Category Archives: The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Sundhar Singh — November 4

Sadhu Sundar Singh Books E-books - PDF

Bible connection

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. — 1 John 2:27

All about Sundar Singh (1889 – ca. 1929)

Sadhu Sundar Singh was born on September 3, 1889 into a rich Sikh family in Punjab. His mother was a pious woman who had a strong influence in his life. Her prayer was that her youngest son, Sundar, would renounce the world and become a Sadhu (or saintly wise man). She nurtured Sundar Singh in the Sikh and Hindu holy books. Her death when Sundar was only fourteen dealt her son a severe blow. He desperately searched for peace and began reading all sorts of religious books and practicing Yoga. His father put him in a Christian mission school in his village where Sundar developed a profound hatred for Christians. He went to the extent of tearing up a Bible and burning it into pieces.

Lost In despair, Sundar resolved to commit suicide if he failed to get a revelation of the living God. Early in the morning on Dec 18, 1904, he begged God to show him the way of salvation and determined to end his life on the railway track if his prayers were unanswered. At half past four a bright light shone in his room and he had a vision of Jesus. Sundar heard Christ speaking to him, “How long will you persecute me? I died for you, I gave my life for you.” Sundar Singh fell down in worship and surrendered his life to Christ.

This vision forever convinced him that he had seen the true God and it sustained him during the coming persecution. When he cut his long hair to renounce his religion, it was considered as a shame on the whole Sikh community and an unforgivable disobedience. His family poisoned the food he ate and sent him out of the house. He was miraculously saved by the grace of God and timely treatment given by nearby Christian villagers.

Thirty-three days after his baptism at sixteen years old, Sundar Singh began his life as a Christian sadhu. He was distressed to see the Indian church inculcating Western culture, imitating its customs, and failing to present the gospel in Indian terms. Sundar Singh knew that a life of a sadhu was the best way to present the gospel message of Christ to Indians. His yellow robe won him admission into many villages and people listened to him. He wandered barefoot, without any possessions except his thin linen garment, a blanket and a New Testament in Urdu. He preached the Gospel in villages near his home, then he traveled through Punjab to Afghanistan and Kashmir, lands where Christian mission work had hardly begun.

On his travels, Sundar Singh met Samuel Stokes, a wealthy American who came to India to work with lepers and briefly formed and travelled with a Franciscan Friary. Sundar joined with him for some time in ministry. He learned from him the ideals of Francis of Assisi; his life as a preaching friar inspired him.

Sundar Singh was always convinced that the water of life should be offered in the Indian cup. His short stint to equip himself with theological training at St. John’s Divinity College in Lahore in 1909 was largely unfruitful. Sundar considered that religious knowledge of the highest kind is acquired not by intellectual study but by direct contact with Christ. He even surrendered his preaching license from the Anglican church because he did not want to be constrained by a diocese. His call was to be a free agent without holding any office and to take the message of Jesus Christ to all churches and people of all faiths.

Tibet had always been a closed land for Christian missionaries as it was a strong Buddhist nation. Sundar Singh had a special burden for ministry in Tibet. It became his mission field and between 1908-1920 he reportedly made up to twenty risky trips to the country. In spite of stubborn opposition from the Lamas, his message was received in the important town of Tashigang. After returning from a trip to Tibet in 1912 he claimed to have met a guru connected to a Sanyasi (mendicant) Mission who were a secret Christian brotherhood numbering around 24,000. Some detractors loudly criticized what they said was a fantasy.

By 1918 Singh’s fame had spread far and wide and he was flooded with offers to preach all over South India. Thousands of people flocked to his meetings to hear him. He went to Ceylon to conduct powerful meetings six weeks. He was greatly disturbed by the caste system prevailing in these regions and condemned it severely. His ministry extended to Burma, Malaya, Penang, Singapore, China and Japan.

Sundar Singh had the joy of leading his father to Christ in the year 1919. His father sponsored him for his first journey to Europe. Sundar Singh was eager to find out the truth of the accusation that Christianity in the West had lost its splendor. He set off on a tour to England in January, 1920. He stayed in England for three months and went to America and Australia. He addressed huge gatherings everywhere to crowds of all denominations. Sundar Singh found the West to be indifferent to spiritual values and materialistic in their world view. While some people criticized him for his frank judgments, many were challenged and converted by his preaching.

Sundar Singh made a second trip to Europe and visited Palestine to satisfy his long cherished dream of seeing the Holy Land. He preached in most of the European countries to big audiences. It is indeed noteworthy to see an Indian presenting the message of the gospel to the Western world. However, Sundar Singh was disillusioned by the nominal Christianity and immorality of large sections of people in Europe. The Sadhu preferred the hardships of Tibet to the adulation of the Christian countries of the Western world.

Sadhu Sundar Singh experienced numerous miracles in his life which saved him from grave dangers. Once when he was in Tibet in a place called Risar, he was arrested for preaching a foreign religion and cast into a dry well outside the village. The well-pit was foul with rotten bodies and the top cover was locked. For two nights he trapped with little hope of survival. But the third night he saw the cover open and rope being let down and he was pulled up. The Sadhu was convinced that it was an angel of the Lord who helped him. Similarly, he experienced divine help many times when he was beaten up and persecuted.

Sundar Singh also experienced spiritual visions. He was in constant communion with Christ. He received ecstatic gifts from God when he saw visions as frequently as eight to ten times a month which lasted an hour or two. They were not in a dream state and the Sadhu was conscious of what was happening. His spiritual eyes were opened to see the glory of the heavenly sphere and walk there with Christ and converse with angels and spirits. This resulted in severe criticism and he was even called as an impostor and his imaginations as product of a diseased mind. But those who knew the Sadhu personally and witnessed his spiritual life never doubted his sincerity.

In 1923, Sundar Singh bought his own house in Subathu where he rested for almost three years because of heart attacks, trouble with eyesight, ulcers and several other complications which confined him to his home. The busy tours abroad and constant travel and preaching engagements took their toll on him. The Sadhu started contributing to articles in magazine and also writing his own books which amounted to seven thin volumes written in Urdu and translated into English with the assistance of his friends. The bulk of his writings contained messages he received through visions. His writings were influential and touched the lives of many people.

