Pacific Journal of Baptist Research issue explores Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion plenary

book symposium panel session, Waco, Texas, May 24, 2016

The new issue of the Pacific Journal of Baptist Research (vol. 11, no. 2 [November 2016]) is devoted to a book symposium exploring my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press, 2016]). The four essays and my response to them are lightly revised versions of presentations made in a plenary panel session at a joint meeting of the National Association of Baptist Professor of Religion and the Baptist History and Heritage Society held on the campus of Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas, May 23-25, 2016. The contents of the issue appear below:

Adam C. English     2

Editorial

David E. Wilhite     3

Baptists, Catholicity, and Visible Unity: A Response to Steven Harmon

Amy L. Chilton Thompson     12

Response to Steven R. Harmon’s Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community

Courtney Pace     16

Baptists, Catholicity, and Missing Voices: A Response to Steven Harmon

Andrew Smith     20

Description, Prescription, and the Ecumenical Possibilities of Baptist Identity: Reading Steven Harmon’s Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Steven R. Harmon     24

Locating the Unity of Christ’s Rule: A Response to Respondents to Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future 

Panelists (L-R): David E. Wilhite, Amy L. Chilton Thompson,

Courtney Pace, Andrew Christopher Smith

The issue is edited and introduced by Dr. Adam C. English, Chair of the Department of Christian Studies and Professor of Christian Theology and Philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina, who also moderated the NABPR/BHHS panel discussion. Contributors of the review essays are Dr. David E. Wilhite, Associate Professor of Christian Theology at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary; Dr. Amy L. Chilton Thompson, Adjunct Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California and Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California; Dr. Courtney Pace, Assistant Professor of Church History at Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee; and Dr. Andrew Christopher Smith, Assistant Professor of Religion at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tennessee.

Read the full November 2016 issue of the Pacific Journal of Baptist Research as a downloadable PDF file here.

Interested in reading Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future? Order from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

PJBR symposium on Curtis Freeman's Contesting Catholicity

The November 2015 issue of the Pacific Journal of Baptist Research, for which I serve on the editorial board, is devoted to a book symposium on Curtis Freeman's book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Baylor University Press, 2014). Here's a link to the open-access PDF for this issue of the journal; the editorial introduction appears below:

The essays that follow were originally presented in the context of a panel discussion of Curtis W. Freeman’s book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2014) in a plenary session of the annual meeting of the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, May 18-20, 2015. The first two responses to the book are from specialists in Baptist history: Bill J. Leonard, James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies and Professor of Church History at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, where he was the founding dean, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, and C. Douglas Weaver, Professor of Religion and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, USA. The second pair of responses is offered by Baptist theologians: Adam C. English, Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina, USA, and Fisher Humphreys, Professor of Divinity (retired) at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Finally, Curtis W. Freeman, Research Professor of Theology and Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, USA, responds to these engagements of his work.