Reformation Missions 1500 to 1800 Part 2

1
Reformation Missions 1500 to 1800Part 2

• For several hundred years people had attempted to
  reform the Church, but every attempt was met with
  persecution and repression until the love for the
  Truth compelled men to heroic action

2
Baptist Church

• John Smyth and Thomas Helwys fled England to
  Amsterdam to avoid being burnt at the stake
• Met Menno Simon, convinced of water baptism of
  adult believers, they formed first Baptist Church
  in 1609
• In 1612 Helwys returned to England to start the
  General Baptists
• Belief in a general atonementhold that Christs
  death made salvation available for any person who
  voluntarily exercised faith in Christ (Ariminian
  or Amyraldianism), but could fall from grace
• Spread slowly but never were significant as the
  Calvinistic Baptists

3
Baptist Church

• Particular (or Calvinistic) Baptists
• Christ died for particular individuals (limited
  to the elect)
• Early Particulars had open communion and open
  memberships (except John Bunyan)
• Grace Baptists are exclusive.
• Tended toward HYPERCALVINISM where God saves
  without human intervention
• Fuller taught that Christ died for all men and
  our duty was to tell them Carey was a disciple
• The Baptist Union (of Particular and General
  Baptist) formed in 1792, then became open in 1813.

4
John Elliot (1604-1690)

• Born in England, graduate of Oxford, became a
  Puritan, went to New England in 1631.
• In 1641, he followed a burden for the Algonquian
  Indians and began through an interpreter learned
  their language and was preaching in Algonquian in
  1 year.
• By 1654 he prepared a catechism (discipleship)
  and by 1658 he had translated the New Testament
  THE FIRST BIBLE PRINTED IN NORTH AMERICA.
• Elliot extracted Indian believers who lived in
  Praying Villages
• 14 villages were established with thousands of
  Indians
• First Indian pastor ordained in Natick, MA in
  1681
• All but 4 villages were destroyed in the King
  Philips War in 1675 King Philips was an Indian
  leader committed to driving the English out of
  Americas

5
Pietists
Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705)
August Herman Francke 1663-1727

• A reform movement within the dying Lutheran
  Church in the late 17th century
• Inspired by the writings of Phillip Jakob Spener,
  August Herman Franke,
• Pietism stressed practice over doctrine, spirit
  over form, a thorough-going spiritual rebirth of
  the individual and that religious faith is
  something to be lived out in service to others.
• Pietists were extremely skeptical of theological
  scholasticism
• Radical Pietists such as the Moravians, the
  German Baptists (Church of the Brethren), and
  Inspirationists (Amana Colonies/Church Society)
  are expressions of its institutional forms.
• Peaked by the 1750s, then continued to influence
  revival movements in America including Methodism,
  the United Brethren, the Evangelical Association
  and the Brethren

6
Count von Zinzendorf (1700-1762)

• Raised as a Pietists, studied law at Wittenberg
  for diplomatic service
• Bought his grandmothers estate
• He sought by preaching, by tract and book
  distribution and by practical benevolence might
  awaken the somewhat torpid religion of the
  Lutheran Church.
• Gave asylum to some Bohemian or Moravian Brethren
  from various groups to build a village of
  Herrnhut
• Persecution had made them fanatical and
  inflexible regarding their creed and form of
  worship, making them fight one another
• His organization was a Family Community not
  individual families as a commitment to unity and
  purpose
• Thanks to his relationships to the court of
  Denmark enabled the transporting of evangelical
  missionaries to Dutch colonies, prohibited on
  Spanish/Portuguese ships.

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Moravians

• Jan Hus, professor at Prague University, taught
  the Bible as the only authority, and the Church
  should renounce secular powers and extensive
  properties, and return to the biblical ideals of
  the Church.
• His criticism of selling indulgences and other
  abuses worsened the reputation of the Czech
  nation, so the Pope declared an interdict on
  Prague, soon condemned and burnt in 1415
• Five years later his followers formed a new Town
  called Tabor in 1420 to realize the ideal society
  on 4 principles
• Freedom to spread the Word of God
• Receive the consecrated bread and wine at mass
  (sub utraque specie)
• Ban on secular power for priests
• Punishment of mortal sins
• Followers formed the Bohemian Brethren,
  persecuted so fled to Herrnhut and there started
  the Moravian Church
• Became the first large scale Protestant
  missionary movement

8
Moravians and John Wesley
Wesleys house

• En route to Americas, 1736, Wesley observed
  German Moravians serving others and calmly facing
  threatening storms
• Attitude of service, Wesley wrote it was good
  for their proud hearts, and their loving Savior
  had done more for them.
• Wesleys DiaryMy brother, said Spangenberg, I
  must first ask you one or two questions. Have you
  the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of
  God bear witness with you that you are a child of
  God? John Wesley was dumb. Do you know Jesus
  Christ? asked Spangenberg. I know, replied
  Wesley, that He is the Savior of the world. Do
  you know, pursued Spangenberg, pressing the
  question further home, that He has saved you?
  I hope He has died to save me, stammered
  Wesley. Do you know yourself? persisted
  Spangenberg, who was not content with skin-deep
  work. I do, replied Wesley, but, says he, I
  fear they were vain words. For a time he
  stumbled on as dazed as ever.

9
Moravians and John Wesley

• I went to America to convert the Indians, he
  wrote, bitterly, in his Journal, when he returned
  to England but oh, who shall convert me? I have
  a fair summer religion. I can talk well nay, and
  I believe myself, when no danger is near. But let
  death look me in the face, and my spirit is
  troubled. Nor can I say, to die is gain.
• I have a sort of fear that when I have spun my
  last thread I shall perish on the shore. I have
  learnedthat I who went to America to convert
  others was not converted myself.
• John Wesley later met Peter Boehler, a Moravian,
  who helped him further, saying
• My brother, my brother, that philosophy of
  yours must be purged away. When John Wesley
  complained, Ah, how can I preach the faith which
  I have not got? Peter Boehler answered, Preach
  faith till you have it, and then, because you
  have it, you will preach it.
• Eventually Wesley got the faith at Altersgate in
  a Moravian church, then went to Herrnhut to
  study, then returned to England to make
  disciples.