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Bio 2
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Bell,
George Allen Kennedy,
Bishop of Chichester, ecumenical statesman, born Norwich, England, 4 February
1883, died Canterbury, 3 October 1958. Educated at Christ Church Oxford and
Wells Theological College, in 1914 he became chaplain to Archbishop Davidson. He
was a secretary of the 1920 Lambeth conference and edited four volumes of Documents
on Christian Unity. In 1929 he became Bishop of Chichester. Involved with
the emerging Life and Work movement, he supported the Confessing Church in
Germany, and worked for refugees from the Hitler regime. During the war he met
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Stockholm and took news of German opposition to Hitler to
the British government. His
opposition to the area bombing of German cities was believed to have cost him
the position of Archbishop of Canterbury. He supported the Church of South India
and was first moderator of the WCC Central Committee (1948-1954).
Bray,
Thomas, philanthropist and pioneer Anglican
mission strategist, baptised Chirbury, Shropshire, 3 May 1658, died London,
1730. Ordained priest in 1681, he became rector of Sheldon, Warwick in 1690. In
1696 he published his Lectures upon the Church Catechism. He was
instrumental in founding the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge
in March 1699 to provide Christian libraries in the American colonies. It also
supported parochial libraries in Britain and from 1710 contributed to the
Danish-Halle Mission in Tranquebar. After visiting Maryland in 1700, Bray
obtained a royal charter for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
June 1701. He was appointed to St. Botolph Without, Aldgate, London, in 1706 and
in 1723 created the Associates of Dr. Bray for the evangelization of African
American slaves.
Brent,
Charles Henry,
First Protestant Episcopal Church Bishop of the Philippines, ecumenical leader,
and opponent of the opium trade, born Newcastle, Ontario, Canada, 9 April 1862,
died Lausanne, Switzerland, 27 March 1929. He studied at Trinity College,
Toronto, was ordained priest in 1887 and served in Boston until 1901 when he was
appointed bishop in the Philippines by the Episcopal Church in the U.S. Gaps in
the constituency and programme of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910
represented a call to Christian unity for which he became a tireless worker. He
became bishop of Western New York in 1917 and was president at the first Faith
and Order conference in 1927. Known for his disciplined spirituality and
informed social conscience, his published writings are largely devotional. From
1926-1928 he was in charge of Episcopal churches in Europe.
Burns,
William Chalmers, Evangelist and pioneer
Presbyterian Church of England missionary in China, born Kilsyth, Scotland, 1
April 1815, died Yingkou, China, 4 April 1868. He studied law in Edinburgh and
theology in Glasgow and was involved in revivals in Dundee and Kilsyth where he
developed his gifts as an evangelist. After time in Ireland and Canada, in 1847
he was ordained and appointed to China as the first missionary of the
Presbyterian Church of England. His itinerant minstry laid the foundation for
their work in Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shanghai, Shantou, and Fujian. Known as “the
man of the Book”, he translated Pilgrim’s Progress and the metrical
Psalms and wrote a number of hymns in Chinese.
Buxton,
Sir Thomas Fowell,
Christian politician, brewer, philanthropist
and missionary strategist, born in
Castle Hedinghan, Essex, England 6 April 1786, died Overstrand, Norfolk,
19 February1844. From a Quaker family, he was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin. In London from 1807, he became a partner in
Truman’s Brewery, and attended Wheler Street Chapel under the ministry of the
Church Missionary Society secretary, Josiah Pratt. He supported prison reform
and became MP for Weymouth in 1818. From 1821 he was prominent in the abolition
of slavery campaign, taking over the leadership from Wilberforce. His African
Slave Trade and Its Remedy (1839) advocated a “native agency” and his
1841 Niger River expedition pioneered a new phase of West African Christian
mission despite its tragic loss of life. He was created baronet in 1840.
