played a prominent part in that Synod’s condemnation of Arminianism in its definitions of election and grace.
FRELINGHUYSEN, THEODORE JACOBUS (1691–1748) Dutch Reformed minister Born in Germany in 1691, the son of a Reformed pastor, Frelinghuysen held two brief pastorates in the Dutch Reformed Church in Holland before coming to America. He was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church in the Raritan Valley, New Jersey, from 1720 to about 1747. Frelinghuysen was a forerunner of the Great Awakening, a religious revival which occurred in the American colonies from about 1725 to 1760. Like the key figures of the Great Awakening, Frelinghuysen stressed the importance of conversion, accompanied by conviction of sin, repentance, and reliance on the Holy Spirit. He insisted on evidence of conversion as a requirement for admission to Communion. Some members of his denomination resented his exercise of church discipline. Despite that unpopularity he made an important contribution to the organization of the Dutch Reformed Church in America. He helped form an assembly that the governing body of Amsterdam took under its jurisdiction in 1747. Frelinghuysen exercised a widespread influence, which continued in the middle colonies for some time after his death. Among those he inspired was Gilbert Tennent, an important Presbyterian missionary in New Jersey.
FRITH, JOHN (1503–1533) English reformer, scholar, and martyr Frith received his bachelor’s degree from King’s College, Cambridge in 1525. While serving as a canon of Cardinal (Christ’s Church) College, he actively preached Protestant doctrines. After a brief imprisonment, he was forced to flee. He escaped to Marburg (Germany) where he met Protestant reformer William Tyndale, whom Frith helped to translate the Bible. In 1529 he returned to England, where he was arrested under a warrant issued by Catholic chancellor Sir Thomas More. In the Tower of London Frith wrote extensively and formulated his views rejecting the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation of Christ through the sacrament of the Eucharist. Thomas More attacked Frith’s statements in a pamphlet to which Frith replied. Finally Henry VIII ordered him to be tried for heresy. Frith was condemned and sentenced by the bishop of London to death by burning. Refusing to refute his writings, he died at the stake.
FRANCKE, AUGUST HERMANN (1663–1727) German Pietist and educational reformer About 1687, while a professor of Hebrew at Leipzig, August Francke came under the influence of Pietist preacher P. J. Spener. Francke began holding Bible study devotional meetings, sparking a revival at the institution. This unorthodox practice and his outspoken opinions on other issues led to conflict with the more conservative faculty members. Eventually he was forced to leave the school. In 1692 Francke accepted a professorship at the new University of Halle and became a minister at a nearby church. He helped make Halle a center for Pietism and made important contributions to the study of philology. Francke’s educational reforms included founding an orphanage, grade school, high school, and a teacher-training school. To give his students practical job experience, he also opened a drugstore, bookstore, and publishing house. Prussian educational reform later incorporated many of his ideas.
EGEDE, HANS (1686–1758) Pioneer Norwegian missionary to Greenland A Pietist pastor, Egede took his family from northern Norway to Greenland in 1721. There, until 1736, he carried on the first evangelical missionary effort among the Eskimos. During a smallpox epidemic, Egede and his wife won the hearts of Greenland Eskimos as they ministered to the sick and buried the dead. His wife died in 1733. Learning the Eskimo language was difficult for Egede. His sons, Paul and Hans, however, had grown up learning Eskimo in Greenland and were able to assist their father. Many Eskimos became Christians because of Paul Egede’s preaching. After 1736, Hans Egede directed the mission work from Denmark while his sons carried on the work in Greenland. Ultimately two Eskimo believers, baptized by Egede, were brought to Copenhagen (Denmark) and introduced to Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, leader of the newly established Moravian church. Since the Pietist Greenland mission was about to close, Zinzendorf began the historic Moravian missionary effort by assuming responsibility to carry on Egede’s work in Greenland.
