‘Books’ Category

By Nathan A. Finn

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be reading a paper at the annual meeting of the Baptist History and Heritage Society titled “Debating Domestic Slavery: The Wayland-Fuller Correspondence in Context.” My paper will focus on the story behind the book Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution (1845). I’ve long been interested in this important book; my colleague Keith Harper and I co-edited a new edition of Domestic Slavery for Mercer University Press in 2008. It was my first book.

Domestic Slavery is a collection of letters between southerner Richard Fuller and northerner Francis Wayland. Both of these men were devout Christians, Baptist leaders, and moderates within their respective camps in the slavery debate. According to Mark Noll, “This exchange was one of the United States’ last serious one-on-one debates where advocates for and against slavery engaged each other directly, with reasonable restraint, and with evident intent to hear out the opponent to the extent possible.”[1]

In the book, Fuller argues that slavery was not inherently sinful, but concedes that there were many sinful practices associated with chattel slavery in the South. For his part, Wayland argues that slavery was inherently sinful, but concedes that in many instances owning slaves was a moral blind spot among otherwise godly men in the South. Wayland also criticizes the abolition movement for being too radical in its call for immediate emancipation.

Fuller and Wayland make their respective cases in different ways. Fuller, who was an eloquent and widely respected preacher, wrote letters that are saturated with Scripture references defending slavery. That said, most modern readers would agree that many of these citations are taken out of context or otherwise misinterpreted. Fuller’s exegesis is a textbook example of the so-called southern theological defense of slavery.

Wayland’s letters are rhetorically brilliant, but largely absent of Scripture besides references to the golden rule and Paul’s epistle to Philemon. His arguments are based more on common sense and natural law arguments. He had made these sorts of arguments in his earlier books The Elements of Moral Science (1835) and The Limitations of Human Responsibility (1838). The former was the most popular ethics textbook in America in the nineteenth century, though it was banned at most southern schools because of Wayland’s anti-slavery views.

Their respective arguments notwithstanding, Domestic Slavery is a model of Christian civility. Wayland and Fuller continually refer to each other as “my dear friend,” and in this case, they really meant it. Neither engages in ad hominem attacks of the other. Both men are quick to affirm anything they see as right and truthful in the other’s argument. Though Wayland really does believe Fuller is misreading Scripture, and though Fuller really is convinced Wayland is ignoring Scripture, the two men are always cordial and dignified; they never paint the other as sub-Christian or impugn each other’s motives. These two esteemed antebellum Baptists remind us that it is possible to debate even the most controversial issues in a Christ-like manner.

By Dustin W. Benge

David Brainerd (1718–1747) yearned for the salvation of Native Americans scattered along the colonial trails of America and farther west. From 1742 to 1747 he toiled among tribes in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Initially he saw little to encourage him and seriously considered abandoning his labors among them altogether. But in time the situation reversed itself, and scores of Native Americans came to know Christ. Brainerd’s poor health, however, eventually forced him to abandon his missionary efforts, and at age twenty-nine he died.

Brainerd spent his last days in the home of his celebrated friend, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). Before his death, Brainerd consented to leave his diary with Edwards for publication. That volume has had an untold impact on the lives of others because it reveals Brainerd’s devotion, earnestness, sincerity, and self-denying spirit.

Missionaries such as Henry Martyn (1781–1812), William Carey (1761–1834), and Jim Elliot (1927–1956) have spoken of the great inspiration they received from reading Brainerd’s diary. These are some of the last entries Brainerd made:

This day, I saw clearly that I should never be happy, yea, that God Himself could not make me happy, unless I could be in a capacity to “please and glorify Him forever.” Take away this and admit me into all the fine havens that can be conceived of by men or angels, and I should still be miserable forever. . . . Oh, to love and praise God more, to please Him forever! This my soul panted after and even now pants for while I write. Oh, that God might be glorified in the whole earth! . . . Was still in a sweet and comfortable frame; and was again melted with desires that God might be glorified, and with longings to love and live to Him. . . . And oh, I longed to be with God, to behold His glory and to bow in His presence!

It is clear that Brainerd’s desire was to magnify God’s glory before the world. He also looked forward to his earthly departure because he longed to see the glory of God in heaven. What exactly does the phrase “the glory of God” refer? It is the sum of who God is—the sum of his attributes and divine nature. Throughout history, God has endeavored to show all men and women His glory.

