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[German Version] (Jul 8, 1839, Richford, NY – May 23, 1937, Ormond Beach, FL), business magnate and philanthropist, established himself by the 1870s as a leader for the new oil industry. His Standard Oil Company became the source of great personal wealth. Through his mother, Eliza Davison, Rockefeller received a strong Baptist upbringing. Throughout his life he contributed regularly to many churches and voluntary societies. Although leaders of the Social Gospel like W. Gladden urged church groups …

[German Version] (Apr 13, 1743, Albemarle County, VA – Jul 4, 1826, Monticello, VA), was the third president of the United States and played an important role in American religious history. He was the author of Virginia's landmark “Statute for Freedom of Religion” of 1786, which set the pattern that the whole United States would follow in guaranteeing nearly complete religious liberty. Jefferson's beliefs became the subject of political controversy when his opponents in the presidential campaign o…

[German Version] (Aug 28, 1913, Thamesville, Ontario – Feb 12, 1995, Orangeville, Ontario), Canada's leading 20th-century novelist. In his works Davies regularly employed religious symbols, disputes, traditions, and hagiography. After working in the theater and as an editor of the Examiner, published in Peterborough, ¶ Ontario, he became Master of Massey College, University of Toronto, in 1963, where he served until retirement. Davies's novels included three trilogies: …

[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] (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] (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] (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] The Know-Nothing Party was a 19th-century political organization that emerged in the New England states and in New York, and was based on opposition to Roman Catholicism. It began as a secret society among Protestants, who feared the effects of rising immigration. They answered “we know nothing” when questioned about the existence of their group. In their view, Catholic immigrants competed unfairly for jobs, demanded state aid for Catholic schools, and followed the dictates of pol…

[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] (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] (Dec 24, 1772, near Port Tobacco, MD – Nov 9, 1844, Hannibal, MO), leader of the American Restoration Movement, was ordained as Presbyterian, but early on began to doubt aspects of traditional Presbyterian practice. In 1801 he was the ¶ key figure in the great Cane Ridge revival meeting in Kentucky (Revival/Revival movements: II). In an active career as preacher, writer ( Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, 1804), and editor, he promoted an apocalyptic vision of Christian faith, the practice of baptism by immersion, and the resto…

[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] The Evangelical Union was formed in Scotland in May 1843 by James Morison and several other theological Arminians who had been excluded from the United Secession Church for promoting a theology of universal atonement, human free will, Congregational polity, and the Bible alone without ¶ creeds. The Union was influenced in many of its views by the American revivalist Charles G. Finney. It enjoyed particular success in urban ministry, where it was known for a firm stand against t…

Bibliographic entry in Chapter 27: Race,…

[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…

[English Version] I. Allgemein 1.  Geographie Der nördliche Teil des amer. Doppelkontinents (Amerika) umfaßt das Gebiet der nordamer. Arktis einschließlich Grönlands (dänisch), den im Norden vorgelagerten kanadisch-arktischen Archipel, das Übersee-De´partement Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon (vor der Küste Kanadas, franz.), die brit. Bermuda-Inseln im Atlantik und das Festland mit den heutigen Staaten Kanada und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika bis zur Nordgrenze Mexikos im Süden. Das Gebiet N. erstreckt sich über 21,5 Mio. km 2 und wird von rund 274 Mio. Menschen …

[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…