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The Center for Christian History, Clinton, MS (2026)

09/19/2026

On September 19, 1971, William Foxwell Albright, one of the most influential biblical archaeologists of the twentieth century, died in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of eighty. During a career spanning more than half a century, Albright helped transform the study of the ancient Near East and became particularly famous for using archaeological evidence to investigate the historical world described in the Bible.

Albright was born on May 24, 1891, in Coquimbo, Chile, where his American parents, Wilbur and Zephine Albright, were Methodist missionaries. Christianity and Methodism were therefore part of his life from childhood. So too was an unusual fascination with the ancient world. While still a boy, Albright became interested in the history of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the peoples of the Bible. That childhood interest eventually developed into a remarkably broad scholarly career encompassing archaeology, ancient languages, biblical studies, pottery, inscriptions, and the history of the ancient Near East.

After studying classics at Upper Iowa University, Albright entered Johns Hopkins University, where he received his doctorate in 1916. He later traveled to the Middle East and became associated with the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, serving for years as its director. In 1929, he returned to Johns Hopkins as a professor of Semitic languages and became one of the most influential teachers of biblical and Near Eastern studies in the United States.

Albright conducted or participated in archaeological work at numerous sites connected with the ancient biblical world. He excavated at Tell el-Ful, which he identified with biblical Gibeah, associated with King Saul, and worked at Bethel and Petra. His most important excavation, however, was at Tell Beit Mirsim, a site he believed to be biblical Debir. There he helped refine the use of pottery to establish chronological sequences for archaeological sites. This type of ceramic analysis became an important tool for archaeologists attempting to determine when different levels of an ancient settlement had been occupied.

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09/18/2026

When Chileans celebrated their national independence on September 18, 1975, the country’s traditional Te Deum was no longer the only major Christian service associated with the national celebration. Just four days earlier, on September 14, Chile’s rapidly growing evangelical community had held the country’s first Evangelical Te Deum, formally known as the Servicio de Acción de Gracias or Service of Thanksgiving. The new ceremony connected Chile’s September independence observances with one of the most significant developments in twentieth-century Latin American Christianity: the extraordinary growth of Pentecostalism.

Pentecostalism in Chile had roots reaching back more than six decades. Its emergence is usually traced to a revival that began within the Methodist Episcopal Church in Valparaíso in 1909. One of its principal leaders was Willis Collins Hoover, an American Methodist missionary who had become interested in reports of Pentecostal revival and teachings about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Prayer meetings and extended worship services increasingly emphasized experiences that participants interpreted as manifestations of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in tongues, prophecy, visions, and healing.

The revival soon produced tension within the Methodist Episcopal Church. Hoover and many of his followers eventually separated from the denomination, and in 1910 the movement that became the Methodist Pentecostal Church of Chile began developing independently. Chilean Pentecostalism subsequently grew through local congregations, lay participation, street preaching, testimony, prayer meetings, and evangelistic services.

Over the following decades, Pentecostal Christianity became an increasingly visible part of Chilean society. The movement experienced denominational divisions, but those divisions did not prevent its continued expansion. Pentecostal churches became particularly influential among working-class Chileans and eventually constituted the largest segment of the country's Protestant population.
Their growth occurred alongside significant changes in Chile’s religious establishment. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church had occupied a privileged position in Chilean public life. The Constitution of 1925, however, formally separated church and state and provided greater legal space for religious minorities.

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09/17/2026

Long before Presbyterianism became one of the major Protestant traditions in the United States, its congregations in the American colonies were scattered across a large territory and often separated by considerable distances. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, Presbyterian ministers had begun creating a system of church government that connected these congregations. An important step in that process occurred on September 17, 1717, when the first Presbyterian synod in the American colonies met in Philadelphia.

Presbyterianism grew out of the Reformed tradition of the Protestant Reformation and was especially associated with Scotland, where the influence of John Knox helped establish a Presbyterian form of church government. Unlike churches governed primarily by bishops, Presbyterian churches placed authority in representative bodies composed of ministers and elders. Local congregations were governed by sessions, while groups of churches and ministers were organized into presbyteries. As the church expanded, presbyteries could in turn be joined together under a larger governing body called a synod.

Presbyterians began appearing in the English colonies during the seventeenth century. Some came from Scotland and Ireland, while others emerged from the broader English Puritan and New England Congregationalist world. The boundaries between Presbyterians and Congregationalists were not always as sharply defined in colonial America as they later became. Philadelphia, with its religious diversity and growing population, became one of the principal centers of the emerging Presbyterian movement.

