John Birch (missionary)
John Morrison Birch (May 8, 1918 – August 25, 1945) was an American military intelligence officer and a Baptist missionary in World War II who was shot during a confrontation with supporters of the Communist Party of China.
Some politically conservative groups in the United States consider him to be a martyr and the first victim of the Cold War. The John Birch Society, an American conservative organization formed 13 years after his death, is named in his honor. His parents joined the Society as Life Members.
Read more about John Birch (missionary): Early Life, Missionary Work, Military Career, Memorials
Famous quotes containing the words john and/or birch:
“Whither goest thou?”
—Bible: New Testament Peter, in John, 13:36.
The words, which are repeated in John 16:5, are best known in the Latin form in which they appear in the Vulgate: Quo vadis? Jesus replies, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.”
“The birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,—these are the only traces of man, a fabulous wild man to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the “South Sea”; to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)