The Sadhu had a burning desire in his heart to visit Tibet again. He was strongly advised not to do so because of his ill health. When he attempted to go to Tibet in 1927, he suffered a severe hemorrhage of the stomach and had to be brought back. In April 1929, at the age of 39, Sundar determined to make another attempt to reach Tibet. He left instructions about his will and bid farewell to his friends. It was his last journey to Tibet and he was never to be seen again. Anxious friends made the efforts to trace him but to no avail. His death added one more mystery to a life which few people completely understood. We remember him on this day, although no one knows when he died.

Quotes

  • The Indian Seer lost God in Nature; the Christian mystic, on the other hand, finds God in Nature. The Hindu mystic believes that God and Nature are one and the same; the Christian mystic knows that there must be a Creator to account for the universe.
  • One day after a long journey, I rested in front of a house. Suddenly a sparrow came towards me blown helplessly by a strong wind. From another direction, an eagle dived to catch the panicky sparrow. Threatened from different directions, the sparrow flew into my lap. By choice, it would not normally do that. However, the little bird was seeking for a refuge from a great danger. Likewise, the violent winds of suffering and trouble blow us into the Lord’s protective hands.
  • Should I worship Him from fear of hell, may I be cast into it. Should I serve Him from desire of gaining heaven, may He keep me out. But should I worship Him from love alone, He reveals Himself to me, that my whole heart may be filled with His love and presence
  • From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.
  • “In a Tibetan village I noticed a crowd of people standing under a burning tree and looking up into the branches. I came near and discovered in the branches a bird which was anxiously flying round a nest full of young ones. The mother bird wanted to save her little ones, but she could not. When the fire reached the nest the people waited breathlessly to see what she would do. No one could climb the tree, no one could help her. Now she could easily have saved her own life by flight, but instead of fleeing she sat down on the nest, covering the little ones carefully with her wings. The fire seized her and burnt her to ashes. She showed her love to her little ones by giving her life for them. If then, this little insignificant creature had such love, how much more must our Heavenly Father love His children, the Creator love His creatures!”

More

  • Biography by Phyllis Thompson
  • Nine minutes of reading with nice music.
  • A Ken Anderson (1917-2006) film from 1969. (Liam Neeson’s first role was as “Evangelist” in Anderson’s Pilgrim’s Progress. )

What do we do with this?

Sundar Singh is still misunderstood. Westerners have combed his writings for flaws and syncretism. He may have veered toward Swedenborgian ideas and back. He may have turned the gospel in Hindu and Buddhist directions. He has been called a Universalist. He was an evangelist in Sadhu clothing. You’ll have to decide what orthodoxy means to you. Singh was less interested in orthodoxy than in getting the gospel to Indians, who knew more about Western culture than they did about Jesus.

What is your evangelism like? Do you have a strategy (or just a criticism about the strategies of others)?

Ask God for a vision of his presence and a call that is worth giving your life to completely.

Martin de Porres — November 3

Icon by Robert Lentz

Bible Connection

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.  — 2 Corinthians 8:9

All about Martin de Porres (1579-1639)

Martin de Porres could have grown into a bitter man. In his day people of “mixed blood” were called “half-breed” or “war souvenir” by those of “pure” blood. He did not grow bitter. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised.

He was the son of a freed woman from Panama (probably black but also possibly indigenous) and a Spanish aristocrat from Lima, Peru. His parents never married each other. Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother. That disturbed his father, who finally acknowledged his son after eight years. After the birth of a sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was reared in poverty, locked into a low level of Lima’s society.

When he was 12, his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. Martin learned how to cut hair and also how to draw blood, a standard medical treatment then; to care for wounds; and to prepare and administer medicines.

After a few years in this medical role, Martin applied to the Dominicans to be a “lay helper.” He did not feel worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years, the example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility, led the community to ask him to make full religious profession. Many of his nights were spent in prayer and penitential practices. His days were filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor.

People noted how he cared for all people equally, regardless of their color, race, or status. He was instrumental in founding an orphanage, took care of slaves brought from Africa, and managed the daily alms of the priory with practicality, as well as generosity. He became the financial manager for both his priory and the city of Lima, whether it was a matter of “blankets, shirts, candles, candy, miracles or prayers!” When his priory was in debt, he said, “I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me.”

His main work was in the kitchen, laundry, and infirmary. But in every situation, Martin’s life was filled with the Spirit. Stories tell how ecstasies lifted him into the air, how light filled the room where he prayed, how he could be in two places at once, how he had miraculous knowledge, how he effected instantaneous cures, and how he had a remarkable rapport with animals. Many people in his religious order took Martin as their spiritual director, but he continued to call himself a “poor slave.”

More

What do we do with this?

Racism is a sin that too few confess. Like pollution, it is a “sin of the world” that is everybody’s responsibility but apparently nobody’s fault. One could hardly imagine a more fitting patron of Christian forgiveness -– on the part of those discriminated against — and Christian justice — on the part of reformed racists — than Martin de Porres.

The symbols that reflect his character and work are represented in the icon above. As you gaze at the image, relate to the man. What might be painted in an icon of you? Who is an influential person in relation to your spiritual development? What would be pictured in their icon?

Keep your attention on Martin de Porres until God gives you the message he would like to deliver through Martin or deliver through your experience of his icon.

Teresa of Avila — October 15

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598–1680), Date: 1647–52, Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy

Bible connection

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.  — Romans 13:8-10

All about Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Teresa of Avila (Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada, also called Teresa of Jesus) was a Spanish contemplative, mystic, and theologian.

