Page 2601 – Christianity Today (2024)

Murderous rioting reportedly sparked by Muslim attacks on Christians and their property in late November destroyed 40 churches and left six pastors and at least 500 others dead, according to Nigerian church leaders.

What began as outrage over suspected voting fraud in local elections quickly crossed over Jos’s religious fault line between the Islamic north and Christian south. When angry Muslims took aim at Christian sites (rather than at political targets), Christian gangs responded in self-defense. Nigerian troops reportedly killed about 400 rampaging Muslims. Islamists in turn killed more than 100 Christians. More than 25,000 persons were displaced in the violence, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.

Among the Christians killed was Joseph Yari of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), who died helping other Christians repel Muslim fanatics bent on burning down Christ Baptist Church. Her grief notwithstanding, Mary Yari, the pastor’s widow, said she had forgiven the killers. “They were ignorant of the crime they … committed because they do not know Jesus Christ,” she said.

On September 7, 2001, religious conflict in Jos initiated more than four years of bloodshed, with Muslims and Christians taking turns attacking each other. Thousands were killed, and thousands more were displaced. In 2004, an estimated 700 people died in Yelwa, also in Plateau state, during Christian-Muslim clashes.

Benjamin Nasara of the ECWA’s Plateau Church said that church history shows “the blood of the martyrs brings about the birth of the church. We see these ones who have gone ahead of us as the seeds that God is using to make the church in Jos North and Plateau state germinate.”

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Related Elsewhere:

Sunday Agang also wrote twoarticles on the election-related violence in Jos, Nigeria.

Jos suffered similar violence in 2004 and 2001, with thousands of casualties.

Battlestar GalacticaSciFi ChannelFridays, 10/9c

Evolve or die—that is humanity’s dilemma as Battlestar Galactica enters its final season. It’s a familiar concept to those who devoured Eckhart Tolle’s Oprah-baptized The New Earth, a compelling, winsome song of freedom that appeals to our inner survivor. If we marshal our resources, we can leave all our cares behind. We may even transcend death itself. But Galactica dares to suggest that freedom isn’t what we might think it is.

Last season, a small remnant of humans followed President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) to Earth; they were promised a solid home after years of fleeing the relentless Cylons through space. Instead, they landed on a radioactive wasteland, their hope shattered by the caprice of the gods who led them there.

Despite tenacity, resilience, and spirit, mankind has failed. Humans are just too weak, too vulnerable, and too mortal to endure. By contrast, the Cylons have superhuman strength, a boundless army, and, most importantly, the power to resurrect. Upon death, a Cylon’s consciousness simply downloads into one of the many bodies housed in the resurrection ship.

The Cylons achieved their power by evolving from robot slaves into sentient beings. Now, in this season, it seems that the humans’ only chance for survival is to mimic their enemies and evolve out of their frail humanity. If possible, they will become Cylons themselves.

But a small faction of Cylons has chosen a different path, siding with the humans against their own kind. They destroyed their own resurrection ship, rendering themselves powerless to download into new bodies. Their Cylon cohorts can’t fathom such a senseless de-evolution—nor can the humans.

“To live meaningful lives, we must die and not return,” explains Cylon Natalie (Tricia Helfer). “Mortality is the one thing that makes you whole.” She is half right. Despite Tolle’s promises, it is not evolution that yields salvation; instead, in God’s redemptive purposes, new life is impossible without death.

There’s hope for the humans of Battlestar Galactica buried in Earth’s radioactive ashes, and a potent reminder for believers: Only by becoming more, not less, mortal can we find irreversible resurrection.

Annie Frisbie, a bsg freak and devoted mom, blogs at superfastreader.com

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Related Elsewhere:

Battlestar Galactica is on the SciFi Channel on Fridays at 10/9 Central.

Christianity Today also has other reviews on music, movies, books, and other media.

Some of the high-flying icons of the prosperity gospel—the belief that God rewards signs of faith with wealth, health, and happiness—have run into financial turbulence.

Not all of their troubles can be blamed on the nation’s economic crisis, say critics of the name-it-and-claim-it theology found in some charismatic churches.

