This week in Christian history: German missionary arrives in India, Puritans lash Baptist preacher

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, September 05, 2021

Puritans punish Baptist preacher with 30 lashes – Sept. 6, 1651

This week marks the date when Baptist preacher Obadiah Holmes was whipped 30 times in public by order of the Puritan leadership of colonial Massachusetts.

Originally a Puritan himself, Holmes had become a Baptist as an adult and was arrested in 1651 in the town of Lynn, near Boston, after he held a small worship services at the home of a friend.

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“Obadiah Holmes asked to speak, but Magistrate [Increase] Nowell refused. Holmes spoke anyway, saying he was about to shed his blood for what he believed,” noted the New England Historical Society.

“You have struck me as with roses,” declared Holmes in response, with the public whipping having the opposite effect as intended by authorities and was used to advance the cause of religious liberty.

In addition to being the pastor of the second Baptist church to be founded in colonial North America, Holmes has the distinction of being an ancestor of President Abraham Lincoln.