November 5, 1414: The Council of Constance opens to end the Great Schism. It deposed all three rival popes, but it also executed Bohemian reformers John Huss (Jan Hus) and Jerome of Prague, and anathematized the teachings of John Wycliffe.
November 6, 1935: American revivalist Billy Sunday (right), a professional baseball player who became one of America’s most famous evangelists, dies at age 73. More than 100 million people heard him speak at his evangelistic crusades.
November 7, 1918: Evangelist William (“Billy”) Franklin Graham, Jr., is born in Charlotte, North Carolina
November 12, 1660: John Bunyan is arrested for unlicensed preaching and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, he writes Pilgrim’s Progress, which continues to be the second-bestselling book of all time (after the Bible).
November 15, 1917: Oswald Chambers (left) dies while serving as chaplain to British troops in Egypt during World War I. His widow, Gertrude, spends the rest of her life compiling his notes, lectures, and sermons into books, including the best-selling, My Utmost for His Highest.
November 18, 1874: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union is founded in Cleveland, Ohio. Claiming the power of the Holy Spirit, Protestant members would march into saloons and demand they be closed.
The WCTU was the largest temperance organization and the largest women’s organization in the U.S. before 1900.
November 21, 1964: The third session of Vatican II closes with the approval of three documents. One of these, the “Decree on Ecumenism,” declared both Catholics and Protestants to blame for past divisions and called for dialogue, not derision, in the future.
November 22, 1873: The French ship, Ville du Havre, sinks in the north Atlantic, killing all four daughters of Chicago lawyer Horatio G. Spafford. His wife survived, and Spafford immediately books passage to join her in England.
While passing over the spot where his daughters died, he begins writing what would become the famous hymn, It is Well with My Soul.
November 22, 1963: British scholar, C.S. Lewis (right), author of Mere Christianity, dies (on the same day that an assassin kills Pres. John F. Kennedy).
November 24, 1771: Methodist Francis Asbury begins preaching in America. For the next 45 years, he was the main figure in establishing the Methodist church here.
November 28, 1863: The first annual national Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the midst of the Civil War. Several weeks earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as a national day of thanks.
November 30, 1725: Martin Boehm (left) is born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He became a Mennonite bishop, but later was excluded from the Mennonite communion because of his “experimental” (i.e. emotional and evangelistic) preaching, as well as his association with persons of other sects.
Boehm joined with Philip W. Otterbein and others to form the United Brethren in Christ, a predecessor denomination to the United Methodist Church.
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Adapted with permission from ChristianHistory.net.
