ASSOCIATIONS, LAW OF – Defined the legal status in France of all voluntary societies including Catholic religious orders. It formed a part of a new wave of secular anti Catholic legislation during the Third Republic culminating in the rupture of relations between France and the Vatican 1904 and the church and state the following year. Application of the law was so vigorous that its provisions were extended to prohibit teaching by any religious order. By 1904 the government boasted that it had closed down 13,904 schools.
AUSTRALIA which became a Commonwealth in 1901 was first settled by Europeans in 1788 with the origins of Christian ministry being in New South Wales with the chaplain to the first fleet Richard Johnson. Until 1830 all education in the colony was in the hands of the Church of England. In 1836 W G Broughton [see 1836] became the first bishop of the diocese of Australia thus severing a connection with the diocese of Calcutta. In the early days ministrations by Roman Catholic priests to convicts were prohibited. Many Irish Catholics entered Australia in the gold rush of the 1850’s. The first synod of the diocese of Sydney was held in 1866 however it continued to import bishops from England with the first Australian born archbishop not being made bishop of Sydney until Marcus Lawrence Loane in 1966. Today the Church of England has organised itself into twenty seven diocese.
The church has come under strong criticism for allegedly neglecting aboriginal customs and civil rights on missions over the years. However anthropologists suggested that the full blooded aborigines would have died out in the 1930 if the missions had not sustained them with food and medicine at a time when the majority of Australians were expressing very little concern. There are various Christian ministries to remote areas of the country. Theological training is now Australian based with few seeking training overseas. The training tends to be conservative with the evangelical tradition of the Anglican diocese of Sydney and the influence on the Roman Catholic Church by the Irish.
BIBLE American Standard Version of the Bible published
BIGG, CHARLES [1840-1908] – Classical scholar and theologian who had a varied career from being a teacher in Oxford, as a minister, and as professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford University from 1901. He authored a number of books including commentaries on Peter and Jude as well as The Origins of Christianity which was published posthumously.
CABLE, MILDRED [1877‑1952] – Missionary to China [1901‑1952] who with colleagues built up a flourishing work in Hochow including one of the first girl's schools in China. From 1928 they moved to the extreme north west city of Suchow, “the City of Criminals” where they made repeated evangelical journeys through central Asia, preaching and distributing Scriptures.
FORSYTH, PETER TAYLOR [1848-1921] – Congregationalist theologian. A postman's son in Aberdeen he was educated at the university there then studied at Gottingen. After several pastorates he became in 1901 principal of Hackney College London, a post he retained until his death. He took part in the Leicester Conference which had aimed for a “better, freer, larger church” and was suspected in his domination of heterodoxy in 1877. In his later life he was increasingly respected as a Congregational leader. He developed a high doctrine of the church, ministry, and sacraments, and was very critical of the tendency to non-doctrinal religion prevalent in the Free churches.
GAIRDNER, WILLIAM HENRY TEMPLE [1873-1928] – Anglican missionary and scholar. Born in Scotland and educated at Oxford he was associated with John Raleigh Mott [see 1888] in work among British students. He went with the Church Missionary Society to Cairo in 1898, with a special view to work among students and others of the educated classes of Muslims. He was ordained in 1901 and was a gifted linguist. He broke new ground by teaching missionaries and native teachers colloquial Arabic, produced a handbook on phonetics and two textbooks on the subject, and wrote hymns, poems, plays, and popular biblical literature in Arabic. He worked to make the Arabic Anglican Church into a welded group of believers, to train indigenous leaders, and to improve relationship with the Coptic Church [see 1517]. He believed that Islam could be won by a living exemplification of Christian brotherhood. Zest characterised his life and his faith; he seemed to have the ability to enjoy everything intensely.
GORDON, SAMUEL DICKEY [1859-1936] – American devotional writer. Born and educated in Philadelphia, he became state secretary of the Ohio YMCA. He began to preach and lecture on religious subjects in America, and travelled for four years in the Orient and Europe holding Bible conferences and missionary conventions. He wrote more than 20 devotional books under the title “Quiet Talks” such as Quiet Talks on Power in 1901 and …on Prayer in 1904.
HABERSHON ADA RUTH [1861-1918] English Author and Hymn Writer. Ada was the youngest daughter of Dr. Samuel Osborne Habershon. She was brought up in a Christian home by believing, praying parents, and her whole life was devoted to God’s service. She was a prolific author specialising in types. In 1901, she began writing poetry while ill and wrote “Apart with Him.” She met Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey when they visited London in 1884, and visited America at their invitation to deliver lectures on the Old Testament, which were later published. During the 1905 Torrey Alexander Mission, Charles Alexander asked her to write some Gospel songs; with in a year, she supplied him with 200 including “When I fear my faith will fail”.
MOULE, HANDLEY CARR GLYN [1841-1920] – Bishop of Durham who was educated at home and after a brilliant career at Cambridge taught at Marlborough in 1865 and was ordained in 1867. He became the first principal of Ridley Hall Theological College at Cambridge and professor of divinity in 1899. In 1901 he succeeded Wescott as bishop of Durham. Moule was a convinced evangelical who was able to understand other views and in 1908 chaired the missionary section of the Pan-Anglican Congress. He was closely associated with the Keswick Convention and wrote many hymns, poems, and commentaries on nearly all the epistles, as well as a down-to-earth work called Outlines of Christian Doctrine.