EVANS, CHRISTMAS (1766–1838) Welsh preacher Born on Christmas day in Cardiganshire, as a youth Evans attended a Presbyterian chapel. Later, he joined a Baptist church. Ordained in 1789, he took pastoral charge of scattered Baptists in Caernarvonshire. There his experience of God gave a new dynamism to his preaching. In 1791 he moved to the island of Anglesey as minister to Baptist groups. Each year Evans made long preaching tours throughout Wales, and his dramatic sermons always attracted large crowds. He was known as the “Welsh Bunyan” (a reference to John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress) and could make crowds first roar with laughter and then moments later break into tears. Evans’s autocratic style was a recurring problem in his ministry. In 1826 he left Anglesey and had two short pastorates. These moves resulted from his unwillingness to accept the democratic congregational form of church government. In 1832 Evans returned to Caernarvonshire, where he lived the rest of his life. He died on a journey to Swansea and is buried in the graveyard of a Baptist chapel there. Many of Evans’s sermons, hymns, and tracts have been printed.
EVANS, JAMES (1801–1846) Methodist missionary to Canadian Indians Born at Kingston-on-Hull (England), in 1828 Evans began teaching at the Canadian Methodist Indian school at Rice Lake in Upper Canada. There he developed a system of phonetic writing of Indian languages. After being ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1833, he worked among the Ojibwa Indians in the St. Clair River area. In 1840, at the invitation of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Evans went to Norway House at the outlet of Lake Winnipeg, where he became superintendent of the Indian mission. Within a year he moved the mission to a site called Rossville, two miles from Norway House, which soon became the Methodist mission center of the West. Evans adapted his syllabic alphabet to the Cree language, publishing a Cree hymnbook in 1841. For the next twenty years a translating team organized by Evans used this alphabet to translate the Bible into Cree. Disagreements with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1846 led to Evans’s recall to England, where he died.
DABNEY, ROBERT LOUIS (1820–1898) American Presbyterian clergyman Born in Virginia, Dabney graduated from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia in 1846. He was pastor in Tinkling Spring, Virginia (1847–1853), and a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary (1853–1883). He was professor of philosophy at the University of Texas (1883–1894) and in 1870 was moderator of the general assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church (the Presbyterian Church, U.S.). While at the University of Texas, he helped to found Austin Theological Seminary. During the Civil War Dabney served in the Confederate army, at first as chaplain and afterward as a combatant officer. Dabney combined a position of theological conservatism with a fervent belief in the cause of the American South. He was an articulate exponent of his position in lectures, sermons, and published works, and in the deliberations of the Presbyterian Church. He believed that the Civil War was caused by the North and wanted “retributive Providence” to demolish the North and destroy the Union. He was a strong opponent of any reunion of his church with the northern branches of Presbyterianism. Dabney, along with J. H. Thornwell, was a leading exponent of Southern conservative theology. Their views were adapted for southerners from those of Charles Hodge, a Princeton Seminary theologian. Dabney sought to bolster doctrinal orthodoxy in the face of attempts by James Woodrow of Columbia Seminary and others to revise it. In philosophy Dabney was a strong opponent of positivism and materialism. He died in Texas. His published works included Defense of Virginia and the South (1867) and Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology (1871).
DYER, MARY (DIED 1660) Quaker leader hanged for defying Puritan colonial rulers by preaching Quakerism in Massachusetts Mary Dyer came to Boston from England in 1635 with her husband, William. They were influenced by Anne Hutchinson, a controversial woman who opposed the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and the Puritan hierarchy. Because of Hutchinson’s banishment and the increasing hostility of colonial officials, the Dyers moved to Rhode Island and helped establish Portsmouth colony. In England from 1650 to 1657, Mary Dyer was converted to Quakerism. Upon her return to Boston, authorities expelled and finally condemned her for preaching doctrines considered blasphemous and pernicious. Authorities offered clemency in exchange for her promise never to return, but she refused: “Nay, I cannot; for in obedience to the will of the Lord God I came, and in His will I abide faithful to the death.”
DUNSTAN (c. 909–988) Archbishop of Canterbury, 960–988 Dunstan decided to become a monk and priest after recovering from a serious illness. As abbot of Glastonbury he made the abbey famous for discipline and learning. Dunstan served as adviser to King Edgar and was appointed bishop of Worcester and London before becoming archbishop. As archbishop he cooperated with the king in introducing reforms in church and state. Dunstan is particularly remembered for his restoration of monastic life and for founding monastic houses at Peterborough, Ely, and Thorney. He was also a brilliant musician and illuminator (decorative illustrator) of precious manuscripts.
