Twentieth-Century Shapers of Baptist Social Ethics provides an overview of the major historical framework within which Baptists emerged with significant contributions to Christian social thought and action in the twentieth century. This book provides a summary of the life, principal ideas, writings, and most significant contributions of nineteen Baptists since 1900.
This one-stop reference book on the vital relationship between Scripture and ethics offers needed orientation and perspective for students, pastors, and scholars. Written to respond to the movement among biblical scholars and ethicists to recover the Bible for moral formation, it is the best reference work available on the intersection of these two fields. The volume shows how Christian Scripture and Christian ethics are necessarily intertwined and offers up-to-date treatment of five hundred biblical, traditional, and contemporary topics, ranging from adultery, bioethics, and Colossians to vegetarianism, work, and Zephaniah. The stellar ecumenical list of contributors consists of more than two hundred leading scholars from the fields of biblical studies and ethics, including Darrell Bock, David Gushee, Amy Laura Hall, Daniel Harrington, Dennis Olson, Christine Pohl, Glen Stassen, and Max Stackhouse.
Baptist ideals like the separation of church and state have indelibly shaped Western democracies, and Baptist thinkers continue to influence public policy and political engagement today. Yet the historical contours, enduring commitments, and current contributions of Baptist political thought are little understood. Baptist Political Theology, edited by scholars Thomas Kidd, Paul Miller, and Andrew Walker, introduces readers to the full sweep of Baptist engagement with politics. Part 1 reviews the life, writings, and political activity of important figures in Baptist history, as well as Baptist involvement in key historical eras and episodes. Part 2 presents a collective effort at applied political theology, with essays relating Baptist principles to a range of contemporary issues. This monumental volume sheds light on the history and contemporary practice of Baptists in the public square, offering context and clarity for Baptist political thought in the years to come.
A comprehensive overview of the latest research in religion and conflict resolution, this collection of twenty three essays brings together leading scholars in the field examining the contribution religious actors have made and are making towards peace and resolving. The Ashgate Research Companion to Religion and Conflict Resolution is primarily aimed at readerships with special interest in conflict resolution, international security, and religion and international relations, and will also serve as a valuable resource for policy makers and conflict resolution practitioners. The collection comprises five thematic sections, each with chapters on vital and mainly contemporary topics in the field of religion and conflict resolution. The principal themes include: ยข
While Baptists through the years have been certain that "war is hell," they have not always been able to agree on how to respond to it. This book traces much of this troubled relationship from the days of Baptist origins with close ties to pacifist Anabaptists to the responses of Baptists in America to the war in Vietnam. Essays also include discussions of the English Baptist Andrew Fuller's response to the threat of Napoleon, how Baptists in America dealt with the War of 1812, the support of Canadian Baptists for Britain's war in Sudan and Abyssinia in the 1880s, the decisive effect of the First World War on Canada's T. T. Shields, the response of Australian Baptists to the Second World War, and how Russian Baptists dealt with the Cold War. These chapters provide important analyses of Baptist reactions to one of society's most intractable problems.
An extraordinary Baptist, Jimmy Allen served as the last 'moderate' president of the Southern Baptist Convention concluding his second term in 1979, the first year of the emergence of a 'fundamentalist' leadership of the convention. This title presents an account of Allen's life.
While the Southern Baptist Convention has so often been a step behind on the issue of race since its formation, there was still light shining in the darkness: a group of biblically faithful men and women who both recognized and fought for their racially marginalized brothers and sisters. Chief among these men and women was Thomas Buford Maston. T. B. Maston faithfully engaged the topic as the SBC's preeminent ethicist from 1922-1963 as a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This stand ultimately cost him his job. Even still, some sixty years later, his theology and ethics model the full unity in Christ. This book examines the writings of T. B. Maston in his efforts to reform the racially misguided interpretations of Scripture in the church and their subsequent prejudices. Maston is not merely a visionary who foreshadowed the eventual position of the SBC, and more widely, the evangelical church, but is one who directly caused legitimate change. Maston's profound yet humble work gives a blueprint for future racial reconciliation through integration in the church.
The primary focus of this volume is to bring to the fore the contribution of McClendon and Smith's work on convictions and the application of that work in helping understand the processes of moral reasoning in the context of conflict. Both were indebted to Zuurdeeg, and their concept was incorporated in models of moral reasoning by Baptist scholars Glen Stassen and Parush Parushev. The usefulness of the concept is critically evaluated. The volume concludes with a case study on the conflict in Northern Ireland, including the role of religion and the key issues raised in the referendum on the Belfast Agreement in 1998. It includes an examination of the contribution of four Christian groups in Northern Ireland who publicly engaged in this six-week period of intense and passionate debate on the Agreement and the difficult issues it addressed, as the focus for examining and testing the application of the model of moral reasoning. On the basis of the case study is demonstrated that the concept of convictions can prove to be a helpful means of getting to the heart of what drives moral reasoning in contexts of conflict. The purpose of this book is to issue a call to engage with, critique, and consider the importance and application of a much undervalued methodological approach to discerning the convictions that are the primary influencers of thought and action.
In honor of what would have been Clarence Jordan's one hundredth birthday and the seventieth anniversary of Koinonia Farm, the first Clarence Jordan Symposium convened in historic Sumter County, Georgia, in 2012, gathering theologians, historians, actors, and activists in civil rights, housing, agriculture, and fair-trade businesses to celebrate a remarkable individual and his continuing influence. Clarence Jordan (1912-1969), a farmer and New Testament Greek scholar, was the author of the Cotton Patch versions of the New Testament and the founder of Koinonia Farm, a small but influential religious community in southwest Georgia. Roots in the Cotton Patch, Volume 1 contains Symposium presentations addressing Clarence's influence as a storyteller and contextual preacher and prophet, his pacifist witness in a violent and segregated South, and the contemporary meaning of his life's work in Christian community. Uniting these powerful essays is the obvious impact Jordan's life has had on so many. His life and work continue to inspire a new generation of activists, seminary students, and people in search of the meaning of Christian community.
The diverse Baptist movement goes back to the separatist wing of English puritanism. The book first describes the history and missionary expansion of this movement. It then lays out its teachings on baptism, eucharist, and ministry, its commitment to religious liberty and human rights, its socio-political involvement as well as the role of women in the church. Finally, exemplary details of Baptist existence in the local congregations and Unions/Conventions from around the world provide insight into the colorful life, work, order, and faith of a global people, held loosely together by its World Alliance. All thirty essays are written by experts in their fields from all continents.
