2013 Campbell Lectures on Christian Unity registration open

Online registration is now open for the 2013 Robert K. Campbell Memorial Lectures on Christian Unity sponsored by the Lehigh County Conference of Churches and hosted on the campus of DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania on March 12 (the page hyperlinked above provides information on the lectures and a link to an online registration form). I've chosen "The Pilgrim Church and the Ecumenical Future" as the theme of the lectures; the advertisement for the lectures on the Lehigh County Conference of Churches site reflects updated versions of the individual lecture titles previously announced on Ecclesial Theology: "A Pilgrim Church Theology, Discovered through Dialogue" and "Embodying the Story of Jesus: The Pilgrim Identity of the Body of Christ."

The Christian Century online, free this week

Some readers of Ecclesial Theology may be interested in taking advantage of the free access the Christian Century is offering this week to to all of its online content: the latest online issue, the PDF of the print magazine, all lectionary content and archives back to 1999 (click on hyperlink above; username and password registration required).

I'm grateful for the Christian Century's continued inclusion of Ecclesial Theology among the blogs linked from the "What We're Reading" sidebar on the Christian Century Theology page. The other blogs linked there are worth a read, too; scroll down and look left, just under the "Reflections on the Lectionary" sidebar.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson plugs Ecumenism Means You, Too in interview

The Christian Leadership Center of the University of Mary in Bismark, North Dakota has posted the interview "Sarah Hinlicky Wilson on Ecumenism" on its web site. At the conclusion of the interview Wilson, a Lutheran minister serving as Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, says this:

The best on-the-ground idea I’ve heard for ecumenism comes from Steve Harmon’s little book, Ecumenism Means You, Too. He suggests that, in addition to your commitment to your own church family, you get to know another one, too—sort of like having a major and a minor. You can’t fix all the divisions all at once, but you can become a real bridge between two families of faith, mutually translating between the two and curing your own parochialism in the process. Ephesians 2:14 says that Christ “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility,” so as Christ-bearers ourselves, I think we are called to make the unity happen in our own bodies, too. That happens when we put our bodies in two different churches, give our voices to praise in them both, consume the holy supper with our mouths in them both, serve the needy with our hands in them both.

Interested in Ecumenism Means You, Too? Order the book directly from Cascade Books or via Amazon.

Local reception of ecumenical dialogue

Today is the conclusion of the 2013 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-24). In that connection, I pass along a notice of an encouraging example of grassroots ecumenical encounter that occurred yesterday as part of a local observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

In my book Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity (Cascade books, 2010), I mention the reports and agreed statements issued by bilateral ecumenical dialogues as a neglected resource for learning more about other Christian denominations in local church programs of Christian education: "If your own denomination has been in this kind of official dialogue with other churches, studying and discussing these report would be an ideal way to learn about other denominations and their relationship to your own tradition" (pp. 63-64). Yesterday evening members of St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church in Palm Coast, Florida and Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach, Florida met to do just that together in an event hosted by St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church: "The Hope for Eternal Life: Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue." Participants read and discussed "The Hope of Eternal Life: Common Statement of the Eleventh Round of the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue" along with an article by Jeffrey Gros in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies summarizing and commenting on that dialogue. (The web site of Flagler Churches Together in Prayer and Song--which provides links to a number of helpful resources for grassroots ecumenical engagement--has also posted a photo gallery from other events related to their local observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.)

May other churches go and do likewise!

Ecumenical Trends--January 2013 issue

The January 2013 issue of the journal Ecumenical Trends (vol. 42, no. 1), published on behalf of the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, is a thematic issue on the 2013 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-24). This issue also happens to be the current sample issue posted in full text PDF online (click on hyperlink above). Included in this issue: an article interpreting the theme and Scripture text (Micah 6:1-8) for the 2013 observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by Terry L. Brensinger, a pair of articles exploring the homiletical dimensions of this year's focus by Michael E. Livingston and Mary Lin Hudson, and an article by lay ecumenical advocate Gerald Stover introducing "Ten Ecumenical Lecture Series Addressing Christian Unity Across North America." I'm especially interested in the last article, as I have connections with two of the ten lecture series highlighted in Stover's article: I delivered the Lourdes University Ecumenical Lectures in 2010, and I will deliver the Robert K. Campbell Lectures on Christian Unity in March 2013.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and local ecumenism

