The oldest charities in Britain have been around for nearly nine hundred years, an example of which would be The Hospital of St Cross in Winchester which still cares for old people, started by Bishop Henry de Blois, William the Conqueror's grandson. Steeped in tradition, it still offers bread...
Today in 1885 the Salvation Army was officially organized in the USA, a year later it was endorsed by President Grover Cleveland. Now they assist approximately 23 million Americans annually through local programs designed to offer immediate relief, short-term care, and long-term growth in a...
Today in 1946 Ravi Zacharias was born in Madras, India . He inspired a generation of apologists and founded the RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministry). The author of more than 30 books on Christianity and the host of multiple radio shows, he was widely esteemed in the Evangelical...
Berkley posited that everything exists only insofar as it is perceived by the senses, and this has led him to being called the father of empiricism. A talented metaphysician he became famous for defending idealism, which struck many as counter-intuitive, but was strong and flexible enough to...
In the year 313, the Emperor Constantine had issued an edict granting Christians religious freedom, and officially recognizing Christianity as equal with paganism under the law. The eastern provinces had been entrusted to Licinius who had the half-sister of Constantine. Their marriage was the...
Today in 1983 in Orlando Florida, president Ronald Reagan in an address to the National Association of Evangelicals used the phrase "evil empire", in what was seen as a significant escalation of rhetoric around the Cold War. What became known as the Reagan Doctrine of active intervention was...
Michelangelo was born today, in 1474. His achievements as a sculptor, painter, architect and poet mean that he is often considered to be the archetypal Renaissance man, some even see him as the greatest artist of all time.
His output through his life was prodigious, often called Il Divino, the...
On March 4 1681, King Charles II of England, handed over a large piece of his North American land holdings along the North Atlantic coast to William Penn in order to pay off debts that king had owed to Penn's father, an admiral and politician. This land included the present-day states of...
On this day in Christian History we go back to year 1791 and travel to London to remember the death of John Wesley. An Anglican priest and theologian, the founder of Methodism, he was described as the best-loved man in England. In the 1700s, when travel was by walking, horseback or carriage...
On this day in Christian History, we go back to year 1857 and travel to New York and mark the birth of Charles Sheldon, one of the leaders of the Social Gospel movement. In the winter of 1896 Sheldon developed a sermon story that he read as a weekly series from the pulpit of Central...
Today, listening to a homily in the chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, in Portunicula, a young man named Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone was inspired to devote himself to a life of poverty. He was to become known in history as Francis of Assisi. Born into a wealthy family of a prosperous silk...
Today in 1686 we travel to Germany and the city of Halle and remember the birth of George Frederick Handel, composer of the oratorio "Messiah," which is now one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. The text, based on scripture compiled by Charles...
Today we travel to the Phillipines. where a sustained campaign of civil resistance against President Ferdinand Marcos led to the end of his 20-year presidential term and the restoration of democracy in the Philippines. The majority of the demonstrations took place on a long stretch of Epifanio...
The World Council of Churches (or WCC) was inaugurated in 1948, as the world was emerging from the destruction of another world war, the policy of this inter-church organization is to work for the cause of ecumenism, that is Christian Unity and cooperation amongst denominations. Its...
On this day in Christian History we go back to year 1895 and travel to Washington DC in the United States and remember the death of Frederick Douglass an American social reformer, abolitionist, and statesman.
Douglas had been born as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, and had been born into...
Nicolaus Copernicus was born today in Royal Prussia, a region that was part of the Kingdom of Poland. A mathematician, astronomer, and priest who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the universe. This model was published in his book On the...
On this day in Christian History we go back to the year 1678 and travel to England where a Christian allegory written by puritan preacher John Bunyan called The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come it was first published on Feb 18 1678. At nearly 109,000 words long, it is...
Title: Feb 17 Ash Wednesday
Welcome to the Pearl of Great Price Podcast, it’s the 17th of February and today Christians all over the world mark the first day of Lent as Ash Wednesday. Services are held in Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and some other Protestant churches. Eastern Orthodox...
Today’s last blowout before the fasting season begins is called different names in different countries. "Mardi Gras", which means "Fat Tuesday", Carnival in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries which comes from medieval Latin – Carne Vale – To say goodbye to meat, and Shrove or...
On this day in Christian History we go back to year 1875 and travel to Mount Lebanon, where today we remember how Charbel Markhouf became a Hermit and entered the Hermitage of St Peter and St Paul. A Maronite Monk, the Maronite Church has ancient roots. After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD...