Monday, June 23, 2025

It is the 23rd of June 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A very happy Monday to you- it’s VBS week where I live and I’m helping with the smallest of the small and their outdoor activities- exactly what I’m trained to do…

But it’s also time for the mailbag and a great question coming in from a great name, and a great place (which makes up for the fact that it’s kind of a bummer of a topic). He is Rostislav, but he goes by Rusty- he is from Ukraine but lives in beautiful Lake Stevens, up there in the late, great Washington state. Lake Stevens High School is where Chris Pratt- aka Burt Macklin FBI graduated, the same year as me, class of 97.

So, Rusty asked about the horrific events described in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs- the collection of stories, referenced on this show before, of Protestants being killed by Catholics for their faith. Rusty is rightly appalled by these stories, and he asked:

“Has the Catholic Church since acknowledged its role in encouraging, sanctioning and sometimes directly executing speechless cruelties against Protestants? And hopefully apologized? Are there cases that are remotely comparable where a Protestant church or Protestant-majority state/population has inflicted such horrors against Catholics or non-Protestants?”

I’ve got bad news- and some good news.

Pope John Paul II, in 2000, said, “We forgive and we ask forgiveness. We are asking pardon for the divisions among Christians, for the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth.”

In 2016, Pope Francis said, “I want to beg for mercy and forgiveness for un-Gospel-like behaviour on the part of Catholics against Christians of other churches.”

This is good. But it has also elicited similar calls for forgiveness from Protestants against Catholics- the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, apologized on behalf of the Anglican Church. And for good reason.

English Catholics may have been responsible for 5,000 Protestant deaths under parts of Henry VIII’s reign and under “Bloody” Mary. But under the Protestant crowns in the 16th and 17th centuries, we have a high estimate of 500,000 catholics killed. Cut that number in half, and it still shows a remarkable disparity- some of this can be accounted for by the brutal repression under James I after the gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes and the like, and then the plight of Irish Catholics under the likes of Oliver Cromwell.

One death of a Christian at the hands of another Christian is a tragedy. And of course, the death of any at the hands of any is.

And historically, the issue has not been Christian-on-Christian crime, but rather we might estimate over 10 million Christians dead at the hands of Stalin and the USSR, 5-10 million killed under Mongol invasions be it Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, 1 million under the Nazi’s and still more by the Ottomans (including the Armenian Christians) and by the Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in the 600s. And it’s hard to get numbers of those in China from the Boxer rebellions to the Cultural Revolution of Mao.

The first response is “Come, Lord Jesus!” And then hopefully forgiveness (as we’ve seen between Christian groups, especially in the last century). 

The “success” of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (and the concomitant branding of Mary as “Bloody Mary”) comes from the protesting groups' use of media to highlight their plight. It doesn’t make it any worse than other persecutions, or excuse their own persecution, but in the course of human events, it has been necessary to highlight particular injustices we find the media to be central to harness to paint the public a picture.

Similar to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was the “Martyr’s Mirror,” written about Anabaptist martyr, and a modern example is Richard Wurmbrand’s Voice of the Martyrs, which has highlighted the stories of martyrs, especially in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Rusty, I agree- it is not fun reading, and should be done in small portions. And while the apologies of late have been helpful, we do well to remember that even with Christian nature can be “red in tooth and claw” (to borrow from Tennyson), and we do well to pray for peace and the coming of Christ in due time.

Thanks for the question, Rusty from Ukraine and Lake Stevens, WA.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and 1 Corinthians 1:

26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 23rd of June 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who likes his Bloody Marys with less persecution, more Tabasco… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who last dressed up for Halloween and Burt Macklin, FBI… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.