One of the most prolific Christian writers of the 20th century you may have not heard of was G.K. Chesterton. When I say “prolific” I mean 100 books, 200 short stories, and over 4,000 essays (that’s essays and not just articles). He authored the Father Brown mystery series and contributed to well over 200 books in addition to those he …

After Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church he found all kinds of freedoms he had not previously known – such as getting married. According to some accounts, Luther “smuggled” about 6 nuns away from a convent in huge flour barrels. These nuns wanted to leave the Catholic Church and join the ever-growing Protestant movement and Luther set out …

April 19, 1775 marked the day “the shot heard ’round the world” took place as British and American troops fired on each other and the American Revolution was begun. Less than two months after that, on June 12, 1775, the Continental Congress calls for Americans to fast and to pray for the Lord to bless this new nation. Do you …

J. Gresham Machen was a professor of New Testament at Princeton who felt that, even though the university was a Presbyterian institution, the governing body United Presbyterian Church had become too liberal. In Philadelphia, PA on June 11, 1936 he and others broke away from the UPC and formed the Presbyterian Church of North America. In 1938 they would rename …

Hesychasm is a type of experiential prayer used primarily in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The prayer involves a series of breathing techniques and body posture – sort of like yoga and Buddhist monks do. The priest says the Jesus Prayer over and over (“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”). The idea that this type …

Oh, the wonders one woman and a hatchet can do. Carrie Nation was such an ardent prohibitionist she took matters into her own hands – quite literally – by walking into bars and saloons and smashing fixtures and bottles of liquor with her hatchet. Sometimes she would have temperance women with her and other times she’d go it alone. By …

Dr. John Scudder, along with his wife and three other couples, sailed to India from Boston to begin medical missions work on June 8, 1819. His daughter Ida would be born there and returned to the US to attend Dwight Moody’s Northfield Seminary. She returned to India to care for her ailing mother vowing to be back in the US …

Gottschalk was a prince of the Obotrite Confederation that existed in today’s northern Germany regions of Mecklenburg and Holstein. The Obotrites loosely banded together based on who they were fighting like Swedes and Danes and Saxons. The Obotrites were pagan people – in spite of influences from neighboring Charlemagne – and Gottschalk worked to bring his people to Christianity. But …

George Williams is a reminder that we can serve God right where we are. He was successful in the cloth-making (or drapery) business in Victorian England and saw how deplorably most business people treated their employees. So he and a few fellow-drapery manufacturing owners met on June 6, 1844 and formed the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.). YMCAs then spread …

There are about a dozen books (depending on who is counting) that Americans can say made a huge political or social impact and Uncle Tom’s Cabin was certainly one of them. It was first published as a serial in a magazine called the National Era on June 5, 1851. The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was a committed Christian who felt …