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[German Version] ( Jun 2, 1726, Dillenburg, Prussia – Nov 17, 1813, Baltimore, MD), German Reformed minister who became a founder of the United Brethren in Christ. Otterbein went to the United States in 1752 at the invitation of the German Reformed Pietist, Michael Schlatter (1718–1790). Otterbein had been educated in Calvinist and Pietist teachings at the Reformed University of Herborn (Reformed Colleges in Germany). In America, Otterbein energetically encouraged prayer meetings, recruited lay le…

[German Version] (Nov 30, 1667, Dublin – Oct 19, 1745, Dublin), Anglo-Irish satirist, poet, and patriot, studied at Trinity College (Dublin) before receiving his degree at Oxford (1692) and being ordained an Anglican clergyman (1695). From 1713 on, he served as dean of St. Patrick’s in Dublin. His graphic, forceful publications attacked Deism, dissenting Protestantism (Dissenters), scientific naturalism, and political corruption. His greatest satire, The Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver (2 vols., 1726), used fanciful descriptions of i…

[German Version] (Oct 25, 1891, Hamilton, Ontario – Oct 27, 1979, Bloomfield Hills, MI), pioneer radio broadcaster, was ordained a Catholic priest in 1916. In order to raise money for his new aasignment at the parish in Royal Oak, MI, he took to the airwaves (Radio and television). His programs were at first strictly religious, but after the stock market crash of 1929 he added political commentary. In 1936 he organized the National Union for Social Justice and so…

[German Version] (Mar 29, 1602, Stoke-upon-Trent, England – Dec 6, 1675, Ely) was a noted Hebraist, educated at Cambridge. He later became influenced by Sir Rowland Cotton, a lay student of Hebrew, and began studying Semitic languages. From 1629 onwards he published a series of works using his extensive knowledge of the Talmud to elucidate the Christian scriptures. From 1643 until his death he served both as rector of Much Munden, Hertfordshire, and as master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge. During t…

[German Version] (Mar 25, 1593, Condé-sur-Vire, France – Mar 16, 1649, Saint-Ignace, New France, Canada), Jesuit missionary. Brébeuf came to New France in 1625 and almost immediately attempted to evangelize among the Huron Indians. At this time the Huron society was profoundly shaken by disease, contact with Europeans, and warfare with Iroquoian native America…

[German Version] (April 1750 [baptized Jun 6, 1750, Devonshire] – Dec 27, 1814, London), a self-described prophet, gathered a considerable following in the early 19th century. Coming from a farming family, in 1792 she joined the Methodists, but two years later broke with them after she began to issue prophecies. Her first tract, “The Strange Effects of Faith” (1801), described her expectation of a speedy end of the age and her own role in the Last Days, influenced by Richard Brothers (1757–1824), …

[German Version] (Jan 23, 1715, Plévin – Jun 25, 1794, Quebec), seventh Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec. Briand arrived in Canada from France in 1741 and soon became an influential diocesan leader as well as an important diplomat. After the defeat of the French by the British on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City in 1759, Briand quickly accommodated himself …

[German Version] (UTS). America’s first interdenominational theological seminary was founded in 1836 by “New School” Presbyterians. From 1870 to 1892 it served the Northern Presbyterian Church, but became independent once again when C.A. Briggs was expelled from the denomination for promoting higher critical views of Scripture. Notable faculty in the 19th century included the theologian Henry Boynton Smith and P. Schaff. Ties with Germany remained strong into the 20th century, especially with the …

[German Version] was founded in New York in 1876 by F. Adler. Raised a Reform Jew (Reform Judaism), Adler came to reject traditional notions of monotheism, though he continued to look at the Hebrew Scriptures and the person of Jesus for inspiration. Adhering to the slogan, “deed not creed,” Adler encouraged the efforts of individuals rather than formal institutions and ritualized traditions. The Society for Ethical Culture with its regular Sunday services and Adler’s humanistic addresses became th…

[German Version] (c. 1818, Talbot County, MD – Feb 20, 1895, Washington DC), African-American abolitionist (Slavery), was born Frederick Bailey of a slave mother and an unknown white father. After a childhood of cruel neglect, he was taken to Baltimore, where he learned to read and write. On Sep 2, 1838 he escaped from slavery, soon changed his name to Dou…

