Church History
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George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) An exceptionally talented Irish playwright, who authored more than 60 plays in his lifetime. Shaw and his wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw’s Corner. He was preceeded in death by his wife and he lived on there, at Shaw’s corner, until his death at age 94. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar in (1938). One of his plays was about the life of Saint Joan of Arc. The play, which is in the public domain, can be accessed below in pdf format: Play by George Bernard Shaw…
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Saint Joan of Arc
ca. 1412 Domrémy, Duchy of Bar, Kingdom of France. Died 30 May 1431 (aged 19) Rouen, France (then controlled by England) Honored in Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion Beatified 18 April 1909, Notre Dame de Paris by Pope Pius X Canonized 16 May 1920, St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome by Pope Benedict XV Feast 30 May Patronage Read More about Joan of Arc Biography
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The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife
By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) – A newly revealed, centuries-old papyrus fragment suggests that some early Christians might have believed Jesus was married. The fragment, written in Coptic, a language used by Egyptian Christians, says in part, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …” Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King announced the findings of the 1 1/2- by 3-inch honey-colored fragment on Tuesday in Rome at the International Association for Coptic Studies. King has been quick to add this discovered text “does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married,” she wrote in a draft of her analysis of the fragment set to appear…
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Scope Monkey Trials
How it All Happened The basis for the Scopes trial was laid when the Tennessee State Legislature passed the Butler Act – which took effect on March 21st, 1925. The essence of the Act was that it made it illegal for anyone:”… to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals”in any state-funded educational institution. (For the full wording of the Butler Act seeThe Butler Did It)The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) were already aware that the Act was likely to become law because it had…
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Pope John Paul II Dies
Apr 2, 2005 On this day in 2005, John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be the biggest funeral in history. John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, 35 miles southwest of Krakow, in 1920. After high school, the future pope enrolled at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and literature and performed in a theater group. During World War II, Nazis occupied Krakow and closed the university, forcing Wojtyla to seek…