1902
AGGREY, JAMES [1875‑1927] – Ghanian born Christian orator and educator completed his training in the U.S.A. He was an advocate of cooperation between the races and a mediator between African and Western cultures.
AGLIPAY, GREGORIO [1860-1940] – Bishop of Philippines Independent Church who was a Catholic priest in Manila accepting a military chaplaincy in 1898 in the revolutionary army of General Aguinaldo. The lack of response from Rome for the naming of a native Philippine bishop caused the founding of the Philippine Independent Church with him as bishop, a position he held until his death.
ALEXANDER, CHARLES [1867‑1920] – American evangelist song leader. Educated at the Moody Bible Institute he started conducting evangelistic meetings with R Torrey [see 1900] and J Chapman [see 1893] in Europe, America and Australasia. Alexander was noted for “warming up” the audience with jovial humour and lively singing before the evangelical appeal.
HALLESBY, OLE KRISTIAN [1879-1961] – Norwegian theologian brought up in Lutheran piety, he studied theology and adopted the outlook of the liberal school. In 1902 he experienced a conversion and reverted back to biblical faith and the piety of his fathers. For some years he worked as an itinerant lay preacher causing revivals in several places. He was called to the chair of dogmatics at the Free Faculty of Theology and took the post after acquiring his doctorate in Berlin. From 1909 to 1952 he lectured on dogmatics and in a sense became the teacher of a whole generation of Norwegian ministers. He was a leading light in the opposition of conservative pastors to the liberal theology. During the Second World War he was one of the nation's leaders in resistance of the Nazis. He was arrested in 1943 and lived in a concentration camp until liberation came in 1945.
JAMES, WILLIAM [1842-1910] – American psychologist and philosopher. After a career, first as an artist, then as a medical student, James developed an interest in experimental psychology and taught at Harvard. Even though he was plagued by ill health from 1865, he was very active in lecturing both in America and Europe, and in writing what were to become classics of American philosophy. Among his most important books are “The Varieties of Religious Experience” published in 1902. He stressed the richness, the “pluralism” of experience, including religious experience, against what he took to be the rigidity of scientific or religious orthodoxy. Religious experience is universal, it endures; there must therefore be truth in religion. He was the brother of Henry James and novelist.
KENSIT, JOHN [1853-1902] – Protestant preacher and controversialist, born of working-class parents, and was successively draper's assistant, stationer, and sub-postmaster. From his youth an ardent Protestant, he was deeply incensed by the Romanising trend within the Anglican Church. He fought against the consecration of liberal and ritualistic bishops, and was charged by his enemies, especially Bishop Creighton of London with fanaticism. While conducting a Protestant crusade in Liverpool in 1902 he was assaulted by a Catholic mob and died in hospital a few days later. He is generally regarded as the founder what is known in Britain as Political Protestantism.
MCNICOL, JOHN [1869-1956] – Bible College principal who was born in Canada and educated at Toronto University and Knox College. He was a leader in the Student Volunteer Movement [see 1886]. He began lecturing in Toronto Bible College where he was principal from 1906 to 1946. His writings contained much on the Holy Spirit.
MEYER, EDUARD [1855-1930] – German historian and one of the greatest authorities on the ancient world. He was professor of ancient history at the University of Berlin from 1902 to 1923. Meyer wrote a number of works in the area of Jewish and early Christian studies. In one of his last works he argued for the historical value of Luke-Acts and for its early date.
POLLARD, ADELAIDE ADDISON [1862-1934] – Adelaide Pollard was a Bible teacher and missionary, and the author of over 100 hymns and gospel songs. Only one of her hymns is in common use today, and the incident that led to its composition is interesting. She believed the Lord wanted her to go to Africa as a missionary. It was a noble cause, but for some reason the funds for the trip did not come in. As she waited on the Lord to provide, her discouragement grew. Then, one evening in 1902 she attended a small prayer meeting. In the group was an elderly woman whose prayer pricked Adelaide’s doubting, troubled heart. The woman said, “It’s all right, Lord. It doesn’t matter what you bring into our lives. Just have Your own way with us.” Letting God have His way, the would-be missionary pondered that. Could it be she was insisting the Lord accept her way instead of submitting to His? Adelaide Pollard considered what she had heard that evening, and before retiring to bed she composed a hymn of dedication called “Have Thine Own Way, Lord”. She went on to become an itinerant Bible teacher, and she taught for eight years at the Missionary Training School in New York City. Ironically, she did get to serve in Africa for a short time, just before the outbreak of the First World War.
SMITH, EDWIN WILLIAM [1876-1957] – Missionary, writer and anthropologist. Born of missionary parents in South Africa he entered the Primitive Methodist ministry. Between 1902 and 1915 he worked among the Ila people of Zambia producing a grammar, dictionary, and New Testament translation. He served the British and Foreign Bible Society from 1916 to 1939 and also taught in various American Negro colleges. Although he had little academic training he achieved international recognition as an anthropologist and became president of the Royal Anthropological Institute [1933-1935]. Smith published numerous books on topics related to African religion and missions.