A previous post at Ecclesial Theology called attention to the local ecumenical work of lay ecumenical advocate Dr. Chau T. Phan, a retired professor of political science and member of Santa Maria Del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach, Florida. An article in the Daytona Beach News-Journal tells the story of Dr. Phan's work in coordinating Flagler Churches Together in Prayer and Song and provides information about the organization's 2013 observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18-24. One of the great contributions of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity to the quest for the visible unity of the body of Christ is its encouragement of embodied ecumenical engagement at the grassroots. Flagler Churches Together in Prayer and Song is an excellent local example of how local churches might do this.

Remembering our 'rememberable' baptisms

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Eisleben

A version of this post previously appeared on the ABPnews Blog.

Many churches celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday following Epiphany (January 6). Since Epiphany falls on Sunday in 2013, this year the Baptism of the Lord was celebrated yesterday on January 13. This feast is an appropriate occasion for remembering our own baptisms, in which we took on a new ecclesial identity in Christ when we embraced Christ’s story, the story proclaimed by the church, as our story.

I recently found myself thinking about how churches in my own Baptist tradition might be more intentional about remembering our baptisms when I saw a photo posted on Facebook of a Lutheran baptism performed in a new immersion font in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Eisleben, Germany—the church of Marin Luther’s baptism on November 11, 1483. Luther was baptized as an infant with water poured from a small font, remains of which were incorporated into a reconstructed font that now stands in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. But when the interior of the church was renovated in 2011, a new baptistry suitable for full-immersion baptisms was made the centerpiece of the renovated sanctuary. The top of the pool is level with the floor and is situated at the center of the front of the sanctuary, so that the congregation must look across the baptistry to see the altar and pulpit. Concentric circles in the pattern of the floor radiate outward from the baptistry. No one can worship there without thinking about baptism. On April 29, 2012, the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul was re-opened as the Center of Baptism for the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Germany intended to serve as a center for ecumenical reflection on the theology and practice of baptism.

One of the gifts that Baptist churches give to the people they baptize is a baptism that can be personally remembered. (I don’t think that candidates for membership in Baptist churches who were baptized as infants and have subsequently made the faith into which they were baptized their own should be required to be re-baptized with a “believer’s baptism” as a condition for membership, however, but that’s a topic for another discussion.) Baptists of all people have good reason to give attention to the remembrance of their 'rememberable' baptisms.

How might Baptists do this? I invite readers to share their own ideas and/or practices from their congregations in the comments below. I’ll start with the following recommendations:

• Whenever someone is baptized, include in the worship service an opportunity for members of the congregation to re-commit themselves to their baptismal vows.
• Regularly include recitation of the Apostles’ Creed (the baptismal creed of the Western church) and the Nicene Creed (the Eucharistic creed of the Western church and the baptismal and Eucharistic creed of the Eastern church) in worship services and call attention to their original role as baptismal confessions—declarations of the biblical story of the Triune God that we claim as our own in baptism. (I’ve explained elsewhere why Baptists can do this without betraying their Baptist heritage.)
• Place a vessel of water drawn from the baptistry at the back of the sanctuary near the main entrance. Encourage members of the congregation to dip their fingers into it when entering and exiting the sanctuary as a reminder of their baptisms. With proper explanation given, they might also be encouraged to use the fingers dipped into the baptismal water to trace the sign of the cross upon their bodies as a reminder of their identification with Christ in baptism.
• When the opportunity presents itself to build or re-design a worship space, design and situate the baptistry in such a way as to call attention to this practice so central to Baptist (and Christian) identity. Consider placing it near the main entrance to the worship space, so that worshipers pass by it when entering and exiting. Keep it filled with water, so that every worshiper may see and feel the water of baptism as a baptismal reminder each Sunday. (While I have not seen it in person, my friend Curtis Freeman tells me that the baptistry of the Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he takes his Baptist House of Studies students at Duke Divinity School to practice performing baptism, is “one of the most baptistic baptistries in all Christendom.” It is at the back of the sanctuary, partly inside the sanctuary and partly inside the narthex. The chairs in the sanctuary are moveable and are turned to face the baptistry whenever baptism is part of a service of worship.)

