Salvation Army

In 1865 one-time Methodist circuit-preacher William Booth began work as an unattached evangelist heading up 'The Christian Mission' aimed at the unprivileged classes that lived in unspeakable poverty in the East End of London.

Thirteen years later, Booth and his wife Catherine reorganized the mission, introducing the military structure which has been retained to the present day.

"The Salvation Army" name developed from an incident when William Booth was reading a printer's proof of the 1878 “Christian Mission” annual report. He noticed the statement "The Christian Mission is a volunteer army." Booth seized a pen, crossed out "volunteer" and wrote instead "salvation", thus coining the title "Salvation Army" for his movement.

The Christian Mission becomes The Salvation Army (May 1878)

William Booth became known as the General, Catherine is known as the "Mother of The Salvation Army". The other ministers were given appropriate ranks as "officers". Other members became "soldiers."

General Booth summed up the purpose of his organization  in the following way: "We are a salvation people - this is our specialty - getting saved and keeping saved, and then getting somebody else saved.”

The Salvation Army adopted a uniform including bonnets, which provided protective headgear when the going got rough. The bonnet was worn for the first time on June 16, 1880 at William and Catherine Booth's silver wedding in Whitechapel.

The Salvation Army founders, Catherine and William Booth

The newly launched Salvation Army launched an offensive throughout the British Isles that converted 250,000 Christians between 1881 and 1885.

In 1880, the Salvation Army started its work in three other countries: Australia, Ireland, and the United States. The message spread rapidly,  and they soon gained a foothold in Canada, France, Switzerland, India, South Africa and Germany.

The worldwide expansion of the Salvation Army. Wikipedia Commons

The Salvation Army's main converts were at first alcoholics, morphine addicts, prostitutes and other "undesirables" unwelcome in polite Christian society. Booth decided not to celebrate Holy Communion due to the large proportion of ex-alcoholics in his congregations. He also refused to advocate baptism, believing that many Christians had come to rely on the outward signs of spiritual grace rather than on grace itself. Other beliefs were that its members should completely refrain from drinking alcohol, smoking and gambling.

There was frequent opposition to the Army’s methods and principles in its early years. The evangelical politician Lord Shaftesbury, for instance, concluded that the newly formed Salvation Army was a trick of the devil.

In 1882, 642 Salvation Army officers, including women, were assaulted and 60 of their buildings destroyed in Britain. This "Hallelujah" Band of converted criminals and ex alcoholics were meeting violent opposition. An opposing group coined the Skeleton Army was organized to break up its meetings by throwing rotten eggs, stones and rats or beating officers with sticks. This 'rabble of roughs' was supported by brewers who opposed Booth's teetotal advocating as a threat to their trade, and the brewers offered a shilling each for each Salvation Army ladies' bonnet captured by the Skeleton Army.

The picture below shows members of the Salvation Army being pursued by the Skeleton Army with its distinctive skull and crossbones banner.

In October 1890, Booth published his major social manifesto, In Darkest England and the Way Out. Booth declared, "A starving man cannot hear you preaching. Give him a bowl of soup and he will listen to every word."

In his manifesto, Booth explored various far-reaching ideas, such as providing hostels, employment centres and helping young men learn agricultural trades before emigrating. So significant and conclusive were his findings that the authorities began  to accept the validity of the Salvation Army.

In 1902 King Edward VII invited General Booth to be officially present at his coronation ceremony. This marked a sea change in the public acceptance of the work the Salvation Army was doing amongst the poor and needy in Britain.

Booth in later years

In the United States, The Salvation Army's reputation improved as a result of its disaster relief efforts following the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

In 2004 The Salvation Army received the largest gift ever given to a charity — a donation of $1.6 billion from the estate of Joan B. Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald’s Corp.

The current world leader of The Salvation Army is General Lyndon Buckingham. He was elected by the High Council on May 27, 2023, and took office on August 3, 2023. He is the 22nd General of The Salvation Army. Born in Dannevirke, New Zealand to Salvation Army officers, General Buckingham is the first New Zealander to hold the office.

Today, The Salvation Army is active in virtually every corner of the world and serves in 127 countries, offering the message of God’s healing and hope to all those in need. It over 1.5 million members consisting of officers, soldiers, and adherents, who as well as meeting to worship God every Sunday, the Salvation Army also run charity shops, operate shelters for the homeless and provide disaster relief and humanitarian aid to developing countries.

Source Salvationarmy.org

Quakers

Quakers are members of a historically Christian group generally known as the Society of Friends

The son of an English Puritan weaver, George Fox (1624-1691) heard an “inner voice” telling him to become a travelling preacher. In 1647 Fox begun travelling from village to village speaking against formalized religion, arguing for a Spirit-filled Christianity where all believers have an equal status and proclaiming his “inner light” doctrine that God is present within everyone.

19th-century engraving of George Fox, based on a painting of unknown date

Elizabeth Hooton was a middle-aged, married woman when she met Fox in 1647 in Skegby, Nottinghamshire, and was already a Nonconformist—specifically, a Baptist. She was among the first, perhaps the very first, to be convinced by the teachings of the young preacher.

