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 […]
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 […]
You’ve probably heard it many times before. It’s a standard reply when someone is asked why he or she doesn’t worship on the Bible Sabbath—Saturday. “Saturday? Why, that’s the Jewish Sabbath! God gave it to the Jews on Mount Sinai along with the Ten Commandments. But we worship on Sunday, the Lord’s day.” Then the subject is […]
Bang, bang! The wooden door creaked at its hinges. “Who could it be?” fearful whispers passed among the men huddled in the upper room. Did their fate await them outside the door? Had soldiers found their hiding place? Someone blew out the candles lighting the room, while another—perhaps John—crept to the door. Pushing it ever […]
During the French Revolution, freedom from tyranny was sought apart from God—a knee-jerk reaction to bad religion which had been promoted by the papacy and the monarchy. But instead of abandoning religion, French revolutionaries reinvented it. The historian Walter Scott describes how the revolutionaries inaugurated their new religion of “reason.” They made a grand procession […]