CANDLISH, ROBERT SMITH (1806–1873) Scottish church leader Born in Edinburgh, Candlish received an M.A. from Glasgow University and attended Divinity Hall (1823–1826). Licensed in 1828, he became assistant minister at St. Andrew’s Church, Glasgow, and later at Bonhill, Dunbartonshire. In 1834 he became minister of the prestigious St. George’s Church, Edinburgh. In 1839 he joined the evangelicals in the Church of Scotland, led by Thomas Chalmers, whom he supported on the patronage issue. Eventually Candlish took part in the formation of the Free Church of Scotland (1843). A man of great ability, Candlish maintained a position of leadership despite a rather abrupt manner. When Chalmers died in 1847 Candlish could have succeeded him as professor of divinity at New College, but he preferred to stay in St. George’s Church. In 1861 he gave the Cunningham Lectures, in which he attacked F. D. Maurice’s view of the fatherhood of God, thereby stirring up a controversy. The following year he became principal of New College. Candlish helped to organize the Free Church school system (later absorbed by the national system), was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance (1845), and wrote prolifically in the field of theology and its application. Among his better-known works are The Atonement: Its Reality, Completeness and Extent (1861); The Fatherhood of God (1865); and The First Epistle of John Expounded in a Series of Lectures (1866).
CARLILE, WILSON (1847–1942) Anglican minister; founder of the Church Army (Episcopal equivalent of the Salvation Army) Born in Brixton, London (England), and son of a merchant, Carlile took over the family business but suffered financial ruin in an economic slump in 1873. After a serious illness his thoughts turned to religion and he was converted to Christ. On one occasion he assisted Dwight L. Moody and Ira Sankey as their organist. Carlile studied at St. John’s College, Highbury, before being ordained. In 1882 Carlile founded the Church Army to work in the slums and new industrial areas of the cities and became known as “the archbishop of the gutter.” For the rest of his life his chief interest was the promotion of the Church Army. He visited labor colonies in Europe to expand his knowledge; he described them in The Continental Outcast (1906). Carlile composed a simple choral setting for Holy Communion which was widely used in working-class areas. In 1915 he was given an honorary doctor of divinity degree by Oxford University, followed in 1922 by another from the University of Toronto.
COSIN, JOHN (1594–1672) Bishop of Durham; writer Son of a prominent Norwich family, Cosin was a graduate of Caius College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1625, and for several years he held various offices in the Durham diocese. In these same years he became known for his Anglican partisanship and his closeness with Archbishop Laud and the royal family. Probably he compiled his famous work, Collection of Private Devotions, at Charles I’s request. All this brought much disfavor with England’s Presbyterians, soon to have supreme political power. Cosin was appointed master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1635 and dean of Peterborough in 1640. But in 164l, after the Long Parliament’s governmental takeover, his church offices were given to others. Hence he soon moved to Paris where he became chaplain to the exiled royal family and Anglican followers. Here he was known also for his friendship with Huguenots and disputes with Roman Catholics. Puritan rule of England continued from 1649 to 1660. But at the restoration of Charles II, Cosin again assumed prominence in the English Church. In 1660, he was made bishop of Durham, a post he then held until his death. Ever a staunch Anglican, Cosin did make attempts to reconcile Presbyterianism with the Church of England, attending the Savoy Conference of 1661. Yet in Durham church worship, he compelled both Presbyterians and Roman Catholics to adhere strictly to Anglican forms. Cosin was a gifted writer of liturgy, and in 1662, some of his phrases were incorporated into the Book of Common Prayer’s revision. Despite his conservatism, he stood for an allowance of divorce and remarriage within English Church discipline. This, of course, recapitulated early English Reformers’ ideas. But like their sixteenth-century forebears, most seventeenth-century English churchmen rejected any and all remarriage after divorce. Provision for divorce with remarriage was not made by the English Church and Parliament until 1857. Besides his devotional and liturgical writings, Cosin’s works were mainly polemical pieces, largely refutations of Roman Catholic views. His works have been reprinted in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology. Cosin’s translation of the enduring hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus” has been preserved in the Church of England’s ordinal.