By Nathan A. Finn

I need to begin this post with a caveat: I have never written a historical monograph. There are many reasons for this, chief among them my propensity toward distraction and boredom. Simply put, at this season in my life I can’t think of a single historical topic to which I want to devote 200 or more pages. I can, however, think of dozens of historical topics to which I want to devote 15–50 pages as well as numerous historic primary sources that I wish to see reprinted in critical editions. For that reason, my own scholarly publications tend to fall into three broad categories: 1) journal articles or contributed essays; 2) critical book reviews; 3) editing primary sources. Perhaps I’ll write a monograph or two at some point, but don’t hold your breath. For the time being, that’s not really my style.

Because I have never written a monograph, I’m obviously not an authority on this topic. However, I know lots of authorities on this topic. I also know that many readers of this blog are graduate students and younger church historians who probably do want to write monographs. So my desire in this post is not to position myself as an authority, but rather to point readers to a helpful resource I have found for those interested in publishing historical monographs.

Religion in American History is a consortium blog of mostly college and university historians who study American religious history. Some of the contributors are evangelicals, while others are not. Many have written on topics that at least intersect with Baptist Studies, which is a particular emphasis of the contributors to Historia Ecclesiastica. Religion in American History is a particularly helpful resource if you want to read substantive reviews of recent monographs (and sometimes important journal articles) in the field of American religious history.

Randall Stephens, who serves as one of the three “blogmeisters” for Religion in American History, has written a helpful post titled “Turning it into a Book.” In that post, Stephens collates suggestions from various publishers, along with his own insights on the topic. While Stephens focuses primarily on publishing for university presses, his suggestions also apply to church historians who wish to publish monographs with other types of scholarly presses such as Eerdmans, Baker Academic, IVP Academic, Pickwick, or T&T Clark (to name a few options). I think they also generally apply to historians who wish to publish textbooks or semi-scholarly books with evangelical presses such as Crossway, B&H, Moody, Zondervan, and Kregel. (For the record, the latter presses have scholarly divisions and regularly publish monographs in other disciplines such as theology, biblical studies, ethics, and apologetics. My not including them in the first list is not a “knock” on these fine publishing houses, but simply a recognition of the reality that they rarely publish scholarly monographs in my field.)

If I ever do get around to publishing a monograph (my lonely and heretofore unpublished dissertation is screaming at me from the shelf as I type), then I’ll consult Stephens’s helpful post on the front-end of that project. Perhaps many of this blog’s readers will “beat me to the punch” and publish one or more historical monographs. If so, I hope you folks also find Stephens’s post useful.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

By Nathan A. Finn

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of reading Gordon Wood’s fine book The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (Penguin, 2008). The book is a collection of Wood’s published review essays of significant historical books written by others, most of which deal with American history during the Colonial Era and the Early Republic. It is a gem of a book.

In his introduction, Wood warns against the temptation toward presentism that is so common among so many historians.

But the present should not be the criterion for what we find in the past. Our perceptions and explanations of the past should not be directly shaped by the issues and problems of our own time. The best and most serious historians have come to know that, even when their original impulse to write history came from a pressing present problem. The best and most sophisticated histories of slavery and the best and most sophisticated histories of women soon broke loose from the immediate demands of the present and have sought to portray the past in its own context with all its complexity.

The more we study the events and situations in the past, the more complicated and complex we find them to be. The impulse of the best historians is always to penetrate ever more deeply into the circumstances of the past and to explain the complicated context of past events. The past in the hands of expert historians becomes a different world, a complicated world that requires considerable historical imagination to recover with any degree of accuracy. The complexity that we find in that different world comes with the realization that the participants were limited by forces that they did not understand or were even aware of—forces such as demographic movements, economic developments, or large-scale cultural patterns. The drama, indeed the tragedy, of history comes from our understanding the tension that existed between the conscious wills and intentions of the participants in the past and the underlying conditions that constrained their actions and shaped their future.

See Gordon S. Wood, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (Penguin, 2008), pp. 10–11.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

By Jeff Robinson

One of the theological questions I have been asked most often during my first 24 months as pastor has been some version of this query: Do Baptists believe Covenant Theology or is that just a Presbyterian thing? My answer (which is consistently “Yes, Baptists have historically believed Covenant Theology that obviously differs a bit from our Presbyterian brethren”) has puzzled some and made others curious enough to launch your own study of my conclusion. But my dear friend Mike Gaydosh at Solid Ground Books in Birmingham, Ala., the city where my family lives, has recently published two books that will provide plenty of grist for that mill and will provide substantive historical and biblical answers to the question of Baptists and their relationship to Covenant Theology.

