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| Baptist-Catholic joint commission in Rome, December 2009 |
The full text of The Word of God in the Life of the Church: A Report of International Conversations between the Catholic Church and the Baptist World Alliance 2006-2010 is linked from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity page on the Vatican web site (click on hyperlinked title), along with the official Catholic commentary on the report by Thomas A. Baima, "Commentary on The Word of God in the Life of the Church: A Catholic Reflection on the Report of the International Conversations between the Catholic Church and the Baptist World Alliance 2006-2010."
The report from the first series of conversations between the Baptist World Alliance and the Catholic Church (1984-1988), Summons to Witness to Christ in Today's World: A Report on the Baptist-Roman Catholic International Conversations, is also linked from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity page along with an official Catholic commentary on the report by Thomas A. Stransky.
The Word of God in the Life of the Church had its initial print publication in a special issue of the American Baptist Quarterly (vol. 31, no. 1) that includes the full text of the 95-page report along with introductions and commentaries. An editorial introduction by Curtis W. Freeman, who is co-editor of the American Baptist Quarterly as well as Research Professor of Theology and Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University Divinity School, makes connections between these recent international conversations and the national-level conversations that began in 1967 soon after the Second Vatican Council between representatives of the American Baptist Churches USA and the United States Catholic Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Baptist-Catholic dialogue commission co-chair and report co-editor Paul S. Fiddes, Professor of Systematic Theology at Oxford University, provides an extensive introduction to the report that contextualizes the themes of the report in relation to other ecumenical dialogues the Baptist World Alliance and the Catholic Church have held with other Christian communions. The text of the report itself is followed by a pair of responses to the report by two Baptist theologians of note who were not members of the Baptist delegation to these conversations: a commentary by Josué Fonseca, who was Professor and Academic Dean at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Santiago, Chile from 1978 to 2008 before his current service as pastor of First Baptist Church in Concepcion, Chile, and a commentary by Stephen R. Holmes, Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who is also a minister in the Baptist Union of Scotland. Single copies of the American Baptist Quarterly issue with the report may be ordered for $5.00 plus $3.00 shipping (in the continental United States) from Callie Davis at Duke University Divinity School: cdavis@div.duke.edu.
At some point the text of The Word of God in the Life of the Church will also be posted on the Baptist World Alliance web site and issued by the BWA as an e-book on Amazon.com. When the text is available in those ways, notice will be given here at Ecclesial Theology.
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