Theologian's Almanac for Week of February 7, 2021
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, February 7:
February 7 is the birthday of Charles Dickens, born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812. After a happy early childhood, his father’s debts pulled the Dickens family into poverty, and at the age of 12, Charles was sent to work in a factory pasting labels onto shoe polish containers, while his parents and younger siblings languished in debtors’ prison. Through some of his most well-known novels, Oliver Twist (1837-38), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), and A Christmas Carol (1843), Dickens called attention to poverty in England. He went on to use his wealth and influence to advocate for investments in philanthropy, prison reform, and public education. God bless us, every one!
February 9 is the birthday of American writer Alice Walker, born in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1944. The daughter of sharecroppers, she was the youngest of eight children. Langston Hughes was an early advocate for her writing. Her breakout novel was The Color Purple (1982), which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Here’s a classic passage from that masterpiece, a meditation on God, love, and that beautiful color.
February 11 is the day in 1990 that Nelson Mandela was released from prison just outside Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years of incarceration for advocating violent resistance against the brutal, violent methods of the apartheid regime. President P.W. Botha had offered him release in 1988, so long as Mandela would renounce violent resistance. Mandela refused, directing his daughter, Zinzi, to read a speech in which he declared, “Let Botha...renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid!”
Two years later, a new president, F.W. de Klerk, met with Mandela to tell him he would be released the following day. When that day came, under a bright blue sky, Mandela walked out of the prison gates hand-in-hand with his wife, Winnie, his other hand raised in a clenched fist of victory. Apartheid came to an end four years later, and Mandela was elected president. As he put it, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Speaking to a Christian gathering in 1994, Mandela spoke of “the Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!”
February 12 is the birthday of two celebrated figures born on the exact same day in 1809: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln.
Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. As a young man he dreamed of becoming a pastor, but his passions turned toward science: when he was 22 years old, a naturalist on a voyage to the southernmost tip of South America, Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, taking copious notes about the species he encountered there. The islands were spaced just far enough apart from each other that the creatures on them had evolved into different species. His Galapagos notes formed the basis for his theory of natural selection, which he published 20 years later. In that book, he wrote: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.”
Abraham Lincoln, born near Hodgenville, Kentucky, spent his early life in a rustic cabin and had scarcely a year of traditional education. In his 20s, he decided to study law in Illinois, and so began his public and political career. He declared his opposition to slavery in 1854, and four years later, borrowing a phrase from Jesus about a “house divided against itself” (Mt 12:25), he delivered what became his famous “House Divided” speech: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.”
As president, Lincoln led the country through the horrors of the Civil War — and he was once asked, the story goes, if he thought God was on his side. He replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” On Good Friday in 1865, just five days after the end of the war, actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. He was the first president in United States history to die by assassination.
February 12 is also the birthday of Judy Blume, born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1938. She began writing seriously at age 27, a young mother with two preschool-aged children, and for years endured countless rejections from publishers. Her breakthrough was the young adult novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, the story of 11-year-old Margaret Simon’s attempts to make sense of religion, sex, menstruation, and other mysteries of adolescence. It became one of the most frequently-banned books of the later 20th century. Blume’s books have sold more than 80 million copies, and have been translated into 32 languages.
February 13 is the day in 1633 Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to face charges of heresy (and February 15 is his birthday!). For centuries, church doctrine held that the Earth was the unmoving center of the universe, with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around it. To support this view, the Church leaned on the writings of Aristotle and Ptolemy, along with interpretations of certain biblical passages. But Galileo had been studying Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish astronomer who proposed that the Earth moved around the Sun. So Galileo wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems; Pope Urban VIII allowed its publication on the condition that Galileo include the Church’s side of the argument.
Accordingly, Galileo organized the book as a discussion between two philosophers, each representing one of the two points of view, with a neutral layperson listening in. A fool named “Simplicius” presents Aristotle’s theory, which is quickly refuted — and that was too much for Pope Urban. He summoned Galileo to appear before the Roman Inquisition, which eventually ordered him to recant.
What Galileo said in his defense, however, is worth remembering. He insisted that scientific research and Christian faith are entirely compatible, and that in fact, study of the universe would promote the proper interpretation of Scripture. What’s more, legend has it that immediately after recanting, as he rose from kneeling before his inquisitors, Galileo defiantly whispered, e pur, si muove (“even so, it does move”). Galileo remained a faithful Catholic for rest of his life.
February 13 is also the birthday of American religious historian Elaine Pagels, born in Palo Alto, California, in 1943. She’s best known today for her books exploring divisions in the early Christian Church, including ancient texts that didn’t make it into the New Testament. One of those is the Gospel of Thomas, about which Pagels writes: “The Gospel of Thomas claims to be the secret sayings of Jesus. There are 114 of them, so it says many things, but the central message is that Jesus is the one who reveals the divine light that brought the universe into being, and that you and I also reveal that light.”