This story from her childhood is often told to show what kind of person she was. Teresa learned as a small child that one had to die in order to see God. She wanted to see God. So being practical and courageous by temperament, she devised a scheme. She planned to go to the land of the Moors with her brother, Rodrigo. There they would surely be martyred and go to heaven. Very early one morning the two children slipped away from their home and crossed the bridge leading out of Avila. But the plan soon ran into trouble. An uncle who happened to be entering Avila at the time, met the children, heard their fantastic plan and shooed them back to their parents.

Later on in life, Teresa realized that one does not have to die to see God.

“We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.”

These words contain three essential steps for what she named ”mental prayer.” First, we must be searching for God. Second, we must be willing to be alone with Him. And third, we only need to look upon our Lord who is present within us.

“The important thing in mental prayer is not to think much but to love much.”

Mental prayer becomes fruitful when we realize the gift of God dwelling within us. Referring to her earlier years in the convent, Teresa wrote these regretful words,

“I think that if I had understood then as I do now that this great King really dwells within a little palace of my soul, I should not have left Him alone so often and never allowed his dwelling place to get so dirty.”

Mental prayer, one learns, is nothing but our side of friendship with God—our “yes” to God’s call and invitation.

“Beginners do well to form an appealing image of Christ in His Sacred Humanity. They should picture Him within themselves in some mystery of His life, for example, the Christ of the agony or the Risen Savior in His glorified Body. Once they are conscious of Our Lord’s presence within their souls they need only look upon Him and conversation will follow. This friendly conversation will not be much thinking but much loving, not a torrent of words, much less a strained prepared speech, but rather a relaxed conversation with moments of silence as there must be between friends.”

One of the profound things she is known to have said matches the Bible reading for today, “It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”

Teresa was active during the Counter Reformation (1545 to about 1648). She became the central figure of a movement of spiritual and monastic renewal, reforming the Carmelite Orders of both women and men. She was later joined in the movement by the younger Carmelite friar and mystic John of the Cross. He became her companion and together they  established the Discalced (Barefoot) Carmelites.

Teresa was the first of only four women who have been named “doctor of the church” among Roman Catholics. Her ascetic doctrine and Carmelite reforms shaped Roman Catholic contemplative life, and her writings on the Christian soul’s journey to God are considered masterpieces.

More

The Wikipedia page is also quite complete.

Teresa’s famous prayer. Coro in Crescendo sings the Taize version of it, here with English subtitles.

You can read the Interior Castle for free.

Recommended biography.

Our friend, Zach Agoff, wrote about Teresa’s connection to Descartes.

A Roman Catholic bio:

What do we do with this?

Paul reminds us that love is the only thing we owe each other.  It is a continuing debt.  It is a debt that gives worth to our lives.  We are compelled to love each other regardless of the circumstances.  For some of us, that seems like a lot.  But the fact remains that each one of us is loved and as loved ones in the world we have the capacity to love others.  When we go ahead and make payments toward that debt, we fulfill God’s vision for the world.

Meditate on Teresa’s wisdom:

  • Christ has no body now but mine. He prays in me, works in me, looks through my eyes, speaks through my words, works through my hands, walks with my feet and loves with my heart.
  • We may speak of love and humility as the true flowers of spiritual growth; and they give off a wonderful scent, which benefits all those who come near.
  • After you die, you wear what you are.

Elizabeth Fry — October 12

Bible connection

Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. — Hebrews 13:3

All about Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845)

Elizabeth Fry was a pioneering campaigner for better conditions in prisons during the the long reign of Queen Victoria in England (the “Victorian Era”).

She was born Elizabeth Gurney in 1780, in Norwich, England to a prominent Quaker family. Her father was a partner in Gurney’s Bank, and her mother was a relative of the Barclay family, who founded Barclays Bank. After her mother died when she was 12, she took an active role in bringing up her other siblings. When Elizabeth was 18, she was influenced by the humanitarian message of William Savery, an American Quaker who spoke of the importance of tackling poverty and injustice. She was inspired to help local charities and a local Sunday School, which taught children to read. When she was 20, she married Joseph Fry, who was a tea merchant and a Quaker. They moved to London where they had eleven children.

Elizabeth was a strict observant; as a Quaker Minister she didn’t engage in activities like dancing and singing. However, she was well connected in London society and often met influential members of the upper-middle classes of London.

newgate
The infamous Newgate prison before demolition

Around 1812, she made her first visit to Newgate Prison, which housed both men and women prisoners, some of who were awaiting trial. Fry was shocked at the squalid and unsanitary conditions in which she found the prisoners. She saw how the environment fermented both bad health and violence. In 1813, she wrote:

“All I tell thee is a faint picture of reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the furious manner and expressions of the women towards each other, and the abandoned wickedness, which everything bespoke are really indescribable.”

She spent the night in prison to get a better idea of what conditions were like. She sought to improve conditions by bringing in clean clothes and food. She also encouraged prisoners to look after themselves better; for example, she suggested rules that they could vote on themselves. She felt her mission was:

” … to form in them, as much as possible, those habits of sobriety, order, and industry, which may render them docile and peaceable while in prison, and respectable when they leave it.”

She would put a better-educated prisoner in charge and encourage them to cooperate in keeping their cells cleaner and more hygienic. Fry felt one of the most important things was to give prisoners a sense of self-respect which would help them to reform, rather than fall into bad habits and become re-offenders.

She wrote a book Prisons in Scotland and the North of England (1819) and encouraged her fellow society friends to go and visit the prison to see conditions for themselves. She told her readers:

“It must indeed be acknowledged, that many of our own penal provisions, as they produce no other effect, appear to have no other end, than the punishment of the guilty.”

Elizabeth Fry reading to the prisoners in Newgate jail in 1816, accompanied by JJ Gurney, Dorcas Covetry, Thomas Fowell Buxton, and Samuel Gurney.

In 1817, she founded the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate; this later became the British Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners. It was one of the first nationwide women’s organizations in Britain. The aims of the organization were:

“to provide for the clothing, the instruction, and the employment of these females, to introduce them to knowledge of the holy scriptures, and to form in them as much as lies in our power, those habits of order, sobriety, and industry which may render them docile and perceptible whilst in prison, and respectable when they leave it.”

