Angelina Grimké
Angelina Grimke was one of the famous “Grimke Sisters,” known for their staunch women’s rights and abolitionist stances in the 19th century United States. Along with her sister Sarah, Angelina became a leading voice in two of the most significant reform movements of her time, spearheading both women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. Her…
Read MoreKarl Barth
One would not put much stock in a boy who was the leader of a street gang to become a transformative theologian in adulthood. But such is the case with Karl Barth. He was not particularly fond of attending school or of behaving. He was a brawler both at school and in his neighborhood. He…
Read MoreAlexander Crummell
Alexander Crummell, an Episcopalian priest, missionary, scholar and teacher, was born in New York City in 1819 to free black parents. He spent much of his life addressing the conditions of African Americans while urging an educated black elite to aspire to the highest intellectual attainments as a refutation of the theory of black inferiority.…
Read MoreCharles Simeon
Charles Simeon was born on September 24, 1759. He attended school at Eton and enrolled at King’s College, Cambridge, in 1779. Although baptized as an infant, his family was not particularly religious and neither was Charles, until an experience during his first few months at university. All Cambridge students were required to receive communion at…
Read MoreIsaac Watts
In the years immediately after the Protestant Reformation, non-Roman Churches in the West were divided on the question of hymns. The Lutherans and Moravians immediately began to develop a rich tradition of hymns in the vernacular. Most of those in the Calvinist tradition, on the other hand, maintained that God had provided His people with…
Read MoreJohn Wycliffe
John Wycliffe has been called “The Morning Star of the Reformation.” The morning star is not actually a star, but the planet Venus, which appears before the sun rises and while darkness still dominates the horizon. The morning star is unmistakably visible. Darkness dominated the horizon in the fourteenth century, the century of Wycliffe, who…
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