Last Sunday in HeBrews Coffee House we started out with a question . . . “What are you willing to die for?” We had various answers in class with people stating that they would be willing to die for children, spouses, or another family member. Thankfully, in our country we aren’t faced with this question on a regular basis. The persecution that we may receive is definitely nothing compared to what happens in the rest of the world.

Recently, I came across this current event on www.persecution.com

“On Dec. 23. several pastors and prayer group leaders in Hyderabad were attacked and severely beaten by Hindu extremists, VOM contacts report. The Christians were returning home from a Christmas prayer meeting near the suburb of Jamnagar. At the time of the report, three Hindus had been arrested for their involvement in the attack.”

We began to study Baptist History this past Sunday and learned that the last person to be executed by being burned at the stake in England was a Baptist pastor named Edward Wightman. Edward Wightman was born at Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire. He married Frances Darbye of Hinckley on September 2, 1593. Edward and Frances settled in Burton, and they had seven children—2 boys and 5 girls. Wightman ran a successful mercer's business for a number of years in Burton. He denounced infant baptism and became a minister of the Baptist Church.

In 1611, Wightman presented a petition to King James, expounding his beliefs. For his beliefs, he was tried, found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death. Sentence was pronounced on December 14, 1611. The charges brought against him included eleven distinct heresies. Part of the charge was that he believed "that the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord's Supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they now are in the Church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part." Other charges included several unheard of opinions. His contemporaries said that if Edward really held all the opinions of which he was accused, he would have been either an idiot or a madman, and, if so, he ought to have had the prayers of his persecutors rather than to have them put him to a cruel death.

The authorities first carried out an aborted attempt at execution. When the flames started to burn Wightman, he shouted out something that seemed to imply that he had changed and was ready to accept the faith of the Church of England. The sheriff released him from the stake. Wightman refused to make a formal retraction and continued to preach his "heresies"; he was a few weeks later again tied to the stake and his body burned on April 11, 1612 at Lichfield. This same year another Baptist, Thomas Helwys, wrote A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, a plea for religious liberty in England. There were executions for heresy after Wightman, but his was the last burning.

We regularly baptize new converts at Canton Baptist Temple, and I am afraid that I get used to it sometimes. This past Sunday, we baptized 5 people and since I had just studied about Edward Wightman – it made me stop and thank the Lord for those who died so that I might have religious freedom.