[German Version] (Jul 1, 1899, Villa Rica, GA – Jan 23, 1993, Chicago, IL) was the pioneer of African-American “gospel” music, raised by a Baptist minister father and a piano-playing mother. He began playing the blues in Atlanta in 1910 and continued after moving to Chicago in 1916. In the early 1920s he experienced a religious conversion, after which he turned to writing gospel songs, but while retaining features of the Blues. Traditionalists resisted this combination, and Dorsey was forced to peddle his own music. Soon his ¶ songs became popular. Memorable titles include “Preciou…

[German Version] (Nov 23, 1803, Hampton, CT – Feb 3, 1895, Hyde Park, MA) was a leading opponent of slavery (Abolitionism); he was converted in 1826 under the preaching of C.G. Finney. In 1834 he led a group of students out of Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, in order to found Oberlin College, the nation’s first institution of higher learning to welcome women. From the mid-1830s Weld was one of America’s best-known abolitionist orators; he made converts but also generated mob opposition. Worn out by his…

[German Version] (Mar 29, 1819, Steingrub, Bohemia – Mar 26, 1900, Cincinnati, OH), early leader of American Reform Judaism, migrated to America after talmudic study in Bohemia and Austria. Wise eventually settled in Cincinnati where, after constant effort, he was instrumental in founding the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873), Hebrew Union College (1875), and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1889). Wise’s adaptation of Judaism to American freedoms led to opposition from Orthodox Jewish leaders. Mark A. Noll Bibliography S.D. Temkin, Isaac Mayer Wise: Sha…

[German Version] (Dec 2, 1848, Aberdeen, Scotland – Jan 13, 1915, Use, Nigeria), pioneer Scottish missionary to West Africa. Born into a working-class family, from an early age she participated in church work and youth outreach. After petitioning mission agencies, she was finally appointed a teacher to Calabar, Nigeria, by the United Presbyterian Church Mission Committee. In 1888 she was dispatched to live among the Okoyong, where she went barefoot, dressed in nearly native garb, and maintained a …

[German Version] Mind-cure movements, which arose in several places in the United States throughout the 19th century, shared a common commitment to metaphysical idealism and a belief in the ability of the mind to overcome physical illness. They were anticipated by aspects of animal magnetism supported by F.A. Mesmer and the spiritual biblical hermeneutics of E. Swedenborg. An earlier proponent was W.F. Evans (1817–1887), author of The Primitive Mind Cure (1885). Even more important was P.P. Quimby (1802–1866), who viewed God as a personified First Cause and perso…

[German Version] (Aug 28, 1774, New York – Jan 4, 1821, Emmitsburg, MD), founder of a religious community. Seton traveled to Italy in 1803, where she was introduced to the Roman Catholic Church. Following her husband’s death and her return to the United States in 1804, she continued to study the Catholic faith and on Mar 14, 1805, entered the church. After moving to Maryland in 1808, she opened a school for girls and then joined the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph, whose first American director…

[German Version] was founded as the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701. It relocated permanently to New Haven in 1717 and, in 1718, took its name from Elihu Yale, a British philanthropist. J. Edwards was an early graduate (1720) and then tutor. Under the moderate E. Stiles (president 1778–1795) and the energetic T. Dwight (1795–1817), Yale became a leading center of broadly evangelical Christianity in the United States. A divinity school was added in 1822 under N.W. Taylor, which rapidly bec…

[German Version] (Dec 1, 1749, Thwaite All Souls, Suffolk, England – Jun 16, 1825, Quebec, Canada), founder of the Anglican Church in what is now Quebec and Ontario, Canada. After education at Cambridge and service in several Anglican posts, Mountain was appointed on Jun 28, 1793, as the first Anglican bishop of Quebec. Although Quebec was inhabited mostly by French-speaking Roman Catholics, whom Britain had conquered in the French and Indian War ¶ (1754–1763), the British were eager to see a strong Protestant church develop. Mountain, whose huge see stretched also i…

[German Version] (Oct 1, 1643, Boston, MA – Feb 11, 1729, Northampton, MA), Congregationalist minister, in 1672 called as the second pastor of Northampton Congregational Church. Against Boston’s ministers he favored opening the Lord’s Supper to all respectable persons as a “converting ordinance.” Two years before his death he presided over the installation of his grandson, J. Edwards, as his successor in the Northampton pulpit. Mark A. Noll Bibliography P.J. Tracy, American National Biography, ed. J.A. Garraty et al., vol. XX, 1999, 822f.