What are your ideas for remembering our 'rememberable' baptisms? How has your congregation been intentional about baptismal remembrance?

Remembering our rememberable baptisms

My post "Remembering our rememberable baptisms" appears today on the Associated Baptist Press ABPnewsBlog. The full text will be posted on Ecclesial Theology early next week; in the meantime, here's a snippet from the beginning of the post:

Many churches celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday following Epiphany (January 6). Since Epiphany falls on Sunday in 2013, this year the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on January 13. This feast is an appropriate occasion for remembering our own baptisms, in which we took on a new ecclesial identity in Christ when we embraced Christ’s story, the story proclaimed by the church, as our story.

I recently found myself thinking about how Baptists might be more intentional about remembering our baptisms when I saw a photo posted on Facebook of a Lutheran baptism performed in a new immersion font in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Eisleben, Germany—the church of Marin Luther’s baptism on November 11, 1483.... (read the full post at ABPnews Blog)

I hope readers of Ecclesial Theology will add their invited contributions to the comment thread on the post on the ABPnews Blog in response to the question posed in the post. At the very least, be sure to click on the link in the post to the photo of the "new baptistry suitable for full-immersion baptisms" in the church of Luther's baptism in Eisleben.

3 recommendations for B/baptist bibliophiles for 2013

A version of this post appeared on the ABPnews Blog.

In 1500 Dutch humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus wrote to a friend, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Thanks to gift cards from Amazon or Barnes and Noble and/or undesignated gifts of Christmas cash, many Baptist (and baptist) bibliophiles among the readers of Ecclesial Theology are currently in a somewhat more comfortable position for expanding their libraries without resorting to such ascetic extremes.

How to spend this windfall? Here are three recommendations of books published in the last half of 2012 that are worth reading in 2013. (I’ve linked each title to the book’s page on its publisher’s web site; readers can also easily find them via amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and other online booksellers.)

James Wm. McClendon, Jr., Systematic Theology, 3 vols., reprint edition with new introduction by Curtis W. Freeman (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2012). The three-volume Systematic Theology by James Wm. McClendon, Jr. (1924-2000), published originally by Abingdon Press 1986-2000, is the most significant such work by a Baptist theologian to date. No Baptist minister or theologically-interested Baptist layperson should go without reading it. In hisSystematic Theology McClendon listened deeply to the Baptist tradition, the larger free church tradition (“baptists” with a lower-case “b” in McClendon’s usage), and to the tradition of the whole church to which Baptists and baptists belong on the way to offering a creative and compelling articulation of the ethics (volume 1), doctrine (volume 2), and witness (volume 3) of this concrete ecclesial community of reference. It’s the first thing I mention whenever students and ministers ask me what I think they ought to read. Baylor University Press has now re-issued McClendon’sSystematic Theology with a helpful 32-page introduction to McClendon’s thought by Curtis W. Freeman included at the beginning of each of the three volumes. I’m using the Baylor University Press edition of the Doctrine volume as a required core text in the Spring 2013 offerings of my Introduction to Christian Theology I and II courses at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity.

