Category: Past

Today is the 173^rd anniversary of The Great Disappointment, the day in 1844 when New York farmer William Miller had confidently predicted that Jesus would return. His original prediction had been for some time in the year 21 March 1843 to 21 March 1844, but nothing had happened by 21 March 1844, so Miller had to confess his chronological error and accept a “tarrying time” of seven months and ten days proposed by one of his followers based on Hab 2:3 and Lev 25:9, so 22 October 1844 became the new date.

Miller’s calculations were based on the prophecy of Daniel 8:14, “It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated,” when read in conjunction with James Ussher’s calculation that the prophecy was made in 457 BC. By the way, James Ussher was the 17^th Century scholar who calculated that the world was created on this day, 22 October, in the year 4004 BC, at 9am Greenwich Mean Time. So, if you’re prepared to swallow some curious presuppositions, happy 6010^th birthday, world!

Most of Miller’s followers were disillusioned by the failure of his predictions, but one small group, led by James White and Ellen Gould White, refused to believe that the predictions had been wrong. They believed that Christ did in fact purge the sanctuary on 22 October 1844, but the sanctuary was in heaven rather than on earth. This group became known as the Seventh Day Adventist Church. That’s something for you to think about when next you munch on your Seventh-Day-Adventist-produced Weet-Bix.

On this day 75 years ago, a small group of people gathered in Liverpool, England, to send a parlour maid, Gladys Aylward, off to China as a missionary. Some years before, she had vowed to give her life to the service of Jesus, to be used in whatever way he saw fit. She had applied for a probationary position with the China Inland Mission, but was rejected for service.

Determined to follow God’s calling, she was accepted as an assistant to a 73-year-old missionary to China, Mrs Jeannie Lawson. She was unable to afford the ship fare, so she travelled by the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, then sailed to Japan and from Japan to Tietsin, then travelled by train, bus and mule to Yangchen in Shansi, south of Beijing, where she and Mrs Lawton ran an inn.

Gladys soon learnt to speak Chinese, and after the death of Mrs Lawson she was appointed by the government as a foot inspector, travelling throughout the district to enforce the new law against footbinding. She started looking after an increasing number of orphans, and in the late 1930s as China was being invaded by the Japanese, she led 100 orphans on a gruelling 27-day trek across the mountains to safety. She returned to England after the second world war, then moved to Taiwan in 1958 to run another orphanage until her death in 1970.

Because of the dull and uninspiring worship often encountered in churches today, many people have experimented with different ways of reconnecting with worship habits of the early Christian church. If we could rediscover meaningful ways of worship from the golden age of Christianity, our relationships with God would be so much more meaningful, and our Christian witness so much more compelling, many people believe.

The hundred-year-old hymns that used to be sung in church were replaced by the Christian choruses of the seventies, and these were replaced by the songs of the eighties, then the nineties. New songs were used up until they were stale, and then they were replaced by newer songs. Somehow “new” just became more of the same; hence the search for some missing ingredient from the past. Can we find authentic worship in Gregorian chants or icons or candles?

According to Paul’s letter to the Romans, true worship is not about singing or ceremonial styles at all. “I encourage you, friends, by God’s mercy, to give your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual worship.” Worship is something that flows out of a life lived for God, not out of the right musical style or the correct Sunday morning atmosphere.

On this day 19 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first and last president of the Soviet Union. He had become the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, after the death of Konstantin Chernenko, and soon thereafter announced that the Soviet economy was stalled and needed reform. The reforms came to be known as “glasnost” (liberalisation, opening up) and “perestroika” (reconstruction).

The Soviet Union made many steps forward under Gorbachev with regard to freedom, democracy and international relations. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, he was better at diagnosing the economic malaise than prescribing a cure for it. His government’s economic policies were unsuccessful and led to severe food shortages and substantial deficits.

The member states of the Soviet Union started agitating for independence, while at the same time conservatives were manoeuvring for the removal of Gorbachev. In the end, on 17 December 1991, Gorbachev was forced to agree to dissolve the Soviet Union. He resigned on Christmas Day, and Boris Yeltsin moved into his old office on 27 December 1991.

The seeds of decay in Liberia had been sown well before 1980. President William Tolbert’s government was weak, corrupt and unpopular. However, things went from bad to worse when Samuel Doe became President after a military coup. Doe quickly discovered that all that was required to maintain power was to take a pro-American stance. This kept the CIA happy, and they helped to keep him in power.

Doe’s ten years of presidency were marked by brutality, genocide, corruption, kleptocracy, rigged elections and just about every form of bad government. Economic activity – particularly international trade – fell away, but the money which was lost as a result of Doe’s mismanagement was replaced by US foreign aid. The US aid enabled Doe’s cronies to continue merrily on their paths of embezzlement while the rest of the country went to ruin.

This leads to a significant moral question: to what extent are donor countries morally culpable for financial mismanagement and human rights violations committed by the government of a country to which they give foreign aid? This is a major dilemma, because of the high correlation between countries with bad governments and countries which are foreign aid recipients.