1903
CARMICHAEL, AMY WILSON [1867-1951] – Missionary to India. She served for a while in Japan before moving to South India with the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society where she was a colleague of Thomas Walker [see 1885]. In 1903 Amy wrote the book “Things as they Are” which influenced many towards missionary work. Two years earlier the Dohnavur Fellowship was founded with the purpose of rescuing children devoted to temple service with its attendant corruption. She remained the centre of the life of the Fellowship for the next 50 years.
DAVIDSON, RANDALL THOMAS – Archbishop of Canterbury [1903-1928]. He studied at Harrow and Oxford, and served as chaplain to Archibald Campbell Tait when Tait was archbishop of Canterbury. He married Tait's daughter. After Tait's death he remained at Lambeth Palace as chaplain to Edward White Benson when he became archbishop of Canterbury. A favourite of Queen Victoria, Davidson was appointed dean of Windsor at a very young age. He was subsequently bishop of Rochester and bishop of Winchester before becoming archbishop of Canterbury in 1903. He played a major part in the funeral ceremonies for Queen Victoria in 1901, taking care, along with Dr. James Reid, of the wake at Osborne House, Isle of Wight. Rodger Lloyd, Church of England historian, thought that Davidson was one of the two or three greatest archbishops of Canterbury. He was the first archbishop of Canterbury to retire, all his predecessors having died in office. Davidson reacted to the papal bull Apostolicae Curae by stressing “the strength and depth of the Protestantism of England” and regarded other differences with Rome as much more important than its views on Anglican orders. This view seems to have been widely held at the time, judging from the reaction of Herbert Cardinal Vaughan, Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster. Davidson succeeded Frederick Temple [see 1896] and was succeeded by William Cosmo Gordon Lang [see 1928].
KNOX, EDMUND ARBUTHNOTT [1847-1937] – Bishop of Manchester who was educated at Oxford and made bishop of Manchester in 1903. He was a prominent evangelical who strove vigorously against liberal and High Church tendencies in the Anglican Church.
PIUS X – Pope [1903-1914]. He became bishop of Mantua in 1884 and patriarch of Venice nine years later. He continued reforming the Catholic Church and fighting against modernism which eventually resulted in the clergy in 1910 taking an oath against modernism. He followed Leo XIII in recommending Thomism as the Catholic philosophy and founded the Pontifical Bible Institute in Rome in 1909. To strengthen the faith of the ordinary believer he promoted renewal in worship and personal devotion. He improved church music including the revival of Gregorian chant and a new devotion to Mary, more frequent Mass for the faithful, an earlier first communion for children and better religious instruction as well as commencing the codification of Canon Law. The Catholic struggle with the secularist Third Republic of France reached a new stage with the break in diplomatic relations in 1904. The French law of Separation of 1905 terminated the Concordat of 1801 and resulted in the confiscation of church property and transformed its semi favourable legal stance towards the church into legal active antagonism. He succeeded Leo XIII [see 1878] and was succeeded by Benedict XV [see 1914].
RYLE, HERBERT EDWARD [1856-1925] – Anglican bishop and preacher who was son of bishop J.C. Ryle [see 1880] which gave him a strong evangelical home background and outlook. Educated at Cambridge he won distinction as a moderate and cautious Old Testament higher critic. He held a number of positions including professor of divinity at Cambridge in 1888. He was successively bishop of Exeter in 1900 and Winchester in 1903. Ryle’s fame rests on his preaching and leadership at Westminster during World War I after he had retired from the faculty and accepted the deanery of Winchester due to ill health in 1911.
TOMLINSON, AMBROSE JESSUP [1865-1943] – Church of God leader and revivalist who was converted in 1892 and served as an American Bible Society colporteur in North Carolina. He joined the Pentecostal Church of God movement in Tennessee in 1896 and rapidly rose to leadership. He assumed the title of general overseer in 1903 and maintained that position for 20 years. His authoritarian rule however created friction, and factions developed by 1917. Some forty religious groups can be traced to his movement nowadays.
TRUMBULL, CHARLES GALLAUDET [1872-1941] – Evangelical writer and journalist who graduated from Yale and joined “The Sunday School Times” founded by his father in 1893. He became editor in 1903 and later director. He was for a long time staff writer for the Toronto “Globe” and also wrote the weekly Sunday school lesson for several daily newspapers. His main interests included membership of the Victoria Institute, the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the Archaeological Institute of America. A supporter of missions, he wrote books that were evangelical and prophetic.
WACE, HENRY [1836-1924] – Dean of Canterbury who was educated at Oxford and ordained in 1861. He held a variety of positions in London from 1863 to 1903 some of which overlapped: chaplain and preacher at Lincoln's Inn; professor of ecclesiastical history and principal, King's College; rector of St Michael's Cornhill; and royal chaplain. In 1903 he was appointed dean of Canterbury and held that post until his death. Wace was a strong exponent of Reformation principles. He wrote a number of books.
