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Christian History

Today in Christian History

June 19

June 19, 325: Bishop Hosius, a delegate at the Council of Nicea, announces the newly written Nicene Creed. Countering Arius, who taught that "there was a time when the Son was not," the creed describes Christ as "God from very God, begotten not made" (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).

June 19, 1566: James VI of Scotland, who later became King James I of England, is born. He wrote treatises on the divine right of kings, witchcraft, biblical themes, and set into motion a translation of the Bible known as the King James Version (see issue 43: How We Got Our Bible).

June 19, 1623: Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and scientist as well as an apologist for Christianity and for Jansenism, is born (see issue 76: Christian Face of the Scientific Revolution).

June 19, 1834: Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers and orators of the nineteenth century, is born (see issue 29: C. H. Spurgeon).

June 19, 1987: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Louisiana law requiring public schools to teach creationism if they taught evolution.

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April 23, 1073: Hildebrand is elected pope, taking the name Gregory VII. The first pope to excommunicate a ruler (Henry IV), Gregory was driven out of Rome in 1084. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity," were his last words, "therefore I died in exile.

April 23, 1538: John Calvin and William Farel (whom Calvin was assisting) are banished from Geneva. The day before, Easter Sunday, both had refused to administer communion, saying the city was too full of vice to partake. Three years later, ...

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