In 1818, Fry became the first women to give evidence at a House of Commons committee, during an inquiry into British prisons. In 1825, she published an influential book:  Observations of the Siting, Superintendence and Government of Female Prisoners. It gave details for improving penal reforms. Fry’s unique contribution was her willingness to bring up an unpopular topic others left untouched. She she also insisted on practical steps to improve prison conditions.

As well as campaigning for better prisons, Fry also established a night shelter for the homeless, after she encountered a young boy dead on the street. In 1824, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society, which arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor to offer education and material aid. She also established a nursing school, which later inspired Florence Nightingale to take a team of nurses, trained in Fry’s school, to Crimea. She was supported in her work by her husband, but after he went bankrupt in 1828, her brother, a banker, stepped in to provide funds and support.

Fry became well known in society; she was granted a few audiences with Queen Victoria who was a strong supporter of her work. Another royal admirer was Frederick William IV of Prussia. In an unusual move for a visiting monarch, the king went to see Fry in Newgate prison and was deeply impressed by her work. The Home Office Minister Robert Peel was also an admirer. In 1823, he led in passing the Gaol Act which sought to legislate for minimum standards in prisons. This went some way to improve conditions in prison in London but was not enforced in debtors prisons or local gaols (jails) around the country.

At the time, it was unusual for a woman to have an active public profile and move out of the confines of the home. Particularly in the early years, Fry was criticized for neglecting her role as mother and housewife. Lord Sidmouth, the home secretary preceding Peel, rejected her criticisms of the prisons. In this regard, she can be seen as an important figure in giving women a higher profile in public affairs. She could be seen as an early feminist and forerunner of the later suffragists, who campaigned for women to be given the vote.

More

From Biography online

From Christian History magazine

Nice extra facts: “Why Mrs. Fry Willingly Went to Prison.”

One minute video:

Book: Betsy: The Dramatic Biography of Prison Reformer Elizabeth Fry

On the 5 Pound note.

What do we do with this?

Conviction causes us to take risks. Maybe you don’t have the intelligence, imagination and courage of Elizabeth Fry, but what do you have? What is a need you can enter today? Who can you comfort? Who is in “jail” in some way and you can remember them and suffer with them?

William Seymour — September 28

Bible connection

Read Acts 2:14-21

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

All about William J. Seymour (1870-1922)

William Seymour died of a heart attack on September 28, 1922. He is widely considered the Father of Pentecostalism. He followed the Holy Spirit and developed a belief in the ecstatic spiritual gifts (entire sanctification which manifests in prophesy, speaking in tongues, and other expressions), even before he was gifted. When he was gifted, he needed to preach what he experienced.

He was first locked out of the California building to which he had been invited to speak. He eventually found another place to minister and soon developed a following that outgrew that building after a remarkable evening of God’s presence. He proceeded to find a larger place to preach and worship in Los Angeles. It was on the dirt floor in what became the famous building on Azusa St. that the Pentecostal revival began.

In a short time God began to manifest His power and soon the building could not contain the people. Now the meetings continue all day and into the night and the fire is kindling all over the city and surrounding towns. Proud, well-dressed preachers come in to “investigate.” Soon their high looks are replaced with wonder, then conviction comes, and very often you will find them in a short time wallowing on the dirty floor, asking God to forgive them and make them as little children. ― William Seymour, The Azusa Papers

To Seymour, tongues was not the only message of Azusa Street: “Don’t go out of here talking about tongues: talk about Jesus,” he admonished.

The greater expression of barrier breaking, Acts 2 tongues might be how blacks and whites were in one church. Seymour rejected racial barriers that plagued the Church at that time. Blacks and whites worked together in apparent harmony under the direction of a black pastor, a marvel in the days of Jim Crow segregation. One commentator said: “At Azusa Street, the color line was washed away in the Blood.”

What’s more, Seymour installed women as leaders (notably Lucy Farrow, a formerly enslaved woman and the niece of Frederick Douglass), which was almost universally opposed at the time. Seymour dreamed that Azusa Street was creating a new kind of church, one where a common experience in the Holy Spirit tore down old walls of racial, ethnic, and denominational differences.

Seymour quotes

  • I can say, through the power of the Spirit that wherever God can get a people that will come together in one accord and one mind in the Word of God, the baptism of the Holy Ghost will fall upon them, like as at Cornelius’ house.
  • So many today are worshiping in the mountains, big churches, stone and frame buildings. But Jesus teaches that salvation is not in these stone structures–not in the mountains—not in the hills, but in God.
  • The Pentecostal power, when you sum it all up, is just more of God’s love. If it does not bring more love, it is simply a counterfeit.
  • Many people today are sanctified, cleansed from all sin and perfectly consecrated to God, but they have never obeyed the Lord according to Acts 1, 4, 5, 8 and Luke 24: 39, for their real personal Pentecost, the enduement of power for service and work and for sealing unto the day of redemption. The baptism with the Holy Ghost is a free gift without repentance upon the sanctified, cleansed vessel. “Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1: 21-22). I praise our God for the sealing of the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption

More

Azusa Street Revival [link]

The Azusa Street Project movie (2006) [link]

A great theater note on the Gospel at Colonus enlightens us about ecstatic spiritual gifts. [link]

What do we do with this?

Seymour would probably simply ask us to consider his observation: “Many people today are sanctified, cleansed from all sin and perfectly consecrated to God, but they have never obeyed the Lord according to Acts 1, 4, 5, 8 and Luke 24: 39, for their real personal Pentecost, the enduement of power for service and work and for sealing unto the day of redemption.” What would you say about yourself?

George MacDonald — September 18

Bible connection

Read Ephesians 3

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. — Ephesians 3:20-21

All about George MacDonald (1824-1905)

In very truth, a wise imagination, which is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide that man or woman can have; for it is not the things we see the most clearly that influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation. We live by faith, and not by sight. — George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts

George MacDonald, who died on September 18, 1905, spent his life putting this quote into practice. He was a prolific writer, constantly trying to light up the imagination and the hearts of his readers, to open up their spiritual sight. He consistently created scenarios in his fiction in which God’s love and the New Creation could be encountered from a new angle. He asked “What if?” and followed it far beyond the conventional wisdom of his day. He banked on what could not be described and for that many consider him a mystic.