“I believe the charismatic movement, of which I am a part, is in the midst of a dramatic overhaul,” said J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine. “God is shaking us.” Grady predicts the movement will look much different in a few years as it refocuses on evangelism and overcoming what he calls the distraction of “materialism, flashy self-promotion, and foolish carnality.” But Scott Thumma, a Hartford Seminary sociologist who studies megachurches, is not so certain.

“Most clergy who preach a prosperity gospel would interpret for their congregation any conflict, scrutiny, or questioning as an attack of the Devil and proof that they are following God,” he said.

Among recent developments:

• In Fort Worth, Texas, a review board ruled December 7 that Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ $3.6 million jet did not have tax-exempt status. The ruling came after the ministry, whose 1,500-acre campus includes a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion, refused to release the salaries of Copeland, his wife, and others.

• In suburban Atlanta, Georgia, a sheriff’s deputy served an eviction notice November 14 at Bishop Thomas Weeks III’s Global Destiny Church. Court documents indicate the bishop, the ex-husband of televangelist Juanita Bynum, owed half a million dollars in back rent. The church has lost roughly half of its 3,400 members since Weeks and Bynum’s 2007 fight in a hotel parking lot, in which Weeks was accused of pushing, choking, and beating his then-wife.

• In Tampa, Florida, Without Walls International Church—which once attracted 23,000 worshipers—has shrunk drastically after co-pastors Randy and Paula White announced in 2007 they were divorcing. The church faces an uncertain future after the Evangelical Christian Credit Union began foreclosure proceedings November 4 and demanded repayment of a $12 million loan on the church’s property.

• In suburban Minneapolis on November 18, Living Word Christian Center pastor Mac Hammond won the first stage of a court battle with the Internal Revenue Service to keep his salary private. Yet in 2008, he was forced to put his private jet up for sale and cut Living Word’s hour-long television show in half to save money amid falling contributions.

Meanwhile, Copeland and the Whites are among six televangelists whose large organizations have been targeted in a Senate Finance Committee investigation into allegations of questionable spending and lax financial accountability. All six preach some form of the prosperity gospel.

Could followers of the prosperity gospel—encouraged by pastors to “sow a seed” of faith by spending money, often in the form of a donation to the pastors’ ministries—be turned off by the recent turmoil?

Craig Blomberg, author of a 2001 study of prosperity theology, said he expects the movement to “take a small hit among those who recognize that it can’t deliver on what it promises.”

But many followers could view the financial difficulties as consequences for sin and personal failings—from Weeks’s assault conviction to the Whites’ divorce—and determine to try that much harder to please God and prosper themselves, he suggested.

“Some may well interpret this as judgment on the leaders who have abused their positions or proved immoral in other respects,” said Blomberg, a New Testament professor at Denver Seminary. “And many may simply assume this is the time to call others and themselves to an even truer faith so that the ‘system will work’ as it is supposed to in their minds.”

In Grady’s view, the notion that “God blesses us so we can be a blessing” is biblical. What is needed, he believes, is a shift to a more selfless movement where people “realize that God wants to bless us so that we can feed the poor, lift up the broken, and transform society.

“We need that kind of prosperity,” he said, “and I think that is where things are going.”

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Our special section on Pentecostalism has more articles on the prosperity gospel, including:

Gospel Riches
Africa’s rapid embrace of prosperity Pentecostalism provokes concern—and hope.(July 6, 2007)

First Church of Prosperidad
Arlene Sanchez Walsh on the African-style prosperity gospel right in our backyards—in immigrant Latino churches. (July 6, 2007)

What Really Unites Pentecostals?
It’s not speaking in tongues. It may be the prosperity gospel. (December, 5 2006)

Pentecostal Connections
Full Gospel’s forbidden fruit. (April 1, 2006)

Full Gospel’s Fractured Thinking
The problems with shunning the life of the mind. (March 30, 2006)

By Collin Hansen

Over the holidays, you probably relished how gas prices largely returned to “normal.” Prices higher than $2, $3, or even $4 per gallon just seems so un-American. So why are national opinion writers so diverse as Charles Krauthammer and Thomas Friedman pushing for increases in federal gas taxes?

