THIS DAY IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY: August 5 As we study the history of Christianity and the Church, we notice that it is sometimes violent, sometimes inspiring, shocking, tragic, comic, or just plain bizarre. It is certainly never dull. Our Christian heritage was passed down to us through blood, sweat and tears, but mostly by the faith of our fathers. The church age as we know it is coming to an end very soon. Be very blessed and informed as you read these brief notations on the successes and failures of Christianity throughout the ages. August 5, 642: Oswald, the king of Northumbria who first began the official establishment of Christianity in England, is "martyred" in battle against the pagan Penda of Mercia. Converted at Iona, Scotland, Oswald erected a wooden cross before one of his earliest battles and commanded his soldiers to pray. When he defeated the English king in that battle, Oswald commissioned the Irish monk Aidan to begain establishing Christianity. August 5, 1540: Joseph Scaliger was born in Agen, France. He became the most brilliant Protestant scholar of his era, a master of many fields, and he is often compared to Aristotle. August 5, 1570: Spanish Jesuits led by Fray Batista Segura arrived in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, for the purpose of converting the American Indians to Christianity. (Unfortunately, six months later, the entire group was massacred by the very Indians they had come to evangelize.) August 5, 1604: Congregational missionary, John Eliot is baptized in England. His non-conformist views will eventually prompt him to come to America to Massachusetts in 1631, Captured at one point by Indians, while in their captivity he learned their language. He founded fourteen congregations of Indian Christians, translates the Bible into Algonquin and Pequot languages. He published the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in America. He was known as “apostle to the Indians”. He succeeded in converting over 3,600 Native Americans. August 5, 1620: The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America. August 5, 1656: Eight Quakers from England arrived in Boston and were immediately imprisoned by the local Puritan authorities without trial. They were held until the ships that brought them were ready to take them back to England (The church-and-state amalgam of Puritanism looked upon non-ritual Quakerism with suspicion, regarding it as theologically apostate and politically subversive). August 5, 1751: Rev, John Cuthbertson arrived in America from Scotland. He was the first Scottish Covenanter preacher sent to the New World. He kept a valuable diary of family names, marriages and baptisms, which is a treasure trove for genealogists today. In it, he records over five thousand family names as well as notes of six hundred marriages and almost two thousand baptisms he performs in the course of seventy thousand miles of ministerial travels. Aug. 5, 1835 Death of Thomas McCrie, Scottish minister and church historian. He and three other divines had left the General Association Synod and formed the Constitutional Association Presbytery. He also wrote biographies of John Knox and Andrew Melville. Aug. 5, 1853 Death of Frederick W. Robertson, Anglican clergyman. He had been ordained bishop of Winchester in 1840. His ministry was mainly among the working classes. August 5, 1869: Birth of Grant C. Tullar, American Methodist evangelist and music publisher. He is remembered today for composing the tune to the hymn, "Face to Face with Christ My Savior." Aug. 5, 1876 Scottish missionary Mary Slessor boards the SS Ethiopia to sail to Calabar (Nigeria). She shares the ship with a cargo of liquor. August 5, 1949: A Communist decree in Poland pretended to guarantee religious freedom but established severe penalties for its "abuse," meaning any outreach the government did not approve of. August 5, 1900: James Healy, the first African-American Roman Catholic bishop, died. He was an indefatigable worker who crisscrossed Maine constantly as he established sixty new churches, sixty-eight missions, eighteen convents and eighteen schools. African Americans criticized him, saying that the light-skinned ex-slave did not identify with their interests. Aug. 5, 1955 Death of Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, founder and first director of Child Evangelism Fellowship. August 5, 1961: The South American country of Bolivia adopted a new constitution that separated the powers of church and state. My sources for this daily post are --- Wikipedia, Christianhistory.net, Chinstitute.org, StudyLight.org, and books by William D. Blake, A. Kenneth Curtis and Daniel Graves. ---be very blessed
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 02:02:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015