Historia ecclesiastica
The Weblog of Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin

The first book review has been posted on the new “Book Review” page (see left sidebar under “Audio”).   The first review is Dr. Haykin’s review article on Brian McLaren’s Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices which appears in the current issue (Summer 2008) of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.  As you will be able to tell if you take the time to read the article, it is not a recommendation of McLaren’s use of “Ancient” church history.  Instead, you will find a devastating critique of the whole emergent co-opting of the practices of the ancient church by a historical scholar trained in the field of Patristics.   Don’t miss this review, and continue to check back periodically as more reviews will be added every one or two weeks.  Future reviews will generally be recommendatory of various works on Baptist history in particular, or church history in general.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

It occurred to me this past weekend that one of the ways in which the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies can serve the Southern Baptist community, as well as the larger Baptist world and even the broader scene of English-speaking Evangelicalism, is through online reviews of books that specifically relate to Baptist history.

One of the ways in which the publishing world has been impacted in the past twenty years or so, a time of massive change for that world, has been in the role played by book reviews. Book reviews often appear in journals or magazines anywhere up to a year, or even more, after the book being reviewed has been published. Given the way books are marketed today though, this often results in the book review playing no substantial role in the sale of the book.

Given the resources of the worldwide web, one of the ways around this dilemma is to publish online reviews as soon as possible after the book has been published, as a number of e-journals are already doing. So, in the next week or so the Center hopes to initiate such a venture and try to review a book every couple of weeks or so. There will be a link provided on the home page to see the book reviews both current and past. Do check back regularly to see what is being recommended in the exciting field of Baptist history and ancillary fields of church history.

Is this 8,000 martyrs an inflated figure for the Stuart persecution? Michael Watts in his magisterial first volume of his multi-volume work The Dissenters (Clarendon Press 1978), reckons that W.C. Braithwaite was correct when he stated that 15,000 Quakers alone suffered during this era by “fines, imprisonment, and transportation” into exile and 450 died in prison (p.236).

I just glanced at Gerald R. Cragg’s Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution, another great book on this era, but could see nothing where he gave statistics of those who died in prison.

If 450 Quakers died in prison, that would mean there were 7,500 other Dissenters from the Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Baptist ranks that perished in the prisons–and that seems unlikely to me as the Quakers suffered very heavily in this era.

Does anyone have any other statistics?

In response to my mention in the previous post of 8,000 Dissenters dying in prisons during the reign of Charles II and James II, a dear friend, Ron Miller, made this extremely helpful comment:

“The 8000 number is found in De Foe’s preface to De Laune’s A Plea for the Non-Conformists, p 4 in the 1720 edition I have, the seventh paragraph from the start. De Foe says this, ‘I am sorry to say, he is one of near eight thousand Protestant Dissenters that perish’d in prison in the days of that merciful [sarcasm?!] prince, King Charles the Second’.”

In a recent book, Tom Paulin—The Secret Life of Poems: A Poetry Primer (London: Faber and Faber, 2008)—discusses John Bunyan’s “He who would valiant be” (pages 31-35) in terms of its poetic merit, its thought and its historical context.

Paulin judges it to be “one of the finest English hymns” (p.31-32), a “simple and austere puritan lyric,” that is deeply indebted to Shakespeare in spots (p.32). The phrase “come hither,” for example, Paulin reckons to be taken from the Stratford bard’s As You Like It (p.32-33).

Paulin relates portions of the hymn to Bunyan’s own writings, especially The Pilgrim’s Progress and the vicious historical context of the persecution by the Stuart regime. He notes that 8,000 Dissenters died as a result of goal fever in this time. I do not recall having seen such a figure. Nor does Paulin give his source for it. But it drives home the difficulties of that day.

In sum, Paulin writes that “this short, beautiful lyric is packed with great historical and personal suffering—and with unyielding courage and conviction” (p.35)—high praise indeed.

P.S. Incidentally, at the 2nd annual Andrew Fuller Center conference, held this past week at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a number of papers dealt with this theme of persecution: the plenary session by Austin Walker on Benjamin Keach, and two parallel sessions on Abraham Cheare and Thomas Hardcastle by Jeff Robinson and Peter Beck respectively.

For the audio of these, see The English Baptists of the 17th Century, August 25-26, 2008.

It is noteworthy that when Andrew Fuller was deeply moved, he would recite out loud lines of poetry that expressed the deep emotions he was feeling.

Poetry, though, has largely fallen out of favour with many Christian thinkers and theologians since then. This is a real shame. There are some things that poetry can better express than theological discourse.

Like so much of life, there is a giftedness to poetry. To be sure, there is toil involved—the testing of word and rhythm—but, in the final analysis, a poem is a gift. What is there, that we have not received.

The audio for this week’s conference on the 17th Century English Particular Baptists has now been posted online.  All the lectures (including the parallel sessions) are now available for free MP3 download on the conference page.  By all accounts, the conference was a great blessing to those who attended and it is hoped that this blessing can now be extended to those who would have liked to have attended, but were unable to do so.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

Today the 2nd annual conference of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies begins.  The theme this year is the English Calvinistic Baptists of the Seventeenth Century.  A complete schedule is available here.  It is hoped that the audio will be available soon in MP3 format online for the benefit of those unable to attend.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

Epiphanies happen.
Where roads cross and
Speech, passing through frail,
Though coal-fired, lip
Compresses an open heart,
Once iron, but now wrought
With textures elastic and fine.

There:
The Visible is seen,
A Voice is heeded,
And Joy is given.

Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.