Soon afterward, Hooton felt a "call" from God to preach and became the first woman to become a Quaker preacher. She left her family and began to urge judgment and repentance across England. Because of her outspokenness, she found herself in prison many times in her life.

Fox opposed war, (he interpreted the command in Matthew 5 v 39 “Do not resist one who is evil”, literally). By 1648, he had gathered a following of people attracted by his pacifist views, called the Friends of Truth, but the authorities turned against those followers of his who refused to take up arms and imprisoned them.

In 1650 George Fox was jailed at Derby on a trumped-up charge of blasphemy. When he was sentenced, the preacher warned the Judge, Gervasse Bennet, to "tremble at the word of the Lord". Bennet responded by contemptuously calling Fox and his followers, "Quakers", thereby coining their name.

In 1652 George Fox felt God lead him to walk up Pendle Hill, in the north of England. At the top he had a vision of many souls being coming to Christ. From Pendle Hill, Fox traveled north to Sedbergh, and there he preached on the< nearby Firbank Hill where he convinced many to accept his teachings of the "inner light". Encouraged he began preaching in the open air to thousands and gradually he collected a group of young male and female Quaker evangelists who spread out preaching Fox's message.

A Quaker woman preaches at a meeting in London

Ann Austin and Mary Fisher were the first Quakers to arrive in America. The pair had sailed from Barbados, where the Quakers had established a center for missionary work. Their ship docked in Boston Harbor in the Massachusetts Bay colony on July 11, 1656.

As soon as Ann Austin and Mary Fisher set foot on American soil they were arrested and imprisoned. The pair were locked up for five weeks in a dark cell and ordered to be given no food or water. If it wasn't for Nicolas Upshall, the owner of the Red Lion on Boston’s North Street who bribed one of the guards to slip the women some nourishment, both surely would have died, Austin and Fisher were eventually deported back to England five weeks later.

Massachusetts enacted the first punitive legislation against the Society of Friends on October 14, 1656. The marriage of church-and-state in Puritanism made them regard the Quakers as spiritually apostate and politically subversive. The Massachusetts law enacted against the "cursed sect of heretics lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called Quakers..."

The Massachusetts law declared that any shipmaster bringing a Quaker into the colony would be fined £100. Any colonist possessing a Quaker book would be fined £5. Any Quaker coming within the jurisdiction of the colony would be arrested, whipped, and transported out of the colony without conversing with anyone.

Mary Dyer, a Quaker woman, had been repeatedly defying the laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that banned Quakers from the region. She had previously been banished from the colony but returned to challenge the laws and advocate for religious freedom. Despite warnings and the risk to her own life, she continued to speak out and engage in Quaker activities.

On June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer was taken to the gallows and hanged for her beliefs. Her execution, along with those of William Robinson, Willam Leddra and Marmaduke Stevenson, who were also Quakers, became significant in highlighting the issue of religious persecution and intolerance in the early American colonies. The four executed Quakers are known as the Boston martyrs.

Quaker Mary Dyer led to execution on Boston Common, June 1, 1660

Elizabeth Hooton traveled to Boston in 1662, where she was taken on a two-week walk into the woods and abandoned her there to starve. Although over sixty at the time, she survived, finding her way to Rhode Island.

The Society of Friends movement continued to grow despite much persecution in Britain and America and by Fox's death in 1691 there were around fifty thousand Quakers.

The first complete exposition of the Quaker doctrine of "inner light" was written in 1678 by the Scottish Quaker, Robert Barclay in his An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, as the Same is Held Forth and Preached by the People Called in Scorn Quakers. He wrote that believers can receive divine guidance from an inward light, without the aid of intermediaries such as priests or external rites.

The oldest existing Quaker meeting house is in a secluded hollow beside a country lane near Feock, Cornwall. It was built in 1710 and was originally only 20 ft by 27 ft though it has since been extended.

Conservative Friends worshiping in London in 1809. 

Some Quakers founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; and the big three British confectionery makers Cadburys, Rowntrees and Fry's.

The Quakers were reportedly the first group of people to protest against slavery in the American colonies that would become the U.S.

In the 19th century, many Friends were prominent in social reform, including Elizabeth Fry.

Up until the 20th century, The Quakers regularly called the months of the year and days of the week by number only, in order to avoid using names of pagan deities. The numerical names continue to be used in many documents and more formal situations.

The Quakers now form a worldwide movement of about 375,000, and traditionally worship is marked by its stress on meditation and by the freedom of all to take an active part in the service (called a meeting).

Quakers have no priests or ministers, and congregate in 'meeting houses' rather than churches.

Around 79% of Quakers worldwide belong to the "evangelical" and "programmed" branches of Quakerism. These Quakers have a different kind of worship service, like other Christian meetings. They sing hymns and a pastor gives a sermon.

The Quaker Oats company isn't Quaker and never was; they picked their name based on the Quakers reputation for being honest in business.

Source Christianity.com

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of main divisions of Christianity, consisting of many separate denominations. It emerged from Roman Catholicism at the Reformation.

