Twenty-five-year-old noblewoman Anne Askew (1521–1546) was accused of heresy, arrested, interrogated at least twice, tortured on the rack, and burned alive at the stake.

I was raised in a church and family that encouraged women to be all that they were meant to be.

In my first year of graduate studies at Yale University, I was asked to be a teaching assistant in a course that allowed for “the yeah, yeah experience” to arise.

In my graduate studies, my professors had me read great books written by great men who had made a difference in the church and academy. They never talked about the great books that women had written and the great things that women had done. Women’s voices had long been silenced.

A friend told me she once preached about discipleship. After the service, a parishioner came up to her and said, irately, “I am not a disciple. I am a member.” Oh well, I guess it was better than no reaction at all, and certainly better than, “Lovely sermon.”

Anne Hutchinson (ca. 1591-1643) was a courageous woman who fought for many of the freedoms we now take for granted.

I do not consider myself “a person of faith.” There, I said it. Are you shocked? 

Yes, I attend my parish church regularly. I say the creed without crossing my fingers. I renew my baptismal vows at least once a year. So what could it possibly mean to say I am not “a person of faith”?

I remember seminary students who were hoping to be ordained warning one another of the kind of questions they were likely to be asked in the selection process. “It used to be,” they said, “that you had to say something about the importance of the sacraments.

Albert Mohler is blowing up the Internet.