The first work is titled The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism by Pascal Denault. The point of pressure separating the Baptist and non-Baptist version of Covenant Theology is, of course, the subjects (the who?) of baptism. In the concise span of 140 pages, Denault’s work provides a brilliant historical, biblical and theological defense of believer’s baptism and provides an excellent overview of the consistent, biblical Covenant Theology which the Calvinistic (Particular) Baptists of 17^th century England espoused. Denault surveys British Particular Baptists who held to Covenant Theology such as Benjamin Keach and John Gill and also shows biblically how paedobaptists misinterpret the continuity between the promises given to Abraham in the OT and baptism in the NT and arrive at the conclusion that baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of membership in the covenant people of God. The author traces the points at which historic Baptists and their fellow Puritans parted ways on issues of the continuity and discontinuity between the old and new testaments and argues forcibly that Baptists more consistently held to a biblical version of Covenant Theology.

Edited by Earl M. Blackburn, the second work, Covenant Theology: A Baptist Distinctive, is a multi-author work and includes chapters from contributors such as Justin Taylor, Fred Malone and Walter Chantry. Like the Denault book, this work is brief in compass (161 pages, including three appendices) and each of the five well-written chapters examines a separate issue related to the covenants of Scripture, ranging from baptism to the question of the existence of a covenant of works. Blackburn opens with an excellent overview of Covenant Theology and Malone follows with a discussion of biblical hermeneutics and Covenant Theology. This work, like Denault’s book, offers a well-done overview of the Baptist version of Covenant Theology and I heartily recommend them both for your spring or summer reading.

To order, see the Solid Ground Christian Books website at http://www.solid-ground-books.com/index.asp. Phone: (205) 443-0311.

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Jeff Robinson (Ph.D., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Senior Pastor of Philadelphia Baptist Church. Jeff is the author of the forthcoming book, The Great Commission Vision of John Calvin. Jeff is also a fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

Ellen Charry’s work, By The Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (1997), is among those rare gems that challenge you to consider a serious paradigm shift in the way you do theology. Even more, I think her arguments have implications for historiography.

Charry contends for the restoration of theology that is sapiential (which she understands as knowledge that emotionally engages the knower to the known), aretegenic, and salutary. She attempts to show that the best Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation theologians thought, wrote, and spoke about God in this way. Theologians such as Basil of Caesarea, Anselm of Canterbury, and John Calvin insisted on correct doctrine—on knowing God accurately—because it was conducive to moral transformation and flourishing in the Christian life. Knowing and loving God rightly enables authentic imitation of him, and this is the key to human virtue, excellence, and happiness. Thus, pastoral concern drove their theological reflection and engagement in doctrinal controversy.

The modernism of Locke, Hume, and Kant severed faith and sapience from reason, eliminating both from the category of knowledge. Charry suggests that these epistemic shifts facilitated the waning of sapience from theology. Modern academic theology, preoccupied with pursuing knowledge of God on the terms of this modern epistemology, reduced theological reflection to factual knowledge, scientias. However, for classical theologians like Augustine, the goal of scientias was to move the knower to sapientia, wisdom.Knowing factual things about God must be paired with knowing God in wisdom and love. The verity of a doctrine rests largely in its result. For example, Basil of Caesarea argued that the Holy Spirit must be God on the basis that he makes us more like God and unites us to him—only God can do that. Basil contended for this doctrine because he believed that if his congregants denied it they would not grow in godliness. These classical theologians did not separate scientias and sapientia in the way that the modern Academy often does. For them, theology and pastoral theology were synonymous. Their doctrinal battles and treatises functioned primarily to protect and promote their congregants’ holiness.

Charry’s thesis applies to church historians as well. Treatments in historical theology that are limited to broad sweeps of ideologies could fall into the modern trap of severing scientias from sapientia. Historians must avoid imposing this modernist separation on past theological thought. Church historians are responsible for uncovering the pastoral concerns that lie behind the subject’s theological reflection. As Robert Darnton says, the point is “to show not merely what people thought but how they thought—how they construed the world, invested it with meaning, and infused it with emotion” (Darnton, 1985, 3). The historian must investigate the relationship between a theologian’s ideas and his behavior, shepherding, and spirituality. This kind of historiography will assist theologians and pastors in understanding why historic Christian doctrines mattered and still matter to the lives of believers.

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Ryan Patrick Hoselton is pursuing a ThM at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Jaclyn, and they are expecting their first child in August.