The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, date their origins to the Bohemian religious reformer Jan Hus in the early 15th century. Hus attacked the corruption of the clergy and condemned the sale of indulgences and stressed the importance of Scripture. Hus also criticized clerics for refusing to let the congregation partake of the wine during communion, a right that was reserved just for the clergy.

Hus was excommunicated and burned at the stake in Constance, Bishopric of Constance in 1415 by secular authorities for unrepentant and persistent heresy. After his execution, a revolt erupted and Hussites defeated five continuous crusades proclaimed against them by the Pope.

Execution of Jan Hus in 1415

Within fifty years of Hus' death, a contingent of his followers had become independently organised as the "Bohemian Brethren" or Unity of the Brethren, which was founded in the village of Kunvald, on the Bohemian-Moravian borderland in 1457. These were some of the earliest Protestants, rebelling against Rome some fifty years before Martin Luther. By the middle of the 16th century as many as 90 per cent of the inhabitants of the Bohemian Crown were Protestant.

The later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. It is generally dated to October 31, 1517 in Wittenberg, Saxony, when the German monk Martin Luther sent his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the Archbishop of Mainz. The theses debated and criticized the Church and the papacy, but concentrated upon the selling of indulgences and doctrinal policies about purgatory, particular judgment, and the authority of the pope.

Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, the site where Luther posted his Ninety Five Theses. By Chris06; 

At the 1529 Second Diet of Speyer in Germany the princes within the Holy Roman Empire were denied the right to choose which religious reforms would take effect in their individual states. Instead, everyone was told to return to the Catholic religion and the innovations reformers such as Martin Luther had made were condemned. On April 19, 1529, six of Germany's Lutheran princes and the burghers of 14 cities vigorously protested against the finding because the decisions of the Diet, they felt are contrary to both God's Word and their own consciences. As a result the word "Protestant" was first used for those who protested against the intolerant decisions of the Catholic majority there.

In England, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I found a compromise between orthodox Catholicism and reforming Protestantism in the Church of England.

The first Protestant services in America were conducted by the Protestant Francis Drake for his men whilst docked in San Francisco in 1579. The English sea captain was undertaking an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas.

Today, Protestantism encompasses numerous denominational groups, including Anglicans, Baptists, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals and Presbyterians.

The supreme authority of scripture is a fundamental principle of Protestantism.

The Bible translated into vernacular by Martin Luther

Most Protestant churches recognize only two sacraments directly commanded by the Lord - baptism and communion - as opposed to the seven sacraments accepted by the Catholic Church.

Pentecostalism

Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Evangelical Christianity. Pentecostals believe in a personal experience with God that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. This empowerment includes the use of spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues and divine healing.

Pentecostals at an Assemblies of God church in Cancun, Mexico. By Rayttc 

The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks. For Christians, this event commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ, as described in the second chapter of the Book of Acts.

On January 1, 1901, during a prayer meeting at Charles Fox Parham's Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas one of the students, Agnes Ozman received the gift of speaking in tongues. Not long afterwards, Parham, who was a minister of Methodist background and other students received the same gift.

Charles Fox Parham

Parham formulated the teaching that speaking in tongues in unknown languages in the same way early Christians did on Pentecost day was evidence that a person was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Within a few years this Pentecostal doctrine was spreading throughout the southern states of the United States.

The Pentecostal Movement was bought to the attention of the world when members of the black congregation of the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles started meeting under the leadership of their pastor, William Seymour, a former holiness preacher and pupil of Parham, in a private house. On April 9, 1906 they experienced baptism in the Spirit and started speaking in tongues.

The Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street, considered to be the birthplace of Pentecostalism

As word spread, many Christians from all over the world visited Azusa Street and returned home fired up by the Holy Spirit. Many Pentecostal churches were formed.

The Pentecostal Movement was introduced to Europe in 1907 by Thomas Ball Barratt, an English-Norwegian Methodist Minister. He was influenced by Seymour during a fund-raising tour of the United States and was baptised in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues in November 1906 while staying in New York City. Barratt is credited with beginning the Pentecostal movement in Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and England.

Barratt introduced the Pentecostal Movement to England in 1908. There was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in an Anglican Church in Monk Weirmouth, in north England, when the congregation, whilst meeting together in prayer and worship, begin speaking in tongues.

In 1913 a Pentecostal publication, The Word And Witness, called for the many autonomous Pentecostal churches that had sprung up to unite. The following year at Hot Springs, Arkansas, around 300 church leaders, agreed to form a loosely knit fellowship of independent churches, which became known as the Assemblies of God.

The Assemblies of God based their theology on the teachings of William H Durham of Chicago's "finished work" theory. This doctrine stressed sanctification as a progressive work following conversion with baptism in the Holy Spirit following as the second blessing.

By the middle of the twentieth century when the Pentecostal influenced Charismatic Movement began to flourish, teachings originating from Pentecostal Churches began to infiltrate mainline Protestant and Catholic Churches.

