Aug. 11 in Christian History

Aug 11, 2011 07:21 AM EDT

1775 - Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: 'Scriptural faith is a very different thing from a rational assent to the Gospel. Christ is not only the object, but the Author and Finisher of faith.'

1914 - Birth of Lee Shelley, missions pioneer. In 1957 he founded Christians in Action Missions in Huntington Park, California an interdenominational agency working overseas in evangelism, church planting and missionary training.

1930 - In Toledo, Ohio, three Lutheran synods merged to form the American Lutheran Church. (In 1960 the ALC merged with two other branches of Evangelical Lutheranism, and in 1988 joined with a third Lutheran group to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ELCA.)

1933 - Birth of Jerry Falwell, U.S. Baptist clergyman. Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, he has also been an active political lobbyist and once headed the Liberty Federation (formerly called Moral Majority), a Christian lobby which Falwell founded in 1979.

1968 - Presbyterian apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'We live in an abnormal world and all kinds of things do exist, but this does not make them right.'

© 1987-2011, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from

Almanac of the Christian Church