E. Glenn Hinson, A Miracle of Grace: An Autobiography (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2012). In my experience, theologically-reflective autobiography serves well as devotional literature. A Miracle of Grace by E. Glenn Hinson, Emeritus Professor of Spirituality and John Loftis Professor of Church History at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and professor of church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for over three decades, fulfilled that function for me in a deeply meaningful way. As a Baptist theologian working in patristic theology and ecumenical theology I was keenly interested in Hinson’s account of those dimensions of his scholarly career. But as I devoured the book it occurred to me that features of Hinson’s journey are parallel to and instructive for three needs that have emerged in the shared journey of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the ecclesial community with which both Hinson and I identify: (1) the early need to resist the sort of fundamentalism that came to dominate the Southern Baptist Convention; (2) the need to move beyond an identity defined by anti-fundamentalism and the maintenance of denominational distinctiveness toward a deeper spirituality; and (3) the need to embrace the whole church, past and present, as the source of the resources Baptist communities require for moving toward and sustaining this deeper spirituality. As a Baptist who has found many such resources in the Anglican tradition, I had special appreciation for this passage from the book:

A lot of Baptists may fail to recognize it, but the Church of England is our mother church by way of the Puritans. A Baptist joining an Anglican or Episcopal church is going home….Each year since January 2004, I have delivered a series of four or five lectures to the Adult Forum of Christ Church Cathedral [in Lexington, Kentucky]. Each time I lectured, I tried to remain for the morning Eucharist, and I must confess that returning to a Baptist congregation left me feeling unfulfilled spiritually. Baptists speak about the Bible a great deal, but they do not saturate their worship with it in the same way the Anglican liturgy does! I understand well why some of my most discerning friends have become Episcopalians (pp. 355-56).

One of the lessons of Hinson’s book is that no Baptist has to become Episcopalian—or Orthodox, Catholic, or any other Christian tradition—in order to find these resources, for as Hinson insists, Baptists belong to the whole church, and the whole church belongs to Baptists.

Jeffrey W. Cary, Free Churches and the Body of Christ: Authority, Unity, and Truthfulness (Free Church, Catholic Tradition; Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2012). Jeffrey Cary is not a Baptist, but as a Church of Christ theologian who serves as Assistant Professor of Theology at Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas, he is a McClendon lower-case “b” baptist who is appreciative of McClendon’s articulation of the baptist vision and seeks the renewal of his own ecclesial community by embracing the resources of the larger Christian tradition in ways I imagine Hinson would applaud. The first volume in the new Free Church, Catholic Tradition series launched by Cascade Books, Cary’s book is a revision of his doctoral dissertation at Baylor University. I provided this commendation for the back cover of Cary’s book and offer it to readers of the ABPnews Blog as well: “No advocate or critic of the current quest in the free church tradition for a fuller catholicity and deeper commitment to the visible unity of the church catholic should proceed further in reflecting on this movement without reading, marking, and inwardly digesting this agenda-setting book.”

Three ways to spend Christmas book money

My post "Three ways to spend Christmas book money" appeared on the Associated Baptist Press ABPnews Blog yesterday. I'll post the full text here on Ecclesial Theology in a couple of days; meanwhile here's a snippet from the beginning of the post:

In 1500 Dutch humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus wrote to a friend, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Thanks to gift cards from Amazon or Barnes and Noble and/or undesignated gifts of Christmas cash, many bibliophiles among the readers of the ABPnews Blog are currently in a somewhat more comfortable position for expanding their libraries without resorting to such ascetic extremes.

How to spend this windfall? Here are three recommendations of books published in the last half of 2012 that are worth reading in 2013 by the Associated Baptist Press constituency... (continue reading post on the ABPnews Blog)

2013 Robert K. Campbell Lectures on Christian Unity theme

Last month I received an invitation to deliver the 2013 Robert K. Campbell Memorial Lectures on Christian Unity sponsored by the Lehigh County Conference of Churches and hosted by DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania on March 12. After mulling over possible directions for the lectures during Christmas break, I've now committed to an overarching theme and topics for the individual lectures:

Theme: The Pilgrim Church and the Ecumenical Future

Lecture 1: "The Dialogical Theology of a Pilgrim Church"

Lecture 2: "Toward a Narrative-Christological Ecclesiology"

I'm honored and humbled to be invited to contribute to this annual lecture series, which has featured such past lecturers as Avery Cardinal Dulles, Gabriel Fackre, Paul Crow, Michael Kinnamon, and Walter Cardinal Kasper.