Today there are an estimated 279 million Pentecostals world-wide with the largest make up 4 percent of the total world population and 12.8 percent of the world's Christian population.

Moravian Church

Sometime in the middle of the fifteenth century in central Europe a man named Gregory, who followed the teachings of Jan Hus, was put in a torture rack along with several others for his allegedly heretical beliefs. Refusing to recant he passed out and saw in a dream Jesus standing by a flowering tree with three men. The interpretation of the dream was that Christ would form them into a church.

Jan Hus

A few years later some of the Bible-believing successors of Jan Hus including Gregory met together in Moravia, a crown land of Bohemia within the Holy Roman Empire (today the Czech Republic).They determined to seek God as to whether they should form their own church as their radical beliefs excluded them from the Catholic church. They drew lots to enquire of God is it yes or is it no and their answer was a definite yes.

At the introductory meeting of this pioneering church three elders were appointed and Gregory recognized their faces-they were the same persons he saw in his dream. This pre-Protestant gathering,was the first truly reformed church, 50 years before Martin Luther. The Moravian Church's heritage dates back to this Bohemian Reformation.

The Bohemian Reformation had a strong influence to the education of the population. Even in the middle of the 16th century there was not a single town without a Protestant school in the Bohemian crown lands.

In 1617, Emperor Matthias had his fiercely Catholic brother Ferdinand of Styria elected King of Bohemia, but in 1618 Protestant Bohemian noblemen, who feared losing their religious freedom started the Bohemian Revolt. The Revolt was defeated in 1620 in the Battle of White Mountain near Prague. The local Protestant noblemen were either executed or expelled from the country while the Habsburgs placed Catholic nobility in their place. The war, plague, and subsequent disruption led to a decline in the population from over three million to some 800,000 people. By 1622 the entire education system was in the hands of Jesuits and all Protestant schools were closed.

The Moravian Protestant Brethren were forced to operate underground and eventually dispersed across Northern Europe as far as the Low Countries,

In 1722 Nikolaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), a nobleman who had been brought up in the traditions of Pietism, granted refuge on his estate in Herrnhut, Saxony to a group of persecuted members of the Bohemian Brethren. They had been living in northern Moravia as an illegal underground remnant surviving in Catholic setting of the Habsburg Empire for nearly 100 years. The community became a refuge for other persecuted Protestant believers.

After the coming of the Holy Spirit in 1727 the Moravian refugees living on Count von Zinzendorf's land commenced a round the clock prayer watch. On August 27, 1727, 24 men and 24 women covenanted to spend one hour each day in scheduled prayer. They continued this non-stop for more than a century with at least one person in the community praying every minute of the day.

In 1731 Count Zinzendorf met converts of the Danish-Halle mission including a native West Indian called Anthony whilst attending the coronation of King Christian VI of Denmark. As a result, the following year 600 of these Moravian Protestant refugees organized the Moravian Missionary Church, which was to become one of the pioneers of the modern missionary movement, sending out and in the succeeding 150 years over 2,100 missionaries.

Zinzendorf preaching to people from many nations

A potter Leonard Dober and a carpenter David Nitschmann were the first two Moravian missionaries. At the Moravian church's farewell service for them close to 100 hymns were sung so intense was the feeling. In Copenhagen trying to find a ship to take them to the West Indies, people warned them that they have no hope in succeeding in preaching the Gospel to the slaves. Dober answered that they themselves would be willing to become slaves in order to reach them.

It was a sacrificial commitment to become a missionary in the mid eighteenth century. For instance of the first 27 missionaries sent by the Moravians to the West Indies, 22 died within a year.

Within the Moravian community were bands of between eight to twelve people who regularly met to exhort, reprove and pray for one another, share matters concerning the state of their hearts and encourage evangelism. These were the first cell/prayer groups.

Portrait of a group of Moravian Church members with King George II of Great Britain, attributed to Johann Valentin Haidt, 

In 1737 Count Zinzendorf was consecrated a bishop by the Moravian church, who sought to determine God's will by the lot. They chose elders, affirmed the appointment of missionaries and even decided marriage partners by this means. The lot was only used after long discussion, consideration and prayer and when no consensus could be reached, the community agreed to be bound by the lot. At times rolled pieces of paper were used with either a "ja" or "nein" printed on them, at other times directive scripture verses were written on scraps of paper.

The slogan of Zinzendorf's Moravian church was:  "In essentials unity. Non essentials diversity. And in all things charity."

Friedensthal Moravian Church Christiansted, St Croix, USVI founded in 1755

The modern Moravian Church has about 750,000 members worldwide, It continues to draw on traditions established during the 18th-century renewal.

Methodism

In 1729 university students John Wesley and his brother Charles founded with 14 other Oxford undergraduates the Holy Club. Charles Wesley, the chief founder of this religious association, was alarmed at the threat of the influence of Deism in the University. The Holy Club members fasted, went without sleep, laid down on grass during frosty nights, visited the sick and prisoners, but it was all good works and no personal salvation. Due to their methodical ways they were scathingly called "Methodists"

John Wesley attended a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, on May 24, 1738, in which he heard a reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley felt his heart "strangely warmed." The event revolutionized the character and method of his ministry.

