Recently in Christian/Church History Category

The biblical doctrine of human depravity is a great antidote to racism. I have seen this recently in two very different articles. One is by Andrew Walls called "The Evangelical Revival, the Missionary Movement, and Africa" (The Missionary Movement in Christian History, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, pp. 79-101). He points out that the Great Awakening in America and England (1730s and '40s) gave rise to the modern foreign missionary movement. One of the ways it did so was by clarifying the unity between the sinful homeland and the sinful heathen.

Along with Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:26-38), her Visitation to Elizabeth (1:39-56), and Jesus' birth and infancy (2:7,16; Matthew 2:11), one other biblical scene depicting the mother of Jesus is especially prominent in the history of Christian art: Jesus' death on the cross (John 19:25-27).

November 1, 451: The Council of Chalcedon (in modern Turkey) adjourns. The fourth and largest of all the ancient councils, attended by between 500 and 600 bishops, it repudiated the Eutychian heresy (that Christ has one nature, not two) and drew up a Christological statement of faith now known as the Definition of Chalcedon (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).

Mary in the Bible

• Gabriel announces her election as mother of the Messiah (Luke 1: 26-38)
• she visits Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56)
• she travels to Bethlehem and gives birth to Jesus (Luke 2:1-20)
• she presents Jesus at the Temple to Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:21-39)
• she discovers Jesus discoursing in the Temple with the elders (Luke 2:40-52)
• she asks Jesus to help the wine stewards at the Cana wedding (John 2:1-11)
• she visits Jesus with his brothers (Matt. 12:46; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21)
• at the foot of the cross, she hears her son's last words to her (John 19:26-27)
• she experiences Pentecost with the apostles (Acts 1:14)

In recording his prayers, resolutions, and daily events, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) left behind an encouragement to us to live a disciplined Christian life in the midst of our ordinary routine.

14 Augustus died on August 19.  On September 17, the Senate in Rome decreed that Augustus Caesar was one of the gods, and it named Tiberius emperor.  (If Luke 3.1 dates "the reign of Tiberius Caesar" from this year, his fifteenth year was 28/29 A.D.)

30, 33? Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

July 29, 1030: Viking king Olaf Haraldsson, patron saint of Norway, dies in the battle of Stiklestad. Though limited in his ability to force his countrymen to convert during his reign, his death was later hailed as a miracle-filled martyrdom and, as his legend grew, it spurred on Christians converting the country. In time, Olaf became one of the most well-known saints of medieval Christendom, and his relics in Norway became one of Europe's most popular pilgrimage destinations.

July 29, 1794: In a converted blacksmith's shop in Philadelphia, former slave Richard Allen assembles a group of black Christians who had faced discrimination in the local Methodist Episcopal Church. They formed the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the mother church of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, now known throughout the world.

July 29, 1833: English abolitionist William Wilberforce dies a mere three days after England abolishes slavery.

July 29, 1968: Pope Paul VI publishes his encyclical "Humanae Vitae," which condemns artificial birth control methods.

July 30, 1718: William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania as a colony for Quakers to enjoy religious liberty, dies.