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June 17, 1703: John Wesley, founder of Methodism, is born in Epworth, England, to parents Samuel and Susanna. Though Methodism's emphasis on grace and instantaneous (often emotional) conversion marked a radical departure from high church tradition, Wesley always considered himself an Anglican (see issue 2: John Wesley and issue 69: The Wesleys).
June 17, 1963: The U.S. Supreme Court rules 8-1 that states cannot require the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or Bible verses in public schools.
June 18, 1464: Pope Pius II begins a crusade against the Turks. He died on the way to a rendezvous with his allies, and the crusading mentality died with him.
June 18, 1546: Protestant Anne Askew is condemned in England for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation (the idea that sacramental bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ). When asked by her accuser, "Sayest thou that priests cannot make the body of Christ?" she answered, "I have read that God made man; but that man can make God, I never yet read, nor, I suppose, shall ever read.
June 18, 1956: Founder of The Navigators, Dawson Trotman dies of a heart attack while rescuing a swimmer at a summer Navigators conference in the Adirondacks.
June 19, 325: Bishop Hosius, a delegate at the Council of Nicea, announces the newly written Nicene Creed. Countering Arius, who taught that "there was a time when the Son was not," the creed describes Christ as "God from very God, begotten not made" (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).
June 19, 1566: James VI of Scotland, who later became King James I of England, is born. He wrote treatises on the divine right of kings, witchcraft, biblical themes, and set into motion a translation of the Bible known as the King James Version (see issue 43: How We Got Our Bible).
June 19, 1623: Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and scientist as well as an apologist for Christianity and for Jansenism, is born (see issue 76: Christian Face of the Scientific Revolution).
June 19, 1834: Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers and orators of the nineteenth century, is born (see issue 29: C. H. Spurgeon).
June 19, 1987: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Louisiana law requiring public schools to teach creationism if they taught evolution.
June 20, 1599: The Synod of Diamper, sponsored by the Roman Catholic church, seeks to correct the errors of Christians in India and bring them into conformity with the teachings of the church.
June 20, 1885: A band of Moravian missionaries lands on the shores of Alaska and founds the Bethel Mission.
June 21, 1607: English settlers found the first Anglican (later Episcopalian) parish in America at Jamestown, Virginia.
June 21, 1892: Reinhold Niebuhr, American neo-orthodox theologian and ethicist, is born. He rejected some of the optimism of Christian liberalism, arguing for origional sin and for a prophetic, culture-challenging Christianity, but his liberal views on politics, the Bible, and the nature of Christ (he believed Jesus was a moral exemplar, but not fully God) distanced him from conservatives.
June 22, 431: The Third Ecumenical Council opens in Ephesus to condemn Nestorianism, which holds that Christ was two separate persons rather than one person with two natures (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).
June 22, 1714: Matthew Henry, English Presbyterian pastor and Bible commentator, dies. His work is still published as Matthew Henry's Commentary.
June 22, 1750: Colonial preacher Jonathan Edwards is dismissed from his Massachusetts pastorate for pursuing tests for church membership (see issue 8: Jonathan Edwards and issue 77: Jonathan Edwards).
June 23, 1683: English Quaker William Penn, an advocate of peace and religious toleration, signs a treaty with the American Indians of Pennsylvania. Voltaire said the agreement was the only treaty never sworn to and never broken.
June 23, 1780: American troops, using hymnal pages from the First Presbyterian Church for gun wadding, stops the British advance on Springfield, New Jersey (see issue 50: American Revolution).
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