‘Baptist Life & Thought’ Category

Over the last few days I have been thinking much about Calvin’s legacy: so much theological brilliance and so much to thank God for…but we who embrace his soteriological legacy also must ask forgiveness from our Anabaptist brothers.

And why? Simply because of his advocacy of the sword as a curb on heresy, esp. his support of the repression of Anabaptism in both its heretical and orthodox forms. Reading Eamon Duffy’s recent revisionist history of the reign of Bloody Mary (Fires of Faith)—which I bought in Cork, S. Ireland when there a few weeks ago—has convinced me that some of my Protestant and Calvinist forebears erred greatly when they were willing to use the sword to repress error. Like our 18th c. forebears who were slave owners, they are flawed models. In so far as they followed Christ soteriologically they are safe guides. But with regard to the use of the state to repress error, we need to understand their views of church & state as an outcropping of the medieval Constantinian model.

The bottom line is still this: I am sorry that some of my Calvinist forebears ever used the sword against their—and my—Anabaptist brothers.

Each year the Andrew Fuller Center sponsors a major conference devoted to some aspect of Baptist thought and life.  This year’s conference is scheduled for August 24-25 and has for its theme “Baptist Spirituality:  Historical Perspectives.”  This conference is marked by great speakers, great fellowship, and several free books provided by the graciousness of publishers who sponsor the event.

Featured plenary speakers in 2009 will include: Crawford Gribben, Robert Strivens, Greg Thornbury, Kevin Smith, Tom Nettles, Greg Wills, Gerald Priest, Jason Lee, and Malcolm Yarnell. Other established Baptist History scholars, as well as several Ph.D. students will be presenting papers on the conference theme during the parallel sessions.

Until May 31st, a special rate of $75.00 for regular attendees and $45.00 for students (use code 09303108 when registering) will be available.  You will still be able to register up until the week before the conference, but it will cost $10.00 more.  You can register now by clicking here.  For more information about the conference, including lodging information, click here.

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

Soldiers of Christ:  Selections from the Writings of Basil Manly, Sr. & Basil Manly, Jr. was edited by Southern Seminary professor Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, in conjunction with Dr. Roger D. Duke and Dr. A. James Fuller.  Soldiers of Christ focuses on the writings on the father and son duo without whom, as current SBTS President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. notes in his Foreward, Southern Seminary would not exist.  This work was published by Founders Press and is available from order now from Reformation Heritage Books.

FROM THE BACK COVER:

Basil Manly, Sr. and his son Basil Manly, Jr. played vital roles in shaping a number of the central institutions of the Southern Baptist community in its formative years in the nineteenth century, including the influential Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Undergirding their churchmanship was a vigorous Calvinistic Baptist piety that was expressed in sermons and tracts, hymns and confessional statements, letters and diaries, all of which are represented in this timely volume of selections from their writings. Here we have a wonderful window onto the vista of nineteenth-century Southern Baptist life with all of its glorious strengths as well as its clear failings.

COMMENDATIONS:

“The introductory and biographical essays on the lives of Basil Manly, Sr., and Basil Manly, Jr., as well as the carefully selected collections from their writings found in this volume are wonderful and much-welcomed additions to Baptist studies. I am quite pleased to recommend Soldiers of Christ.”
— David S. Dockery, President, Union University

“The publication of these writings is long overdue and is most welcome, and the editors have done their work well.”
— Gregory A. Wills, Professor of Church History, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Michael Haykin, James Fuller, and Roger Duke have done us a service by introducing the Manlys to a new generation.”
— Nathan Finn, Assistant Professor of Church History, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“A fascinating, moving, and shocking look at piety among Southern Baptists in the middle two-thirds of the nineteenth century.”
—Tom J. Nettles, Professor of Historical Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“A superb collection of well-edited primary sources by two of the most formative shapers of Southern Baptist life in the nineteenth century.”
—Timothy George, Senior Editor of Christianity Today

FROM THE FOREWARD BY R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR.

“Humanly speaking, the formula is easy: no Manlys, no Southern Seminary. This year, as The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary celebrates its sesquicentennial, our indebtedness to the Manlys of South Carolina is increasingly clear. As an institution, our history is inextricably tied to the lives and ministries of Basil Manly, Sr. and Basil Manly, Jr.”

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Published by Founders Press.  240 pages.  Paperback.  2009.

Order here from RHB for $18.00 $12.00 (34% off)

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

Each year the Andrew Fuller Center sponsors a major conference devoted to some aspect of Baptist thought and life.  This year’s conference is scheduled for August 24-25 and has for its theme “Baptist Spirituality:  Historical Perspectives.”  This conference is marked by great speakers, great fellowship, and several free books provided by the graciousness of publishers who sponsor the event.

