March 8
1495: Death of John of God on his 55th birthday of pneumonia, which he contracted through plunging into an icy stream to rescue a girl. Formerly a shepherd and a soldier he was moved by the sermons of St. John of Avila and decided to commit his life for the sick and the poor; he operated a hospital for the homeless and the insane and supported it through hard work and begging. He is the Patron of Hospitals and the sick.
1551: Hierosme Hermes Bolsec is admonished by Genevan authorities for meddling in theology; but Bolsec continued to argue that men are not saved because they are elected but are elected because they have faith. Later he was expelled from Geneva and wrote abusive biographies of Calvin and Beza, the Reformation leaders.
1698: Humble beginning of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) through a common meeting.
1711: English essayist Joseph Addison noted in The Spectator, “To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.”
1740: Gilbert Tennent, Colonial revivalist, preached his famous sermon, “The Danger of An Unconverted Ministry,” assaulting opponents of the Great Awakening which led to the first schism within the American Presbyterian Church between the Old Side and New Side. (The two divisions were reunited in 1758.)
1839: Mahendra Lal Basak leaves his father’s home in Calcutta, determined to follow Christ, overcoming stout Hindu bodyguards set to prevent him from visiting Christians. He was baptized and became a Christian minister and educator.
1921: The United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (UELCA) was organized at Ebenezer, South Australia, which later united with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (ELCA) in 1966 to form the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA).
1948: Justice Hugo Black of the US Supreme Court speaks out the verdict in McCollum Vs. Board of Education case, declaring religious education at public schools a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Permitting children “release time,” even with parental consent, to receive religious instruction during school hours on school property is a violation of the separation of church and state, he observed.
1960: Demise of the Orthodox archbishop Vitaly Maximenko of the North American diocese. Born in Russia and grown up as an orphan, he had obtained a reputation as a rebel. However, he was so successful in all his endeavours, that he was entrusted with greater responsibilities and built up two major religious printing houses. He labored incessantly to evangelize and build up his church. He also strove to reunify expatriated Orthodox groups in America.
2009: Rajesh Sing, a Hindu extremist throws a bomb into a House of Prayer of church in Bihar state, India, in a violent reaction against Christian conversions of Hindus; he then shot pastor Vinod Kumar, who could, however, survive.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org