It seems Americans have returned to their old habits. Friedman notes that more Americans purchased trucks and SUV’s than cars in December. This reverses a trend toward more fuel-efficient vehicles that extended back to February 2008. You should be able to guess by now how this scenario will play out. Bigger vehicles means more demand for gas, which means gas prices will eventually return to the levels we saw in the summer of 2008. But by that time, the momentum for alternatives to gas-powered vehicles may have stalled yet again, leaving American consumers and their government at the mercy of foreign oil producers. “Have a nice day,” Friedman writes. “It’s morning again – in Saudi Arabia.”

Krauthammer observes that Americans pay 18.4 cents per gallon in federal taxes. Drivers in Great Britain, like those in many other European countries, pay nearly $4 per gallon in taxes. Americans would hardly relish a new tax whose effect they would feel so directly. So Krauthammer and Friedman each suggest an offsetting cut in payroll taxes. But what’s the point, if the federal government will reap no new revenue from the increased gas tax?

The columnists believe higher gas taxes would permanently shift consumption patterns. The American government might as well take the lead in manipulating gas prices. Otherwise America’s so-called allies will continue to offer the carrot and wield the stick in order to control the U.S. economy.

Why can’t we just remember this destructive pattern and resolve to break it?

Why do we forget that we’ll be kicking ourselves for buying a pickup truck we don’t need when gas prices inevitably spike again? The answer must be intrinsic to human nature. Recall Israel’s fits and starts in their efforts to obey God’s commandments. Again and again they failed to remember how God had delivered them from Egypt and how he had punished their forefathers in the wilderness for their disobedience. Remembrance does not come naturally to us.

The capitalistic system is so effective because it accounts for human nature, namely self-interest. But the lack of memory is a thorn in the side of the market economy. Henry Blodget, a onetime Wall Street wizard, explains how in the cover story of December’s Atlantic. Blodget argues that we will never be able to excise the pattern of boom and bust from the system, because investors who argue that “it’s different this time” will always ride the boom’s tidal wave to the pinnacle of their profession. Bears who deliver a prophetic word against the bull market, remembering previous busts, will lose their jobs for failing to maximize profits in the short term.

“Those are said to be the most expensive words in the English language, by the way: it’s different this time,” Blodget writes. “You can’t have a bubble without good explanations for why it’s different this time. If everyone knew that this time wasn’t different, the market would stop going up. But the future is always uncertain – and amid uncertainty, all sorts of faith-based theories can flourish, even on Wall Street.”

It doesn’t help that top financial professionals rarely last in the industry past age 40, due to the intense pressures of performing on Wall Street. Thus, Blodget explains, surprisingly few top financial experts have actually lived through both booms and busts. He writes, “The bottom line is that resisting the siren call of a boom is much easier when you have already been obliterated by one.”

There is no substitute for experience. Surely the economy would retain a steadier course if firms took the longer view and retained managers who were willing to buck the moment’s conventional wisdom. But is there hope for avoiding the pitfalls even if you haven’t experienced them? This was the challenge for the generations that followed the Israelites whom God delivered from Egypt. So when God delivered the Shema (Deut. 6:4?5) he also taught Israel how to remember his commandments. “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut. 6:7?9).

We could learn from fellow pastors who have taken this command to heart by implementing creative, tangible ways to help their congregations remember the gospel and apply it consistently. We need fellow members of the body of Christ who will preach the gospel to us when we forget God’s sure promises. After all, God has initiated a new and better covenant with the church through Jesus Christ (Heb. 8:6?7). “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ?Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Heb. 8:10?12, cited from Jer. 31:33?34).

If we forsake this promise, we abandon God’s recovery plan for delivering us from spiritual recession. Thanks to Jesus, it really is different this time.

Barry Minkow, Fraudbuster and pastor of San Diego’s Community Bible Church, has been busy since the stock market began its decline a year ago last October. Last year, Minkow called Herbalife a fraud–essentially a multi-level marketing business that sold nearly all of its products to its sales people.

Now, Minkow has turned his sights on Lennar, a homebuilder with Ponzi scheme-like activities operating under joint ventures. The company, Minkow says, “has a pattern of behavior over a sustained period of time of knowingly and willfully abusing the legal system to gain an unfair advantage over the less capitalized, smaller entities.”

