The Great Sacrifice Baal

The Great Sacrifice for Baal
2 Kings 10:1-35

Each August 30 in my home city of Birmingham, England, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the martyrdom of a woman called Margaret Ward. In the reign of Elizabeth I, when it was against English law to practice the Roman Catholic faith, a Roman Catholic priest called William Watson was in prison in London. Margaret Ward helped him escape but was found out, tortured, and eventually hanged in 1588 on that day (most other dioceses mark the occasion on a different date, for reasons I don’t know). There were of course analogous executions of Protestants during the decades when the practice of Protestant faith was against the law. A century later in Massachusetts, nineteen women and five men were hanged after being found guilty of witchcraft. Throughout Christian history it has been regular practice for Christians to execute one another on the basis of their having contravened proper Christian faith in a serious way...