He loved exploring the character of God’s Fool. He created countless characters and circumstances that helped us to see ordinary things with new eyes. In many novels and stories he imagines a person who knows the foolishness of Christ so intuitively and completely that they just can’t fit into the norms of various British societies (often his home, Scotland).  They are misunderstood almost to the point of absurdity, which delivers many plot twists and much inspiration for those of us wishing to be invasive separatists in our own time and place. Examples of this fool include, Sir Gibbe in the book by the same name, who is really the quintessential example; also Donal Grant’s mother in Donal Grant; David Elginbrod, the title character of his first novel; Ruby in The Back of the North Wind; and Dawtie in The Elect Lady.

PhantastesThe spiritual adventurer is the main character of his most well known fantasies, Phantastes and Lilith.  There is a sequence at the end of Lilith which imagines heaven in such a beautiful, extended way it seems impossible. The protagonist wakes from his vision, reflects on his journey through the land of the dead to this beautiful heaven and wonders, “Was it a dream or a real journey and does that matter?”

MacDonald cites imagination as a source for faith. Believing our dreams to be given by God we can touch the truest nature of things that often lies beyond the perceptible.

In moments of doubt I cry,
“Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?”
“Whence then came thy dream?” answers Hope.
“Out of my dark self, into the light of my consciousness.”
“But whence first into thy dark self?” rejoins Hope.
“My brain was its mother, and the fever in my blood its father.”
“Say rather,” suggests Hope, “thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth.—But who made the violin? and who guided the bow across its strings? Say rather, again—who set the song birds each on its bough in the tree of life, and startled each in its order from its perch? Whence came the fantasia? and whence the life that danced thereto? Didst THOU say, in the dark of thy own unconscious self, ‘Let beauty be; let truth seem!’ and straightway beauty was, and truth but seemed?”
Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens.
When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfill it.

Princesses, witches, goblins and fairies abound in his fairy tales, for which he is probably most well known.

MacDonald says “For my part, I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.” His stories provide us with courage and loyalty for our own impossible tasks. The allegories between the fantastic world he paints and the spiritual world he perceives are thick and rich enough to walk on barefooted beyond the edge of your familiar spiritual paths. The tenderness of his language, though old fashioned and often even in the Scotch language (did you know there was a distinct Scotch dialect?) are difficult enough to be all consuming, intellectually and spiritually. They are worth the effort.

A less-known element of MacDonald’s life but one of his major occupations for 12 years was traveling with his family as itinerant performers of Dramatic Illustrations. His wife, Louisa saw these performances as her calling. During their first tour in 1877 he played Greatheart in their recasting of Bunyan’s famous Pilgrims Progress focused on the second part in which Christiana and her family follow her husband, Christian.  He wrote to her that Fall in the spirit of their acting, “I have once of twice been tempted to feel abandoned ——in this messy and struggling house——-But it is only a touch of the Valley of Humiliation—-of the Hill of difficulty rather. ” [Christian History]

More

All of MacDonald’s works are in the public domain and can be read for free at Project Gutenberg. Also, LibriVox has recorded dozens of his works in audio format, many of which you can find in your podcast app.

Here is an extensive fan page

Check out this great video that eloquently introduces his mysticism and his impact:

This entry emphasized MacDonald’s imaginative works but his Unspoken Sermons is among the best of the gold mine of really good theology he wrote in several collections of sermons. [Another collection with an introduction]

What do we do with this?

Put a novel on your reading list, even if MacDonald is not your cup of tea.

Where does your imagination find a home? What goodness can you dream? What did you actually dream last night while you were sleeping? All of these are sometimes neglected, or underappreciated sources of revelation. Practice trusting beyond the intellect.

Perhaps you can grasp at revelation with your own art⁠—language or otherwise. Share that feeling that is hard to describe. Attempt to illustrate God’s glory.

Lilias Trotter — August 28

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Bible connection

…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 5:20

All about Lilias Trotter (1853-1928)

Lilias Trotter has been recently reintroduced to our century through the documentary, Many Beautiful Things, which depicts her life and vision.

Trotter was born in England in 1853 to an upper-middle-class family. She was a gifted artist and was told she could be England’s greatest living artist, but in order to do so, she would have to give herself totally to her art. At the same time, Lilias had a growing faith which encouraged her not only in her personal spiritual growth, but also in service to others.

Trotter felt the call from God to go to North Africa and serve the Lord there. She thought she had to choose between pursuing her career as an artist and answering the call God had placed on her heart. She chose to follow God. As a single woman who was denied support from a mission agency because of health issues and who didn’t know the language or culture, going to Africa was a radical decision.

Here’s a peek at her life story. Lilias Trotter’s father died when she was twelve. She was devastated. Fortunately, the family’s financial circumstances were only comparatively diminished by his loss. When the family moved to 40 Montagu Square, their next-door neighbor was writer Anthony Trollope.

In her early twenties, Trotter and her mother were greatly influenced by the Higher Life Movement, and Lilias joined the volunteer force that counseled inquirers during the London campaign meetings of American evangelist Dwight L. Moody.

Trotter’s mother thought her self-taught daughter was an exceptional artistic talent. In 1876, she sent some of Lilias’ drawings to art critic and social philosopher John Ruskin while all three were staying in Venice—the latter while recovering from the early death of Rose La Touche, a young pupil to whom he had proposed marriage. Ruskin praised Trotter’s artistic skill, and she became an informal student and a good friend despite the disparity in their ages. Ruskin told Trotter that if she would devote herself to her art “she would be the greatest living painter and do things that would be Immortal.”