Cairns,
David Smith, Scottish theologian, born
Stitchel, Roxburghshire, Scotland, 8 November 1862, died Edinburgh, 27 July
1946. He left Edinburgh University after a crisis of faith, and attended the
United Presbyterian Theological Hall from 1888. In 1895 he became minister in
Ayton, Berwickshire, and in 1907 Professor of Dogmatics and Apologetics at the
United Free Church College, Aberdeen. He was later Principal. He chaired the
1910 World Missionary Conference commission which produced The Missionary
Message in Relation to Non-Christian Religions. He lectured in America,
China and Japan. His writings include The Faith that Rebels (1928) and The
Riddle of the World (1937). He supported the incipient Iona Community, and
was known for his personal diffidence, sensitivity, humour and love of poetry,
especially Browning.
Câmara,
(Dom) Hélder Pessoa, “Brother of the
poor” and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Linda and Recife, Brazil, born
Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, 7 February 1909, died 1999. Ordained priest in 1931,
he became archbishop in 1964 until his retirement in 1985. He was secretary of
the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops for 12 years from 1952 and helped
the formation of the Latin American Conference of Bishops. He put world
development on the Church’s agenda at Vatican II, brought clergy and laity
into the administration of his diocese and reformed the education of priests. He
was restricted by the military government between 1968 and 1977, but defended
human rights, acted out a “preferential option for the poor” and traveled as
a prophetic voice for Third World peoples. His simplicity, charity, clarity of
vision, and saintliness won international respect. His writings have been widely
translated.
Carmichael,
Amy,
Missionary to India, born Millisle, Belfast, Ireland, 16 December 1867, died
Dohnavur, Tirunelveli, India, 18 January 1951. Educated privately, of intense
personality and earnest Christian commitment, she was strongly influenced by the
Keswick movement. As their first commissioned missionary, she set off for Japan
in 1893, relocated to Sri Lanka, returned to Britain and wrote the first of many
books, From Sunrise Land (1895). In 1895 she headed for Bangalore,
mastered vernacular Tamil, and took charge of a band of women evangelists whose
stories she told in Things As They Are (1903). This passionate corrective
of other views was followed by Overweights of Joy (1906) and Lotus
Buds (1909). Her children’s rescue mission, the Dohnavur Fellowship, was
registered in 1927 but dated from 1901. Bedridden after a fall in 1931,
“Amma’s” last years were filled with visitors and writing. She never
returned to Britain.
Chalmers,
James, LMS missionary to the Cook Islands and
Papua New Guinea, born Ardrishaig, Argyllshire, 4 August 1841, killed Goaribari
Island, Papua, 8 April 1901. He
responded to a call to mission in 1854 in the United Presbyterian Church, worked
as a city missionary in Glasgow, studied under Henry Robert Reynolds at Cheshunt
College (1862-1864) and did missionary training with the LMS at Farquhar House.
He was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1865 and sailed for the Cook
Islands, reaching Rarotonga in 1867. For 10 years he trained Pacific Island
missionary teachers and developed local leadership. He joined the LMS New Guinea
Mission in 1877, made links with village leaders, and staffed stations along the
southern coast with Pacific Island and Papuan teachers. He opposed colonization
and indentured labour, published vocabularies and ethnographic material, and
laid an important base for later Melanesian anthropology.
Chalmers,
Thomas, Evangelical Scottish church leader,
born Anstruther, Fife, 17 March 1780, died Edinburgh 30 May 1847. He was educated at St
Andrews and ordained at Kilmany, Fife in 1803. Following a conversion experience
he became a keen supporter of bible societies. In Glasgow from 1815 he became
the most celebrated preacher in Britain and his poor-relief experiment at St
John’s from 1819 attracted interest and controversy. In 1823 he returned to St
Andrews to lecture in moral philosophy and helped inspire the first generation
of Church of Scotland missionaries to India. In 1828 he became professor of
Divinity at Edinburgh. He was moderator of the Church of Scotland and raised
funds for over 200 new churches. When the Church was split by the Disruption of
1843 Chalmers became first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland. Of broad
interests and sympathies, his writings sold widely.
BDCM: Gerald H. Anderson, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1998. DEM: Nicholas Lossky, et al, eds. Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans / Geneva: WCC, 1991. DSCHT: Nigel M. de S. Cameron, ed. Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993. ML: Gerald H. Anderson, et al, eds. Mission Legacies. Biographical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994.
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