May 15: Today in Christian History

 

May 15, 719

Wynfrith, from Devon, England, is consecrated in Rome as Bishop Boniface. He will carry the gospel across Germany and Prussia.

May 15, 1164

Death of the abbess, Heloise, whose love affair with, and secret marriage to, the philosopher-theologian Abelard is known to history.

May 15, 1170

Death at Madrid of Isidore the Farmer, a Spanish farmworker considered by some a patron saint of rural and agricultural workers.

May 15, 1576

Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II and his associates issue the Epicrisis on the Confession of Augsburg, an answer to the Lutheran confession, showing points of agreement and disagreement. They declare there are two sources of true faith: the Holy Bible and Sacred Tradition.

May 15, 1778

Death at St-Omer, France, of Alban Butler, author of a well-known five-volume Lives of the Saints.

May 15, 1879

Death at Angaston of George Fife Angas, Baptist businessman and colonizer of Southern Australia.

May 15, 1891

Pope Leo XIII issues the influential encyclical Rerum novarum, which grapples with social issues, saying the earth is given for the common good, that there needs to be more equality between capital and labor, and that the state has a central role in regulating justice in these matters.

May 15, 1937

Death in Woking, England, of hymnwriter Ada Rundall Greenaway. Her best-known hymns are “For the Dear Ones Parted from Us,” “O Father, We Would Thank Thee,” “O Perfect God, Thy Love,” “O Word of Pity, for Our Pardon Pleading,” “Rise at the Cry of Battle,” and “Rise in the Strength of God.”

May 15, 1955

Obadiah Kariuki and Festo Olang' are consecrated as the first African assistant bishops in the Anglican diocese of Mombasa, covering East Africa. Kariuki will be a bishop and spiritual leader in the Kenyan church after the nation’s independence, his diocese growing so rapidly that it will have to be divided in two. Twenty-two years to the day after his consecration, thousands will attend a thanksgiving service in his honor when he retires.

May 15, 1984

Death in Rochester, Minnesota, of Francis Schaeffer, a Christian apologist. With his wife, Edith, he had operated L’Abri, a ministry to intellectuals. His most important book may have been his smallest, Escape from Reason, which caused many evangelicals to look at the development of literature and art. He had often argued that moral relativity is responsible for social ills.