Tuesday, July 29, 2025

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 29th of July 2025 Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

When Thomas Dick died on this day in 1857 at the age of 83 in his home on the firth of Tay on the East coast of Scotland he was almost universally lauded as a Christian and “Natural Philosopher” who perhaps did more than any other to bring together the sometimes disparate worlds of the church and the Enlightenment. His book, the “Philosophy of a Future State” which proposed a harmony of empirical philosophy and evangelical Christianity was, reportedly, the favorite book of missionary David Livingston. His books were especially popular in American angst Sunday schools and Chautauquas (those popular lecture circuits).

He had developed such a reputation- working as a scholar from his home library and observatory- that he had the likes of William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe as visitors (he was an evangelical, scientist, pacifist and abolitionist).

But his fame was far from a given- even as a promising young minister and scholar it almost came crashing down in 1804 when he was discovered to have fathered a child with his servant. He was married, but his wife left him and to make it worse both their child, and the child born out of wedlock died in infancy and the Scottish Presbyterian church defrocked him.

It was, understandingly, a turning point in his life. He could have shunned the church that raised and ordained him and found compatriots in the increasingly deistic Scottish academic world. He could have fled his hometown of Dundee and recreated himself to a new community (in the 1800s you could do this).

He had studied theology to become a preacher, but his first love was astronomy. As one biographer reports “On 18th August 1783 at the age of nine young Thomas saw a meteor shower which instilled in him a lifelong passion for astronomy.  He obtained from neighbors some old spectacle lenses, ground them to the proper shape for a primitive telescope, mounted them in pasteboard tubes, and began his observations of the heavens.”

Following the “flagrant immorality” he rededicated himself to the church and to teaching, but now the teaching of natural Philosophy. And astronomy, in particular, had been used by critics of Christianity to disprove the religion (this is 19th c. Astronomy). HIs “the Christian Philosopher” of 1823 and the “Telescope and the Microscope” of 1851 were hits- especially in America. He argued that the observation of God’s creation is a form of worship.

HIs astronomy was both advanced for its time and fell into some standard 19th century silliness. He was a proponent of the idea of a “plurality of worlds”- the idea that the cosmos are completely inhabited by other creatures- other kinds of people who God deals with as he pleases. Dick’s work was picked up by the likes pushing the famous Moon Hoax- that was the 1835 scandal when a series of articles were published in New York stating that a new highly powerful telescope discovered all kinds of creatures on the moon but unfortunately the powerful telescope was destroyed in a fire.

Dick was not part of the moon hoax, but biographers do like to point out that he had figured out the population, roughly, of the universe- it was based on the population density of Great Britain and, carrying the 3… just under 22 trillion.

 But we shouldn’t bury the lede with the sillier side of 19th century science. Thomas Dick’s career and life- seemingly destroyed with his own sin- redoubled his efforts to teaching and writing (by the age of 53 he retired to his library and laboratory in Broughty Ferry- on the Scottish coast) his work influenced generations of Christian philosophers and science- linking the world of observation with the Word of God. He would marry twice more, left a widow and two children- one of whom, Thomas attended the university of St. Andrews and went on to teach at the Tay Square Seminaries. Thomas, the elder, was not a businessman and never secured favorable publishing rights. He would die in relative poverty on this, the 29th of July in 1857 having lived a life of scandal and redemption. Thomas Dick was 83 years old.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and a beautiful call to repentance from the first 3 verses of Hosea 6:

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces

    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.

After two days he will revive us;

    on the third day he will restore us,

    that we may live in his presence.

Let us acknowledge the Lord;

    let us press on to acknowledge him.


As surely as the sun rises,

    he will appear;


he will come to us like the winter rains,

    like the spring rains that water the earth.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 29th of July 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows Broughty Ferry is in Dundee and does NOT accept the mean nickname some Scots have given it… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man well familiar with Broughty Ferry- leaving St. Andrews on the weekend for Dundee- or as we called it, Fundee… no slander from us… There was an IKEA! I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.