[German Version] (Apr 10, 1794, Southington, CT – Jan 27, 1863, New York City), was one of the most influential American biblical scholars of his era. After graduating from Hamilton College in 1816 Robinson became instructor of Hebrew at Andover Seminary from 1823 to 1826, where he was profoundly influenced by Moses Stuart’s appropriation of German philology and criticism. Robinson studied in Germany from 1826 to 1830 and then became professor of biblical literature at Andover where, in 1831, he f…

[German Version] (Jul 25, 1839, St. Andrews, Canada – Mar 30, 1918, Toronto), Methodist minister, teacher and Canada's leading Methodist theologian in the second half of the 19th century. As the principal of Victoria College in Toronto he supported a typically Canadian form of “progressive” evangelical Protestantism. Although Burwash was an advocate of J. Wesley's theology and of a conservative moral theology he developed his own evolutionist theories and a moderate biblical criticism. Mark A. Noll Bibliography M. van Die, An Evangelical Mind, 1989.

[German Version] has two histories. The first concerns the effort by Thomas Reid (1710–1796) to refute the skeptical conclusions that D. Hume had drawn from the sensationalist epistemology of J. Locke. Reid's main argument was that sense perceptions, operating under normal conditions disclose the material world as it is.They are not, as Locke had suggested, merely “ideas.” Reid suggested rather that the human mind is structured in such a way that it is impossible to act…

[German Version] was a settlement of English Puritans in the southeast corner of Massachusetts. Under the leadership of pastor J. Robinson, English separates migrated first in 1603 from Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, to Holland. Despite freedom found there, they soon became worried about the education of their children. In September 1620, 41 settlers boarded the ship Mayflower, along with 61 others, for Virginia. Blown off course to the north, they landed on Cape Cod in November. Before disembarking, t…

[German Version] (1713, Pantybeudy, Wales – Oct 16, 1790, Llangeitho, Wales), revival preacher. He was ordained a priest in the Church of Wales in 1735 but was then converted in 1736 under the influence of Griffith Jones on Llanddowror. Immediately Rowland’s preaching, as curate of Llangeitho, attracted large crowds. By 1737 he was also establishing local societies in the Methodist pattern. In connection with fellow revivalist H. Harris, Rowland laid the groundwork for what became in the 19th century the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Connexion. Mark A. Noll Bibliography E. Evans, Danie…

[German Version] (May 8, 1895, El Paso, IL – Dec 1, 1979, NY), the leading public voice for American Roman Catholicism for much of the 20th century. He was ordained a priest in 1919 and then did doctoral study at Louvain, Rome, and Washington, DC. From 1926 to 1950 he lectured in philosophy at the Catholic University of America, and from 1966 to 1969 he served as bishop of Rochester, New York. Sheen’s public renown began in 1930 as the featured speaker on “Catholic Hour Broadcasts” for NBC radio. …

[German Version] ( Jul 7, 1856, Berlin, MD – Jul 29, 1933, Philadelphia, PA), prominent preacher and author of gospel hymns (Gospel music), was born to former slave parents and began early to prepare for the Methodist ministry. In 1900 he became the pastor of Bainbridge Street Methodist Church in Philadelphia, which soon became a center of the city’s black religious life. In 1901 Tindley began publishing “Songs of Paradise,” gospel hymns marked by clear melodies, simply harmony, and the chorus-ref…

[German Version] (Nov 29, 1727, North Haven, CT – May 12, 1795, New Haven, CT), Congregationalist minister and college president, entering the ministry (1755) as pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island. There he opposed the slave trade and engaged in a variety of scientific and literary ¶ pursuits. He became president of Yale in 1778. His life-long support of liberty led him to oppose schemes to send an Anglican bishop to the colonies. He prophesied a great future for the independent United States. Mark A. Noll Bibliography E.S. Morgan, The Gentle Puritan: A …

[German Version] I. General 1. Geography. The northern half of the American double continent (America) comprises the North American Arctic including Greenland (Danish), the Canadian Arctic Archipelago north of the mainland, the French overseas Département Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon off the east coast of Canada, the British Bermuda Islands in the Atlantic, and the continent itself, divided today into the countries of Canada and the United States of America, south to the northern boundary of Mexico. The territory of North America covers 21.5 million km2 and has roughly 274 milli…

[German Version] I. Confession – II. Church History – III. Methodist World Mission I. Confession Methodism arose as a movement of spiritual renewal in the established Anglican Church of England and Wales in the 1730s and 1740s. Its earliest, least organized phase reflected the influence of three important antecedents – the evangelical Calvinist Puritans, the Pietists of Halle (Pietism), and the Moravians, and a high-church Anglican tradition (High church movement) that had promoted an ideal of the primitive…