Featured plenary speakers in 2009 will include: Crawford Gribben, Robert Strivens, Greg Thornbury, Kevin Smith, Tom Nettles, Greg Wills, Gerald Priest, Jason Lee, and Malcolm Yarnell. Other established Baptist History scholars, as well as several Ph.D. students will be presenting papers on the conference theme during the parallel sessions.

Until May 31st, a special rate of $75.00 for regular attendees and $45.00 for students (use code 09303108 when registering) will be available.  You will still be able to register up until the week before the conference, but it will cost $10.00 more.  You can register now by clicking here.  For more information about the conference, including lodging information and a schedule of the plenary sessions, click here.

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

A couple of days ago I mentioned my discovery of an hitherto unknown sermon by Abraham Booth–at least unknown to me. Here are a few quotes from the sermon, which is based on 2 Cor 4:2, in which Booth deals with the manner and aim of preaching:

“When I contemplate the Apostle Paul, as the most honoured and useful servant of the Lord Jesus, in spreading the glories of divine grace, I can hardly forbear wishing, like Augustin, to have beheld him in the pulpit; if, thereby, I might form a more correct idea of his doctrine and manner of preaching. Yet such a wish is quite unavailing; and indeed, the gratification of it quite unnecessary. For that incomparable man, in his several epistles, has drawn his own character both as a Christian and as a minister of Christ. In the words of our text, we have the representation of Paul in the pulpit. His grand business is, to manifest the truth.”

“Take care, that under pretence of being open and explicit, you do not degenerate into dogmatism, or become personal in your, addresses. In the pulpit, you have to do rather with characters than with persons. You are bound, in faithfulness and in duty, to declare, that drunkards, covetous, self-righteous men, shall not inherit the kingdom of God: but you must not single out any particular person before you; for you will then become ungenerous, and the consequences will be injurious.”

“The more you keep the approbation of conscience, and the favour of God, in your eye, the more careful will you be to study your text and to manifest the truth which it contains; that the understanding and the conscience of your hearers may be duly enlightened, feel its authority, and God himself approve your labours. My brother, you have first of all to do with the understanding of your hearers, and as there is a glorious harmony and influence in divine truth, it must certainly operate on the will.

“If you preach the whole counsel of God faithfully, you must expect to be treated by some as an Arminian—if you assert the unchangeableness of salvation for those who, though undeserving, yet believe in Christ, you must expect to be reproached by others as an Antinomian.”

Working yesterday on a title for the forthcoming book by Dr. Raymond A. Coppenger, the father of Dr. Mark Coppenger, on Abraham Booth—it will be entitled “A messenger of grace”: A study of the life and thought of Abraham Booth (1734–1806) (Joshua Press, 2009)—I found a hitherto unknown sermon by Booth, an ordination sermon for Dr. John Stanford, who eventually came to the United States. It is a meditation on 2 Corinthians 4:2, and quintessential Booth. He argues that Paul, as one who sought to make known the truth, is a pattern for imitation. There is hope that this new sermon will be included in a future volume of the collected works of Booth, currently being published by Particular Baptist Press—see The Works of Abraham Booth, Volume I. (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2006).

In the course of this discovery I also came across a remark Booth makes vis-à-vis a quote from his favourite author, John Owen (1616-1683). Booth is speaking about his dislike of the use of the title “Reverend,” a disapprobation common to Baptists of his day, and he quotes Owen quoting Martin Luther (1483-1546): Nunquam periclitatur religio nisi inter Reverendissimos (“Religion is never in any danger except among the most Reverend gentlemen”!). Of course, dangers have arisen from other quarters, but how often in the history of the church has it been ordained ministers who have sought to destroy the very faith they were commissioned to protect. May God enable all who have pledged themselves to be servants of the Word to be faithful to that trust.

This Wednesday my dear friend and brother Stéphane Gagné will be formally examined with regard to his ordination as a “servant of the Word,” to use the Lukan terminology. Those of you who pray for the Francophone world, do remember this brother at this important time in his life.

What a weight there is, though, to such a calling. All Christians have a calling, but not all have such a weighty calling. Who is sufficient to preach the gospel? Among those called to this service, none, not one. And even when we are conscious of our need of God’s help by the Spirit to fulfill this calling and rely upon the blessed Spirit of Jesus, what insufficiency marks our discourse!

But we are in good company: the Apostle Paul himself knew such weakness. As did God’s servants down through the years. And we can derive this comfort from the witness of the past: God enabled them, weak though they were, and his arm of strength is still mighty.