WEYMOUTH NEW TESTAMENT – The New Testament in Modern Speech, translated into everyday English, it was the work of Richard Francis Weymouth [1822-1902]. Weymouth, a classical scholar said that his translation was not intended to supplant the versions then in general use but to act as a compressed running commentary on them. His own intention was to be free from doctrinal and ecclesiastical bias.
1904
ANDREWS, CHARLES [1871‑1940] – Missionary to India. In 1904 he went to the Cambridge Mission in Delhi. He met Sadhu Sundah Singh [see 1905] whose biography he wrote. Andrews became unhappy about the Anglican creed and was greatly influenced by the writings of Albert Schweitzer [see 1913]. He spent time in South Africa helping the Indian indentured labourers and while there he met Ghandi. Andrews returned to India where he left the Anglican mission and joined the Indian poet Tagore in his ashram.
BASHFORD, JAMES [1849‑1919] – American Methodist missionary to China who was the first resident bishop of the American Episcopal Church in that country. When he was elected bishop he asked to be sent to China. He mainly used interpreters but had a major effect on the Christian church in that country [1904‑1918] as well as assisting organising relief measures for famine sufferers.
CAIRD, EDWARD [1835-1908] – Scottish philosopher and one of the leading representatives of the Neo Hegelian movement in British philosophy during the latter part of the 19th century. Caird who succeeded Jowett [see 1860] as master of Balliol College Oxford accepted the prevailing concept of the progressive evolution of thought and produced two major works on Kant [see 1770] and a monograph of Hegel [see1818].
CRAWFORD, DANIEL [1870-1926] – Missionary to central Africa who joined the Plymouth Brethren in 1877 and in 1879 went to central Africa with F Arnot [see 1881]. He journeyed alone reaching Katanga in 1890 and undertook much travel in the next five years eventually settling in Luanza on Lake Mweru where apart from a visit overseas he remained for the rest of his life. He was a strong individual who preferred to rely on unsolicited gifts and working alone. Education in his village schools concentrated on the Scriptures which, by 1904, he had translated the New Testament into Luba, finishing the Old Testament in the year of his death. His converts were encouraged to participate in teaching, preaching and church affairs.
FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND – This group represents a minority of the former Free Church of Scotland who in 1900 refused to enter in the union with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church of Scotland. The present Free Church is conservative in theology and affirms its loyalty to the whole of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It has no instrumental music and uses only the metrical psalms in congregational praise.
MEYER, FREDERICK BROTHERTON [1847-1929] – Born in London to a wealthy family of German ancestry he was educated at London University and completed his theological training at Regents Park Baptist College. He helped launch the then unknown D.L. Moody [see 1886]. Meyer moved from Liverpool to Leicester and in 1881 opened Melbourne Hall, a centre of social and evangelistic activity which was Meyer’s abiding memorial. He was president at the Free Church Council in 1904 and retired in 1921. His devotional studies on biblical characters are still widely read.
ROBERTS, EVAN JOHN [1878-1951] – Welsh revivalist who was the ninth of fourteen children of a pitman. Roberts was educated at the parish school and at 12 years of age he accompanied his father to the coal mine. In 1902 he was apprenticed as a blacksmith but two years later was accepted as a candidate for the ministry by the Calvinistic Methodist Church. He had a remarkable prayer life for 11 years devoting himself to intense intercession for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He also had visions and vivid experiences of the divine presence. By 1904 in many parts of Wales there was an indication that revival was about to happen and in that year Roberts received a profound spiritual experience. He returned to his home church of Moriah and held prayer meetings where on successive nights the meetings drew ever larger crowds and within a matter weeks the revival had swept across Glamorganshire with tremendous power. Soon Roberts and a group of young friends began to make revival tours throughout Wales between November 1904 and January 1906. It was a national revival not just limited to the places visited by Roberts. It is calculated that there were 100,000 conversions during the revival and it had worldwide publicity. Physically the revival broke Evan Roberts and he retired from public life.
TILAK, NARAYAN VAMAN [c.1862-1919] – Marathi hymn writer and poet. He was born a high caste Brahman and even before his break from Hinduism, due to his poetic gift and strong religious spirit made him almost a “sadhu”. On a train journey a foreigner gave him a New Testament and thus began the road to Christianity. Tilak was baptised in Bombay and ordained in 1904 after which he worked as a preacher at Ahmadnagar. Writing was his great ministry and he composed many hymns for the Marathi Church. His greatest work was to be a life of Christ in verse but only the first part had been completed by his death. In 1917 he left the mission service in order to form a brotherhood of “the baptised unbaptised disciples of Christ” with an ashram at Satara.
1905
BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE which is a world wide fellowship of Baptist churches founded in 1905 to show according to its constitution “the essential oneness of the Baptist people in the Lord Jesus Christ, to impart inspiration to the brotherhood and to promote the spirit of fellowship service and co-operation among its members.” The women’s department organises an annual Baptist Women’s day of prayer.
BURKITT, FRANCIS CRAWFORD [1864‑1935] – Biblical scholar, educated at Cambridge and professor of divinity at Cambridge [1905‑1935]. Burkitt did important work on the Syriac text of the New Testament and published a two volume edition of the Old Syriac Gospels. His most famous work was "The Gospel History and its Transmission" [1906]. He followed Johannes Weiss [see 1914] in rejecting the views of liberal Protestantism and was a person of great range of academic interests.
