Theologian's Almanac for Week of June 13, 2021
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, June 13:
June 14 is the birthday of Harriet Beecher Stowe, born in Connecticut in 1811. The daughter of Lyman Beecher, a well known Congregationalist minister, Harriet’s ministry would take a literary form: in 1852, her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, became a national sensation. One of the bestselling novels of all time, the novel was for many an eye-opening, unsparing, tragic depiction of the evils of slavery, and a vision that helped galvanize the abolitionist movement.
June 15 is the day the Magna Carta (or “Great Charter”) was sealed in 1215 in the English meadow of Runnymede. Members of both the nobility and the church had grievances with King John, and so they pressed him to address them, and at the same time to guarantee certain rights to his subjects. The document itself, written by Stephen, the Archbishop of Canterbury, included several ideas that would go on to influence later legal charters, including the United States’ Bill of Rights: that the church should be free of governmental interference; that the monarch should be subject to the law and not above it; and that no one shall be seized, imprisoned, or exiled without due process of law.
June 15 is also the birthday of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, born in Japan in 1763. He became one of the masters of haiku, a poetic form using 17 Japanese characters grouped in three distinct units. His subjects were often common, everyday details, the small wonders of daily life — and the success of his work is largely responsible for the popularity of haiku today. He often explored spiritual subjects from down-to-earth, relatable vantage points, with both insight and a twinkle in his eye. Here’s one of his classics:
All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.
June 17 is the birthday of John Wesley, considered the founder of Methodism, born in England in 1703. (June 17 is his original birthday, according to the English calendar of the time; newer calendars reckon his birth date as June 28.) The term “Methodist” was originally derisive, used by some of Wesley’s classmates at Oxford because of his methodical style of study, prayer, and fasting. Wesley traveled on horseback throughout the English, Scottish, and Irish countryside, preaching to all he met. He was a lifelong Anglican; his idea was to form small groups for regular prayer and Bible study within the Anglican church. But when Methodist missionaries brought his approach across the Atlantic, it quickly spread under its own denominational banner — and by 1850, the Methodists were the largest denomination in the United States, widely popular among colonists along the frontier, as well as among African Americans, both enslaved and free.
June 19 is Juneteenth, also called “Emancipation Day” or “Freedom Day,” symbolically marking the end of enslavement in the United States. President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but it only applied to enslaved people in the Confederacy, and its enforcement depended on the presence of Union troops — and those troops didn’t arrive in Galveston, Texas, one of the southernmost outposts of enslaving territory, until June 19, 1865. Celebrations of the holiday have ebbed and flowed over the years, and are on the upswing today, especially (but not exclusively) in African American communities. The day is typically marked by African American music, food, dance, literature, and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.
June 19 is also the birthday of Blaise Pascal, the religious philosopher, mathematician, and physicist, born in France in 1623. Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator for sale to the public; the syringe; and the hydraulic press, as well as early forms of probability theory and integral calculus. Though his family wasn’t religious, he was deeply impressed with two Christian mystics who cared for his father during an illness, and he converted to Christianity. One night in November of 1654, he experienced a divine vision he later called a “night of fire,” poetic notes from which he scribbled down on a piece of paper, and then sewed the paper into the lining of his coat, so he could keep it close until his death. The year after his vision, he left Paris to live in the Abbey of Port-Royal, where he wrote his most famous (though unfinished) book, Pensées (“Thoughts”).
Here are two of his thoughts:
1) If you don’t have faith, Pascal wrote, try acting as though you do. Do the things that a faithful person would do, and over time, you may well find your actions leading your heart and mind in faithful directions. In other words, don’t worry too much about what you believe; focus instead on your actions, on how you are living, and your convictions will follow.
2) In what has become known as “Pascal’s Wager,” Pascal argued that, while definitive proof of God’s existence exceeds our grasp, this shouldn’t surprise us. Whenever we face ultimate, unanswerable questions, we are unavoidably in a position of “wagering”: either we bet on the idea that God is real, or on the idea that God is a fantasy. And if God is real, Pascal reasoned, there is a great deal to be gained by believing and acting as if God is real (and a great deal to be lost if we don’t!); and if God is a fantasy, there’s comparatively little lost no matter what we do. So it makes more sense, he concluded, to “wager” that God is real — and by extension, to live our everyday lives accordingly. This famous idea is often misunderstood as a kind of clever “proof” of God’s reality — but that’s the last thing it is. Pascal’s starting point is that such “proof” isn’t possible. Rather, his idea amounts to a recognition that genuine faith doesn’t involve proof or certainty, but rather a humble and courageous “betting our lives” on God.
June 19 is also the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by the United States Senate. Often considered the most significant United States civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the act prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin when it comes to employment, voting, and the use of public facilities.