After the letter from Minkow’s Fraud Discovery Institute hit the web, Lennar shares fell 20 percent, prompting the company to sue Minkow.

It should be noted that Minkow’s work tends to be profitable. Lennar alledges that one of its former partners hired “Minkow and his company to use any means available, including fraud, identity theft and manipulation of securities markets, to wrongfully and falsely harm Lennar’s business and reputation.” And Minkow shorted (profiting from a decline in shares) Herbalife’s stock while calling it a fraud.

Having run his own scam, Minkow knows how they operate. But since his release from prison, he’s stuck to the straight and narrow. “We don’t put out false information,” he says of the Fraud Discovery Institute.

A Muslim woman, rabbis and a Catholic archbishop will pray at the Jan. 21 National Prayer Service which closes the inauguration, according to the Associated Press.

The Inauguration Committee has said that the Rev. Sharon Watkins will deliver the sermon at the event, but no evangelicals have been announced for that particular service yet.

A prayer will be offered at the National Cathedral by Ingrid Mattson, the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The Islamic Society, based in Indiana, is the nation’s largest Muslim group.

Three rabbis, representing the three major branches of American Judaism, will also say a prayer at the service, according to officials familiar with the plans. The Jewish clergy are Reform Rabbi David Saperstein, Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein and Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, sources said.

It is also traditional for the incoming administration to ask the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington to lead a prayer. The Most Rev. Donald Wuerl leads the archdiocese.

Keep reading the story because Rachel Zoll frames the story in larger context. Some say Rick Warren could be the next Billy Graham, but Zoll writes, “No one has, or likely could, take [Graham’s] place as ‘America’s pastor.'”

Note: “Explainer” is our newest addition to the series of features on Off the Agenda. Here editor Drew Dyck will tackle current ideas, movements, or whatever else people are talking about. He doesn’t claim to be the definitive expert on anything (yet), but just hopes to shed a little light.

Postmodernism: it’s a word you hear a lot these days. But ask what it means and you’ll likely get a blank stare–or a different definition each time you ask.

There’s good reason for the ambiguity. Postmodernism is not easy to define. And just when you think you have it pinned it changes shape, taking on different meanings in various fields such as art, architecture, and philosophy. Yet, as a worldview, postmodernism does have several identifiable characteristics.

The most succinct definition probably comes from the French philosopher Jean Lyotard, who famously defined postmodernism as “incredulity toward meta-narratives.” What does that mean? Basically that those big stories–the kind of overarching narratives by which we define reality–are regarded with suspicion. In a postmodern world no one story is large enough to contain the whole of reality, much less define it for all people.

A second distinctive of postmodernism flows from the first: a concern for the marginalized. That’s one beef postmodern thinkers have with big stories: they tend to neglect the “little people.” Talk to postmodern thinkers about the wisdom of the Greeks, and they’ll remind you that the Greeks held slaves and subjugated women. Bring up the founding fathers of the United States; they’ll talk about the cruel conquest of the natives. Christian faith comes under fire too. For many postmodern thinkers the historical horrors of the Crusades and Inquisition cast a pall over the Gospel message.

A third characteristic is moral relativism. According to philosopher J.P. Moreland, “On a postmodernist view, there is no such thing as objective truth, reality, value, reason.” Since any absolutist claim invariably falls back on some narrative, it is dismissed. Therefore postmodern thinkers tend to shy away from any universally held truth. You’ve likely detected this influence in the language of our culture. Whenever people talk about a different “truth” for each person (an idea that would strike the ancients as absurd), they are paying implicit homage to postmodernism.

So how should we react to postmodernism?

First we must avoid extreme responses. Postmodernism is not the bogeyman. It’s no angel either.

Certain tenets of postmodernism do gibe with Christian truth. One can hardly open the Bible without seeing God’s concern for the poor and disenfranchised. Christ championed the cause of marginalized people and even linked his identity to the lowly (Matthew 25:45). Catholic theologians remind us of God’s “preferential option for the poor.” The Book of James stipulates that “pure religion” is attending to the needs of widows and orphans (1:27).

