Cloud of Witnesses

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,...

Marguerite d’Angoulême, an Influential Reformer Marguerite d’Angoulême, also known as Marguerite de Navarre, was one of the most influential figures in sixteenth-century Europe. Today, her memory in Reformed circles seems obscured by that of her more committed daughter, Jeane d’Albret. In reality,...

Gregory I’s Female Correspondents Some of our best sources of information about specific women in the early centuries of Christianity come from the correspondence of church fathers, particularly Jerome at the turn of the fifth century and Gregory I about two centuries later. Jerome’s letters were...

Krishna Pal – The First Baptist Convert in India On November 25, 1800, a 36-year-old Indian carpenter named Krishna Pal slipped into the tank where he was going to bathe, dislocating his shoulder. Having heard about a doctor at the Baptist mission at Serampore, not far from his house, he sent two...

Agnes and Margaret Smith and Their Crucial Discovery Agnes and Margaret Smith lived at a time when scholars were raising new and disturbing questions about the Bible. Is it reliable? Having being copied by hand, how do we know that it is not full of errors or even deliberate variations? And when...

Mary Sidney Herbert and the Poetic Depth of Her Psalter Mary Sidney was one of the most influential women of the Elizabethan age and received high praises for her writing skills. Forgotten for many centuries, she has recently been recognized and included in almost every anthology of English...

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...

The East African Revival As many other events in global church history, the East African Revival is still fairly unknown in America. And yet, it spread rapidly through most of east Africa and lasted over 50 years, leaving a profound mark on the local churches. Eager to pinpoint dates, scholars...

Hannah Marshman – A Pillar of the Serampore Mission Did Hanna Marshman know, when she left England for India, how much the missionary community would depend on her for wisdom and strength? It’s hard to imagine what she expected to do or find. As one of the first female missionaries, she had few...