Category: On This Day
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Horatius Bonar on Being Superficial
Today (December 19) is the birthday of Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), Scottish preacher and writer of uncommon power and insight. He is best remembered today for the hymn ‘I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” In 1847, Bonar published a book called Prophetical Landmarks. It is a great example of the kind of premillennial theology that…
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Happy Birthday, Phoebe Palmer
Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) was born on this day (December 17). Palmer was an American Methodist lay theologian whose writings and speaking gave shape to the American Holiness tradition, with further influence in the Higher Life movement and Pentecostalism. Beginning in 1836, Palmer and her sister Sarah (both married, but sharing a household) held a series…
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Happy Birthday, George Whitefield
Today (December 16) is the birthday of George Whitefield (1714 – 1770). One of the best biographies of Whitefield called him The Divine Dramatist, estimating that he preached over 18,000 times over the course of more than 30 years in England, in Scotland, and in America. Whitefield was part of the original methodist awakening at…
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A.B. Simpson’s Large Christian Life
Today (December 15) is the birthday of A. B. Simpson (1843 – 1919), founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Simpson was a remarkable character, one of those late nineteenth century evangelicals whose ministry held together things that seemed to fly apart during the twentieth century. Urban evangelism plus foreign missions; education plus mass outreach;…
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R.W. Dale on the Trinity
Today (December 1) is the birthday of R. W. Dale (1829 – 1895), a British Congregationalist pastor and writer. Dale is best remembered for his conservatizing essay on the atonement, and for his commitment to social work in applying what he called “the civic gospel” to Birmingham, England, which needed it. Dale also wrote a…
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Martin Bucer, Some Kind of Protestant
Today (November 11) is the birthday of Martin Bucer (1491-1551). An important Reformer, he did his work in a no-man’s land between what would become the stable confessions and denominations of later decades. This is one of the reasons he is not frequently remembered. Though he influenced the Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Anglicans, he…
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How the Trinity Freed the Slaves (Happy Birthday Granville Sharp)
Today (November 10) is the birthday of Granville Sharp (1735-1813). Sharp is remembered for two major accomplishments. First, you will find his name in every history of the abolition of the slave trade. His involvement began when he met a man named Jonathan Strong, a slave from Barbados who had been beaten so badly that…
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Erasmus, Born to Bring Back Literature
Today (October 27) is the birthday of Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known simply as Erasmus, famous in his own time as Mr. Renaissance. He was “born to bring back literature,” his contemporaries said of him: ad restituendas literas natus. The Renaissance was a defining event in Western intellectual history, precisely because it looked back into antiquity…
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Lewis Bayly and the Practice of Trinitarian Piety
We don’t know when Lewis Bayly was born, but he died on this day (October 26) in 1631. Who was Lewis Bayly? It’s a little sad that almost nobody knows anymore. Bayly is an unjustly forgotten spiritual treasure. He was the author of a book called The Practice of Piety, one of the best-selling and…
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The Peace of Westphalia
Today (October 24) in 1648 the Treaty of Münster was signed. Together with the signing of an earlier treaty, this event is known as the Peace of Westphalia. It brought a resolution to the terrible conflicts we call the “wars of religion,” chiefly the Thirty Years’ War. Peace is good and war is bad –the…
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Happy First Day of Creation
Today, October 23, is the day the world was made, a little over six thousand years ago. It was a Saturday night. It happened late in the day, at the time of day we would call nightfall once there was a night to fall. Archbishop James Ussher, Anglican Bishop of Armagh, is remembered these days…
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The End of Paul Tillich’s Life
Today (October 22) is the day Paul Tillich (1886–1965) died. Tillich is one of America’s most famous theologians, but he’s co-owned by the Germans. He came to America in the 1930s after having spoken out decisively against Hitler. Tillich taught at Union Seminary, Harvard, and Chicago, and ruled the roost of academic theology in America…