Cloud of Witnesses

1773 didn’t start well for William Cowper. In spite of seemingly comfortable circumstances, he felt pressured by both hurtful local gossip and well-meaning friendly advice into making a decision he was just not able to make. He had been lodging with a pious family, the Unwins, for almost ten years...

Seventeenth-century England was a time of uncertainty, upheaval, and questions, a time of civil and religious wars, revolutions, plague and fire. Books and articles tell us of the people who made history: James VI of Scotland and I of England, Charles I and the regicides, Elizabeth the Winter Queen...

The Protestant Reformation created some new questions in love relationships. For example, what’s an appropriate way for a Protestant preacher to propose to a lady or, even worse, for a former monk to propose to a former nun, without aggravating the accusations of Roman Catholics who accused...

Sixteenth-century Reformers were not the first to advocate the translation of the Bible and church liturgy in the language of the people. Nor were they the first to suffer opposition. Two 9 th -century brothers from Thessalonica faced a similar struggle as they worked together to bring the...

Some of the most influential women in church history were princesses or queens, who had the ability to establish a state religion according to their convictions. At a time when cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, his religion) was in order, the Protestant church prospered best under Protestant...

On the vigil of Easter in 379, a group composed mostly of monks and women rushed into a church, attacked the congregants, wounded the preacher, and killed another bishop. They were not terrorists. They were followers of the doctrines of Arius, a previous priest who had opposed the notion of a fully...

Paolo Sarpi is not a familiar name in American discussions of the Protestant Reformation but was well known in 16th-century Europe. As was often the case, particularly in firmly Roman Catholic countries like Italy, placing a precise label on Sarpi’s theological beliefs is difficult and counter-...

William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament, first published in 1526, was met with sharp disapproval in England – not only because it was common knowledge that Scriptures should not be placed in the hands of the uneducated masses, but also because of the translation itself...

As we approach Christmas, it’s appropriate to reflect on Christ’s incarnation. This is what Athanasius, fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, did in his treatise On the Incarnation of the Word. Expanding his explanation from Christ’s role in creation to His final glory in the second coming,...

Being a single mother was common in the sixteenth century, when wars and pestilence claimed the lives of many husbands. Most widows returned to their family homes or relied on the support of the local church. They often remarried. Anne Hooper focused on raising her daughter Rachel and promoting her...