This week in Christian history: First Chinese convert to Methodism, English preacher martyred, Lausanne Conference

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 12, 2020

Anne Askew martyred – July 16, 1546

A woodcut illustration of the burning of Protestant preacher Anne Askew at Smithfield, London, England on July 16, 1546. | Wikimedia Commons

This week marks the anniversary of when Anne Askew, a Protestant preacher, was burned at the stake after being found guilty of heresy for denying the teaching of transubstantiation.

After King Henry VIII broke ties with the pope, the Church of England kept many Catholic beliefs, like the belief that the Communion elements literally became the body and blood of Christ.

At her trial, when Askew reaffirmed her rejection of the teaching, declaring, “I have read that God made man; but that man can make God, I never read, nor, I suppose, ever shall read.”

Askew was brutally tortured in advance of her execution and had to be carried to the stake on a chair, where she was burned alongside three other religious dissidents.