Yet other dimensions of postmodernism–such as moral relativism–are irreconcilable with a biblical worldview. It’s important to take a clear-eyed look at the various tenets of postmodern thought, and to find common ground that will enable us to share our faith. At the same time we must take tough stands against its more destructive incarnations, remembering that Christ’s truth will always clash with the gods of the age.

Last Friday, regular readers of CT’s Liveblog know I posted about Rick Warren’s offer of assistance to Anglicans who are about to lose their church buildings in hostile litigation or who were starting a new congregation through new Anglican structures. (In early December after the Civil Forum in Washington, Rick and I discussed the Anglicans story.)

First, a ‘mea culpa’ from me that this offer was done on a private basis and I misread this message as part of a public gesture. (I wrote a cover story Purpose Driven in Rwanda and an update interview with Rick was published in CT recently.) So CT staff agreed to take the posting off the CT site. But, of course, it lives on via RSS feeds and elsewhere.

This story has taken on quite a life of its own. So since Liveblog has been silent on this subject for days, I asked Rick for a brief clarification. He’s given permission to release these comments:

“In our first 13 years as a congregation, Saddleback was forced to use 79 different meeting places, so we understand the difficulty of finding space. So, as standard procedure, anytime an evangelical congregation loses its place to meet, we offer them space, out of gratitude, to the churches that helped us before we got our own building.

It’s just one of many quiet ways we support the Body of Christ behind the scenes. Without any press, we’ve helped 5 other denominations plant new churches in the Saddleback Valley. We never view other congregations as competition, but as team members in the Great Commission. Helping other congregations is consistent with my calling, and 30 year track record, of serving, encouraging, and championing other pastors.

It is what the Purpose Driven Network is all about.

When I read in the paper that another local congregation has lost its place to meet, I send a private email to the leadership offering space. It certainly wasn’t a reaction to anyone or any group. I cc’d Tim Morgan because he’s a personal friend who has traveled with me to Africa twice and he knew the folks I wrote to. The letter wasn’t intended to be a public statement, just an offered kindness. Those who contacted me learned this. Those who didn’t attributed a inaccurate motivation and misread the timing.”

Rick Warren

Saddleback Church

Global PEACE Coalition

Purpose Driven Network

I’ll add in. There’s no mystery, no malice, or hidden agenda here. Gratitude still works, Thanks be to God.

Barack Obama will attend a private prayer service on the morning of his inauguration at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, according to the Washington Post.

St. John’s, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, is known as the “Church of the Presidents.” Since James Madison, every president has worshiped there at some point during his tenure in the Oval Office. The church has kneelers embroidered in tribute to each president, and Pew 54 is traditionally assigned to the chief executives when they visit.

Obama has rarely appeared at Sunday worship since he broke ties with Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ. Washington Post reporter Jacqueline L. Salmon provides historical context for why Obama may have chosen to attend the prayer service at St. John’s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the tradition of attending a worship service before inauguration at St. John’s. Since then, four other presidents have worshiped there on Inauguration Day, according to the church’s Web site: Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

And since Roosevelt, every president except Richard M. Nixon has attended a worship service on inauguration morning somewhere in the District.

What do Bible translations, orphan schools, and science laboratories have in common? For a German pastor and professor named August Hermann Francke (1663-1727), they were all part of fulfilling the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations.” Every man, woman, and child in the world, Francke believed, should be able to read and understand the Word of God in his or her own language. This meant that translation and education should go hand in hand. For over 30 years, Francke strove to provide basic literacy and access to Scripture in the “mother tongue” for as much of the world as possible, and his pioneering efforts became the model for all Protestant missionary translation and education projects after him.

Francke was one of the leading figures of Pietism, a movement of spiritual and moral renewal within the Protestant churches of Europe in the late 1600s and 1700s. While teaching students about the Bible, he had a profound spiritual crisis that prompted him to become a “true child of God.” In December 1691, Francke became a pastor in Glaucha, a suburb of Halle, Germany, and a professor of oriental languages and theology in the new University of Halle, where he remained until his death.

