Tuesday, September 2, 2025

It is the 2nd of September 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

My wife is a school librarian, and she has told me that the books she can’t keep checked in and on the shelves are those stories about disasters. Whole series about earthquakes and tsunamis and all manner of natural or man-made disasters are marketed to kids as fodder for pleasure reading. I have nothing to say about that except earthquakes and killer bees made up much of my youthful reading, so I suppose it makes sense.

And there is a pantheon of “disasters”- the Black Death and the Titanic, to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and the great Chinese Famines of the last century.

And among this list is perhaps the fire that has lasted longest in our collective memory- inside the church and outside- it began overnight on this, the 2nd of September in the ominous year of 1666, and before it was put out a few days later, “the Great Fire of London” would be one of the events of a tumultuous 1660s.

The year itself was ominous- like 666, or 1,000, or later 2,000, we are a superstitious people- and regardless of the calendar you used (or if you read 666 as the mark of the devil), heading into 1666 could be menacing.

And England had been through it. The Civil Wars ran from 1642 to 1651. The King, Charles I, was beheaded, and a “Protectorate” was put in place, only to be ousted by the return of the King, now Charles II, in 1660 with the Restoration.

And in these precarious years leading up to the devilish 1666, the population of England had seen multiple Comets (always a sure thing to rile up the people), and then 1665 saw an outbreak of the plague in England such that the King and many fled the walled city on the Thames for relief.

And then, it was on the night of this, the 2nd of September, when the fire of the century began on Pudding Lane in London at the bakery of Thomas Farriner, who made hard tack for the King's Navy. We should note: Pudding is not 1) a kind of Jello (for us Americans) nor 2) a general dessert (for the British), but meant “entrails” like “blood pudding”. The Bakery was in the midst of a very crowded London, amidst the very crowded and flammable liveries.

The town lived, rightly, in the fear of a great fire. But even when the flames appeared in Pudding Lane in the early morning, many thought it would, like so many, run its course or be put out by those in its vicinity.

But a dry summer and a hot wind soon kicked up the flames- some jumping great lengths in the winds (and thus leading some to think they were being bombed) and by the time the fire burned out a few days later- London, then the 3rd largest city in the West had lost 80% of the city including over 13,000 homes and almost 100 churches- including St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Amazingly, few died in the flames- the number is disputed, but it seems at most to be a triple-digit, if not 2-digit number. But the psychic cost was immense. The cost to repair and the loss of goods and historical artifacts are unknown.

And coming into the year 1666, and with the ominous events of a plague and comets, it would make sense that this was read as something larger- something Apocalyptic. The English were at war with the Dutch, and so these rumors spread. The French were longtime enemies, and allies with the Dutch at the time and so there were rumors that this was caused by the French. One Frenchman, a Catholic at that, Robert Hubert, confessed under duress to starting the fire and was executed under the false confession.

Anti-Catholicism was whipped up to such an extent that when St. Paul’s Cathedral and much of the city were rebuilt, a monument- a giant column- was erected by the London Bridge, which has an inscription about how it started and was put out. In the 1680s, an addition was made, blaming the “Popish Frenzy” for the fire, but this was removed after Catholic emancipation in the 1800s.

The fire devastated the town, but stood for so much more in 1666- the year of the miraculous, or cursed, or attacks from religious enemies. Such was the case in that era when even partially natural disasters could take on theological and polemical significance. Such was the Great Fire of London, which started on the 2nd of September in 1666.  

 The Last word for today comes from Romans 3- not the daily lectionary- you should read those texts today- but they are kinda heavy- so, hear this good news:

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 2

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 2nd of September 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who was in a three-person punk band in the late 90s called “Popish Frenzy,” Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who still loves those 90s indie darlings, the Smoking Popes- 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.