FRANCE [see also 1793] – A phenomenon known as Catholic atheism made its appearance among those who remained within the church, but who had lost their faith. Leo XIII tried to accommodate Catholicism to the increasingly liberal and secular mood of the nation without much success. The anticlericalism of the period climaxed with the legislation of the early part of the 20th century, including the Law of 1905 which decreed complete separation of church and state. France today is deeply secular, but no longer is it as hostile to Christianity as it was previously.
LIETZMANN, HANS [1875-1942] – German church historian who trained at Jena and Bonn and became professor at Jena from 1905 to 1924 and then at Berlin until 1942. His academic interests bridged all the disciplines related to early church history, New Testament exegesis, classical archaeology, Hellenistic religion, canon law, and the like.
NIELSEN, FREDRIK KRISTIAN [1846-1907] – Danish bishop and theologian who found his permanent position in the conservative and ecumenically minded tradition of N.F.S. Grundtvig [see 1825]. In 1877 he became professor of church history at Copenhagen University and there was characterised more by a staggering amount of knowledge and great narrative skill than by a sense of historical and doctrinal coherence and development. He became bishop of Aalborg in 1900 and was transferred to the see of Aarhus in 1905.
SUNDAR SINGH, SADHU [1889-1929] – Indian Christian and mystic who was the youngest of four children of the wealthy Sikh family from the North Punjab who was very distressed when his mother died in 1902. For a time he attended the American Presbyterian Mission School but was bitterly opposed to Christianity and publicly burned a copy of the Gospels. Two days later he had a vision of Christ and was converted. Driven from home by his father he became a preacher wearing the saffron robe of a holy man and endeavoured to evangelise the Hindus. In 1905 he was baptised into the Church of England but later refused to be restricted to a particular denomination. He travelled widely in Asia and visited the West but was saddened by the love of comfort and luxury evident there. Despite ill health he persisted in evangelising Tibet and disappeared there in 1929.
WALMSLEY, ROBERT [1831-1905]. – English jeweller and Hymn Writer. Robert Walmsley was an English jeweller by profession, but he also wrote some hymns. As a Christian layman he was connected for 28 years with the Manchester Sunday School Union, and many of his hymns were written for the annual Whitsuntide Festival. The one hymn that remains of Walmsley’s is “Come, Let Us Sing of a Wonderful Love”.
1906
BERKHOF, LOUIS [1873‑1957] – Dutch born American Calvinist theologian and teacher who specialised in systematic theology. He was called to teach at the Calvin Seminary in Michigan in 1906 and was there for three decades. He wrote the influential "Manual of Reformed Doctrine" in 1933 which was used extensively in Reformed Christian schools while his last book was “The Second Coming of Christ” in 1953 when he was eighty.
BOHMER, HEINRICH [1869‑1927] – German church historian who was successively professor at Bonn in 1906, Marburg, and Leipzig, establishing himself as an authority on Luther and the Reformation. He wrote a number of books including two on Luther, studies on Loyola and the Jesuits, and the mediaeval church.
BROWN, WILLIAM [1865‑1943] – American liberal theologian who was educated at Yale and the University of Berlin. He taught theology at Union Seminary from 1892 to 1930 when he became research professor in applied theology until 1936. He published his widely used book "Christian Theology Outline" in 1906. Brown declared that the centre of ones faith should be the life and teaching of the historical Jesus rather than the orthodox teaching of the incarnation, atonement and resurrection.
CARPENTER, JOSEPH ESTLIN [1844-1927] – Unitarian minister who became principal at Manchester College Oxford until 1915. He had a wide knowledge of near eastern studies and translated Ewald’s major work [see 1827] into English.
ETHICAL MOVEMENT – A quasi religious movement having the motto "Need, not Creed", and its goal was a society embracing the ideas of love, loyalty, brotherhood, and peace. Instigated in 1876 by Felix Adler as the New York Society for Ethical Culture, its central purpose was stated in the constitution, adopted in 1906 at the international conference at Eisner: to assert the supreme importance of the ethical factor in all relations of life, personal, social, national, and international, apart from theological considerations. From this came the International Humanist and Ethical Union formed in 1952 which was to promote an alternative to the religions which claim to be based on revelation.
GREGORY IV Patriarch of Antioch [1906-1928] see also 1899 and 1928
HOLL, KARL [1866-1926] – German scholar who was born in Tubingen and was made professor of church history there in 1901 and from 1906-1926 he held a similar chair in Berlin. One of Germany's most influential church historians of both Eastern and Western churches whose studies on Luther created a revival in the Evangelical Church.
MARIAVITES – A Polish sect founded in Warsaw in 1906 by Jan Kowalski and Maria Felicja Kozlowska who both founded communities under the Franciscan rule but because of their suspected mysticism had been excommunicated from the Roman Church. The new union took its name from devotion to the Virgin Mary and was recognised by St Petersburg and the Duma. They eventually joined the OId Catholics in 1909. With Kowalski’s death, fanaticism within the sect increased noticeably and took the form of mystic marriages between priests and nuns whose children were considered to be without original sin, destined to found a new sinless race. In 1924 the Old Catholics renounced them.
