Festblog for Fiddes

Portrait of Paul S. Fiddes in Helwys Hall,
Regent's Park College, University of Oxford

Today (April 30, 2012) is the 65th birthday of Paul Fiddes, one of my favorite theologians and the most significant writing theologian identified as a Baptist on the contemporary theological scene. Fiddes is Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford and Principal Emeritus of Regent's Park College of the University of Oxford, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1977 and served as Principal from 1989 until 2007. A short list of representative publications appears on Professor Fiddes's profile page on the University of Oxford web site; a Wikipedia entry on Fiddes includes a fuller (but not complete) listing of publications along with information on his life, education, and theological career. A future issue of the Pacific Journal of Baptist Research will be devoted to the theology of Paul Fiddes.

One thing that deeply impresses me about Professor Fiddes is his appreciation for and commitment to serving the communion of his Christian nurture and calling. His international and ecumenical standing as a theologian means that he does not have to identify himself as a Baptist or even remain a Baptist, yet this ordained Baptist minister continues to make the Baptist tradition the explicit concrete ecclesial community of reference in his theological work and to serve the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Baptist World Alliance in myriad ways.

Fiddes is must reading for Baptists as well as non-Baptists. Below is a list of his books with links to Amazon.com where available:

Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology (Studies in Baptist History and Thought, vol. 13; Paternoster, 2003)

The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature (Blackwell, 2000)

Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (Darton, Longman, & Todd, 2000; Westminster John Knox, 2000)

Freedom and Limit: A Dialogue between Literature and Christian Doctrine (Macmillan, 1991; Mercer University Press, 1991)

The Trinity in Worship and Preaching (London Baptist Preachers' Association, 1991)

Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement (Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1989)

The Creative Suffering of God (Clarendon Press, 1988)

A Leading Question: The Structure and Authority of Leadership in the Local Church (Baptist Publications, 1986)

Charismatic Renewal: A Baptist View (Baptist Publications, 1980)

Happy birthday, Professor Fiddes!