Archive for March, 2009

Dr. Haykin is currently leading a reading circle group through C.J. Mahaney’s Humility: True Greatness.  I had previously posted the study questions for chapters 1 & 2 and I have recently posted the questions for chapters 3-6.  These are and all future questions will be posted online on the Books & Papers page, under Study Guides.

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

Southern Seminary’s pioneering new PhD program in Biblical Spirituality is gaining attention nationally through the mainstream news media.   An Associated Press article by Dylan T. Lovan was picked up by USA Today yesterday and has also been published and it is also popping up in various places across the nation.

For more information about the Ph.D. in biblical spirituality, call 502-897-4119 or email thmphd@sbts.edu. For more information about the D.Min. in biblical spirituality, call 502-897-4113 or email dmin@sbts.edu.

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

From the infinity of time
And reality’s sturdy fabric,
Your inconsequential eros
Is seen as gossamer-thin:
O for an Eros transcendent,
Giving reasoned passion, and
That fair City—firm and holy—
The home of all true saints.

Michael A.G. Haykin©2009.

The statement is simple and has come from the lips of uneducated and scholar, Oriental and Occidental, wealthy and disenfranchised, African and European, male and female, adult and child—and it is the most important confession a human being in this age can make.

It is a sentence that has come in the security of being surrounded by friend and family. But it is also a declaration that has been made in the midst of foes, hungry for the speaker’s death.

It is a statement that moves heaven to joy and stirs hell to anger and hate.

It is simply this: Christianos eimi. Christianus sum. I am a Christian.

Oh, I am very biased: but I can conceive of no greater statement of identity that I could make. My whole being, what I am and what I have is bound up with these three English words (or two Greek or Latin words!).

On these words hang the whole future of the one who speaks them. And with the millions in the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant I am happy to let my soul rest there as well.

Why do we plead for the retention—yea, more, the prizing—of the hymnal heritage of the past? Why simply because some of these old hymns say things so powerfully that their disappearance from ecclesial memory would be such a great loss.

In this light, consider this hymn from the pen of Anne Steele (1717-1778). It has her characteristic “watermark”—Christian profundity yoked to introspection and hesitancy—and a powerful conclusion that moves the modern heart as deeply as any subjectivity of the eighteenth century.

Dear Lord, what heavenly wonders dwell
In thy atoning blood!
By this are sinners snatch’d from hell,
And rebels brought to God.

Jesus, my soul, adoring bends
To love so full, so free;
And may I hope that love extends
Its sacred power to me?

What glad return can I impart,
For favours so divine?
O take my all, this worthless heart,
And make it only thine.

A new biography of Southern Seminary’s third president has just been released from Mercer University Press. Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin here provides his review of the book and his response to the startling revelations it provides about W.H. Whitsitt, the man.

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

Joshua Press has recently released David Herbert’s Charles Darwin’s Religious Views: From Creationist to Evolutionist. This book is a spiritual biography that focuses primarily on the religious experiences of Charles Darwin’s life. Its intent is to demonstrate how Darwin’s rejection of the Bible led him to adopt the naturalistic assumptions that were foundational to his belief in evolutionism. Well-researched and written in an engaging style, Dr. Herbert brings to life the spiritual journey of one of history’s most controversial figures.

Derek Thomas, Professor of Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, MS, commends the volume as follows:

A fascinating and important study of Charles Darwin, one of the most significant figures of our time.  The book is a tour de force in its analysis of the creation-science debate, as well as an insightful account of the man himself.  It includes a careful and cautious study of the so-called ‘Lady Hope Tract,’ suggesting a deathbed conversion.  I highly recommend it, especially for those embarking on scientific study at any level.

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

“God is in the details.” How true this is. Think of gratitude, for example. Essential to the fabric of public life and foundation of the family is the simple phrase “thank you.” Without these words gracing our speech, what are we but animals?

The most recent issue of The Gospel Witness, a great publication of Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto, has taken for its theme this subject: “The Biblical Basis for Gratitude” (February 2009). There are three good articles—by Allen R. Mickle, Joe Harrod, and Nathan Finn—on the seemingly mundane, but awfully profound, subject of saying “thank you.” Well worth reading!

A few days ago I read a fairly negative review of U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon. Not sure why I ever heed such without first checking the item in question.

My assistant, the “Invaluable Mr. Weaver,” played me a couple of songs from the album on Friday last as he drove me to the Louisville airport. I was hooked. I have really liked some of U2 in the past, but this album is tremendous, with some hard-hitting, haunting tunes and memorable lyrics.

“Magnificent,” for example, is stellar and a powerful witness to the electing love of God.

To read a post by Steve Weaver about the new album click here.