Wesley preaching, by William Hamilton

After Wesley had this conversion experience he visited Count Zinzendorf's Moravian community to see how the Gospel was lived out in community. He then returned to England and founded the Methodist movement, an off shoot of the Anglican Church, to spread "scriptural holiness."

England in the 1730s was in need of spiritual surgery. This was the era of the hunting, shooting, bottle a day parson who entered the ministry not on account of a vocation but because it offered a gentlemanly way of living. Often the church was the only profession open to a younger son who got his post through family influence. He embraced religion as casually as he might have bought a commission in a regiment. The churches often stood empty and there were multitudes in the cities and countryside that knew no more of the Christian message than an inhabitant of the "Dark Continent." John Wesley saw his mission as to reform the nation and spread Scriptural holiness over the land.

John Wesley built the first Methodist chapel, the New Room in Bristol in 1739. Here men and women were separated to aid concentration, women were sat downstairs and men upstairs.

Interior of New Room Chapel

Across the border in Wales the Welsh Methodists were being nicknamed "Jumpers" as they habitually jumped for joy.

The first conference of Methodist workers was held in 1744. John Wesley was influenced by Count Zinzendorf's Moravian community whereby he  created a fellowship based structure with prayer bands where everyone was accountable to each other and where new converts were placed in small meeting groups.

Wesley had a heart for the working class such as the miners, whom after their conversion he encouraged to meet in their own Christian congregations, sing their own songs and mix with their own kind. Many middle class Christians were shocked at this strategy, but it proved successful and helped the Methodist Church to grow.

The Wesley Chapel on John Street in New York City was dedicated in 1768. It was the first Methodist church building to be erected in the American colonies, and was restored in 1817, and again in 1840. In 1769 John Wesley sent his first Methodist missionaries to America.

The powerful preacher Francis Asbury (August 20, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was the first American Circuit Rider (a Methodist minister who preached round his circuit). He arrived from England in 1771 and started touring the colonies and the Mississippi territory and developed the system of circuit riding for the frontier ministry.

The Ordination of Bishop Asbury, an engraving of an 1882 painting of the scene.

By covering thousands of miles each year as a circuit rider, Francis Asbury established Methodism as one of the leading American denominations. Asbury delegated authority to other Methodist lay preachers but had high standards. These lay readers had to be willing to get up at 4.00 in the morning for one hours Bible study then be outside by 5.00 to meet people going to work.

Francis Asbury saw the new denomination grow from under 500 members to over 200,000 by the time of his death in 1816.

By 1784, John Wesley believed he could not longer wait for the Bishop of London to ordain someone for the American Methodists, who were without the sacraments after the American War of Independence. Wesley ordained his friend Thomas Coke, a priest in the Church of England, to be the co-superintendent of Methodists in the United States along with Francis Asbury, by the laying on of hands.

Barratt's Chapel is a Methodist chapel located to the north of Frederica in Kent County, Delaware. Coke came to Barratt's Chapel on Sunday, November 14, 1784, expecting to find Asbury. As Wesley's personal emissary, Coke was invited to preach. During this service the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion were administered for the first time by ordained Methodist clergy.

Barratt's Chapel,

The 1784 Christmas Conference marked the beginning of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. For the following 32 years, Asbury led all the Methodists in America.

In 1776 fewer than 2 per cent of Americans were Methodists. By 1850, the movement claimed the allegiance of 34 percent of the population.

Methodism is known for its rich musical tradition; Charles Wesley was instrumental in writing much of the hymnody of the Methodist Church,

The Methodist Church and Evangelical United Brethren Church merged on April 23, 1968, to form the United Methodist Church, which is one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States today.

The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church shared a common heritage and mission, and the merger was seen as a way to create a stronger, more unified voice for Methodism in America. The new United Methodist Church sought to build on the strengths of both denominations, combining their theological and social perspectives to better serve their congregations and communities.

The UMC is the second-largest Protestant denomination in the United States, after the Southern Baptist Convention. It has over 12.5 million members in the United States and over 8 million members worldwide. 

The UMC is a diverse denomination, with members from all walks of life. It is committed to social justice and evangelism. The UMC is a global church, with members in over 135 countries.

Almost all Methodist denominations are members of a consultative body called the World Methodist Council, which is headquartered at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, in the United States.

Mennonite

The radical Protestant group, the Mennonites developed from the Anabaptist movement. They took their name from their most prominent early leader Menno Simons who died in 1561.

Menno Simons

The early teachings of the Mennonites were founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held to with great conviction despite persecution by the various Roman Catholic and Protestant states.

The Mennonites were the first Christian group in the colonies to condemn slavery in Pennsylvania in 1688.

Swiss Mennonite leader Jakob Ammon formed his own branch of the church following a schism in Switzerland and South Germany within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Mennonites in 1693 The split came about after Ammon took issue with other Swiss Mennonite leaders over discipline issues and those who followed Ammann became known as Amish Mennonites or just Amish.