Many well-known composers have composed music with Christian titles or themes, but it is often hard to discern whether the work springs from a deeply-rooted personal faith or a mere compliance with the cultural expectations of the times. One famous composer who was undoubtedly a seriously committed Christian was Johann Sebastian Bach.

Sometimes referred to as the “Fifth Evangelist”, Bach was a theologian as well as a musician. His compositions were an expression of his faith in a musical form. Many were designed to preach the gospel in a form which was readily understandable to the listeners.

Whilst some people consider Bach to be the greatest composer in the history of western music, his most enduring music was written while he was employed as a church organist at Leipzig, where the people did not appreciate his music, considering it to be old-fashioned. 202 of the cantatas which he wrote in this setting have survived. It was not until 1829, almost 80 years after his death, that the quality of Bach’s work became widely recognised.

James Hudson Taylor committed himself to going to China as a missionary at the age of 17. Less than four years later, and before completing his medical studies, he set out for China, arriving in Shanghai in 1854, in the midst of a civil war. At first he encountered a poor reception for his preaching efforts, but things improved when he started wearing the same style of clothing as that worn by the Chinese. Taylor suffered a number of hardships, including losing all his medical supplies in a fire and being robbed of nearly everything he had. In 1858 he married the daughter of a London Missionary Society missionary, and in 1860 he returned to England on furlough.

While in England, Taylor worked on a translation of the New Testament into the Ningbo dialect and completed his medical studies. He travelled extensively around Britain promoting the needs of China. In 1865 he founded the China Inland Mission (now known as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship), and within one year 24 missionaries had been accepted for service. Like the London Missionary Society, the China Inland Mission was non-denominational. Taylor then returned to China is 1866 with the largest party of missionaries ever sent to China, all dressed in Chinese clothing, to the amusement of other foreigners in Shanghai.

Taylor served in China for 51 years. The work of the China Inland Mission was very extensive over that period of time, with the Mission bringing over 800 missionaries to China, 125 schools being founded, and 18,000 Chinese people becoming Christians before Taylor’s death at the age of 73.

William Ringeltaube was sent as a missionary to India by the London Missionary Society. He was unsure of where he should go and what he should do until he met an Indian who had recently become a Christian, and who invited him to Travancore. After learning to speak Tamil and Hindi, Ringeltaube travelled from village to village in Travancore, dressed in Indian clothes. He was rejected by the upper castes, but accepted by the lower castes, particularly when he used his own money to help alleviate the effects of famine.

In each village Ringeltaube appointed leaders, and the number of converts grew steadily. In 1810 he baptised 200, in 1811 400 and in 1812 nearly 600. However, in 1813 he wrote: “I how have about 600 Christians… About three or four of them may have a longing for their salvation. The rest have come from all kinds of motives…”

He became ill in 1815 and appointed an Indian convert as his successor. He subsequently disappeared, presumed killed, and after his death the number of Christians in Travancore began to increase rapidly. A school founded by Ringeltaube is still active today, under the name Scott Christian College.

There is something embarrassing about observing someone who claims not to be a Christian, but who follows certain parts of the teachings of Jesus far more seriously than typical people who do claim to be Christians. Someone who turns the other cheek when Christians are calling for revenge. Someone who forgives when Christians are calling for punishment. Someone who shows love for his enemies when Christians are fighting theirs.

The problem is that very few Christians actually follow Jesus. Mohandas Gandhi, on the other hand, a Hindu, was greatly influenced by Jesus. Ironically, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Hindu scripture which Gandhi regarded as sacred, is a philosophical justification of the use of force, yet Gandhi’s whole message in life was based around the need to avoid violence of any kind while standing up for what is right.

The teachings of Jesus about forgiveness and love are usually regarded as impractical when it comes to real-world issues such as national security and control of terrorism; however, Gandhi’s life demonstrates that Jesus’s principles can be embodied with considerable effect – one man was able to inspire the second-largest nation on earth to engage in non-violent resistance, successfully achieving the goal of independence.

In the early days of modern missions, persistence was an essential quality for missionaries, together with a strong sense of God’s calling. Johannes Van der Kemp was a Dutch doctor whose written application to the London Missionary Society was turned down because he was too old. Rather than being discouraged by this, he travelled to London to present himself and argue his case.

Van der Kemp was accepted for Africa, and he left in 1799. Shortly after arrival in South Africa, he built a mission house and opened a reading and writing school for slaves, in the face of stiff opposition from settlers. In 1801 the settlers burned the mission to the ground and Van der Kemp was pursued by gunmen hired to kill him.

Rather than giving in to the intimidation, Van der Kemp simply moved to a different location and started a new mission for the Khoi (mostly ex-slaves), and he continued to experience persecution from settlers and raids by bandits. By 1804 he had baptised 36 people. The rest of his life was spent in a struggle for the rights of the indigenous people, and he died in Cape Town in 1811.