Recycling the Past or Researching History? - Paperback

by Philip E. Thompson (Editor), Anthony R. Cross (Editor), Stephen Brachlow (Foreword by)

Recycling the Past or Researching History? brings together an international group of Baptist scholars who explore various issues in Baptist historiography and myths. To this end, contributors examine and re-examine areas of Baptist life and thought about which little is known or the received wisdom is in need of revision. Historiographical studies include the date Oxford Baptists joined the Abingdon Association, the death of the Fifth Monarchist John Pendarves, eighteenth-century Calvinistic Baptists and the political realm, confessional identity and denominational institutions, Baptist community, ecclesiology, the priesthood of all believers, soteriology, Baptist spirituality, Strict and Reformed Baptists, the role of women among British Baptists, while various "myths" challenged include the nature of high-Calvinism in eighteenth-century England, baptismal anti-sacramentalism, episcopacy, and Baptists and change. The theme which ties these studies together is that research into Baptist history should deal with the primary sources and not, as has too often been the case, rely uncritically on the scholarship of previous generations.

Author Biography

Philip E. Thompson is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Heritage, North American Baptist Seminary.

Anthony R. Cross is a Fellow of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, Regent's Park College, Oxford.