One of the most important figures in organizing early American Presbyterianism was Francis Makemie, an Irish-born minister who arrived in the colonies during the 1680s. Makemie traveled widely, preaching and helping establish congregations from the Chesapeake region northward. His efforts helped connect ministers and churches that otherwise operated largely independently.

Around 1706, seven ministers organized the first presbytery in the American colonies. Although it eventually became known as the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the early records often simply called it “the Presbytery.” Among its members were Makemie and Jedediah Andrews, pastor of Philadelphia’s Presbyterian congregation.

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09/16/2026

Few names have become as closely associated with religious persecution as Tomás de Torquemada, the Dominican friar who became the first Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition. Torquemada died at Ávila on September 16, 1498, after helping construct an institution that would continue operating in various forms for more than three centuries.

The Spanish Inquisition emerged from the complicated religious world of late medieval Spain. For centuries, the Iberian Peninsula had contained substantial communities of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, violence and increasing pressure against Jewish communities led many Jews to accept baptism. These converts and their descendants became known as conversos, or “New Christians.”

Conversion did not necessarily end hostility toward them. Some Christians suspected that conversos continued practicing Judaism privately while outwardly professing Christianity. The accuracy of these accusations varied considerably, and modern historians emphasize that conversos cannot be treated as a single religious group. Some became committed Christians; others retained elements of Jewish practice or identity; still others occupied complicated positions between the two.

Against this background, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile sought authorization from Pope Sixtus IV for an inquisition under royal control. In 1478, the pope permitted the monarchs to appoint inquisitors. The first tribunals began operating shortly afterward, initially concentrating heavily upon conversos suspected of “Judaizing.”

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09/15/2026

On September 15, 1648, the English Parliament ordered the Westminster Assembly’s catechisms printed for public use. Behind that seemingly ordinary act of publication stood years of theological debate, political maneuvering, and civil war. The Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms would ultimately have a far greater influence outside the Church of England than the political circumstances surrounding their creation might have suggested.

Catechisms were already an important part of Christian instruction long before Westminster. The word “catechesis” refers broadly to religious instruction, and question-and-answer teaching became particularly prominent during the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther’s catechisms helped establish the format as an effective way of teaching doctrine to families and children. Other Protestants developed their own catechisms, while Roman Catholics also placed increased emphasis on catechetical instruction during the Catholic Reformation.

The Westminster catechisms emerged from a much more complicated setting. Religious disagreements within the Church of England had persisted since the reign of Elizabeth I. Some Protestants believed the English Reformation had not gone far enough and wanted the church brought more closely into line with Reformed churches on the European continent and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Those tensions intensified under Charles I. His attempts to impose English patterns of worship and episcopal government on Scotland contributed to armed resistance. Charles needed Parliament to provide money, but Parliament had its own grievances against the king, including disputes over religion. By 1642, England had descended into civil war.

Religion and politics were inseparable from the conflict. Parliament wanted not only to defeat the king but also to reform the Church of England. In 1643 it summoned an assembly of ministers and theologians to Westminster. The Westminster Assembly included roughly 120 English ministers along with members of Parliament. Scottish commissioners later participated extensively in its deliberations, although they were not voting members.

The Assembly originally attempted to revise the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles. Its responsibilities soon expanded. It worked on church government, worship, a confession of faith, and eventually catechisms that could provide systematic instruction in Reformed theology.

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09/14/2026

Few works of Christian music are as immediately recognizable as George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. Its famous “Hallelujah” chorus has been performed in churches, concert halls, royal celebrations, and community productions for generations. Yet the chorus is only one part of a much larger work constructed almost entirely from Scripture. On September 14, 1741, Handel completed the score after an extraordinary period of composition lasting only twenty-four days.
George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, in present-day Germany, in 1685. After developing his career on the European continent, he settled permanently in England and became one of the leading composers of his generation. Much of his early fame in London came from Italian opera, but changing public tastes and the enormous expense of theatrical productions eventually made the operatic world increasingly difficult. Handel consequently devoted more attention to the English-language oratorio—a large musical composition for singers, chorus, and orchestra presented without the scenery and theatrical staging associated with opera.

The words of Messiah were not written by Handel. They were assembled by Charles Jennens, an English landowner, literary patron, and longtime collaborator with the composer. Jennens created what was sometimes called a “Scripture collection,” arranging biblical passages into a sustained presentation of the Christian understanding of Jesus as the promised Messiah.