Ann Jemima Allebach (1874 – 1918) was an American educator and suffragette. She became the first woman to be ordained as a Mennonite minister in North America on January 15, 1911. There was not another Mennonite woman ordained until 1973.

Allebach, c. 1916

In 2009, there were 1,616,126 Mennonites worldwide.  Most Mennonites are in the United States Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and India but Mennonites can also be found in tight-knit communities in at least 82 countries on six continents or scattered amongst the populace of those countries.

Germantown Mennonite Meetinghouse, built 1770

There are many different types of Mennonite communities in the world. There are those that dress in old-fashioned ways, and others who are indistinguishable in clothing and appearance from the general population.

Since the latter part of the 20th century, some Mennonite groups have become more actively involved with peace and social justice issues, helping to found Christian Peacemaker Teams and Mennonite Conciliation Service.

Lutheranism

Lutheranism has its roots in the work of Martin Luther, who sought to reform the Western Church to what he considered a more biblical foundation.

The name Lutheran originated as a derogatory term used against Luther by German Scholastic theologian Dr. Johann Maier von Eck during the Leipzig Debate in July 1519.

Martin Luther always disliked the term Lutheran, preferring the term Evangelical, which was derived from euangelion, a Greek word meaning "good news", i.e. "Gospel."

Martin Luther

The Second Diet of Speyer in 1529 prohibited future reformation and enforced The Edict of Worms. The word Protestant is derived from the Latin protestatio meaning declaration which refers to the letter of protestation by Lutheran princes against the decision of the Diet of Speyer. At first, this term Protestant was used politically for the states that resisted the Edict of Worms. Over time, however, this term came to be used for the religious movements that opposed the Roman Catholic tradition in the 16th century.

Lutheranism spread through all of Scandinavia during the 16th century, as the monarch of Denmark–Norway (also ruling Iceland and the Faroe Islands) and the monarch of Sweden (also ruling Finland) adopted Lutheranism. Through Baltic-German and Swedish rule, Lutheranism also spread into the Baltic countries of Estonia and Latvia.

Three English and Irish Lutheran servants to the Spanish in Mexico City became the first men to be killed for their faith in America in 1574. They ran into trouble with the Inquisition, which had been set up in Mexico three years previously. People from all over the country attended the public announcement of their sentences and the burning at the stake of the three Lutherans was an elaborate public spectacle on February 28, 1574.

In 1666 Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) took up a post as a Lutheran Clergyman at a parish in Frankfurt. Four years later, influenced by the works of English Puritan writers such as Richard Baxter he began holding home Bible studies for prayer, Bible reading, and the sharing of Christian experience. Out of this came the German Pietist movement, which emphasized pious living and new birth in Christ and revitalized the German Lutheran church. In the eighteenth century Pietism greatly impacted Spener's godson, Nikolaus Count Von Zinzendorf and the Moravians.

On November 24, 1703, Andrew Rudman and two other Swedish church leaders ordained Justus Falckner at Gloria Dei Church, the Swedish Lutheran Church in Wicaco, today South Philadelphia. He was the first Lutheran pastor ordained in the region that became the United States. Falckner's first pastoral assignment was with the settlers on the Manatawny Creek in New Hanover Township, Pennsylvania..

The first Lutheran missionaries arrived at Tranquebar in South India in 1706.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a devout member of the Lutheran Church and his sympathies lay in particular with the Pietist movement. He believed he could best serve his church and the people around him through his music.

The first Lutheran church body in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was founded at a Church Conference of Lutheran clergy on August 26, 1748, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The conference was organized by Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, who is considered the "father of the Lutheran Church in America."

The Pennsylvania Ministerium was a loose association of Lutheran churches in Pennsylvania and neighboring states. It was known as the "Ministerium of North America" until 1792, when mindful of other Lutheran church bodies being founded in North America, the group renamed itself "The Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States".

It was not until 1820 that the first nationwide Lutheran organization in the United States was formed, the General Synod.

An 1803 hymnal, published by the Pennsylvania Ministerium

Hebron Church was founded by German settlers in 1786, making it the first organized Lutheran church west of the Shenandoah Valley.

The first commercial advent calendars were printed in Germany in 1851. Originally used just by German Lutherans they are now ubiquitous among adherents of many Christian denominations.

In 1939 German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the dramatic decision to return from America to Nazi Germany to be with his people in the tragic times that he saw ahead. He was opposed to the "German Christian Movement" which advocated the removal of all Jewish elements from the Christian faith and he challenged Christians to reject a complacent, immature and compliant faith. Instead Bonhoeffer believed that the Christian walk requires a costly involvement in the modern secular society. On April 9, 1945, two years after being arrested for involvement in the political resistance against Hitler, the Nazis hanged him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor and theologian. By Bundesarchiv, Wikipedia Commons

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) came into existence on January 1, 1988. It formed through the merger of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches with two prominent Lutheran denominations in the United States, The American Lutheran Church (ALC) and The Lutheran Church in America (LCA). These two churches traced their roots back to various earlier Lutheran denominations that had arrived in the US from Europe throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The merger aimed to create a stronger and more unified Lutheran presence in the country, while still respecting the diversity within the traditions.

