February 8: Today in Christian History

February 8, 356

Athanasius of Alexandria goes into hiding after escaping five thousand soldiers who burst into his church.

February 8, 1250

Defeat and captivity of King Louis IX of France, “St. Louis,” in a crusade in which he had attacked Egypt.

February 8, 1529

Revolution breaks out in Basel, Switzerland when a Protestant mob surrounds the town hall, plants cannon, and forces the council to expel the twelve Catholic members, meanwhile destroying church pictures and statues. “We raged against the idols, and the mass died of sorrow,” wrote Reformer Oecolampadius.

February 8, 1576

Puritan parliamentarian Peter Wentworth is sent to the Tower of London for making a rousing defense of freedom of speech.

February 8, 1587

Beheading of the Catholic prisoner Mary, Queen of Scots, on the orders of the Protestant queen, Elizabeth I of England. Mary was accused of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth.

February 8, 1786

Philip Quaque, an Anglican priest serving on the Gold Coast, writes an account of an uprising of slaves on a Dutch ship, and commiserates his fellow Africans on their cruel treatment by slavers.

February 8, 1792

Ordination of hymnwriter Joseph Swain to pastor a church in London. His most famous hymn was “O Thou in Whose Presence.”

February 8, 1883

Death of hymnwriter Mary Stanley Dana Shindler. Her best-known hymn began with the words “Flee as a bird to your mountain, thou who art weary of sin.”

February 8, 1893

Confirmation in the Anglican Church of Hamu Lujonza Kaddu Mukasa. After Muslims take control of Uganda, he will lead a strong military counter-attack and win political control of the nation for Christians. As a trustee of the national church, he will advocate a policy of self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation.

February 8, 1985

Death in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, of Harold John Ockenga, neo-evangelical leader.

February 8, 2001

Death of Rousas John Rushdoony, a Presbyterian clergyman and theologian known as the “Father of Christian Reconstruction” who had advocated strict implementation of biblical moral law in America.