MARITAIN, JACQUES [1882-1973] – French philosopher who is noteworthy both as an interpreter of Thomas Aquinas and as an independent thinker. Reared in liberal Protestantism he was converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1906, and in 1914 was appointed to the chair of modern philosophy at the Institute Catholique in Paris. From 1945 until 1948 he was French ambassador to the Vatican, and followed this by teaching at Princeton until his retirement in 1956. In his philosophy Maritain used not only Aristotle and Aquinas but insights from other philosophical sources. He refashioned the “Five Ways” of Thomas Aquinas and added his own sixth way.
NAZARENE, CHURCH OF THE – An international denomination which was formed largely as the result of the merger of approximately 15 religious groups originating from the 19th century Wesleyan Holiness Movement and whose organisation, within the USA, took place at Pilot Point Texas in 1908. Originally known as the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, the term Pentecostal was dropped from the title in 1919 due to its association with “speaking in tongues” a practice not in favour with the church’s members. The Church of the Nazarene began in Britain in 1906 through the ministry in Glasgow of George Sharpe who had been profoundly influenced by the Holiness movement while in the United States. The Church of the Nazarene combines congregational autonomy with superintendence in a representative system. Its major emphasis is of entire sanctification as a work of grace following conversion and stands firmly in the Wesleyan tradition.
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, RALPH [1872-1958] – English composer who was the son of a clergyman and was educated at the Royal College of Music, and at Berlin. For a time he was church organist but soon gave it up and devoted himself primarily to composition. Although his personal views bordered on agnosticism he was the only major 20th-century composer for whom religious music was a highly significant part of his total output throughout his career, from the earlier and unconventional oratorio “The Holy City”, to his large Christmas cantata “Hodie” which he wrote at the age of 82. He was musical editor of “The English Hymnal” in 1906 and shared in editing “Songs of Praise” and the “Oxford Book of Carols”. A festival setting for congregation, choir, organ and full orchestra of “All hail the power of Jesus name” is the most ambitious of all his pieces based on hymns. There were several compositions based on Pilgrim's Progress, culminating in the full scale opera of 1951 which he called “A Morality”.
1907
AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES is a group who were known as the Northern Baptist Convention and is the 4th largest denomination with 6000 congregations in the USA. Before that time the churches were joined in a local or state association. Northern Baptist Convention in the 1920’s shared in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. The group has a greater diversity of theologies than any other American denomination with main areas of difference being the deity of Christ and His Second Coming. In the mid west and west they are outnumbered by the Southern Baptists. They have numbers of overseas missionaries who have encouraged Protestantism and many have participated in the ecumenical movement.
ARGUE, ANDREW [1868‑1959] – Canadian pioneer of Pentecostalism received an ecstatic experience in Chicago in 1907 including “speaking in tongues” which he interpreted as “baptism of the Holy Spirit”. He became an apostle of this experience and had a large evangelistic ministry in his home country and in the United States which included the establishment of a number of churches.
DIVINE, MAJOR J. (‘Father Divine’) [1865?-1965] – He founded the Peace Mission movement. He was born into a poor Negro family in Georgia and was a former Baptist but in 1907 claimed to be ‘God in the sonship degree’. He travelled for a while and then settled in New York City. The movement grew rapidly in the 1930s and 1940s. He spoke across the country and published his magazine The New Day. As Father Divine he ran a massive co-operative agency and employment service providing low-cost meals and lodgings in his ‘heavens’. The interracial movement regard him as a god and by the 1960's had over 1 million members in several states and foreign countries. On his demise the work was continued by his widow "Mother Divine".
OMAN, JOHN WOOD [1860-1939] – Presbyterian theologian educated at Edinburgh and Heidelberg and in 1907 joined the staff at Westminster College Cambridge where he was later the principal [1925-1935]. Oman developed an early interest in Schleiermacher [see 1804] who held that religious experience is self authenticating and that it was the direct feeling of the supernatural.
1908
DEISSMANN, ADOLF [1866-1937] – German New Testament scholar who taught at Heidelberg [1895-1908] and Berlin [1908-34]. In the light of secular Greek inscriptions and papyri, first intensively studied in the late 19th century, Deissmann showed the New Testament language to be popular rather classical. He gave a picture of primitive Christianity as a popular cult, growing from mystical personal reaction to Jesus; it was not therefore to be explained in terms of the coherence of the development of doctrine. For him, Paul was not a theologian but a man of the people responding to the impact of the Damascus Road encounter. He was active in the early ecumenical movement.
FOSDICK, HARRY EMERSON [1878-1969] – American Baptist minister. He was a pastor from 1904 to 1915, and taught practical theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1908 to 1946. He promoted evangelical liberalism, biblical criticism, psychology of religion, and psychologically orientated “personal religion”. Fosdick greatly influenced American preaching through his “problem-centred” homiletical style. He authored over 30 books which were widely read.
