Past round-up

Famous books

The Authorised Version of the Bible (or the King James’s Version) was published in 1611. The precise date when copies began to roll off the presses of the King’s printer seems to be unknown, but it must have been early in the year, as two further editions followed in 1611. It was first published as a large folio volume, intended for public reading in church, and was sold loose-leaf for ten shillings or bound for 12 shillings. It was the work of teams of scholars, whose brief was to revise the Bishops’ Bible of 1568, itself largely based on the work of William Tyndale.

Famous events

Pierre Viret, a Swiss/French Protestant Reformer, was born in 1511 at Orbe, a small town now in the Swiss canton of Vaud, and was converted from Roman Catholicism while studying at the University of Paris. A close associate of John Calvin, he was dubbed ‘The Smile of the Reformation’ for his sweet and winning demeanour and preaching.

The Scots Confession of Faith, largely the work of John Knox, was issued in 1561.

In 1661, the Savoy Conference of 12 bishops and 12 Puritan (largely Presbyterian) divines was held, to review the Book of Common Prayer. The bishops made only trifling concessions, and the event was futile. As a result, the 1662 Act of Uniformity resulted in the ejection from the Church of England of more than 2,000 Puritan clergy.

The Strict Baptist Mission was founded in 1861 by the Keppel Street Church in London. For 30 years it worked mainly through agents and native workers in India and Ceylon, before sending out two missionaries in 1894. In 1982 it changed its name to Grace Baptist Mission, and now helps British churches to support and care for the missionaries they have sent out worldwide.

January

31 Menno Simons, a radical Dutch Reformation leader, died in 1561 near LŸbeck. A converted Roman Catholic priest, he adopted (non-violent) Anabaptist views. Mennonites today number around half a million, mainly in Holland, Germany and the USA.

March

W.H. Griffith Thomas, Anglican pastor, teacher and scholar, was born at Oswestry, Shropshire, in 1861. After ministry as vicar of St. Paul’s, Portman Square, London, and as principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, he moved to North America and was co-founder of the Dallas Theological Seminary.

2 John S.B. Monsell, hymnwriter and author of ‘Fight the good fight’, was born in 1811 in Londonderry.

16 The New English Bible New Testament was published in 1961. A completely fresh translation, the product of 15 years’ work by teams of scholars, it used the principle of translation called ‘dynamic equivalence’, rather than word-for-word correspondence between the source and the target language. F.F. Bruce regarded it as ‘contemporary in idiom … attractive and at times exciting in content’, while T.S. Eliot thought the NEB ‘astonishes in its combination of the vulgar, the trivial and the pedantic’.

18 The Metropolitan Tabernacle was dedicated in 1861 at Elephant and Castle in London, seating 6,000. This was the new meeting-place of the church formerly meeting at New Park Street, which had called the 20-year-old Charles Haddon Spurgeon to be its pastor in 1854. Such was his popularity that the chapel proved too small, and the church had to meet at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall while the new building — the largest capacity church building of its day — was being erected.

19 Thomas Ken, formerly bishop of Bath and Wells, died in 1711. A man of principle throughout his life, he wrote several hymns that are still in use, in particular the doxology, ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow’.

19 The British parliament decided in 1911 to end the trade in opium with China within two years.

30 Samuel Rutherford died at St Andrews in 1661. The devoted pastor of Anwoth, the letters he wrote to his congregation became a devotional classic. He served as one of the five Scots commissioners to the Westminster Assembly (1643-7), during which time he wrote Lex Rex (the law is king), arguing against the Stuart kings’ view of the Divine Right of Kings. At the Restoration, he was cited for high treason on account of this, but died before he could appear in court.

April

5 In 1811, Robert Raikes, pioneer of Sunday Schools, died in Gloucester. The proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, he enabled children, who were often working in factories on the other six days of the week, to learn to read and write. Lay people were employed as teachers, using the Bible as textbook. Within 20 years, 25% of children in Britain were attending Sunday Schools, before there was any state provision for education.

9 William Law died at King’s Cliffe, Northamptonshire, in 1761. His Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729) profoundly influenced John and Charles Wesley and others.

30 The Roman Emperor Galerius issued an edict of toleration for Christians in 411, admitting that the attempt to eradicate Christianity had failed. This brought to an end the last and greatest official persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

May

In 1661, the so-called ‘Cavalier Parliament’ brought back bishops to the House of Lords, and renewed enforcement of the Book of Common Prayer.