Today, Lutheranism is one of the largest denominations of Protestantism. With approximately 80 million adherents, it constitutes the third most common Protestant denomination after historically Pentecostal denominations and Anglicanism.

The ELCA remains the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States today, with over 3.5 million members in over 9,300 congregations across the country. It embraces a broad spectrum of theological and liturgical perspectives, making it a diverse and vibrant part of the American religious landscape.

Jehovah's Witnesses

The Congregationalist-raised Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) founded a Bible study group with some associates called the Millennial Dawnists movement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1870s. Russell was much influenced by the 'Millerite' Adventist movement and he believed the Rapture of believers was imminent so he enthusiastically proclaimed his beliefs to anyone who would listen.

Russell's group began to expand into other congregations from the mid 1880s as the former Congregationalist began to intensify his ministry with the help of the tracts, magazines and Bibles that he began distributing through the Zion Watch Tower Tract Society.

Though Russell's organization went through a number of schisms, it became a worldwide movement helped enormously by the international syndication in newspapers from the early 1900s of his sermons.

After the death of Russell in a train crash in 1916, his successor Joseph Rutherford (1869-1942) re-energized the movement encouraging the Millennial Dawnists from 1922 to go from door to door preaching the Gospel.

In 1931 Rutherford proposed that they change their name to Jehovah's Witnesses based on Isaiah 43:10-12.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Satan and his demons were cast down to earth from heaven in early October 1914, at which point at Jesus Christ began to rule in heaven as king. The end times began at that point.

Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses on April 24, 1933 by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

Michael Jackson was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and was active until his disassociation in 1987. Despite his tremendous fame and great fortune, the Thriller star was still door-to-door witnessing for his faith twice a week in the mid-1980s and regularly attending meetings at Kingdom Hall with his mother when he was in town.

The musician Prince was introduced to the Jehovah's Witness faith, following a two-year-long debate with friend and fellow Jehovah's Witness, musician Larry Graham. He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocks on people's doors to discuss his faith. Prince has given up using profanity in his performances and recordings since his conversion (he refers to it as a "realization.")

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits the consumption of blood in any form, including blood transfusions. They believe that accepting blood into the body is a violation of God's law as stated in the Bible. However, many Jehovah's Witnesses accept solid organ transplants, such as kidneys and pancreas, as they do not involve the direct consumption of blood. They consider these transplants to be a matter of personal conscience and some may choose to accept them while others may not. Each individual Jehovah's Witness makes their own decision based on their interpretation of Bible teaching.

Source Artistfacts.com

Huguenot

From the 16th to the 18th century the name Huguenot was used to describe a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France. Historically, Huguenots were inspired by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s.

French Antarctique was a French colony in Brazil. Founded in 1555 it became a haven for Huguenots before being captured by the Portuguese in 1567. 

Huguenot numbers peaked near an estimated two million by 1562, concentrated mainly in the southern and central parts of France, about one-eighth the number of French Catholics.

The Edict of Saint-Germain was issued on January 17, 1562 by representatives of Catherine de' Medici, the regent of France, during the French Wars of Religion. It granted limited religious tolerance to the Huguenots, allowing them to openly practice their religion and hold public office. However, it also stipulated that they were not to hold military power or interfere with the Catholic Church. 

An attempt on March 1, 1562 by Francis, Duke of Guise, to disperse a church service by Huguenots in Wassy, France, turned into a massacre. It resulted in 50 dead, and started the French Wars of Religion.

The French Wars of Religion were a prolonged period of war and popular unrest between Catholics and Huguenots between 1562 and 1598. It is estimated that three million people perished in this period from disease, famine or violence. 

Six days after Henry IV of France's marriage to the Protestant Marguerite de Valois the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre (see below) kicked off in Paris on August 24, 1572. Over three thousand Huguenots who had come to the French capital for Henry's wedding were killed, as well as thousands more throughout the country in the days that followed.

In the years following the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled France and sought safety in other countries of northern Europe. An estimated 50,000 of crossed the English Channel to England, and it was then that the word 'refugee' first entered the English language.

By the Edict of Nantes, issued by King Henry IV on April 30, 1598, the French Huguenots were guaranteed freedom of worship in certain French towns where they were allowed to build churches and open schools and universities. In exchange they had to swear to "serve the King well and faithfully in the exercise of their duties."

The Edict of Nantes

King Louis XIV (1638-1715) was determined to stamp out Protestantism in France. By 1685 he had passed a series of laws that excluded the Huguenots from all top posts culminating in the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked the 1598 Edict of Nantes. In forbidding Protestant worship and making Catholic baptism compulsory the French monarch prompted such persecution of the French Huguenots that 400,000 fled France as a consequence. The majority of them were professional people or skilled craftsmen whose skills were lost to the detriment of the French economy.

On December 31, 1687 the first community of Huguenots arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa from the Netherlands. The Dutch East India Company needed skilled farmers at the Cape of Good Hope and the Dutch Government sent them over. The colony gradually grew over the next 150 years or so until it stretched for hundreds of kilometres to the north and north-east.