Francke stressed the need for absolute and “childlike” faith in God, a “new birth,” and “a true and thorough reformation of life.” His goal was “the transformation of the world through the transformation of man.” Like Johann Arndt and Philipp Spener, whose Pietism inspired him, he believed that God uses both the “Book of Grace” (revealed Scripture) and the “Book of Nature” (natural science) to teach people about Himself. And so, he argued, proper belief in God requires an understanding of the Bible; understanding the Bible requires literacy; and literacy, as well as other practical vocational skills, requires exposure to the wonders of nature. Every single person on earth, whether child or adult, male or female—no matter what social class—needed to learn reading, basic numbers, practical science, and technical skills! This was a radical agenda with revolutionary implications, and it led to educational innovations, worldwide missionary ventures, and Bible translations.

Chamber of wonders

Remarkably kind, gentle, and charming, Francke became deeply disturbed over the plight of orphans and outcast street children who were dwelling in ignorance and crime. So he started a one-room orphanage and “ragged school.” One house led quickly to a second house, and then to more and more facilities. By 1698, the Francke Foundations accommodated 500 children and enrolled over 1000 other students who came for primary, secondary, technical, and pre-university training. This number grew to nearly 2300 in 1727.

Francke experimented with new educational methods to help young people gain access to literature, laboratory science, and higher learning. For example, the “cabinet of wonders” (or “chamber of wonders”) exposed students to the latest advances in discovery, science, and technology—this went far beyond the traditional emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics! Students learned astronomy, geography, biology, physics, history, and law, as well as music, drawing, and calligraphy.

In addition, each student was expected to work with his or her hands, learning such basic skills as baking, carpentry, and optics. The school’s farms and factories produced food, clothing, furniture, and tools.

The Weisenhaus (orphanage) printing press turned out cheap editions of the Bible and Bible translations in several languages. Ten thousand copies of the German New Testament were sold in one year (1710). The orphanage prepared Tamil (an Indian language) fonts and printing presses for the very first Protestant missionaries. Its library also included grammars, dictionaries, and works in many languages, including Marathi, Telugu, Sanskrit, Persian, Russian, and Polish.

Francke also founded the Collegium Orientale Theologicum (Oriental College of Theology) in 1702 in order to train students in both biblical and modern languages.

The Collegium created an annotated edition of the Hebrew Old Testament, which was published by the orphanage printing press in 1720.

Inspiring missions

All of these ventures, from humble primary schools to advanced laboratory research and prodigious Bible translation projects, were integral to Francke’s vision of worldwide expansion of the Gospel and total transformation of the human condition. His practical innovations had profound repercussions throughout Europe and beyond.

Francke corresponded with thousands of people and won support from many nobles and princes scattered all over Europe. The king of Prussia, for example, applied Francke’s techniques to an orphanage in Potsdam (for 1500 children) and asked Francke to extend his model school system to his entire kingdom. Such contacts led to missionary outreach and to translations of the Bible into Polish, Russian, and other Slavic languages.

A remarkable collaboration between Francke and two devout royal cousins, Queen Anne of England and King Frederick IV of Denmark, brought new missionary ventures: the SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) in 1698, the SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts) in 1702, and the Royal Danish-Halle Mission in 1704. These led to new translations of the Bible. The first missionary of the Danish-Halle Mission, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, showed great sensitivity to the language and culture of South India. He translated the New Testament into Tamil, founded schools where children could learn the Bible as well as science and other subjects, and inspired missionary efforts in other parts of the world. Another Halle missionary to India, Benjamin Schultze, translated Scripture into Telugu.

One of Francke’s students, Nicolaus von Zinzendorf, sheltered a community of Moravian Christian refugees at his estate, and this small but vibrant Pietist movement displayed enormous missionary zeal and influenced great evangelical awakenings in Britain and America. (A group of Moravians made a deep impression on Methodist founder John Wesley.) August Hermann Francke’s efforts to enable all people to read the Word of God continue to bear fruit as many others have taken up his vision for “a life changed, a church revived, a nation reformed, and a world evangelized.”

Robert Eric Frykenberg is professor emeritus of history and South Asian studies at the university of Wisconsin-Madison.

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