By Steve Weaver

Dustin Benge, one of the contributors to this blog (and Junior Fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center), has recently published two books featuring devotional selections from the writings of two of the greatest theologians in the history of the church. Benge’s first book provided daily devotions from the sermons of Jonathan Edwards and was published by Reformation Heritage Books (sample pages here). Don Whitney (Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has said the following about this volume.

“Few Christian writers could be mentioned in the same breath with Jonathan Edwards when it comes to heart-stirring devotional writing that is theologically rock-solid. Dustin Benge has done the church a great service by compiling these God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, Gospel-centered, soul-enriching excerpts from some of Edwards’s magnificent, but lesser-known sermons. Read edifying passages from Edwards like this every day for awhile, and you’ll be the better for it.”

A second work by Benge, which was also published by Reformation Heritage Books, provides a selection of 150 prayers by John Calvin (sample pages here). These prayers were previously only available in Calvin’s voluminous Old Testament commentaries. Benge has now made these prayers accessible to a new generation through his diligent efforts. Steven J. Lawson, author of The Expository Genius of John Calvin, had this to say about the volume.

 “Dustin Benge has done the church a great service by compiling this generous selection of prayers by the great Genevan Reformer, John Calvin. Extracted from his luminous Old Testament Commentaries, these fervent intercessions reveal the warm piety that accompanied this theological genius. Calvin’s personal logo was an open hand, holding a heart, extended upward to God with the words, ‘My heart I offer to Thee, Lord, promptly and sincerely.’ This book clearly demonstrates such singular devotion to God. Here is Calvin’s high doxology, arising upward from his high theology. And here is his exaltation of God, ascending from sound exegesis and exposition. By reading these prayers, I have no doubt but that your own heart will be likewise inflamed.”

You can listen to an MP3 lecture by Benge on the prayers of John Calvin which was delivered at an AFCBS mini-conference a couple of years ago. You can read Benge’s continuing reflections on biblical spirituality at the new blog “Tinkers & Saints” which he maintains along with fellow AFCBS contributor and Junior Fellow Dustin Bruce.

Steve Weaver serves as a research assistant to the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a junior fellow of the Center. He also serves as senior pastor of Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY. Steve and his wife Gretta have six children between the ages of 2 and 13.

By Ian Hugh Clary

Recently I had the opportunity to hear Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch give a lecture on the history of Christianity and sexuality. MacCulloch is a church historian from Oxford who specializes in the English Reformation. As an evangelical, I find that his interpretation of history squares with my own, so I was perplexed by his talk.

For those who may not know, Prof. MacCulloch is an out-of-the-closet homosexual—just check the acknowledgements section of his masterful biography of Cranmer. He is also an advocate in the Church of England—where he was once an office-bearer—for gay rights. He recently left the church and now considers himself a “friend” of Christianity. As you can imagine, his lecture provoked questions. I believed that I would hear a very careful handling of sources, though admittedly there may be revisionist elements. I was wrong in my assessment.

Before I explain why, I should say that MacCulloch is an exciting lecturer—the hour or so he took in his first talk went by quickly. He addressed the role of sexuality from the Old Testament to the late Middle Ages; it was fast-paced and he covered a lot of ground, but it was never confusing or boring. I could only imagine what it must have been like to take one of his classes.

As the lecture progressed, however, I became troubled. From beginning to end, MacCulloch gave a large polemic against traditional interpretations of scripture and history. I also became more and more incredulous. This was not due to hearing an historian defend gay rights, that doesn’t shock me—it’s commonplace in academia. My upset was due to my hearing one of the world’s leading ecclesiastical historians be so shaped by his personal bias that it allowed him to crudely handle texts and history. As for scripture, MacCulloch used Boswell’s hermeneutic, alluded to gay relationships between figures like David and Jonathan, and drove a wedge between the sexual ethics of Jesus and Paul (saying the latter was the more liberal); all of this has long since been repudiated by scholars like Robert Gagnon. MacCulloch was dishonest to his audience by making his case seem so open and shut, when such is far from the case.

MacCulloch based his historical arguments on Hellenization that he argued infected the early church so that it denigrated the physical world and thus sexuality. He also hammered against the celibacy that has so dominated the western church. While I have sympathies with his views of monastic celibacy, he did not give a rounded view of the early church on the goodness of sex and marriage—the work of David Hunter offers a needed corrective. Though I was not able to attend his second lecture the next day, a friend told me that MacCulloch also did not deal with the Puritans and their views of sex, marriage, and the body—the Puritans, as Leland Ryken and others have shown, had a healthy view of sex, and were not Platonists in their view of the material world.