Today, remnant communities in Alsace and the Cévennes in France and a diaspora of Huguenots in England and French Australians still retain their Huguenot religious tradition.

Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church—the American branch of the Anglican Communion, was so named because Anglican sounded treasonously English during the Revolutionary War.

The first Anglican congregation was founded in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia. Two years later the Church of England became the established church in Virginia and by the time of the Revolutionary War, it was the established church of five of America’s thirteen colonies.

The Episcopal Church in the USA was formally established after the War of Independence in 1789 so that the clergy would not have to submit to the supremacy of the British monarch.

In 1784 an American, Samuel Seabury, was secretly consecrated in Scotland as the first American Episcopal bishop. A year later he returned to America to take up the appointments of rector of Saint James' Church in New London and the bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island. He was the first Anglican bishop who owed no allegiance to the crown.

Eastern Orthodox Church

Christianity developed into two big branches in the Middle Ages. The Western part later became the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern part is known as the Eastern Orthodox Church. During the centuries views on politics and theology developed differently in several ways. The issues that divided  the Eastern and Western Christians came to a head in 1054 with the Great Schism, where each Church excommunicated the other.

The Nea Ekklesia was inaugurated in Constantinople in 880, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.

In 1965 the Orthodox Eastern Church and the Western Catholic Church agreed to retract the excommunications cast on each other in 1054 which formalized the Great Schism.

Pope John Paul II traveled to Romania in 1999 becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054.

The Eastern Orthodox Church – with a permanent church in Antarctica – is the only religion with a church on every continent.

There are about 300 million Orthodox Christians in the world. 

Church of England

Henry VIII was married to Catherine of Aragon, but asked the Pope to annul the marriage. When the annulment was refused, the King transferred ecclesiastical jurisdiction and revenues from the Pope to himself and created the Church of England. The English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, making the king head of the English church on November 3, 1534.

Henry VIII

Despite Pope Paul III decreeing slavery for all Englishmen who supported Henry VIII, the king’s countrymen were behind their monarch in breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church.

The 1563 Thirty-nine Articles, which combined Catholic organization and Protestant doctrine, were defining statements of Anglican doctrine. They established the Church of England with Elizabeth I its supreme governor.

A coal miner in 1730s England would rise at 3.30 am for breakfast then work in the mine shifts with poor ventilation all day before creeping into bed at nightfall to begin again the next day. On Sunday he was too dirty and to poor to find comfort in the middle class church and if he should turn up he was likely to sent away by an Anglican church officer.

On July 14, 1833 John Keble (1792-1866), a parson's son, and professor of poetry at Oxford preached a sermon on "Natural Apostasy" which sparked off the "Oxford Movement", a revival of Catholic spirituality in the Church of England. For the next eight years a group of Oxford High churchmen including Keble and John Henry Newman sent a series of pamphlets to every parsonage in England warning of the dangers they felt were threatening the church from secular authorities such as the Liberals and Dissenters. They advocated a higher degree of ceremonial worship nearer to that of the Roman Catholic Church. This ceremonial form of worship in the Anglican Church is now known as Anglo-Catholicism.

Bartholomew Edwards, the Rector of St Nicholas, Ashill, Norfolk died at the age of 100 in 1889. He holds the record for the longest ever recorded incumbency having been the vicar of the parish since 1813.

In 1942 the Church of England abolished its rule forcing women to wear hats in church.

In 1980 the modern Alternative Service Book was introduced by the Church of England as an alternative to the 1662 Prayer Book.

The General Synod of the Church of England voted to allow women to become priests on November 11, 1992.

Two years after the Church of England Synod voted in favor of women priests, the first 32 Anglican women priests were ordained on March 12, 1994 at Bristol Cathedral by Bishop Barry Rogerson. However in response, 700 Anglican clergymen threatened to leave the Anglican Church for the Roman Catholic Church.

When John Sentamu was enthroned as Archbishop of York in 2005, he became the first member of an ethnic minority to serve as an archbishop in the Church of England.

Sentamu's path to the archbishopric was an extraordinary one. He studied law at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and went on to become an advocate of the Supreme Court of Uganda. In 1973, he moved to England to pursue a career in theology, eventually earning a doctorate from Selwyn College, Cambridge. Ordained as a deacon in 1979 and a priest in 1980, Sentamu served in a variety of roles within the Church of England, including as Bishop of Stepney from 1996 to 2005.

In 2010, for the first time in the history of the Church of England, more women than men were ordained as priests (290 women and 273 men).

Elizabeth Jane Holden "Libby" Lane (born 1966) became the first woman to be appointed as a bishop by the Church of England, after its General Synod voted in July 2014 to allow women to become bishops. Her consecration as the Bishop of Stockport took place on January 26, 2015 at York Minster.

The first female Archbishop of the Church of England, Sarah Mullally, was appointed on October 3, 2025. She was announced by Downing Street and her nomination was approved by King Charles III on that date. She is the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.