‘Church History’ Category

Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin was recently interviewed by Paul Butler on Moody Radio’s Prime Time America about the “Calvin for the 21st Century Conference” sponsored by the Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI, August 27th – 29th.  The part with Dr. Haykin begins at about the 1:50 mark.

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

Dr. Haykin serves as co-editor, along with Joel Beeke, of the Reformation Heritage Book series “Profiles in Reformed Spirituality”.  The newest volume in the series is by Thabiti Anyabwile and focuses on the piety of Lemuel Haynes.  To promote this volume and the series of which it is a part, Reformation Heritage Books is randomly giving away five free sets today to those who sign up at Challies.com.

This is a great set.  The volumes are multifunctional. That is, they are the perfect, non-intimidating introductions to people, doctrine, and practice of the reformed tradition. They make excellent short readings for stimulating thought and devotion. They are also good for class texts for giving students an affordable entry point into a given person and time period both primary and secondary treatments in one small book.

If you don’t win the set, You can order the complete set or individual volumes at Reformation Heritage Books.

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

Panel Discussion at “Remembering John Calvin”
conference sponsored by AFCBS.
Photo by John Gill.

This mini-conference celebrating the 500 year anniversary of John Calvin’s birth was held on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 from 9am - Noon.  There were three lectures by Dr. Shawn Wright, Dr. David Puckett, and Dr. Michael Haykin focusing on various aspects of Calvin’s life and thought.  You may now download the MP3s of the conference below:

• Session 1:  “John Calvin as Pastor” (MP3)
  Dr. Shawn Wright
• Session 2:  “John Calvin as Preacher and Teacher” (MP3)
  Dr. David Puckett
• Session 3:  “John Calvin as Missionary Advocate” (MP3)
  Dr. Michael Haykin
• Panel Discussion
  Led by Steve Weaver and featuring responses from all three speakers

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

Here is a possible research topic:

What was it like to sit in a Baptist church in the days of Spurgeon and Broadus, Boyce and Wayland? What would you see? What would you hear? How would it feel? How did these dynamics relate to the message being preached and how truth was received? What was it like to sing in their chapels and to experience the Lord’s Supper?

Some readers might think these questions trite and silly. They aren’t at all!

Reception of truth always takes place in a certain ambience and space. How was truth experienced in that space? The answers to these questions and others like them would help enormously towards crafting the way spiritual life occurs and is experienced.

This would take a lot of digging but it relates to new historical studies based around our senses of sight, smell, feel, hearing and even taste. As yet, no one that I know of has been working on the history of such matters as it relates to Baptist piety.

Maybe, there are some scholars out there who would be interested in doing a concerted team research on this idea and produce together a history of Baptist sensory experience.

Comments and thoughts welcome!

Tertullian

Timothy Barnes, Tertullian. A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

Gerald L. Bray, Holiness and the Will of God: Perspectives on the Theology of Tertullian (Atlanta: John knox/London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979).

Gerald L. Bray, “Tertullian and Western Theology” in John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 49-54.

Perpetua

The Martyrdom of Perpetua, introd. Sara Maitland (Evesham, Worcestershire: Arthur James Ltd., 1996).

Joyce E. Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman (London/New York: Routledge, 1997).

Joseph J. Walsh, ed., What Would You Die For? Perpetua’s Passion (Baltimore, Maryland: Apprentice House, 2006).

W.C. Weinrich, Spirit and Martyrdom. A Study of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Contexts of Persecution and Martyrdom in the New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Washington, D.C., 1981).

Cyprian

William S. Babcock, “Christian Culture and Christian Tradition in Roman North Africa” in Patrick Henry, ed., Schools of Thought in the Christian Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 31-48.

J. Patout Burns, “The Holiness of the Churches” in William Caferro and Duncan G. Fisher, eds., The Unbounded Community: Papers in Christian Ecumenism in Honor of Jaroslav Pelikan (New York/London: Garland Publ., Inc., 1996), 3-15.

J. Patout Burns, Cyprian the Bishop (London/New York: Routledge, 2002).

Michael A. Smith, “Cyprian of Carthage and the North African Church” in John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 59-62.

Jerome

Everett Ferguson, “Jerome: Biblical Scholar” in John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 77-80.

J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (New York: Harper & Row, Publ., 1975).

Augustine

Gerald S. Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, Life and Controversies (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967).

Donald X. Burt, Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine’s Practical Philosophy (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1999).

Elizabeth A. Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

Robert Dodaro and George Lawless, eds., Augustine and his Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner (London/New York: Routledge, 2000).

Thomas A. Hand, Augustine on Prayer (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co.,1986).

Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

N. R. Needham, The Triumph of Grace: Augustine’s writings on Salvation (London: Grace Publications Trust, 2000).

John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient thought baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (New York: Viking Penguin, 1999).

Patrick

Máire B. de Paor, Patrick: The Pilgrim Apostle of Ireland (New York: HarperCollins, 1998).

David N. Dumville, Saint Patrick, A.D. 493-1993 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1993).

R.P.C. Hanson, Saint Patrick: His Origins and Career (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

R.P.C. Hanson, The Life and Writings of the Historical Saint Patrick (New York: The Seabury Press, 1983).

E.A. Thompson, Who Was Saint Patrick? (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1985).

A number of brothers have enquired about reading lists on various eras in Church history. I have decided to post these in a series. Not sure how many there will be. But I shall number them consecutively so interested readers can keep track. And while I hope to work through the whole of western church history, I will not be posting every day, but as I have time.

And I am sure many of you find will omissions of favourite things. Two things to note in this regard: I would love to hear of possible additions. But remember these are lists that I feel are necessary reading and because I am limited, the lists are also limited. In each of the areas I shall post on the reading could be multiplied many times over.

So here goes. The first reading list, on the Latin Fathers, follows immediately.

Here is a fascinating quote from the Puritan historian Patrick Collinson:

“History fails to impress or inspire me. I refer you to a quotation from Lord Acton, used as a motto prefacing The Elizabethan Puritan Movement: ‘I think our studies ought to be all but purposeless. They want to be pursued with chastity, like mathematics.’ ”

It is taken from an interview on The Conventicle website. Fascinating that there were no comments on the interview or this particular statement. It surely cuts against the grain of much of my own thinking about history! To be sure, there must be a deadly seriousness with regard to accuracy–but to admit no inspiration from the past or purpose in studying it strikes me as ultimately self-defeating as an historian.

These words of Eberhard Bethge, the biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, are an important reminder of the need to remember the past:

“Commemoration renders life human; forgetfulness makes it inhuman. …even when remembrance carries grief and shame, it fills the future with perspectives. And the denial of the past furthers the affairs of death, precisely because it focuses exclusively on the present.”[1]