One of the most striking features of Messiah is how heavily Jennens relied upon the Old Testament. Rather than beginning with the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth, Messiah begins with the Hebrew prophets. The opening words, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” come from Isaiah 40. They are followed by Isaiah’s declaration that “Every valley shall be exalted.” As the work progresses, Jennens repeatedly returns to Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive,” “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light,” and the celebrated “For unto us a child is born.”

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09/13/2026

On September 13, 1601, Meletius Pegas, one of the most influential Eastern Orthodox churchmen of the late sixteenth century, died in Alexandria at about fifty-two years old. His career unfolded during an era when ancient Christian divisions collided with the religious conflicts created by the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. As Patriarch of Alexandria, Meletius attempted something particularly ambitious: defending Eastern Orthodoxy against Roman Catholic influence while simultaneously seeking closer relations with the Coptic Christians of Egypt.

Born around 1549 in Candia, modern Heraklion, on the Venetian-controlled island of Crete, Meletius grew up at an unusual crossroads between the Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic worlds. He received an extensive education and studied at Padua in Italy, one of Europe's leading universities. He became proficient in Greek, Latin, and Italian and studied subjects that included philosophy and medicine. His Western education gave him firsthand familiarity with Roman Catholic theology and intellectual culture, although he ultimately became one of Catholicism's most determined Orthodox opponents.

After entering monastic life, Meletius became associated with the Patriarchate of Alexandria. He served under Patriarch Sylvester and eventually became his protosyncellus, roughly equivalent to a senior administrative officer or chancellor. Following Sylvester's death, Meletius succeeded him as Patriarch of Alexandria in 1590.

The patriarchate he inherited faced serious difficulties. Egypt had been part of the Ottoman Empire since 1517, and the Greek Orthodox community represented only one Christian population within a predominantly Muslim society. The Alexandrian patriarchate also struggled with substantial financial obligations to Ottoman authorities. Meletius worked to stabilize its finances and strengthen its institutions while becoming increasingly involved in controversies extending far beyond Egypt.

One of the most important involved the Coptic Orthodox Church. The division between the Coptic and Greek Orthodox churches stretched back to the theological disputes surrounding the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. By Meletius's lifetime, they had existed as separate Christian communions for more than eleven centuries.

Yet another Christian force had entered the situation. Catholic missionaries, particularly Jesuits, were working among Eastern Christians as part of Rome's expanding missionary and diplomatic activity during the Counter-Reformation. Meletius strongly resisted efforts to bring Orthodox Christians under papal authority. He also became involved when Catholic representatives developed relations with Coptic leaders.

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09/12/2026

On September 12, 1844, Barton Warren Stone died at the home of his daughter in Hannibal, Missouri. By then, the seventy-one-year-old preacher had spent more than four decades challenging the denominational divisions of American Christianity. What began amid the revivals of the Kentucky frontier eventually helped produce one of the largest religious movements to emerge from the early United States.

Stone was born near Port To***co, Maryland, on December 24, 1772. His father died when Barton was young, and the family eventually moved to North Carolina. As a young man, Stone encountered the religious ferment of the Second Great Awakening. He studied at David Caldwell’s academy in North Carolina, where he was exposed to Presbyterian theology, and eventually entered the ministry.
By the late 1790s, Stone had moved west to Kentucky and became minister of Presbyterian congregations at Cane Ridge and Concord. Kentucky was then a rapidly growing frontier society, and its churches were being transformed by an extraordinary wave of religious revival.

Stone became closely associated with the most famous of these gatherings: the Cane Ridge Revival of August 1801. Thousands of people traveled to Cane Ridge for days of preaching, prayer, communion, and religious excitement. Ministers from several Protestant traditions participated, and the crowds became so large that multiple preachers sometimes addressed different groups simultaneously. Reports described worshipers crying out, collapsing, trembling, and displaying other intense physical responses associated with frontier revivalism.

The experience also reinforced Stone’s growing dissatisfaction with denominational boundaries. At Cane Ridge, Christians from different traditions had worshiped together despite the theological and institutional divisions separating their churches. Stone increasingly questioned whether those divisions were compatible with the unity he believed the New Testament described.
Conflict with Presbyterian authorities soon followed. Stone and several other ministers objected to aspects of the Westminster Confession of Faith and resisted attempts to discipline ministers associated with the revival. In 1803, Stone and four colleagues withdrew and organized the independent Springfield Presbytery.
They soon concluded that creating another ecclesiastical organization merely perpetuated the problem they were attempting to solve.