Although Trotter was drawn to the prospect of a life in art, in May 1879, she decided that she could not give herself “to painting and continue still to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness.’” Trotter became active in the Welbeck Street YWCA and served as secretary, “a voluntary position usually filled by women like herself from wealthy families.” She did a considerable amount of teaching and (unusually for respectable young women of the period) fearlessly canvassed the streets alone at night near Victoria Station for prostitutes who might be persuaded to train for an employable skill or to simply spend a night in a hostel. In 1884, suffering from physical and emotional exhaustion, she underwent surgery which, though “slight in nature…left her very ill.” Apparently her heart was permanently damaged in the process.

During the next few years, Trotter felt an impulse toward missionary work in non-Christian lands, even telling one of her friends that “whenever she prayed, the words ‘North Africa’ sounded in her soul as though a voice were calling her.” In May 1887, when a missionary to North Africa asked at a religious meeting if God was calling anyone to North Africa, Trotter rose and said, “He is calling me.” On her thirty-fourth birthday, she applied as a candidate to the North African Mission—which then rejected her because she was unable to pass its health examination. However, because she had the resources to be self-supporting, the Mission decided that she might “work in harmony” with the society without being an official member.

Nine months later, Trotter and two other financially independent women—including Blanche Haworth, who for more than thirty years played “Martha” to Trotter’s “Mary,” arrived in Algiers. Trotter recalled, “Three of us stood there, looking at our battle-field, none of us fit to pass a doctor for any society, not knowing a soul in the place, or a sentence of Arabic or a clue for beginning work on untouched ground; we only knew we had to come. Truly if God needed weakness, He had it!”

The women moved into the French quarter and diligently studied Arabic through French study materials and eventually through a professional tutor. They also learned how do domestic work, all of them previously having had their needs met by servants.

Later Trotter said that the early years were like “knocking our heads against stone walls,” but the women were indefatigable, trying one technique after another in an attempt to make inroads into the Algerian culture and all the while improving their Arabic. Eventually Trotter was able to gain access to the heavily secluded women by first befriending their children. The outreach to women, she believed, was a “great line of cleavage in the rock face of Islam.”

Converts were banished, beaten, even (Trotter believed) poisoned with “mind drugs” that were to be administered in food or drink and would produce “a paralysis of mind and will.” Many converts died, and Trotter “came to rejoice in their loss. ‘We were glad to let them go….One draws a breath of relief when they get safe home [to heaven].’”

Trotter’s health was so seriously impaired that she regularly spent extended periods of convalescence in Great Britain or on the continent. Adding to the difficulties of the English missionaries was French colonial suspicion of their activities. The local government bought a house across the street and for three years lured potential converts away with competing classes. Spies and gendarmes even followed the women into the southern desert and threatened fines and imprisonment for any who went near them or accepted their literature.

Lessons from a Hero: What Lilias Trotter Can Teach Us Today
An illustration from Trotter’s Parables of the Cross.

By 1906, with warming relations between England and France, Trotter experienced less governmental antagonism and more freedom for her missionary work. In 1907 five new workers joined the “Algiers Mission Band.” By 1920, there were thirty full-time workers and fifteen preaching stations. Trotter became the reluctant, but unchallenged, leader of the group. Trotter was sensitive to the contemporary difficulty of a woman exerting authority over a man, but as the staff included more men, she shrewdly refined “the organizational system to capitalize on their leadership.” Trotter never solicited funds because she said God’s wealth was boundless.

Trotter was also a pioneer in attempting to adapt Christian missionary endeavor to the Algerian culture. Referring to evangelistic meetings as a “European idea,” she proposed evangelizing with “a native cafe on a Christian footing,” readings of the Bible in a “rhythmical recitative” accompanied by a drum, a craft house that would teach little girls embroidery, and a Christian retreat for women to “take the place of the outings to shrines which are their only chance of fresh air.” Trotter designed cards that had biblical passages drawn by an Arab scribe because “no one but a native can give the subtle lines & curves of the writing as they should be.” The mission society even published a series of cards with a sentence from the Koran followed by verses from the Old Testament.

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While Lilias turned her back on fame, she did not turn her back on her art. In addition to art found in her journals, she used her art in the pamphlets she created to share the gospel with the people in Algeria. Trotter was a “prodigious writer,” filling a journal page nearly every day for forty years and illustrating the world around her with sketches and watercolors. From these efforts came several books of somewhat flowery and mystical prose, including Parables of the Cross and Parables of the Christ-life. Though she considered orthodox Islam “dry as the dune, hard as the gravel,” she responded to the “sincere hunger for things of the spirit” in the Sufi mystics and wrote for them The Way of the Sevenfold Secret as a devotional guide based on the seven “I am” statements found in the Gospel of John.

Confined to bed during her last years, Trotter devoted herself to prayer, writing, and sketching while continuing to manage the affairs of the Algiers Mission Band as best she could. As her body failed, her mind remained clear, even at the end asking prayer for the strength to dictate a letter to Amy Carmichael of India, with whom she had regular correspondence. As she was dying, while attendants sang a hymn, she exclaimed, “A chariot and six horses.” “You are seeing beautiful things,” someone asked. “Yes,” she said, “many, many beautiful things.”

More

The documentary: Many Beautiful Things

The original biography.

Parables of the Cross online

What do we do with this?

Trotter was inspired by the higher life of notable Christians. Perhaps you will be inspired by her.

Trotter loved those who were marginalized. She ministered among the prostitutes in London and lived among the poor of Algiers, ministering with women and children. One Algerian woman shared this about her: “No one loved us like she did.” Lilias writes in her journal, “I have been thinking lately what a work for God it is just loving people.” In our current cultural climate of hatred for the ‘other’, we have an opportunity to be people of love, not hate. To overcome evil with good. 

She had courage to take risks, following where God was leading her. Her choices were radical, defying concern from friends and societal expectations. She served the Lord alone.

She was willing to turn her back on everything she knew and what was familiar and comfortable to follow God. She was willing to leave behind comforts, friends, culture, language, and fame. This is no different for people today who choose to follow Christ. It costs them everything. 

