Baptist leader and educator George Morling dies in Sydney, Australia; Morling College is named for him - April 8
1378 -Bartolomeo Prignano is elected Pope Urban VI. Mired in political controversy even before his election (threats from masses of violent demonstrators helped drive his election), his violent demeanor did little to contradict rumors that he was insane. His electors conspired to leave Rome and name a new pope (Clement VII), starting the Great Western Schism.
1546 - The Council of Trent adopts Jerome’s 1,100-year-old Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate), completed in 405, as the only authentic Latin text of the Scriptures although reformers have long complained that Jerome’s Latin translation is faulty. It became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
1586 - Death in Braunschweig of theologian Martin Chemnitz, known as “The Second Martin” (after Luther) for his efforts to defend conservative Lutheran positions.
1669 - Turkish Muslims on the island of Kos burn to death John Naukliros, accusing him of recanting from Islam. He responds, “I believe with all my soul and heart in my Lord Jesus Christ and I confess him as true God Who will judge all the world, both the living and the dead.” He tells his persecutors that he despises Islam and is prepared even to endure torture for the love of Christ.
1807 - Thomas Campbell sails from Ireland for Philadelphia. In America, he will become a leader in a movement back to Bible essentials.
1812 - Ordination and installation of Nathaniel Taylor as pastor of New Haven’s Center Church. He will oversee a growth of 400 members during several revivals and will also become a prominent New England theologian.
1839 - James Thomson, agent for the Montreal auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and 11 other Protestants form the French Canadian Missionary Society whose “exclusive object” is “to provide means for preaching and otherwise disseminating the Gospel of Christ among the inhabitants of Canada using the French language.”
1857 - A small group of Dutch immigrants meet in Zeeland, Mich., to organize the first Christian Reformed Church.
1901 - After nearly 30 years of successful church planting in New Guinea, Presbyterian missionary James Chalmers (accompanied by missionary Oliver Tomkins, who had just arrived in the field) sets out to explore a new part of the islands. No one ever saw the two again. A rescue party learned the men had been clubbed to death and eaten by cannibals.
1929 - Religious associations in Russia are forbidden to help members financially or enter into mutual aid agreements. All previous anti-religion laws are summarized into one “Law Concerning Religion.”
1974 - Death of Baptist leader and educator George Morling in Sydney, Australia. Morling College will be named for him.
2002 - Muslims in Kano state, Nigeria, demolish the first of 11 church buildings they will destroy this month to ensure that Christianity does not retain a foothold in the state.
2012 - On Easter morning in Kaduna, Nigeria, a car bomb, apparently targeting All Nations Christian Assembly Church, kills dozens of Nigerians in the street outside the place of worship.
– Sources: Christian History Institute, christianitytoday.com