In 1804, the ministers issued one of the most memorable documents in early American religious history, The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery. Written in the language of a legal will, it announced that the presbytery should “die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large.” The document rejected centralized ecclesiastical authority and emphasized the ability of local Christians to study Scripture for themselves.
Stone and his associates increasingly abandoned denominational labels altogether. Rather than Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, or members of another named denomination, they preferred simply to be called “Christians.” Congregations associated with Stone spread across Kentucky and other parts of the expanding American West.

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09/11/2026

Near the end of his long reign, Charlemagne faced a problem that had troubled rulers for centuries: succession. Two of his legitimate sons had died, leaving Louis, king of Aquitaine, as his only surviving legitimate son and heir. On September 11, 813, at Aachen, Charlemagne elevated Louis to share the imperial title with him. When Charlemagne died only a few months later, on January 28, 814, Louis inherited one of the largest political realms Western Europe had seen since the fall of the Roman Empire.

Louis had been born in 778 and was made king of Aquitaine while still a child. He therefore arrived at the imperial throne with decades of experience in royal government. Yet his reign would differ in important ways from that of his famous father. Charlemagne had closely connected military expansion, political rule, education, and Christianity. Louis continued many of his father's policies but placed particular emphasis on reforming Christian institutions and bringing the conduct of the imperial court into closer conformity with Christian moral expectations.

This emphasis earned him the name by which history remembers him: Louis the Pious.

After taking control at Aachen, Louis reorganized the imperial household. Sources describe him removing people whose behavior he regarded as immoral and eliminating some remnants of the Germanic pagan culture that Charlemagne had collected or preserved. His unmarried sisters were removed from court, while ecclesiastical advisers assumed increasingly important positions around the emperor. These actions reflected more than Louis's personal piety. They were part of a broader attempt to make Christian reform an important element of imperial government.

One of the most influential figures in that effort was Benedict of Aniane, a monk and reformer who became one of Louis's principal religious advisers. Louis supported Benedict's effort to bring greater uniformity to monastic life throughout the empire. Councils at Aachen beginning in 816 addressed the organization and discipline of monasteries and communities of clergy. The Rule of St. Benedict increasingly became the standard around which Carolingian monastic reform was organized.

Louis's reign therefore occupies an important place in the development of Western monasticism. The reforms associated with Louis and Benedict did not suddenly create Benedictine monasticism, nor were they applied uniformly everywhere, but they strengthened the position of the Benedictine Rule and helped establish patterns that influenced medieval European monasteries for centuries.

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09/10/2026

A small gathering in the western Romanian village of Păuliș became the center from which Pentecostalism would spread across Romania. On September 10, 1922, Gheorghe Bradin opened what is generally regarded as the country’s first organized Romanian Pentecostal congregation. The movement that began there would face opposition from both church and state before eventually becoming one of Romania’s largest Protestant traditions.

Pentecostalism was itself only a few decades old. It developed out of nineteenth-century Protestant revival and holiness movements and became internationally prominent following revivals in the United States during the first years of the twentieth century. Pentecostals shared many evangelical Protestant beliefs but placed particular emphasis on baptism in the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts described in the New Testament, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and divine healing.
Exactly when Pentecostalism first reached Romania is difficult to establish.

Historian Ciprian Bălăban notes evidence of Pentecostal believers among German-speaking communities in Transylvania between 1919 and 1921, while other claims place Pentecostal activity even earlier. The significance of Păuliș, therefore, is not that Pentecostal ideas had never before crossed Romania’s borders. Rather, the congregation organized there in 1922 became the nucleus from which an enduring Romanian Pentecostal movement developed.

Its origins also reveal how closely European and American Christianity had become connected through immigration. Large numbers of Eastern Europeans had emigrated to the United States, and religious ideas traveled back across the Atlantic through letters, books, periodicals, missionaries, and returning immigrants. Romanian Pentecostalism emerged partly through these transatlantic networks.

Gheorghe Bradin was already part of Romania’s Protestant minority. He had been associated with the Baptists for several years and had become a local religious leader. His wife, Persida, suffered from serious illness, and the couple heard reports that Pentecostal Christians in America practiced prayer for divine healing. Bradin eventually established contact with Pavel Budeanu, a Romanian immigrant in the United States who had embraced Pentecostalism.

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