On the night preceding the memorable day on which Luther affixed his 95 Theses to the door of the castle-church of Wittenberg, the elector Frederick of Saxony had an impressive dream. On the morning of October 31, 1517, the elector told it to his brother, Duke John, who was then residing with him at his […]
Nearly all forms of ancient sorcery and witchcraft were founded upon a belief in communion with the dead. This custom of consulting the dead is referred to in the prophecy of Isaiah: “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should […]
The San Francisco Chronicle of February 12, 1929, exploded with the headline, “Mussolini and Gasparri Sign Historic Roman Pact, Heal Wound of Many Years.” The words chosen for the report paralleled the words of Bible prophecy penned over 1,800 years before, detailing the revival of the Papacy. “And I saw one of his heads as it […]
In 1943, the fate of World War II hung in the balance. The Nazis were still going strong and Spain, which was neutral, teemed with German spies. A uniformed corpse washed onto a Spanish beach. In his pockets were found a British identity card, pictures of a girlfriend, and ticket stubs. To his hand was […]
Neither religious liberty nor toleration were features of the Virginia colony for most of the first two centuries of its history. From the beginning, the colony believed they could only control their members by “religion and law. They exercised despotism in both.”1 The Church of England was the established church of Virginia and sought to […]
The Roman Emperor Constantine had a problem—how to maintain unity across his far-flung empire. Despite centuries of persecution, Christianity was still growing. Admittedly, Christians were peaceable citizens who worked an honest day and paid their taxes. Who wouldn’t want an empire filled with such good people? But the pagans feared that the growing Christian population […]
Unquestionably, the technology which has made the greatest impact on history is the humble printing press. Before the invention of printing, books weren’t available to common citizens. And without literacy, tyranny flourished. Hand-copied knowledge could not have accumulated fast enough to spark the industrial revolution, the discovery of radio waves and electricity, or the invention […]
The man was a skeleton covered in skin, starved and beaten until his family barely recognized him. As a pastor during the Soviet regime, he had risked his livelihood and his life for his beliefs. Now, his wife and 13-year-old son, Stoyan, had come to visit—the only time they would see him before his transfer […]
“They call each other brother and sister, they curse not, they revile not, they swear not, they use no defensive armor.… They never eat or drink immoderately, they use no clothes that would indicate worldly pride, they have nothing as individuals but everything in common. They do not go to law before the magistracy and […]
Soon after Constantine rode triumphantly into Rome as the new emperor, he proclaimed the greatest level of religious freedom Christians had ever experienced. While Constantine’s edict of toleration in AD 313 ended Diocletian’s ten years of unimaginable atrocities, it also ended nearly three centuries of the persecution of Christians by pagan Roman emperors. If Christians were grateful […]