Baptists have excelled at emphasizing the biblical requirements for a true baptism, namely baptism should be by immersion and believers only are the proper subjects of baptism. What they have not always been equally adept at is explaining the answer to this question: what does baptism mean?

Yesterday evening when I got home from Quebec I watched a baptism via the wonder of the internet and heard a relatively extensive discourse about what baptism is not: it is not a saving event, the water is not important (by which I gather the baptizer meant that the water contains no “sacramental” properties—surely he could not have meant that baptism does not require water, which would be very odd for a Baptist to assert), and that baptism is merely a symbol.

Listening to this largely negative explanation of what baptism is not, I was struck by the fact that our Baptist forebears in the defining eras of Baptist thought—the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—would have had some concerns about these remarks. They had a rich baptismal theology. The remarks that I heard yesterday preceding the baptisms were wafer-thin in real theological reflection and stemmed more from the nineteenth-century Baptist reaction to the genuine theological errors of Campbellism than the biblical witness.

For instance, what does one make of this remark by the venerable Andrew Fuller: “The immersion of the body in water, which is a purifying element contains a profession of our faith in Christ, through the shedding of whose blood we are cleansed from all sin. Hence, baptism in the name of Christ is said to be for the remission of sins. Not that there is any virtue in the element, whatever be the quantity; nor in the ceremony, though of Divine appointment: but it contains a sign of the way in which we must be saved. Sin is washed away in baptism in the same sense as Christ’s flesh is eaten, and his blood drank, in the Lord’s supper: the sign, when rightly used leads to the thing signified” [The Practical Uses of Christian Baptism (Complete Works, III, 341)]. This statement “leads to the thing signified” seems to mean that when the person being baptized has such a faith as Fuller describes, then baptism confirms this faith and the individual’s share in the benefits of the gospel.

In other words, baptism is the place where conversion to Christ is ratified and, to borrow a phrase from another great Calvinistic Baptist theologian of the eighteenth century, John Gill, “faith discovers itself.” [An Exposition of the New Testament (1809 ed.; repr. Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc., 1989), I, 495, commentary on Mark 16:16].

We need to recover this rich baptismal thought of our forebears that was drawn from the extensive discussion of baptism in the New Testament, and move beyond the largely negative picture of baptism I heard yesterday on the internet.

Historically, one of the key differences between Baptists and Presbyterians—fellow Kingdom-sojourners for much of their respective histories (one thinks of the friendship of Andrew Fuller and Thomas Chalmers, for example)—is an area that is rarely discussed, namely, the concept of a learned ministry.

Far more Baptists than Presbyterians have recognized that God can and does call to pastoral ministry men who have not had formal theological education. In Baptist history, one thinks of John Bunyan, for example, or John Gill, that indefatigable commentator, or Fuller, the theological father of the modern missionary movement, or William Carey or those remarkable preachers C.H. Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones (yes, the “Doctor” was a Baptist—read his lecture on baptism in his three-volume study of Christian doctrine). To be sure, these men read and studied and were self-educated, but they lacked formal credentials.

Having spent twenty-seven years in formal theological education, I am more than ever conscious that while such an education is extremely desirable for an effective ministry, it is not indispensable. And I am ever so glad that my Baptist forebears made room for men like those listed above, some of whom are among my theological mentors as a Christian. To think that because a man lacks formal credentials, he cannot reason and write with powerful acumen and insight is simply a species of arrogance.

Andrew Fuller, by trade a farmer, by calling one of the profoundest theologians of the Baptist profession, surely had it right when he said:

As to academical education, the far greater part of our ministers have it not. [William] Carey was a shoemaker years after he engaged in the ministry, and I was a farmer. I have sometimes however regretted my want of learning. On the other hand, brother [John] Sutcliff, and brother [Samuel] Pearce, have both been at Bristol [Baptist Academy]. We all live in love, without any distinction in these matters. We do not consider an academy as any qualification for membership or preaching, any further than as a person may there improve his talents. Those who go to our academics must be members of a church, and recommended to them as possessing gifts adapted to the ministry. They preach about the neighbourhood all the time, and their going is considered in no other light than as a young minister might apply to an aged one for improvement. Since brother [John] Ryland has been at Bristol, I think he has been a great blessing in forming the principles and spirit of the young men. I allow, however, that the contrary is often the case in academies, and that when it is so they prove very injurious to the churches of Christ. [“Discipline of the English and Scottish Baptist Churches”, Works (Sprinkle Publications, 1988), III, 481].

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.