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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…