BRUNO THE CARTHUSIAN (c. 1030–1101) Founder of the Carthusian Order Bruno, born at Cologne (Germany), became master of the cathedral school at Rheims (1056) where he taught both the arts and theology. Although he had some problems with the archbishop and other associates, he refused an appointment to become a bishop on two occasions and became chancellor of the archdiocese in 1075. After 1080 Bruno began to turn away from the cares and distractions of the world. In 1084 he became a hermit and took up residence at Chartreuse near Grenoble (southeast France), a desolate location. The severe “rule” he adopted combined aspects of both the communal and solitary style of monastic life. It restricted manual labor to the lay brothers. Bruno died at a hermitage in southern Italy which he had founded, and he received sainthood from Pope Leo X, though some authorities believe he was never formally canonized. In 1130 Bruno’s rules were written down by one of his associates in the order. The name Carthusian was Latin for Chartreuse, the location of the order’s foundation. The order, which had only limited growth, never encountered the problems of corruption or administrative complexity that plagued many Roman Catholic orders. Its rule, followed strictly, called for great discipline yet achieved a balance between a life of self-denial and the daily needs of practical living. The order has boasted that it never required reform since it never became deformed. Bruno’s surviving writings include two letters discussing asceticism and some biblical commentaries on the Psalms and the letters of the apostle Paul.
BURNS, WILLIAM CHALMERS (1815–1868) Pioneer missionary to China Born at Duns, Scotland, Burns was accepted in 1839 as a missionary of the Church of Scotland to India. However, before he left, a mighty revival began under his preaching in his father’s parish, so he instead became an itinerant preacher during the spiritual awakening in Scotland, Ireland, England, and Canada. In 1846 the English Presbyterians recruited him for China, where he engaged in itinerant evangelism after six years’ resident ministry in the Amoy region. He left to others of the mission the gathering of converts into churches and the nurturing of congregations. He began the Presbyterian mission at Swatow and visited other newly opened ports. It is said that Burns deeply influenced J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission. Among Burns’s literary works was a Chinese translation of Pilgrim’s Progress. Burns was drawn to the virgin territory of Manchuria and began evangelistic work at Newchwang in 1867. He died less than a year later, but his appeal to the Irish Presbyterian church brought successors to build on his foundation.
BRUCE, F. F. (FREDERICK FYVIE) (1910–1990) Scottish biblical scholar Born at Elgin, son of a well-known Plymouth Brethren speaker, Bruce studied at Aberdeen, Cambridge, and Vienna, and taught at Edinburgh, Leeds, and Sheffield (1935–1959) before appointment to the historic Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at Manchester (1959–1978). The foremost figure in the post–World War II resurgence of evangelical scholarship in Britain, he was a man of total integrity who would never accept long-entrenched views without fresh examination. His loyalty to the Brethren was lifelong and unquestionable, yet he believed in the full participation of women in the Church’s ministry. He did not like the prefixing of “evangelical” with “conservative” and was generally impatient with partisan labels. Highly acclaimed also by nonevangelicals, he was president of both the Society for Old Testament Studies and its New Testament counterpart (he also had a D.D. from Aberdeen and was a fellow of the British Academy). In a busy life he took time to encourage younger writers in habits of meticulous research and presentation of material. Only after his death did his wife learn from numerous letters something of his unobtrusive help to individuals both pastorally and academically. In addition, he edited the Evangelical Quarterly (1949–1980) and Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1957–1971), and published commentaries that covered most of the New Testament. Among his many other works are The Books and the Parchments (1950), Second Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls (1956), The Spreading Flame (1958), Israel and the Nations (1963), New Testament History (1969), The Message of the New Testament (1972), Paul and Jesus (1974), Paul: The Apostle of the Free Spirit (1977), History of the Bible in English (1979), the autobiographical In Retrospect (1980), The Real Jesus (1985), The Pauline Circle (1985), and The Canon of Scripture (1988).
