New testing
A booklet was launched on 15 January in the Palace of Westminster to celebrate 300 years since the first abolition of a Test Act which is said to have ushered in an age of religious liberty in the West.
Barnabas Fund
The event, attended by a number of Parliamentarians and their representatives, celebrated the 1719 repeal of the Schism Act, which had excluded non-Anglicans from becoming school teachers. The remaining Test Acts were repealed between 1828 and 1871 and led to religious freedoms developing in the UK and spreading around the world. Both the USA and Australia wrote into their Constitutions provisions to prevent any kind of Test Act ever being introduced.