In the Q & A I shocked myself by raising my hand. Seemingly without control I stood and asked, “If you will allow me to ask a personal question, that is not at all meant to be cheeky, I wondered how you view your reading of history in light of your own personal story and struggles in the church. Could traditional historians not accuse you of allowing your own bias to inappropriately control your historiography, as you have accused Augustine?” He was gracious in his response, and even acknowledged the importance of the question. He replied that “all history writing is autobiography.” I found this so perplexing to hear from a scholar who has been such a model historian to me. For one who could appropriate the findings of Catholic revisionists like Eamon Duffy, yet do so while being true to the English Reformation and vindicating earlier historians like A. G. Dickens, I was disappointed to hear him justify a reading of history that would not square with his earlier historiographic methods.

Professor MacCulloch serves as a reminder to all of us: as historians, now matter how great or prestigious, we must be aware of our personal biases and strive towards objectivity. While pure objectivity is impossible, I do believe that historians can put forth a body of work that can withstand scrutiny from specialists. And while my autobiography may lurk, I cannot allow it to so colour my work that it misleads readers.

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Ian Hugh Clary is finishing doctoral studies under Adriaan Neele at Universiteit van die Vrystaat (Blomfontein), where he is writing a dissertation on the evangelical historiography of Arnold Dallimore. He has co-authored two local church histories with Michael Haykin and contributed articles to numerous scholarly journals. Ian serves as a pastor of BridgeWay Covenant Church in Toronto where he lives with his wife and two children.

By Michael A.G. Haykin

In a world that seems to be increasingly digital, news about successes in print publishing is good news for those of us who love “hard” books. A relatively new publishing house to look out for is BorderStone Press, run by editorial directors Brian Mooney and Roger Duke, which has begun to issue some noteworthy titles: our own Nathan Finn’s new edition of the elder Robert Hall’s Help to Zion’s Travellers;  two new studies by Kieran Beville—a dear friend who teaches at Tyndale Seminary in Holland—one on Christmas and the other on the Lord’s Prayer; a study of Bunyan on prayer by Brian Najapfour (a pastor and doctoral candidate in MI); and Michael McMullen’s edition of some unpublished sermons of Jonathan Edwards (Dr McMullen teaches at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is involved in editing one of the volumes in the Andrew Fuller Works Project).

Keep up the good work, Brian and Roger!

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Michael A.G. Haykin is the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. He also serves as Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Haykin and his wife Alison have two grown children, Victoria and Nigel.

By Nathan Finn

For those interested in reading more about the life of Andrew Fuller, numerous biographies are available online for free. Several of these are nineteenth-century works available through Google Books. For example, see the following:

John Ryland Jr., The Work of Faith, the Labour of Love, and the Patience of Hope, illustrated; In the Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, Late Pastor of the Baptist Church at Kettering, and Secretary to the Baptist Missionary Society, From its Commencement, in 1792 (Charlestown: Printed by Samuel Etheridge, 1818).

J. W. Morris, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, Late Pastor of the Baptist Church at Kettering, and First Secretary to the Baptist Missionary Society, First American, from the last London edition, ed. Rufus Babcock (Boston: Lincoln and Edmonds, 1830).

Andrew Gunton Fuller, Men Worth Remembering: Andrew Fuller (London: Houghton and Stoddard, 1882).

In addition to these biographies on Google Books, the Baptist History Homepage, maintained by Jim Duvall, includes numerous shorter biographies of Fuller. Most of these sources are nineteenth-century dictionary entries and obituaries. Both Google Books and the Baptist History Homepage also include numerous primary sources written by Fuller.

In terms of more recent electronic biographical resources, last summer Desiring God published John Piper’s Andrew Fuller: I Will Go Down If You Will Hold the Rope! (Desiring God, 2012). The book, based upon Piper’s 2007 biographical address on Fuller at the Desiring God Conference for Pastors, is available for free in EPUB, MOBI, and PDF formats.

On the Andrew Fuller Center website, you can read Michael Haykin’s biographical essay on Fuller, titled “‘A Dull Flint’: Andrew Fuller— Rope-Holder, Critic of Hyper-Calvinism & Missionary Pioneer.” This essay will be published as a chapter in Haykin’s forthcoming book “Ardent Love to Jesus”: English Baptists and the Experience of Revival in the Long Eighteenth Century (Bryntirion Press, 2013).

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.