11 Tom Rees (Thomas Bonner Rees), evangelist, was born in 1911. His 54 ‘Get Right with God’ rallies in the Royal Albert Hall were formative occasions for many young people in the 1940s. The phrase he used, ‘I want you to get up out of your seats’, was taken over and made memorable by Billy Graham. The conference centre, Hildenborough Hall, was founded by Tom and his wife Jean primarily to cater for new Christians who had come to faith through his ministry.

27 Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll and a leader of the Covenanters (who fought to safeguard the Presbyterian church in Scotland), was executed in Edinburgh in 1661 for high treason. This was despite the fact that ten years earlier, as virtual head of government, he had placed the crown of Scotland on Prince Charles’s head at Scone.

29 Benjamin Broomhall, former administrator of the China Inland Mission in Britain and brother-in-law of Hudson Taylor, died in 1911, a matter of weeks after his anti-opium trade campaign had ended in parliamentary success.

June

1 James Guthrie, Scottish Covenanter minister in Stirling, was hanged in Edinburgh in 1661 for denying Charles II’s authority in church matters. Oliver Cromwell described him as ‘the short little man who could not bow’.

14 Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), depicting life for African-Americans under slavery, was a powerful factor in stimulating anti-slavery sentiment.

July

The interdenominational Evangelical Union of South America was formed out of several small missions working in Peru, Argentina and Brazil, and was formally launched at the Keswick Convention in 1911. This was as a direct result of the 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, which had ignored Latin America as a mission field. EUSA became Latin Link in 1990, a thriving international community.

August

17 William Carey, missionary to India and pioneer of modern missions, was born near Northampton in 1761. He preached a famous missionary sermon, ‘Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God’, at a ministers’ meeting in 1792. During 40 years in India he translated and printed parts of the Bible into 36 languages, established churches and schools, and engaged in agricultural and social reform.

September

9 Important discussions began in France in 1561 between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots), led by Theodore Beza of Geneva. This was known as the Colloquy of Poissy, and was convened by the Queen Regent, in the presence of the 11-year-old king of France, in an attempt to effect a reconciliation. After a month it broke up inconclusively, and open hostilities began the next year.

October

14 Marcus Loane, later archbishop of Sydney and a prolific author, especially on historical subjects, was born in Tasmania in 1911. He was the first Australian to become archbishop, and was made a KBE in 1976.

26 Mahalia Jackson, US singer known as the ‘Queen of Gospel’, was born in New Orleans in 1911 in a three-room dwelling that housed 13 people and a dog. She began her singing career at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church, and throughout her life refused to sing secular music. With a powerful contralto voice, she became famous with the song ‘Move on up a little higher’. She sang at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy and at the funeral of Martin Luther King.

November

2 Elijah Coleman Bridgeman, the first US missionary to China, died in Shanghai in 1861, at the age of 60. He went to China in 1830, at the encouragement of the British missionary Robert Morrison, and spent much of his life in Bible translation.

5 Roy Rogers, US actor and ‘singing cowboy’, was born in 1911 in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Leonard Slye. Through his films, often starring his horse ‘Trigger’, he became very popular in the 1940s and 1950s. He and his wife Dale Evans were outspoken Christians, known for their efforts on behalf of homeless and handicapped children.

16 T.C. Hammond, a staunchly Protestant Irish Anglican clergyman, died in 1961 in Sydney, Australia, where he had moved in 1936 to become principal of Moore Theological College. He built up the college to became a centre of evangelical Anglican teaching, and he became known for his trenchant wit, logic and learning. His In Understanding be Men: a Handbook of Christian Doctrine (1936) went through several editions and reprints.

22 The Norwegian Lutheran seminary professor, Ole Kristian Hallesby, died in 1961. In World War II, he was imprisoned for his outspoken opposition to the Nazi occupation of Norway. The author of devotional books such as Prayer (1931) and Why I am a Christian (1930), he was appointed the first president of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students on its foundation in 1947.

December

14 William Cunningham, Scottish theologian, died in 1861. One of the leaders of the ‘Disruption’ and formation of the Free Church in 1843, he became a professor in the New College. His Historical Theology, based on his lectures, was published in 1862.

Joy Horn ropes in some Christian anniversaries in 2011!