BULTMANN, RUDOLF (1884–1976) Prominent twentieth-century German theologian and New Testament scholar; known primarily for his theological method of “demythologizing” the New Testament Bultmann was born in Wiefelstede and educated at Tübingen, Berlin, and Marburg universities. He taught at Marburg (1912–1916), Breslau (1916–1920), and Giessen (1920–1921), and then returned to Marburg (1921–1951). In 1951 he was appointed professor emeritus at Marburg and thereafter made several lecture tours to Scandinavia, Holland, and the United States. He delivered the Shaffer lectures at Yale University (1951), which became his book Jesus Christ and Mythology (1958). His 1955 Gifford lectures at Edinburgh University (Scotland) were published as The Presence of Eternity (1957). Bultmann’s theological thinking stemmed partly from his family heritage. His father, born to missionary parents in Sierra Leone (Africa), was a clergyman in the Evangelical Lutheran Church; his maternal grandfather was also a minister. The political events of twentieth-century Europe also contributed to his thought. One of his brothers was killed in World War I, the other in a concentration camp in World War II. Bultmann was a supporter of the German “Confessing Church” in the 1930s and a signer of the Barmen Declaration, that movement’s statement of opposition to Nazism’s growing control over church affairs. Theological debate in the universities helped to shape Bultmann’s systematic thought. Various German theologians and biblical scholars (among them Hermann Gunkel, Adolf Harnack, Johannes Weiss, and Adolf Julicher) influenced the young Bultmann. He was also impressed by the teachings of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), often called the “father of liberalism.” Two contemporaries, Karl Barth and Friedrich Gogarten, both shared with Bultmann an existentialist outlook on life, although Barth eventually renounced his early philosophical zeal. Especially influential was Bultmann’s Marburg colleague, existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). Such influences and Bultmann’s own originality created a unique modern theology of New Testament interpretation. Bultmann’s first book, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (1921), was based on an interpretative method known as “form criticism.” The material of the Gospels supposedly existed first as an oral tradition in various “forms” conditioned by different circumstances. Bultmann contended that the forms of New Testament tradition were rarely intended as historical reports, but were shaped by preaching and teaching. Thus he concluded that the Gospels were not reliable sources for a history of the life of Jesus; they were theological, but not factual. Bultmann’s later thought further developed a division between theological truth and historical fact. His 1941 essay “The New Testament and Mythology” set forth his own ideas and laid the foundation for a significant symposium on biblical interpretation published in English as Kerygma and Myth (1953). He understood the historical elements of the New Testament to reflect a “myth” or worldview that is unacceptable to a modern scientific outlook. Hence that old worldview must be reinterpreted (demythologized) in order for the truth contained in the Gospels to become clear to the modern mind. Building on Heidegger’s existentialism, Bultmann closely associated theological truth and present human experience. For Bultmann, the truth of the Gospels can be grasped only through an act of decision in response to the “proclaimed Word of God” (kerygma in Greek). Such decision is not based on reasonable historical evidence (Bultmann denied that possibility), but on an experience of Christ’s eternal presence. According to Bultmann, the New Testament authors were not trying to write facts about God and the world. Rather, they were expressing in inadequate human terms their encounter with the kerygmatic Christ. God had acted and spoken in Jesus, but humans wrote the Bible as their reaction to God’s Word. Bultmann rejected the Bible’s three-storied universe (heaven, earth, and hell) and its view of history as spiritually controlled; he believed those concepts were derived from Jewish apocalypticism (prophetic, visionary writing) or gnostic redemption stories. He also disqualified such doctrines as the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, and the Resurrection. The modern worldview and sense of morality, said Bultmann, prohibit blind acceptance of such material as factual stories. For Bultmann, a loss of belief in Jesus’ historicity is a benefit for true faith; to locate Jesus in a world of facts and “objectivity” would miss the present meaning of Christ, the object of faith. However, the inadequacy of biblical language and doctrine does not mean that nothing significant happened in biblical history. In Jesus, God confronted the Bible’s writers; today he confronts the readers of the Bible. The “myths” are not to be dismissed but interpreted, or demythologized, for clear communication of their meaning for faith. By demythologizing the New Testament, Bultmann believed he was recovering Christianity’s essence and making it accessible to the modern mind. The basic focus of interpretation for Bultmann’s theology was human existence as a complex of anxieties and decisions. He saw authentic life as full of risks, offering a person no guarantees. For Bultmann, Christian faith is similar to other human choices, resting on unseen realities expressed in the story of Jesus Christ rather than on factual certainties. Theology, to Bultmann, must also lack easy guarantees and be dialectical in character. Christian theology proclaims that God has acted for people’s good in Christ. Such a faith replaces anxiety and guilt with love and confidence toward God, who makes life’s risks worthwhile. Bultmann’s views provoked a debate that has not ended. Some critics have objected to his selective use of an existentialist philosophy in his theological work; theologians and philosophers alike suspect that he inadequately united the two disciplines. His views of history have also been challenged as a threat to faith rather than a help. Demythologizing could logically lead to belief that Jesus never lived and that factual history has no bearing at all on the content of faith. Bultmann’s use of the term myth has also been criticized; all kinds of symbolic or analogical language might be included in his definition, leaving no possibility for any way to speak about God. His theology thus could lead to a godless worldview, or at least one in which nothing about God could be known. In addition to works already mentioned, Bultmann’s important writings include Jesus and the Word (1926), The Gospel of John (1941), Essays, Philosophical and Theological (1954), and a three-volume Theology of the New Testament (1948, 1951, 1953).
