Gertrude entered a German monastery at five years old. It's a shockingly early age to take up residence in a convent, perhaps bordering on child abuse to our modern sensibilities. But if you wanted your daughter to receive an education in the...
Just for the record: Christians disagree with each other. Sometimes, we disagree in the strongest possible terms. John Wesley and Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) had much in common. John led a movement called Methodism to...
The Reformed tradition (think Calvinism) and the Lutherans weren’t getting along in seventeenth century Germany. The feud was long-standing, and their theological differences were hotly debated. Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) came to Berlin to pastor a...
On paper, William of Orange (1650-1702) and Mary Stuart were the odd couple. He was twenty-six; she was barely fifteen. William was five inches shorter with a crooked nose and a hunchback, described by one eyewitness as "the plainest man in...
Why do we complain so much? Are we venting pent-up emotion? Are we seeking to connect with people who share our mutual dissatisfaction? Are we seeking an outlet to validate hurt feelings? Frequently, as I research prayers to inclusion in Prayers...
She was an elegant young woman living in an affluent section of London. She heard a missionary speak about the need for more workers to share the gospel in the hill country of southern India, nicknamed "the mountains of death" for diseases like...
We seek pleasure; we avoid pain. Our gravitation toward pleasure and avoidance of pain is universal to human experience. We run from pain and avoid it at all costs. We self-medicate at the slightest hint of discomfort. Here’s a counter-intuitive...
What prayer is appropriate for Halloween? I considered a line from a 1909 poem by Alfred Noyes, "From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us," but decided against it. October 31,...
Gustav Niebuhr immigrated from Germany to America in 1885 at eighteen. He worked as a farmhand until he answered the call of a sermon to enter the ordained ministry. He went to seminary, interned for an evangelist in San Francisco, and married the...
Marcion of Sinope was a second century church leader who was later censured for differentiating the Old Testament God from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament. He dismissed the Old Testament God of wrath in favor of an edited...
There are hidden treasures tucked away in ancient monasteries: a professor found a fragment of the oldest Bible in an obscure eighteenth century book in an Egyptian monastery library, archeologists discovered rare gold coins hidden in an abandoned...
Some people don't act their age. Consider Mozart, who composed his first symphony at eight, or Joan of Arc who reversed the wartime fortunes of England at seventeen, or Pascal, who designed a calculator at nineteen. Today's story concerns the...
In John Bunyan's classic allegory, Pilgrim's Progress, Christian sets out on a journey from his hometown of the City of Destruction to his ultimate destination in Celestial City. Another pilgrim, Hopeful, joins him on the journey. Along the way,...
Dwight David Eisenhower was among our most religiously devout American presidents, raised with Jehovah's Witness and Brethren (comparable to Mennonite) influences. Since both groups embraced pacifism, Eisenhower's appointment to West Point and...
Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was conducting a Methodist outdoor gathering in 1746 when a group of drunken sailors interrupted the service with their rendition of a raunchy sailor song. Charles was leading worship at the time but somehow managed to...
Susan Cain observed that Western society promotes "the extrovert ideal" and gives preferential treatment to bold and charismatic leaders. Her best-selling book from a dozen years ago, Quiet: The Power of Introversion in a World That Can't Stop...
The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius wrote the symphonic poem Finlandia for a pageant in his homeland in 1899. It served as a patriotic song in Finland's struggle to maintain its independence from neighboring Russia. Much of the symphony conveys the...
We live in an age of hurry. The speed of technological change feeds our frenzied busyness. Our constant need for connectivity in this digital world perpetuates a pervasive sense of rush and anxiety. The title of a book written by John Mark Comey,...