George Grant and Gregory Wilbur authored The Christian Almanac, second edition, revised and updated 2004, and published by Cumberland House, Nashville, Tennessee.  The Almanac is described as A Book of Days Celebrating History’s Most Significant People and Events.  Today I wish to share several of the entries from this book.

January 22, 1973

In perhaps its most divisive and controversial decision since Dred Scott, the case of March 6, 1857 that centered around the status of an illiterate Negro slave, the Supreme Court overturned the infanticide and homicide laws in abortion cases in all fifty states by legalizing abortion procedures from the moment of conception and just before the moment of birth.  Delivered on January 22, 1973, the Roe v Wade decision sent shockwaves throughout the nation—the effects of which are still felt.  In a remarkably argued minority opinion, Associate Justice Blackmun introduced several creative constitutional innovations—including heretofore unrecognized “right to privacy.”  Like the Dred Scott decision before it, this case actually only exacerbated the debate the court set out to resolve.

January 22, 1996: Norma McCorvey, the woman named as “Jane Roe” in the Roe v Wade decision, asked the Supreme Court to reverse their ruling in light of the fact that the case was base on fraudulent evidence.  The court decline.

January 25, AD 222

Callistus of Rome was a Christian slave who was imprisoned and sentenced to hard labor in the Sardinian quarries late in the second century after becoming involved in a scandalous financial scheme.  After his release he was emancipated and put in charge of the church’s shelter and cemetery on the Appian Way, which still bears his name.  He faithfully occupied himself with his duties—caring for the poor, comforting the bereaved, and giving refuge to the dispossessed.

But it was his compassion for abandoned children that proved to be especially noteworthy—it was Callistus who helped to organize the famed “Life Watches” that placed hundreds of exposed children into Christian homes.  It seemed that unwanted newborn children were simply taken outside the city to infanticide walls where they were left to die from exposure or from the assaults of foraging beasts.  The Christians of Rome would take these children into their own homes and raise them as their own.  This selfless sacrifice was a hallmark of the early church’s work of mercy.

Callistus believed that eventually service would afford Christians the authority to speak into the lives of many Roman citizens who were searching.  In any case, it earned him authority—because of the prominence of his sacrificial work, Callistus was chosen to serve as the bishop of Rome.  He died on or about this day, January 25, 222.

January 25, 1579: The Dutch provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht to break away from Spain and form the new country of the Netherlands.

January 26, 166AD:  Saint Polycarp was martyred in the city of Smyrna.  Polycarp refused to blaspheme Christ and was burned at the stake.

January 26, 1784:  In a letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness  over the choice of the eagle as the symbol of America, and expressed his own preference: the turkey.