AYLWARD, GLADYS (1902–1970) Missionary to China Born near London, daughter of a postman, Aylward was converted at eighteen while in domestic service. She determined to be a missionary in China, but lack of educational qualifications led to her rejection by the China Inland Mission. Nothing daunted, she saved money from her small salary and in 1832 embarked on an incredible journey by train through Siberia. Further hampered by the Russian-Chinese war, she finally went through Japan to join missionary Jeannie Lawson in isolated Yangcheng. They opened an inn and attracted listeners by telling Bible stories. Not only did Aylward adopt a Chinese life-style, but she also became a naturalized Chinese citizen in 1936. After Miss Lawson’s death Aylward continued and extended the work. When the Japanese invaded China in 1940 she led nearly a hundred Chinese children on a historic and hazardous journey to safety, a feat that inspired the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. After a serious illness she returned to England in 1947, then went back to the Orient to open an orphanage in 1955, serving there until her death. Biographies of her were written by Alan Burgess (The Small Woman, 1957) and Phyllis Thompson (London Sparrow, 1971).
ALLINE, HENRY (1748–1784) Nova Scotian evangelist Born at Newport, Rhode Island, of Congregational parents, Alline went to Falmouth, Nova Scotia in 1760. After a conversion experience in 1775 he began a preaching career that lasted until his death. His central message was the need for salvation through the new birth. He was the principal instigator of the New Light Movement in the Canadian maritime colonies, which led to the decline of the Congregational Church in the Maritimes and to great strength for the Baptists. Alline gave tremendous impetus to evangelical Christianity in the Maritimes.
ALBRIGHT, JACOB (1759–1808) Founder of the Evangelical Association, one of several forerunners of what is today the United Methodist Church Born to German Lutheran immigrant parents in Pennsylvania, by the age of thirty Albright had fought in the last years of the American Revolution and had earned a local reputation as a successful farmer and honest tile-maker. His religious life had been uneventful. For most Americans the early years after the revolution were spiritually barren. Albright, however, was brought to an active commitment to Christ through a severe shock in his personal life. In 1791 several of his children died suddenly. The sermon at the funeral of one of his children aroused his conscience. Shortly thereafter, Albright came in contact with a “class” of local Methodists and developed an intense concern for the gospel. He was soon licensed as a lay preacher, but held back from active preaching because he lacked confidence in his educational preparation. Finally in 1796 Albright’s burden for Pennsylvania’s large German population overcame his reluctance, and he began to preach widely. By 1800 enough Germans had responded to Albright’s preaching to form three small “classes.” In 1803 the “Albright People,” as they were called, formally ordained their leader, and in 1807 the group’s first conference was held. At that time these “German Methodists” (another of their nicknames) had five traveling ministers, three ministers in towns, and a total membership of two hundred. Albright was named the group’s bishop. The official name chosen was “The Newly Formed Methodist Conference.” The name was appropriate because the new group held views very similar to the Methodists. It took steps, in fact, to join the Methodist Episcopal Church. Albright and Francis Asbury, the early leader of America’s Methodists, were on friendly terms, but Albright’s denomination did not join the Methodists in his lifetime. The Methodists were unwilling to have a German-speaking body permanently in their midst. After that rebuff, Albright’s group called themselves “The Evangelical Association.” By 1808 Albright had worn himself out with constant traveling and died of tuberculosis. His association (later called the Evangelical Church), was organized into classes and conferences. It preached a doctrine of salvation along lines laid down by John Wesley and Francis Asbury, providing strong evangelical preaching and warm spiritual fellowship for many German-speaking Americans. Years later, in 1968, a merger with the Methodists finally occurred when the Evangelical United Brethren Church (from a 1946 merger of the Evangelical Church with the United Brethren Church) joined with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church.
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