church and state

Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg – The First Protestant Missionary to India While William Carey’s role in the evangelization of India is undisputed, few remember a two-men team who preceded him by 88 years. In reality, the German Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, who landed in the Indian...

Estifanos of Gwendagwende – Reformer and Martyr Around the time when John Wyclif and Ian Hus shook the western church by challenging its authority and traditions, a lesser-known monk did something similar in Ethiopia. He was known as Abba Estifanos (in English, Father Stephen). Estifanos’s Early...

Boniface and Leoba Some have the impression that, after Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313, everyone in the Roman Empire became Christian (and lived happily ever after). At least, this is what we might get from a cursor reading of church history. In reality, as late as the ninth or tenth century,...

On one hand, the 6 th commandment, “you shall not murder”, is probably the most universally accepted of all the ten commandments. By God’s restraining grace, humanity seems to have an innate knowledge that murder is wrong. On the other hand, according to the law of Jesus in Matthew 5, each of us...

Mongol Leaders and Their Christian Wives While Europe was engaged in the Crusades, a new threat emerged from Asia: the Mongols, a fearsome population the talented warrior Genghis Khan organized into a powerful empire. At the time of his death, this empire stretched from Eastern Europe to the...

25 Inspiring Quotes from Women in Church History “I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.” [1] - Vibia Perpetua (c. 182-203) was arrested by imperial decree in Carthage, North Africa, together with her servant Felicitas and three other Christians. She was executed the...

Kayarnak, Greenland, and the Passion of Christ Kayarnak had seen a number of missionaries come to Greenland. Like the majority of his countrymen, he enjoyed making fun of them. His attitude changed when he heard for the first time how Christ suffered and died. Hans Egede The first known missionary...

Antonius Hambroeck’s Sacrifice The moving story of Antonius Hambroeck is well-known in the Netherlands, where he is considered a national hero, and in Taiwan, where he was executed. It was popularized in the 1775 play Anthonius Hambroek, or the Siege of Formosa, by the Dutch author Joannes Nomsz...

Dorothy Carey and Her Struggle With Mental Illness When, in 1781, 25-year-old Dorothy (Dolly) Plackett married William Carey, five years her junior, she might have imagined the same type of quiet family life her parents and most people lived in her small town of Hackleton, West Northamptonshire...

Aidan of Lindisfarne – A Seventh-Century Door-to-Door Missionary Thanks to the literary mastery of the Venerable Bede, the history of the Christianization of England is filled with memorable stories of valiant kings, praying queens, and wonder-working saints. But it’s also studded with lesser-known...