Friday, February 21, 2025

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 21st of February 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

In the world of Christian autobiography, there are 2 pillars under which all of them lay (lay? Lie? It has an object- so, lay- but you should be able to use which either you prefer....)

The first is the Confessions of St. Augustine- the first “spiritual” or “Christian” autobiography- written around 400 We follow the intellectual life of the great Church father on his way from a life of hedonism to the faith. Whether or not one would consider themselves “Augustinian” or even Catholic, there is much to chew on.

The second comes from the name that towers over most in the 19th century in the Anglo-speaking world: John Henry Newman. Canonized in 2019 by the Catholic Church he was perhaps the most famous convert FROM the church of England to Rome and it was his conversion that lead to his great autobiographical work- the “Apologia Pro Vita Sua” or “the Defense of ones own Life” began as a response to an Anglican friend upset with him for leaving the English church and his livelihood at Oxford for a life within the Roman Catholic communion. One needn’t be a follower of Newman or even Catholic to recognize the significance of this towering figure of the 19th century.

And he is easy to place in that convulsive century that was ushered in by political Revolutions and ended with a mechanized, industrial world. John Henry Newman- later “Cardinal” and much later “Saint” was born on this, the 21st of February in 1801.

Born to Jemima and John, he was the oldest of six children and went to school at age seven. By 15, he came into contact with the writings of John Wesley- another “Anglican” who didn’t quite fit the mold- and claimed his “first” conversion from then, about 1816. Hear Newman’s own words.

When I was fifteen a great change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influences of a definite Creed … I believed that the inward conversion of which I was conscious … would last into the next life, and that I was elected to eternal glory. … in confirming me in my mistrust of the reality of material phenomena, and making me rest in the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my creator.’

He would go on to Oxford and become a fellow at Oriel College. He was ordained a priest in the church of England in 1825 and would serve a parish in Oxford. It was here that he began his study of the Church Fathers, which he would claim later to be the beginning of “another conversion”- but before that famous one- into the Catholic Church- Newman had a “second” conversion after falling ill on a trip to Sicily in 1833.

Reinvigorated, he would team up with other “famous names from the 19th century Anglican Church,” Edward Pusey and John Keble. They would form the nucleus of the “Oxford movement,” which sought a “new Reformation” based on a rekindling of the ancient church (which, by the way, is usually how groups calling for a “new Reformation” begin).

He would help publish, first anonymously, the “Tracts for the Times,” a collection of 90 essays between 1833 and 1841. It was a heady time for the church of England and her relationship with Rome. In 1829, the Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed by Parliament as the result of a long campaign to give Roman Catholics political rights previously kept from them. But the “Tractarians,” as they were called, were viewed with suspicion as getting too close to Rome.

Between 1839 and 1845, he underwent his “conversion” to Catholicism largely on the grounds of questioning “authority” (this is, I believe, the fundamental question of the Reformation- and while we might disagree with Newman’s answer, it seems he was asking the right questions). His entrance into the Catholic Church was THE news in the church world of his day. It begged the question of “how much” tolerance for opposing viewpoints could be allowed and precipitated his famous autobiography.

As for the question of “how much” toleration their might be in the Anglican communion- he was added to the Anglican Church calendar in the last century and canonized by the Catholic church in 2019 which was attended, in Rome, by the then Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury- a sight that would have surely bewildered? Pleased? The Cardinal and now Catholic Saint John Henry Newman, who died in 1890- born on this day in 1801, he was 89 years old.

 

The last word for today is from Newman- his most famous hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light.”

Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom;

O lead me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home;

O lead me on!

Keep firm my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene, one step enough for me.

 

 I was not ever thus, nor prayed that you

Should lead me on.

I loved to choose and see my path, but now,

Please lead me on!

I loved the garish day, and spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.

 

So long your pow'r has blest me, sure it still

Will lead me on,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone,

And with the morn those angel faces smile,

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 21st of February 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by an absolute and luminous self-evident being- he is  Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who typed “Newman’s Own” and now can only think about salad dressing. 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.