FULLERTON, WILLIAM YOUNG [1857-1932] – Fullerton was a Baptist preacher, administrator and writer. He was born in Belfast, Ireland and as a young man he was influenced by the preaching of Charles Spurgeon, who became his friend and mentor. Fullerton served as President of the Baptist Union and Home Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society. He was a frequent speaker at Keswick Conventions starting in 1908. His published works include biographies of John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon, James William Condell Fegan and Frederick Brotherton Meyer; missionary histories and devotional writings. He also compiled several hymnals. He is remembered for his hymn entitled "I cannot tell why He, Whom angels worship”, which he set to the traditional Irish melody "Londonderry".
LOISY, ALFRED FIRMIN [1857-1940] – Founder of Roman Catholic modernism in France. He studied in Paris and remained there as professor of Hebrew and exegesis from 1884 to 1893 until dismissed because of his liberal views on biblical inerrancy. Much shaken his faith by 1886 he had rejected all traditional dogma and turned to pantheism. Excommunication came in 1908 when he publicly renounced his faith as he had done his priestly functions in 1906. A student of biblical criticism with some extraordinary insights, he shifted too often in his views to have any permanently solid conclusions.
MOULTON, JAMES HOPE [1863-1917] – Greek and Iranian scholar, the elder son of William Moulton [see 1872]. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1886 and in 1902 was appointed New Testament tutor at the Wesleyan College in Manchester. In 1908 he became professor of Greek and Indo-European philology at the University of Manchester. His work was especially important to showing the kinship between the Greek of the New Testament and that of the recently discovered papyri. Moulton died from exhaustion after the ship on which he was travelling was torpedoed in the Mediterranean.
NUELSEN, JOHN LOUIS [1867-1946] – Methodist bishop, born of American parents in Zurich and educated at Halle and Berlin. He was ordained as a Methodist and held pastorates in Missouri and Minnesota, lectured in ancient languages and exegetical theology, and was made a bishop in 1908. From 1912 he was in charge of the Methodist Church’s work in Europe with Zurich as his headquarters. In 1936 he organised the first Methodist Central Conference of Germany at Frankfurt. He wrote widely on Methodism and biblical criticism and was an editor of major theological works.
WESTON, FRANK [1871-1924] – Bishop of Zanzibar. Weston had been brought up as an evangelical but during university he became an extreme Anglo-Catholic. He served in various churches in London before going to Africa under the auspices of the Universities Mission to Central Africa. In 1908 he was made bishop of Zanzibar in which country he served until his death. Weston is best remembered for his opposition to the tentative scheme of reunion, proposed at Kikuyu for the Protestant churches in East Africa.
1909
BIEDERWOLF, WILLIAM EDWARD [1867-1939] – American Presbyterian evangelist and educator who was probably the best educated evangelist of his time. Ordained in 1897 he was a chaplain in the Spanish American War. The rest of his life he spent in evangelism and direction of the Winona Lake Bible School of Theology. In 1909 he organised the Family Altar League. He authored “The Millennium Bible” and “The New Paganism”.
BILLING, EINAR MAGNUS [1871‑1939] – Swedish theologian who was born in Lund and was a professor in dogmatic and moral theology from 1909. He was a leader of the "Luther Renaissance" in Sweden laying down the lines for the distinctively Scandinavian method of Luther study in the form of a historical systematic approach .
BUCK, DUDLEY [1839‑1909] – American composer, the first American born church musician to be trained in Europe. A distinguished organist he wrote many cantatas, anthems and secular music. He contributed significantly to church music in the period in which he lived and as an organist increased the popularity of that instrument in his recitals.
CONYBEARE, FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1856-1924] – Armenian scholar who became interested in church history in the textural criticism of the Septuagint. He discovered a manuscript with the last 12 verses of Mark [16:9-20]. He was generally sceptical about Christianity as shown in his “Myth, Magic and Morals a Study of Christian Origins” published in 1909 though he refuted those who denied the historicity of Christ.
DISPENSATIONALISM – A dispensation is defined as "a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God" according to CI Scofield [see below]. Some variety exists among dispensationalists but a scheme of seven dispensations is widely accepted. They are Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Grace, and the Kingdom. The close of the Millennium ushers in the eternal state. J. N. Darby [see 1845] is usually regarded as the founder of Dispensationalism, although some of the elements are found in Augustine. Its fullest theological expression, while popularised in the Scofield Bible, are in the works of Lewis Sperry Chafer [see 1924] with the hyper dispensational form of it due to the work of E W Bullinger.
HAUSRATH, ADOLF [1837-1909] – German Lutheran theologian who was a leading liberal scholar and served as a pastor and later professor at Heidelberg and belonged to the Baden state church. Stimulated by the ideas of the Tubingen School [see 1826] he transformed and popularised its historical picture of primitive Christianity.
MADSEN, PEDER [1843-1911] – Danish bishop and theologian who in his youth studied theology and was strongly influenced by F.H.R. Frank [see 1857] and the theology of experience. In 1874 he became lecturer and in the following year professor of Christian dogmatics and New Testament exegesis at Copenhagen University. In 1909 he was appointed bishop of Zealand. The theology he taught was a mixture of biblical conservative and orthodox Lutheran with tendencies of the subjective including some unnecessary concessions to biblical criticism. However he was the most influential Danish theologian of his time.
