3rd January: Today in Christian History

3rd January, 1521

On this day in Christian History, Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificum for having challenged practices of the Roman Catholic Church, and refusing to recant as required in Exsurge Domine, an earlier bull.

3rd January, 1638

On this day in Christian History, Shogunate warriors defeated Christian and peasant rebels who retreated to Shimabara where they captured the fortress at Hara. After the rebellion was put down, Christianity Willa’s outlawed in Japan.

3rd January, 1853

On this day in Christian History, Presbyterians in Chicago passed resolutions against slavery, declaring it “a gross invasion of the natural rights of man and a grievous outrage upon the principles of that civil liberty we enjoy and that Protestant Christianity [that] we profess, a moral wrong which must be offensive to God, and which is most injurious to the temporal prosperity and happiness and to the spiritual wellbeing of all connected with it.”

3rd January, 1918

On this day in Christian History, Annie Sherwood Hawks, a Baptist hymn writer who was best known for the hymn “I need thee every hour”, died at Bennington, Vermont.

3rd January, 1927

On this day in Christian History,  Fray Luis (Dr. Walter Montaño), having fled a Dominican monastery, knelt down in prayer beside Protestant missionary Charles A. Patton, and yielded himself to Christ as Savior. Montaño later became a well-known Protestant evangelist throughout Latin America.

3rd January, 1930

On this day in Christian History,  Kenyan zealots who insisted on female circumcision murdered an elderly missionary, Hilda Stumpf of the Africa Inland Mission (who opposed the practice) and multilated her body.

3rd January, 1930

On this day in Christian History,  Soviets sentenced several nuns to exile in the north: Theodora, Anna, Darya, Anysia, and Agrippina. They were not heard from again.

3rd January, 1963

On this day in Christian History,  Peter Vashchenko and several other Russian Christians, desperate after years of mistreatment, which included having their children sent to juvenile homes to live with unmanageable delinquents, overwhelm the policeman at the gates of the American embassy in Moscow and enter, seeking asylum in the West. Their complicated story will cover three decades.