Testify Newspaper

16
testify November 2016
This month in Christian history
November
2348 BC - According to Anglican Archbishop
James Ussher’s Old Testament chronology,
Noah’s flood began on this date.
3 BC - According to early church father
Clement of Alexandria (c.155-c.220), Jesus
was born on this date.
0753 - Death of St. Pirminius, first abbot of
the Benedictine monastery at Reichenau
(located in modern Germany). His name
endures today as author of a book entitled
“Scarapsus,” which is the earliest known
writing to contain the Apostles’ Creed as it is
worded in its present form.
1164 - Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas
Becket, 45, began a six-year self-imposed
exile in France. Once a close
friend of England’s Henry II;
Thomas had more recently
become an outspoken opponent
of the king’s royal policies.
1512 - Italian Renaissance
artist Michelangelo, 37, unveiled
his 5,808-square-foot
masterpiece, the ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
He had been commissioned
in 1508 by Pope Julius
II to do a work depicting
the whole story of the Bible.
1537 - German reformer Martin
Luther stated during one
of his “Table Talks”: ‘There
are many fluent preachers
who speak at length but say
nothing, who have words
without substance.’
1600 - Staunch Anglican theologian
Richard Hooker died
at 46. His last words were:
‘God hath my daily petitions,
for I am at peace with all men,
and He is at peace with me...
and this witness makes the
thoughts of death joyful.’
1631 - English clergyman
John Eliot, 27, first arrived
in America, at Boston. Afterwards,
he became the first
Protestant minister to devote
himself to the evangelisation
of the American Indian.
1646 - The Massachusetts
Bay Colony passed a law
making it a capital offence to
deny that the Bible was the Word of God.
Any person convicted of the offence was liable
to the death penalty.
1654 - French scientist and mathematician
Blaise Pascal experiences a mystical vision
and converts to Christianity. The creator of
the first wristwatch, the first bus route, the
first workable calculating machine, and other
inventions then turned his life to theology.
(see issue 76- Christian Face of the Scientific
Revolution).
1740 - Birth of Anglican clergyman Augustus
M. Toplady. A highly respected evangelical
leader, Toplady authored the hymn “Rock of
Ages” two years before his premature death
at 38 in 1778.
1784 - English clergyman Thomas Coke, 37,
first arrived in America, at New York City. He
was the first Methodist bishop to come to the
New World.
1789 - During the chaos of the French Revolution,
the property of the Church in France
was taken over by the state.
1794 - The London Missionary Society was
founded on this day by people like William
Wilberforce and John Newton, who started
with abolishing the slave trade and fighting
for the rights of oppressed people, then
launched out to send missionaries. Now
known as CMS (Church Mission Society)
they continue to support mission in the UK
and abroad in 40 countries from their Oxford
HQ.
1818 - Pliny Fisk, 26, set sail for Palestine.
Ordained by the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, Fisk became
the first American missionary to journey
to the Near East.
1873 - The French ship Ville du Havre sinks
in the north Atlantic, killing all four daughters
of Chicago lawyer Horatio G. Spafford.
His wife survived, and Spafford immediately
booked passage to join her in England. While
passing over the spot where his daughters
died, he began writing what would become
the famous hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.”
1883 - Evangelist and abolitionist Sojourner
Truth (whose real name was Isabella Van
Wagener), dies in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Born a slave, Truth experienced visions and
voices, which she attributed to God, and was
one of the most charismatic abolitionists and
suffragists of her day.
1917 - In Moscow, following abdication of
Russian Czar Nicholas II, the historic Orthodox
Church Council of 1917-1918 restored
the office of patriarch, suppressed by Peter
the Great in 1700.
1917 - British foreign secretary Arthur J.
Balfour, 69, issued the Balfour Declaration,
calling for “establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people.” The
document’s recognition of a Jewish nationalism
planted the seed which in 1948 led to an
establishment of the modern state of Israel.
1918 - Evangelist William (“Billy”) Franklin
Graham, Jr, is born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
1918 - The German leaders sign the armistice
ending World War I, a year later (1919)
The first two-minutes’ silence is observed in
Britain to commemorate those who died in
the Great War.
1925 - The Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance
was organised at St. Louis, MO. It became
the forerunner of a new denomination, established
in 1932 as the Pentecostal Church,
Inc.
1936 - Future U.S. Senate Chaplain Rev.
Peter Marshall, 34, married Catherine Wood,
22. Following Peter’s premature death at
age 46, Catherine immortalized his name
through her 1951 bestselling biography, “A
Man Called Peter.”
1950 - Billy Graham’s “Hour of Decision”
program was first broadcast over television.
1950 - Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma
of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. His Apostolic Constitution “Munificentissimus
Deus” taught that, at the end of her
earthly life, Jesus’ mother was taken, body
and soul, into heaven to be united with the
risen Christ.
1961 - Charles H. Mason, founder of the
Church of God in Christ, dies. His was the
first major denomination to emerge from the
Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, where
Mason received the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
1963 - British scholar and author C.S. Lewis
dies, the very same day as Aldous Huxley
and John F. Kennedy.
1966 - London’s “Evening Standard” newspaper
published John Lennon’s controversial
remark stating that the Beatles were
“more popular than Jesus.” The quote
touched off a storm of controversy and international
protest, resulting in a world-wide
boycott of Beatles music.
1972 - Americans intercept a Pathet Lao
communication ordering the deaths of twenty-five
year old Evelyn Anderson and thirtyfive
year old Beatrice Kosin, missionaries in
Kengkok, Laos. Their bodies are later found
burned to death. The Pathet Lao were communists
who hated Christianity because it
contradicted the fundamental teachings of
Marxism and posed serious problems to
their control of people.