While the Bishops meeting in New Orleans may well be making some history of their own, we thought that a little historical perspective about the history of faith in America would be appropriate. This week was actually a fairly important week in American church history according to Christian History & Biography:
September 23, 1595: Led by Fray Juan de Silva, the Spanish begin an intensive missionary campaign in the American southeast. In the following two years, 1,500 Native Americans in the area of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina convert to the Catholic faith.
September 23, 1857: Layman-turned-evangelist Jeremiah C. Lanphier holds a lunchtime prayer meeting for businessmen on Fulton Street in New York City. At first, no one shows up, but by the program’s third week, the 40 participants requested daily meetings. Other cities begin similar programs, and a revival—sometimes called “The Third Great Awakening”—catches fire across America
September 24, 1757: Jonathan Edwards, perhaps America’s most brilliant theologian and a father of American revivalism, becomes president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton). He served as president until his death in 1758
September 24, 1794: Russian Orthodox priest-monk Father Juvenaly, his brother Stephen, and eight other monks arrive at Kodiak Island, Alaska. After two years of ministry, the team had led 12,000 Alaskans to embrace the gospel. Juvenaly then extended his mission to the mainland, where he was reportedly martyred in 1796.
September 25, 1789: Congress amends The U.S. Constitution to prohibit establishment of a state church or governmental interference with the free exercise of religion.
September 27, 1944: Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel and the most famous female evangelist of her day, dies
Read it all here.