Crumbs from the Table

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Die Erweckung (revival of evangelical Christianity in Germany in the 1800s)

Die Erweckung (literally, "the Revival") is a name for the revival of evangelical Christianity in Germany in the 1800s. It has overlap with the Reveil in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, and also with the second Evangelical Revival in Britain and the Second Great Awakening in America. The Pietist movement, which began during the Baroque era around 1675 under the leadership of Philip Spener, had waned by the 1730s. By this time, Halle university, originally founded by Pietists and a flagship of the movement, became a centre for rationalism under academics such as Christian Wolff (1679–1754). In the interim, Pietism was kept alive in part by a network of small groups (the Diaspora) which followed the spirituality of the Moravian Christians, a movement similar to Pietism but with its own church structures under the leadership of Von Zinzendorf. There was also the Basle-based Christentumsgesellschaft founded by Urlsperger in 1780, a society founded to counter the ratio...

What difference did Christianity make?

The future Emperor Constantine embraced the Christian faith in 312. From that time (or shortly before), Christianity went from being a persecuted minority religion to enjoy "most favour religion" status. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I went as far as to outlaw all but "catholic Christianity". So what impact did Christianity have on society in the Roman Empire, particularly during the first century of its ascendancy 312-410? In an article dating back to 1986, MacMullen asked this very question. He focused on five areas where Christianity could have had an impact: slavery, sex, the theatre and gladiatorial games, cruel judicial punishments and corruption. MacMullen's conclusion was, sadly, that Christianity had little or no impact on these key areas during the period 312-410, and any improvements during the early Christian period had already begun beforehand. Others have taken a more favourable view. One area omitted by MacMullen in his analysis, but described by P...

Christianity in Croatia

The Croatian people originally lived in the Carpathian region (W. Ukraine) and in the early 600s migrated to their present homeland in the Balkans on the eastern coast of the Adriatic sea. They were evangelised and baptised by priests from Rome in the 600s, and therefore became part of the Latin-speaking western Catholic church centred in Rome (as opposed to the eastern Orthodox church with its headquarters at Constantinople). The initial "conversion" of the Croats probably focused on the elite, and it was only during the course of later phases of Christianisation that the Croats were fully Christianised. Reorganisation of church jurisdictions under the Franks brought the Croatian church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchal see of Aquileia. Croatia became a kingdom in 925 and fought wars with Bulgaria. Croatia reached its height under king Petar Kresimir IV (1058-1074/5). In the 1102, Croatia and Hungary were ruled by the Hungarian king Coloman. Croatia was invaded by t...

Christianity in Cambodia

Cambodia is a land-locked country in south east Asia which borders Vietnam to the East and Thailand to the West. The traditional form of religion is the Theravada branch of Buddhism. The first recorded Christian missionary contact with Cambodia was in 1555/6 by a Portuguese Roman Catholic missionary and member of the Dominican Order called Gas par Da Cruz. He is said to have only baptised one convert who died shortly afterwards. Later, Cambodia was under French colonial rule (1863 to 1953), but the Christian church made little impact. Those who were Catholic believers were mainly of Vietnamese heritage. The first Protestant missionary contact came in 1923 with missionaries from the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The New Testament and later the whole Bible were translated by 1954. (The Cambodian language belongs to the Austro-Asiatic language family, the same language family as Vietnamese.) The evangelical church saw some growth in the period ...

Puritans in Bury in the 1600s

During the 1600s, increasing numbers of Christians were disaffected with the current state of the Church of England and sought its reform. This overlapped with parliament's struggle with the Stuart Kings, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649, and the brief period of the Commonwealth, when Britain was ruled as a republic led by Oliver Cromwell, and briefly his son Richard. The monarchy was restored in 1660. Those who sought reform of the Church of England in the 1600s were known as Puritans. Some Puritans wanted the national church to be reorganised along Reformed/Presbyterian lines, and this is what more or less what happened during the Commonwealth period. Others, sometimes known as "Separatists", rejected the whole idea of a national church, and organised independent churches - what would later be known as the congregational churches. In the Lancashire town of Bury, in 1645, the incumbent parish vicar Travers, also a Puritan, was removed for suspecte...

The origin and spread of the early Baptist churches in England and elsewhere

The origins of Baptist churches go back to the 1600s. The very first Baptist church began in 1609 and was for English speaking Christians based in the Netherlands, relocating to London in 1611 (Thomas Helwys). These churches were known as "General Baptists" and followed the theology of Arminius and the Anabaptists. A second genesis of Baptist churches was in London in about 1638 (John Spilsbury). These churches followed the Reformed Theology of John Calvin and the Synod of Dordt. In 1644, the First London Baptist Confession was signed by seven Baptist churches in the capital. Baptist churches later spread from London outwards. During the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651), there were Baptist Christians in the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell. In 1648 the New Model Army campaigned in Lancashire during the Second Civil War. From about 1649/50, John Wigan (d. 1665) was pastor of a Baptist church meeting in Chetham's hospital which is now part Chet...