She recognized that her gift as an artist was from God; it wasn’t her own doing. While we might think we are where we are today because of our own abilities, in reality it is God who decided which time period, family, country, and gifts were given to us. We are simply stewards of all that we have and are to use our gifts for God’s glory and to further His kingdom.

She engaged in cross-cultural ministry by listening and learning from the people. She respected their culture. She did not come to the people with a paternalistic mindset; rather, she came as a fellow traveler in life and as a learner. She met physical needs as well as spiritual needs. She was driven to share the love of Christ with whomever she met.

William Booth — August 20

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Bible connection

Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer. – 2 Timothy 2:3-4

All about William Booth (1878-1912)

William Booth, “The Prophet of the Poor,” was an English Methodist preacher who, along with his wife, Catherine, founded The Salvation Army and became its first General (1878–1912). The Christian Mission he started in 1865 later acquired a quasi-military structure and government and spread to many parts of the world where it is now known for being one of the largest distributors of humanitarian aid.

After Booth died, 150,000 people filed by his casket, and 40,000 people, including Queen Mary (yes that Queen Mary), attended his funeral. It was a remarkable end for a man born into poverty and who worked in the midst of poverty his whole life.

Booth was born near Nottingham, England. His parents were not religious and lower middle class at best, with little education. His father, “a Grab, a Get,” according to Booth definition, died when he was 14. By that time, William was helping to earn the family income as a pawnbroker’s apprentice.

Sometime during his fifteenth year, Booth was invited by a couple to attend a Wesleyan chapel, where he decided to follow Jesus. He wrote in his diary, “God shall have all there is of William Booth.” Then came another life-changing experience: he heard Charles Finney (see Aug. 16) speak in a Nottingham church. The crowd led Booth to see that “soul-saving results may be calculated upon when proper means are used for their accomplishment.” Booth went on to make a lifelong commitment to Finney’s methods.

Booth and a group of friends set out to evangelize the poor. They made nightly open-air speeches, after which they invited people to meetings in homes. Their use of lively songs, short exhortations calling for a decision for Christ, and visitation of the sick and their converts (whose names and addresses they recorded) anticipated methods Booth would write into Salvation Army Orders and Regulations 30 years later. When he was criticized for using secular tunes to attract crowds, he replied, “Secular music, do you say, belongs to the devil? Does it? Well, if it did I would plunder him for it, for he has no right to a single note of the whole seven.”

When his pastor proposed that he prepare for ordained ministry, Booth accepted. The disorganized church to which he was called repelled him. During this period, he met Catherine Mumford. Beginning with their second meeting on Good Friday 1852, they entered one of the most remarkable relationships in Christian history. They married in June of 1855.

By 1861 Booth decided “settled ministry” did not suit him, and he resigned. He and Catherine became itinerant evangelists in Wales, Cornwall, and the Midlands, Britain’s “burned-over” districts. The Booths preached in lantern-lit tents on unused burial grounds, in haylofts, in rooms behind a pigeon shop—anywhere to fulfill his famous words, “Go for souls and go for the worst!”

An invitation for Catherine to preach in London in 1865 led him to accept temporary leadership of a mission in East London. That area in the 1860’s was a crowded, squalid, maze of hovels, 290 people to the acre. It was said that every fifth house was a gin shop, and most of them had special steps to help even the tiniest children reach the counter. After seeing some of East London’s gin palaces, he told Catherine, “I seemed to hear a voice sounding in my ears, ‘Where can you go and find such heathen as these, and where is there so great a need for your labors?’”

Booth soon organized his own East London Christian Mission. In 1878, he energized it by giving it the name “Salvation Army,” with himself as the General. Military trappings were added over the next couple of years. The idea caught the imagination, and within ten years, the Salvation Army was established in the United States, Canada, and Europe as well.

Over the years, he and Catherine created an elaborate social relief system because he believed charity would speed the work of evangelism. In 1890, he published the best-selling In Darkest England and the Way Out to explain his social relief scheme.

At the time of his death, the Salvation Army had become a family-run Christian empire, with seven of the Booths’ eight children taking leadership positions. Today, following the pattern established by the first general, the Salvation Army marches on with over 25,000 officers in 91 countries.

Quotes:

“While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight—while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, where there remains one dark soul without the light of God—I’ll fight! I’ll fight to the very end!”

“The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.”

“God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.”

More

Get his story from the Salvation Army.

Hear William Booth in his own voice

Watch a dramatization of a vision if William Booth. [Try an artistic one with an English accent!]

Joan Kroc’s bequest of McDonald’s money to the Salvation Army changed things.

This video is a 1978 revision of materials discovered in 1953:

What do we do with this?

Booth’s passion caused some major relationship issues and division. At the same time it caused a lot of healing and drew people into relationship with Jesus who would never have gotten there through a more traditional church. Does anything move you, in particular these days? Are you movable? Booth would ask you, “What are you waiting for? Jesus did not hesitate to rescue you.”

Umeko Tsuda — August 16

Bible Connection

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

He also told them this parable: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. — Luke 6:38-40 NIV

All about Umeko Tsuda (1864-1929)

Umeko Tsuda believed all women in Japan should have equal access to higher education and that only education could help improve women’s status in the country.

Tsuda Umeko was a Japanese educator who founded Tsuda University. She was the daughter of Tsuda Sen, an agricultural scientist. At the age of 7, she became Japan’s first female exchange student, traveling to the U.S. on the same ship as the Iwakura Mission, the government’s exploration tour of Western culture.

Tsuda was born in 1864 in Edo, present-day Tokyo. Four years later, the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate gave way to the Meiji period (1868–1912), when a new, young Japan sought to modernize its political, social, economic, cultural, and religious systems. In this era, Christian women came to play an important role in Japanese society.

While in the United States, Tsuda lived with Charles Lanman, the secretary of the Japanese legation, and his wife, Adeline, both of whom were committed Episcopalians. Inspired by their faith, Tsuda also embraced Christianity and was baptized.

