Thursday, August 18, 2011

More on Baptist commemoration of the saints

Baptist Saints window, Highland Baptist
Church, Louisville, KY (John Smyth,
William Carey, John Bunyan, Dr.
Zhidkov, John Oncken, C. H. Spurgeon)
Yet more ruminations on the possibility of a Baptist practice of the commemoration of saints Baptist and ecumenical from elsewhere in the blogosphere and social media posts:

First, Facebook friends Beth Maynard (Episcopal priest, leader of the Boston-area intentional community Mill Street House, and adjunct professor of Anglican/Episcopal studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, author of the U2sermons blog--and, just coincidentally, provider of a back-cover commendation blurb for Ecumenism Means You, Too) and J. David Waugh (interim pastor, Madison Chapel [Baptist] in Madison, MS) have pointed out that the Standing Commission on Music and Liturgy of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. has produced an updated trial calendar, "Holy Women, Holy Men," which includes entries for Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4), Walter Rauschenbusch (July 2), William Carey (October 19), and Lottie Moon (December 22). As I replied to Beth and David, it seems that the Episcopalians are ahead of the Baptists in their recognition of exemplary Baptist saints!

Second, Keith G. Jones, Rector of the International Baptist Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic, has continued the discussion related to previous Ecclesial Theology posts on "The Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin" and "Towards a Baptist Commemoration of the Saints" by posting on the IBTS community blog a post titled "Baptist Saints?" in which he proposes his own list of often-overlooked exemplary Baptist saints. I was especially delighted to see British Baptist ecumenical pioneers J. H. Shakespeare and Ernest Payne listed, as well as a number of otherwise overlooked exemplars of "ordinary" faithfulness.

Third, Stan Dotson, founding director of In Our Elements, offers on his own blog the post "Oh When the Saints," a reflection on the significance of the saints, known and unknown, for the living of the Christian life that kindly references what I've posted here at Ecclesial Theology.

I'm glad to see this conversation continuing.

Related posts:

More on Baptist commemoration of the saints

Towards a Baptist commemoration of the saints

The Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin

A Baptist commemoration of the saints

No comments:

Post a Comment