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Christian History

Today in Christian History

March 20

March 20, 687: Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne and a vocal supporter of Celtic practices over Roman ones, dies. Shortly thereafter the Lindisfarne monks created the Lindisfarne Gospels in his honor (see issue 60: How the Irish Were Saved).

March 20, 1747: Severely ill with tuberculosis, Presbyterian missionary David Brainerd ends his work among the Native Americans of Delaware (see issue 77: Jonathan Edwards).

March 20, 1852: Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of famous Congregational minister Lyman Beecher, publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin (which had been serialized in an antislavery newspaper). The book sold one million copies and was so influential in arousing antislavery sentiment that Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said upon meeting Stowe in 1863: "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!" (see issue 33: Christianity and the Civil War).

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July 16, 1519: The Disputation of Leipzig, in which Martin Luther argued that church councils had been wrong and that the church did not have ultimate doctrinal authority, ends (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).

July 16, 1769: Spanish Franciscan friar Father Junipero Serra founds the San Diego de Alcala mission in California, the first permanent Spanish settlement on the west coast of America (see issue 35: Christopher Columbus).

July 16, 1931: Missionary C.T. Studd, one of the famous "Cambridge ...

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