When she turned 18, Tsuda returned to Japan and worked as a children’s tutor there. She soon returned to the United States to pursue an education at Bryn Mawr College, in a Philadelphia suburb, majoring in biology and education. During her second stay stateside, Tsuda became convinced that the only way to improve women’s status in Japan was to give them the same opportunity to enter higher education as men.

“Oh, women have the hardest part of life to bear in more ways than one. … Poor, poor women, how I long to do something to better your position!” she wrote in a letter to Adeline Lanman.

Existing schools for Japanese girls and women aimed only to educate them to be submissive wives, sisters, and daughters at home, whereas education for boys and men was far more comprehensive. Tsuda soon established the American Scholarship for Japanese Women to provide financial aid to women studying in the United States who would return to Japan to lead in developing women’s education. Some of them became influential political and educational leaders in Japan during and after the Meiji period.

Such inequality in educational opportunities was also why she founded Joshi Eigaku Juku, the Women’s Institute for English Studies, in 1900. The Tokyo-based school afforded women equal opportunities to pursue higher education in the liberal arts. After World War II, the Women’s Institute became Tsuda University, which is now one of the most prestigious institutes of higher education for women in Japan. Tsuda also became the first president of the Japanese branch of the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in 1905.

For all her accomplishments, Tsuda was not immune to discouragement:

“There is a great work to be done, but the laborers are indeed few. God bless the cause, and bless and keep us all. I wonder if I can ever do any good. … It is tiresome work, and I am not used to it all yet, and I don’t know how to work best for the Master’s cause,” she confessed in another letter to Adeline.

Tsuda’s legacy remains strong today. She was ranked one of the top 20 most prominent Japanese women in a 2019 survey by national magazine Tokyo Weekender, and her face will appear on the ¥5,000 bill starting in 2024.

As Tsuda wrote, “Somehow God seems to be opening the future [in] some way, and he has given me such a strange, wonderful, uncommon-place life, thus far, that it seems as if the future could not be merely useless.”

More

Bio from Japan Society of Boston  [link]

What do we do with this?

Can you imagine who you would be if your family had sent you to a new country when you were seven years old?

Tsuda might have married an American and settled into a nice, wealthy life in the Philadelphia suburbs. Instead, she went back to Japan and threw herself against the limits of her traditional society. She broke down many barriers. No doubt her faith encouraged her, like Jesus, to give what she had been given for the lives of others.

Charles Finney — August 16

Bible connection

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.

All about Charles Finney (1792-1875)

One time someone brought a shotgun to one of Charles Finney’s revival meetings, intending to kill him. May you cause that kind of trouble as you defy the powers!

Some people might not think Finney fits into the “cloud of witnesses” that make up our respected spiritual ancestors. He was the “father of modern revivalism.” He was the forerunner of Billy Graham in the sense that he popularized the “altar call” and other tactics many find a bit too coercive or manipulative. But his demands for living a truly Christian life, his determination to get something going, and his presumption that people could live up to their radical calling, is right up our alley. He was also among the first to have women and African Americans participating in his meetings as equals with white men. One story is that the altar call’s original purpose was to come forward to sign petitions to abolish slavery.

The zenith of Finney’s evangelistic career was in the 1830′s during the Second Great Awakening. In Rochester, New York, he preached 98 sermons that caused a ruckus.  Shopkeepers closed their businesses, posting notices urging people to attend Finney’s meetings. Reportedly, the population of the town increased by two-thirds during the revival, and crime dropped by two-thirds over the same period. In 1900 church historian Susan Hayes Ward wrote “The hearer at the time felt that Mr. Finney was talking to him personally rather than preaching before an audience…He did not speak about sinners in the abstract, but he talked to the individual sinners before him.”

In 1832 he began an almost continuous revival in New York City as minister of the Second Free Presbyterian Church, organized especially for him. In the middle of his installation service he became ill with cholera. Others who caught the disease that day died. Finney almost died, as well, and it was months before he could take up his full duties.

From its inception the church embraced Finney’s passionate anti-slavery stance.  Black worshipers were welcomed (albeit in a separated section) –- a policy which, coupled with Finney’s outspoken abolitionist sermons, did not sit well with many outsiders and newspapers.  During the riots of 1833, a mob broke into the church and attacked black members.  On July 8 the Courier and Enquirer spat “Another of those disgraceful negro-outrages &c., occurred last night at that common focus of pollution, Chatham Street Chapel” (Susan Hayes Ward).

In 1834 after further anti-abolitionist riots, Finney moved into the huge Broadway Tabernacle his followers built for him. He stayed there for only a year, leaving to pastor Oberlin Congregational Church in Ohio, and to teach theology at Oberlin College. In 1851, he was appointed president of the college, which gave him a new forum to advocate the social reforms he championed, especially the abolition of slavery. Oberlin College, under his leadership, was the first college to admit woman and black/brown people to be educated with white men.

Finney married evangelism to social reform, New Testament evangelism with Old Testament prophecy, piety with radicalism, and conversion with action. He got people talking and acting. He was not content with them simply receiving or consuming. His commitment to Jesus meant taking care of the poor and the needy, and his deep commitment to social reform was seen in the radicalism of Oberlin College and in his major push to end slavery. Those he inspired continued to take risks in order to relate to each other and change the world.

Finney quotes:

Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other’s hearts in prayer.

No government is lawful or innocent that does not recognize the moral law as the only universal law, and God as the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge, to whom nations in their national capacity, as well as individuals, are amenable.

When there are dissensions, and jealousies, and evil speakings among professors of religion, then there is great need of a revival. These things show that Christians have got far from God, and it is time to think earnestly of a revival.

More

Oberlin College remembers Finney.

Questioning Finney’s legacy: Michael Horton, Christian History, PBS.

What do we do with this?

Don’t get yourself shot unless you have to, but how should you stir up enough trouble being a Christian that you arouse opposition? Ever think of doing that? Ever make a plan?

Pray for revival to break out. It would be great if people shut their business down (or turned off the TV) to come meet with Jesus followers and experience the presence of God!