As we start 2016, Joy Horn has been discovering some significant anniversaries in Christian history for en
Events
In AD 66, after years of frustration under Roman rule, the Jewish Revolt broke out in Jerusalem against the occupiers. The desperate and bloody strife culminated in the sack of Jerusalem four years later by Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian.
John Philpot, a Protestant martyr in 1555, was born at Compton, Hampshire, in 1516. He went to Winchester College and New College Oxford, and eventually became archdeacon of Winchester. Imprisoned in the reign of Queen Mary I, he defended his beliefs in no fewer than 13 examinations, and when told he would be burned the next day said: ‘I am ready. God grant me strength and a joyful resurrection.’
John Foxe, author of Actes and Monuments, or Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1516. His enormous book, which detailed the persecution of Christians throughout history and especially under Queen Mary I, was placed in all cathedrals and read in numerous homes countrywide.
John Owen, one of the sharpest theological minds of the 17th century, was born at Stadhampton, Oxfordshire, in 1616. His book, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647) is a Christian classic. He was dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and vice-chancellor of the university under Oliver Cromwell.
John Eddison was born in the late summer of 1916. His life’s work was evangelism among boys in public and prep schools. An able and attractive speaker, rooted in the Bible but relevant to schoolboys and great fun, he touched countless young lives for Christ.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China which began in 1966 brought persecution to Christians and churches.
Notable books
Of huge significance, the Greek New Testament was published for the first time in Basel in 1516, edited and with a Latin translation by Erasmus. Students were converted by its message. Within ten years, William Tyndale brought out his New Testament in English.
The Christian classic, John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, was published in 1666. Written while he was in Bedford gaol for preaching without a licence, it described, in simple, graphic language, his conversion and his struggles to be certain of his faith.
The Gospel Magazine was founded in 1766, and is still being issued. Augustus Toplady’s hymn, ‘Rock of Ages’ was first published here and John Newton was an early contributor. More recently, Herbert M. Carson was editor. The magazine is perhaps the oldest periodical in the English-speaking world.
Through the year
January
1. In 1966, Good News for Modern Man: the New Testament in Today’s English Version was published by the American Bible Society. (The whole Bible followed in 1976.) It was based on the translation theories of Eugene Nida, known as ‘dynamic equivalence’ (‘thought for thought’ rather than ‘word for word’), and was therefore more a paraphrase than a strict translation. However, its simple, everyday English, teamed with the line illustrations by the Swiss artist Annie Vallotton, has made it very popular.
4. T.S. Eliot died, aged 77, in 1966. A poet and dramatist, his Christian convictions, of an Anglo-Catholic persuasion, are evident in The Waste Land (1922), Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Four Quartets (1944).
February
5. William Pennefather was born in Dublin in 1816. As vicar of St Jude’s, Mildmay Park, Islington, he became the first president of the Children’s Special Service Mission (CSSM). His hymn, ‘Jesus, stand among us’ is still sung.
March
Youth Praise was published this month in 1966, the first production of the Jubilate Group, founded by Michael Baughen, rector of All Souls, Langham Place. It was a collection of ‘Christian hymns, songs, choruses and spirituals’, particularly for young people. That it filled a need was seen by its large sales, causing it to be reprinted three times in 1966.
1. John Berridge was born in Kingston, Nottinghamshire, in 1716. Converted at the age of 40 when already in the ministry, he preached widely in the Midlands, in the open air, ten or 12 times a week. John Wesley commended his earnest, simple, homely speech, which was often laced with humour, and crowds flocked to hear ‘the Gospel Pedlar’.
28.Hubert Parry’s setting of ‘Jerusalem’, the poem by William Blake, was first performed at Queen’s Hall, London, in 1916.
May
10.John Charles Ryle was born in Macclesfield, to wealthy parents, in 1816. A family financial disaster was the cause of his becoming a clergyman, but he exercised an exemplary preaching and pastoral ministry, becoming the first Bishop of Liverpool. His Expository Thoughts on the Gospels and books on the 16th-century Reformers and the 18th-century evangelists are still inspiring.
11.The American Bible Society was founded in New York City to publish, distribute and translate the Bible. Within two years it published a translation into a Native American language of Delaware. It provided the first Bibles in hotels and pocket Bibles for soldiers in the American Civil War.
26.The Lammermuir Party of China Inland Mission workers sailed from Britain for Shanghai in 1866, together with Hudson Taylor and his family. These people completed the number of ‘24 willing, skilful labourers’, for whom Taylor had prayed on Brighton beach in July 1865. By the end of the century the new mission had grown to over 1,000 workers.
July
21.Sir Kirby Laing, industrialist and philanthropist, was born in 1916, the elder son of Sir John Laing and the fifth generation to enter the construction firm. With his brother Maurice, he managed the projects of the M1 motorway, Windscale plutonium plant and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. The Kirby Laing Foundation (1972) supports a range of Christian, medical and youth enterprises.
September
Our Own Hymn-Book was published in 1866 for the use of the Metropolitan Tabernacle congregation. Previously Dr Rippon’s Selection and Dr Watts’s Psalms and Hymns had been used. Compiled by the pastor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, it comprised 1,130 hymns, including the first appearance of Charitie Lees Smith’s ‘Before the throne of God above’.
October
18.The Second National Assembly of Evangelicals, organised by the Evangelical Alliance at Westminster Central Hall in 1966, witnessed a notable difference of opinion between Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and the Revd John Stott on the subject of Evangelicals in ‘mixed’ or Liberal denominations. Varying accounts and explanations are given of this, but it led to strained relations for some years between Anglican and Independent Evangelicals.
29.Edward Calamy, a Puritan and Presbyterian leader of the Civil War period, died as a direct result of the Great Fire of London in 1666. He had been ejected for nonconformity from his church of St Mary Aldermanbury in 1662, but was so affected when it was destroyed in the Fire that he died within weeks and was buried amid the ruins. Earlier he had edited The Souldier’s Pocket Bible for the Parliamentarian forces.
November
17.William Gurnall was baptised as an infant in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, in 1616. He is best known for his The Christian in Complete Armour (1655–62), which arose out of sermons on Ephesians 6 preached at Lavenham, Suffolk. Charles Spurgeon called it ‘the best thought-breeder in all our library’.
December
21.The American Colonization Society for the repatriation of slaves was founded at the Davis Hotel in Washington in 1816. Despite a mixture of motives, most of the founders were Evangelicals and Quakers. They raised money to buy the freedom of slaves and establish them in Liberia, West Africa. By 1867, 13,000 had been assisted in this way.
25.Christmas Evans, one of the greatest of Welsh preachers, was born in Cardiganshire on Christmas Day in 1816 – hence his name. He worked mainly in Anglesey and Caernarvon and his simple, graphic, language communicated the gospel to the working people of his day.