PIDGEON, GEORGE CAMPBELL [1872-1971] – First moderator of the United Church of Canada [see 1925]. He was educated at McGill University and Presbyterian College, and served as pastor of influential churches in Ontario for over 50 years except for the time teaching practical theology from 1909 to 1915. He was a scholar, preacher, and writer, vitally concerned with the application of the Social Gospel to the poor of the cities.
SCOFIELD, CYRUS INGERSON [1843-1921] – American biblical scholar who won the Confederate Cross of Honour while serving with Lee's army. After the Civil War he turned to law and was admitted to the Kansas bar in 1869. After his conversion he was ordained to serve a small Congregational church in Dallas [1882-1895]. At Moody's request he took over Moody Church in Massachusetts from 1895 to 1902 and returned to the Dallas church 1902-1907 before taking on Bible conference work at home and in the British Isles, and founding the Central American Mission. In 1909 his dispensational premillennial Bible was published which he edited with the financial assistance of prominent businessmen.
STONE, JOHN TIMOTHY [1868-1954] – Presbyterian minister who held Presbyterian pastorates in New York State, Baltimore, and Chicago [1909-1930]. His work in Chicago became the basis of the New Life Movement in the Presbyterian Church nationally while his own congregation showed remarkable growth. He served as a chaplain of World War I.
Alexander WHYTE [1836 – 1921]. Scottish Minister who is often described as the last the Puritans. Whyte was educated at Aberdeen and the Free Church of Scotland's New College Edinburgh. Most of his ministry was set in Edinburgh were over a 40 year period he established a reputation as a graphic and compelling preacher to an extent probably unparalleled even a nation of preachers. In 1909 Whyte became principal of New College and taught New Testament literature there. He wrote a number of books.
ZAMORA, NICOLAS [1875-1914] – Filipino Methodist pastor who was the grand nephew of the martyred priest Jacinto Zamora [see 1872 Mariano Gomez]. He was born into a Christian family and his father was exiled for smuggling a Bible and Nicolas continued Bible study secretly as a student of arts and then law. As a soldier in the Revolutionary Army, he translated the Spanish Bible into his dialect and read it to the men. When the Methodists began evangelistic meetings in Manila in 1899, he was invited to speak because the Spanish interpreter failed to arrive. He became the first Protestant Filipino clergyman being ordained as a deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1900. From 1904 he became the pastor of the largest Protestant church in Manila where he preached in the local dialect. Zamora eventually came to agree with those who wished to have an independent church and set up the Evangelical Methodist Church of the Philippines. He died in a cholera outbreak in 1914.
1910
ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT – The ecumenical movement itself is normally dated from the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. This was the first really international conference of a multi-denominational character, and although its theme was mission, it was inevitable that the degree to which the various bodies represented could cooperate, converge, or even merge was always part of the agenda. From this conference sprang further international organisations, which eventually merged into the World Council of Churches in 1948. The whole concept of ecumenism has been a source of theological division, some of which remains. Those bodies which have made exclusive claims to truth have been unable to meet with others in any such way as to suggest that they recognise others as holding the truth. This meant that the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics and a large part of the Evangelicals initially stood aside from the movement. In more recent time however the Orthodox have become fully involved, the Catholics participate in various ways and the Evangelicals remain divided on the issue.
EDINBURGH MISSIONARY CONFERENCE – This 10 day gathering for discussion was significant for its representative character, its leadership, the range of its discussions, and its outcome. Previous conferences on the missionary task of the church had been un-denominational in character; this was interdenominational. All churches, with the exception of the Roman Catholics, were represented. There were 1355 delegates, places being allocated on the basis of the missionary society incomes. Less than a score of the representatives were from the younger churches. During the discussions the need became apparent for a permanent representative body, able to coordinate missionary cooperation and to speak to governments. This conference is regarded as the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement.
FUNDAMENTALS, THE – These were a series of twelve small books published from 1910-1915 containing articles and essays designed to defend fundamental Christian truths. Three million copies were sent out free of charge to every theological student and Christian worker whose address was obtainable. Convinced that something was needed to reaffirm Christian truths in the face of biblical criticism and modern theology, the project was conceived by Lyman Stewart in California. Sixty four authors were chosen to contribute. [See also Fundamentalism 1920]
JOWETT, JOHN HENRY [1864-1923] – English Congregationalist preacher who studied at Oxford and held a number of pastorates in northern England. He became chairman of the Congregational Union in 1906 and president of the National Free Church Council in 1910. He delivered the Yale lectures on preaching in 1912 and wrote many devotional books. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1922.
THOMAS, WILLIAM HENRY GRIFFITH [1861-1924] – Anglican scholar and teacher who was educated at Oxford and ordained in 1886. After appointments in England he became principal of Wycliffe Hall Oxford before emigrating to Canada where he was professor of Old Testament at Wycliffe College Toronto from 1910 onwards. Thomas was a Dispensationalist and was a founder of Dallas Theological Seminary and would have lectured there but for his sudden death. He was a supporter of the Keswick movement, and assisted the Victorious Life Testimony in America.
