November 23, 1998 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Waldensian churches in Italy, at their annual meeting in August, approved a statement supporting euthanasia and assisted suicide. The document called for legislation which would legalize euthanasia, such as that which passed in the Netherlands in 1994.

The document said: "Every human being is responsible for his own life and can decide if it is still worthy to be lived. ... [A doctor] has the duty to use all his knowledge and skill to maintain a patient's life, but on the other hand, he cannot elude the imperative of avoiding the useless suffering of a patient who does not have any prospect of recovery" (Religious News Service, Aug. 31, 1998).

In our articles "Do We Have the Right to Die" and "The Future of Euthanasia" we have exposed the error and danger of this practice. These articles are in the O Timothy Computer Library as well as on the Way of Life web site.

The Waldensian churches in Italy merged with the Methodists in 1975. Jointly, church membership is roughly 30,000. For centuries the Waldensians existed in Italy and sought to practice New Testament Christianity separate from the Roman Catholic Church. They were bitterly persecuted, and thousands upon thousands of humble Bible-believing Waldensian Christians suffered unspeakable cruelties and martyrdom by the hands of Rome. By the 16th and 17th centuries, though, the Waldensians had become doctrinally and spiritually weakened, and they joined forces with the German and French Protestants. By then at least some of them had adopted infant baptism and other unscriptural Protestant practices. They have grown increasingly weaker in modern times. Today they are part of the ecumenical movement.

In our book "Rome and the Bible: Tracing the History of the Roman Catholic Church and Its Persecution of the Bible and of Bible Believers," we demonstrate that the Waldensians (contrary to many popular church histories of our day) existed long before Peter Waldo of the 12th century. Throughout their early history the Waldensians identified the pope as antichrist. The Waldensian treatise titled the Noble Lesson, dating about 1100 A.D., stated: "Antichrist, the predicted murderer of the Saints, hath already appeared in his true character, seated monarchally in the seven-hilled city." Since there are written Waldensian documents existing which reach back to 1100 A.D. (so dated by numerous respected historians), it is obvious that the churches themselves existed long before then. Most of their records were destroyed in the relentless persecutions.

The Waldensians of old were Bible-based people. An old manuscript outlining an 11th-century Waldensian creed reads, "In articles of faith, the authority of the Holy Scripture is the highest authority; and for that reason it is the standard of judging; so that whatever doth not agree with the word of God is deservedly to be rejected and avoided. The sacraments of the church of Christ are two, baptism and Lord's supper. That is the church of Christ which hears the pure doctrine of Christ, and observes the ordinances instituted by Him, in whatever place it exists" (William Jones, History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, 1819, p. 56). It is no wonder that the tradition-bound Roman Catholic authorities hated these Bible-believing Christians.

The Waldensians, so brutally tormented under Innocent III and many other popes (almost 100 pages of the large-format 17th-century Martyrs Mirror describe the persecutions against these people), were always described as a people who loved the Bible. "Their converts were made by the Bible and religious books. They went as peddlers to a cottage or a nobleman's castle, offering fabrics or jewelry for sale; and when asked if they had any thing else, they answered: 'Yes, great rarities; I have one precious stone through which you can see God, and another that kindles love to him in the heart.' With that these peddlers brought out the precious roll of Holy Writ" (Armitage, A History of the Baptists, I, p. 301). In the preface to the Olivetan French Bible, the translators say that the Waldenses "have always had the full enjoyment of that heavenly Truth contained in the holy Scriptures, ever since they were enriched with the same by the Apostles themselves" (Samuel Morland, History of the Evangelical Churches, 1655, p. 14).

In the mid-13th century, the Catholic Inquisitor Reinerius gave this testimony of the Waldenses: "They can repeat by heart, in the vulgar tongue, the whole text of the New Testament and great part of the Old: and, adhering to the text alone, they reject decretals and decrees with the sayings and expositions of the Saints" (George Stanley Faber, The History of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, 1838, p. 492).

This is a very honorable testimony. No wonder the Waldensians were hated by the ecclesiastical authorities who had perverted the simple New Testament faith. The light brought by the Scriptures made Rome's heresies plain. The persecutions which Rome poured out upon these peace-loving people were intended to destroy them, as well as their Scriptures. "The crusade of Simon of Montfort so utterly destroyed them that Sismondi says: 'Simon stamped out not only a people but a literature'" (Armitage, I, p. 310). The efforts of their enemies were so thorough that we will not know the details of the history of those ancient God-fearing people until we can peruse Heaven's libraries.

While the Waldensians loved the Scriptures, the Roman Catholic Church was of a different spirit entirely. Century after century it opposed the efforts of the Waldensians and other Bible-believing Christians to distribute the Word of God among the people. The popes attempted to destroy the Waldenses from the face of the earth, and they almost succeeded. In every country where the Roman Catholic Church held power, the people remained ignorant of the Scriptures, unless they came into contact with the separated Christians.

Baptist Historian Thomas Armitage opens for us a window into the frightful persecutions initiated by Pope Innocent against the Bible-loving Waldensians:

"Many of them were frozen to death, others were cast from high precipices and dashed to pieces. Some were driven into caverns, and by filling the mouths of their caves with fagots were suffocated. Others were hanged in cold blood, ripped open and disemboweled, pierced with prongs, drowned, racked limb from limb till death relieved them; were stabbed, worried by dogs, burned, or crucified with their heads downward. Fox relates one case in which four hundred mothers who had taken refuge in the Cave of Castelluzzo, some 2,000 feet above the valley, entered by a projecting crag, were smothered with their infants in their arms. And all the time that this gentle blood was flowing, that sanctified beauty known as Innocent III, drank it in like nectar of Paradise. Of the Waldensians and other murdered sheep of Christ, he said: 'They are like Samson's foxes. They appear to be different, but their tails are tied together.' The blood-thirst of the Dominicans earned for them the stigma of 'Domini Canes,' or the 'Lord's Dogs'" (Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists, I, 1890, pp. 311,12).

We have documented the history of the Waldensians in our large format, 200-page book "Rome and the Bible." We spent thousands of dollars to obtain original materials with which to document this research. For example, I spent $1,000 for an unabridged 17th-century three-volume set of Foxes Martyrs. Part of the research was done in the British Library. Rome and the Bible is available from Way of Life Literature, 1701 Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277. 360-675-8311.