Feb. 4, 1906: Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is born in Breslau, Germany. As one of the leaders of Germany’s Confessing Church, he opposed the Nazis. Bonhoeffer was arrested and eventually hanged — just days before Allied troops liberated the concentration camp where he was held. His books include The Cost of Discipleship. Feb. [...]
Archive for the ‘Christian/Methodist History’ Category
The Communion of Saints: February in Christian history
Posted in Christian/Methodist History on February 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Should we turn control of UMC over to the Council of Bishops?
Posted in Bishops, Book of Discipline, Christian/Methodist History, Church Renewal, General Conference, North Georgia Conference, United Methodist Church, tagged UMC, United Methodist Church on January 19, 2012 | Comments Off
The following commentary is by Joe M. Whittemore, a member of the United Methodist Church’s Connectional Table. Mr. Whittemore, a delegate to the 2012 UM General Conference, has chaired Committee on Episcopacy for the Southeastern Jurisdiction and has served as the Lay Leader of North Georgia Annual Conference. This opinion piece was originally published in a [...]
United Methodists are well-liked, but to what end?
Posted in Christian/Methodist History, Church Growth, Evangelism, Holiness, United Methodist Church, tagged UMC, United Methodist Church on January 11, 2012 | Comments Off
The following commentary is by Riley B. Case, associate executive director of the Confessing Movement Within the United Methodist Church. Dr. Case served for many years as a pastor and district superintendent in the UMC’s North Indiana Conference (now the Indiana Conference). He is the author of Evangelical and Methodist: A Popular History (Abingdon Press) [...]
Happy Birthday to The Mission Society
Posted in Christian/Methodist History, Evangelism, Missions, United Methodist Church on January 6, 2012 | Comments Off
The Mission Society (formerly The Mission Society for United Methodists) is celebrating its 28th birthday today. Society president Dick McClain recounts the founding: A small gathering of people met together in an airport hotel in St. Louis. Like any other meeting, this one had potential — potential to be hardly remembered just a few months [...]
The Communion of Saints: January in Christian history
Posted in Christian/Methodist History, tagged UMC, United Methodist Church on January 3, 2012 | Comments Off
Jan. 1, 1622: The Roman Catholic church adopts January 1 as the beginning of the year, rather than March 25. Jan. 3, 1785: The Methodist “Christmas Conference” concludes at Baltimore, Md., having created the Methodist Episcopal Church in America (now the United Methodist Church). Francis Asbury (pictured kneeling) and Thomas Coke were elected as the [...]
A word from Mr. Wesley: Power over sin
Posted in Christian/Methodist History, Doctrine, Holiness, Sermons on July 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »
This is the latest in a monthly series that presents excerpts from the writings of John Wesley, co-founder (with his brother Charles) of the Methodist movement. The following is condensed from “The Marks of the New Birth,” Sermon 18 among Mr. Wesley’s standard sermons. For easier reading, some of the wording in this condensation has [...]
A word from Mr. Wesley: ‘You must be born again’
Posted in Christian/Methodist History, Doctrine, Sermons on June 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
This is the latest in a monthly series that presents excerpts from the writings of John Wesley, co-founder (with his brother Charles) of the Methodist movement. The following is condensed from “The New Birth,” Sermon 45 among Mr. Wesley’s standard sermons. For easier reading, some of the wording in this condensation has been slightly updated, [...]
Podcast — George Hunter: Can the once-great Methodist movement become a movement again?
Posted in Christian/Methodist History, Church Renewal, Doctrine, Evangelism, Politics, United Methodist Church, tagged Audio, UMC, United Methodist Church on May 26, 2011 | 5 Comments »
On this edition of the MethodistThinker Mini-Podcast, Dr. George Hunter of Asbury Seminary details how Methodism, at least in its institutional United Methodist form, has become what it was once a reaction against. In his remarks, recorded earlier this year at United Methodist Congress on Evangelism, Dr. Hunter asks if “a once great movement” — [...]
