Monday, December 12, 2022

It is the 12th of December 2022. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Happy Monday- it’s time we go to the mailbag- today’s question comes from Jon in Bristol, Pennsylvania.

Bristol, Pennsylvania is one of the older and more critical towns in American history- it’s in Eastern Pennsylvania, Bucks Country, just across the Delaware river from New Jersey. The “Bristol Stomp” was a doo-woop hit about kids dancing in this town. The song hit #2, just behind “Run Around Sue” by Dion. Bristol gave us John Thompson Dorrance, the chemist and inventor of condensed soup for the Campbell’s company, and Lauren Holly, who played Mary Swanson in Dumb and Dumber, who would have been “Mary Christmas” had she married Lloyd Christmas in that movie.

Jon asked, “I did want to know if the podcast was in the eastern hemisphere, are there Billy Graham, Eugene Peterson, and Lonnie Frisbee- like figures? If someone asked me about notable Christians in the church in India, for example, I don’t think I could name anyone, but I know there has to be someone.”

Jon sent this email a while back, and I’ve kept the note on my desk for some time. One of my goals with this podcast, which was the same as when I was teaching in a live classroom, is to continually push myself- not to get stuck in any particular place or time but to move about and learn new things. I have found that the broader the church gets in my head, the more gracious I become- not because “everybody’s right” but because we are all Christians- trying to figure out the life of the kingdom that is vast, diverse, and is both “now and not yet.” I’m inspired when someone writes me, not to be a scold or a nag, but to say, “have you thought about it”?

So, I have been reading more histories of Global Christianity- I have enjoyed the two volumes “History of the World Christian Movement” by Dale Irvin and Scott Sunquist and then using names and ideas to read up in monographs and articles. So- Jon-

At first, I took your question literally. Is there an Eastern Hemisphere Billy Graham? The name that jumped to me was Ding Limei.

Ding Limei’s dates are 1871-1936. He was a preacher throughout China. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, he was imprisoned and beaten- he would go on to work with the YMCA. He wasn’t a pastor with a church but rather preached as an itinerant- his goal was to preach the gospel in every province and establish an indigenous Chinese church.

Lonnie Frisbee- an eccentric- Sung Shangjie, also called John Song, might fit that bill. He left China for education at Ohio State but changed his mind from going into the ministry to studying chemistry. He then had another change of heart and enrolled at Union Theological Seminary- but while that was a liberal seminary and Song was not, he became a critic of his professors- he was also in a mental asylum for 193 days before heading back to China where he was a charismatic preacher holding energetic revivals- he lived from 1901 to 1944.

Regarding Eugene Peterson, I was thinking- who is the author? I love Shusako Endo and have talked about him on the show before- but let me tell you just a bit about Ayako Miura (who will be getting a weekend edition)

Ayako was a primary school teacher through World War 2, after which she became disillusioned with what she considered Japanese propaganda. She then contracted tuberculosis of the spine and was in a hospital for 13 years- she was was an atheist but given a Bible by a fellow patient- as she meditated on the doctor's inability to cure her and what she came to see as the problem of sin she converted- her autobiography tells the story- it’s called ‘The Wind is Howling”- she then went on to be one of Japan’s most famous authors writing on biblical themes to a non-Christian country that ate her works up.

And in India- I’ve told the story of Pandita Ramabai before- but what about Rajkumari Amrit Kaur- an amazing woman, she was born to be a princess but abandoned that to join the Freedom movement in India alongside Gandhi- she was a Christian who went on to lead the YMCA and become the minister of Health. She was Time’s woman of the Year in 1947 and welcomed Billy Graham in 1956.

That’s a taste of Christians in the East- a theme I will return to. Thanks for the prodding, Jon, in Bristol.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary- from Psalm 42:

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”

My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 12th of December 2022, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who sold my dead bird to a blind kid Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who, when you think he couldn’t be any dumber, goes out and totally redeems himself; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.