Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future's release anniversary

My book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community was officially released by Baylor University Press a year ago today. Since then I've enjoyed opportunities to speak about the book and participate in conversations engendered by it (and continue to be available for such opportunities). I've also appreciated the reviews that have begun to appear. Some are available online: An issue of the Pacific Journal of Baptist Research published extended responses to the book by David Wilhite, Amy L. Chilton Thompson, Courtney Pace, and Andrew Christopher Smith, and the American Academy of Religion's review site Reading Religion recently published a review by Spencer Boersma. Other reviews are in press in print journals. Excerpts from some reviews are gathered on the book's page on the Baylor University Press site, from which the book may be ordered; it's also available via Amazon.

AAR's Reading Religion reviews Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

The American Academy of Religion's online review site Reading Religion has published a review of my book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press) by Spencer Boersma. Excerpts from the review appear below:

Steven R. Harmon’s Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community is perhaps the most constructive proposal of ecumenical reflection for Baptists to date.

Anyone acquainted with Harmon’s work will know that this is not a recent interest. In particular, his work, Towards Baptist Catholicity (Pasternoster, 2006), can be regarded as this book’s prequel. In Toward Baptist Catholicity, Harmon proposed a recovery of the authority of tradition and its content (i.e., the use of creeds, church fathers, sacramental theology, liturgy, etc.) in wider theological discussion and shows how Baptists are already indebted to this. Thus, a more conscious retrieval of tradition in Baptist theology will be beneficial. Now ten years later, Harmon presents a more refined proposal....

....Harmon’s book offers the research and wisdom of a Baptist thinker at the forefront of ecumenical work. His methodical analysis of Baptist history and ecumenical documents, coupled with practical constructive proposals for congregations to change, has made this book original, essential, and necessary to the future of Baptist life. (read the full review at Reading Religion)

What's that on the cover of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future?

What's the image on the cover of my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recover of Community (Baylor University Press), and what in the world does it mean? I answer those questions in my response to four reviewers of the book in the linked issue of the Pacific Journal of Baptist Research (vol. 11, no 2; November 2016) [click on hyperlink].

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

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.

Baptist Identity, the Whole Church, and God's Future (Boiling Springs Baptist Church)

If you're in the Boiling Springs, NC area, at 5:00 PM this Sunday (September 18) I'm doing a talk at Boiling Springs Baptist Church (down Main Street from the Gardner-Webb campus) related to my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press): "Baptist Identity, the Whole Church, and God's Future." I'd enjoy having you join the conversation. The address of the church for GPS purposes is 307 S Main St, Shelby, NC 28152; the venue will be the Lighthouse Room in the church's educational space.

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

Molly Marshall on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

In her Baptist News Global opinion column "Can a Baptist Be a Catholic?" published today, Molly T. Marshall, President and Professor of Theology and Spiritual Formation at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas, references my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press). Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the column:

A cadre of Baptist scholars has been writing about emerging catholicity, the holy desire for unity among all ecclesial communions. Taking tradition more seriously as a source for theological construction, these Baptists urge usage of the ancient creeds of the apostolic heritage of the whole church to supplement their reading of Scripture. A leading theologian in the movement, Steven Harmon, contends, “Baptists have their own distinctive ecclesial gifts to offer the church catholic, without which even the churches currently in communion with the bishop of Rome are something less than fully catholic themselves.”

As a staunch Baptist I, too, long for catholicity. In many respects the future of Christianity depends upon a greater ecumenicity .... (read the full column at Baptist News Global)

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

Baptist Catholicity: An Introductory Bibliography (David Rathel)

David Rathel, a Ph.D. student in theology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, has posted a bibliography of publications connected with "Baptist Catholicity" on his blog "David Rathel's Research Page." It includes my books Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision and Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community, as well as a chapter on "'Catholic Baptists' and the New Horizon of Tradition in Baptist Theology" that I contributed to the book New Horizons in Theology (published in the series of annual volumes of the College Theology Society).

Interested in Towards Baptist Catholicity or Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future? Click on the hyperlinked titles to order them from the publishers, or follow this link to my Amazon author page.

The Martyrs' Memorial, Oxford

Last week I was in Oxford (UK), a setting that frames the first chapter of my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future. The chapter begins:

In December 2010 a joint international commission of the Baptist World Alliance and the Catholic Church met in Oxford, the "city of dreaming spires," to envision the ecumenical future and how their communions might take concrete steps toward inhabiting it together (p. 3).

Chapter 1 concludes with these two paragraphs that reference the Martyrs' Memorial and its inscription shown in these photos taken in Oxford last week:

Baptists and members of other communions who take up this book’s challenge to journey together toward the ecumenical future will likely not enjoy such warm relationships with many from their own tradition, for some of the greatest obstacles in this journey are located within particular communions rather than between them. Each day of the 2010 Baptist–Catholic conversations in Oxford, delegates passed the Martyrs’ Memorial as they walked along St. Giles’ across from Regent’s Park College. The inscription below the monument’s Gothic spire reads, "To the Glory of God, and in grateful commemoration of His servants, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, Prelates of the Church of England, who near this spot yielded their bodies to be burned, bearing witness to the sacred truths which they had affirmed and maintained against the errors of the Church of Rome, and rejoicing that to them it was given not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for His sake; this monument was erected by public subscription in the year of our Lord God, MDCCCXLI."

The date and the explanation of the monument’s origins are not-so-subtle clues that the monument is not really about the Protestant martyrs named in its inscription. The year 1841 fell in the midst of the most vitriolic period of public debate in England over the proposals of the Oxford Movement. The final tract of the Tracts for the Times was published that year. In Tract 90 John Henry Newman, then four years away from his reception into the Catholic Church, had argued that the Tridentine expression of Catholic doctrine could be reconciled with the teachings of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles. The Tractarians’ opponent Charles Golightly, an Anglican cleric in Oxford, succeeded in raising funds for the construction of the memorial through a national subscription campaign. Its message, directed against this early form of receptive ecumenism in the Church of England, was clear: "Roman Catholics are the epitome of evil, for they murdered the founders of your national church. Don’t even think of moving in their direction, liturgically or theologically."

Baptists whose vision includes an ecumenical future in full communion with Catholics and other Christians are already the occasional object of similar rhetoric from some members of their own communion. Like the leaders of the Oxford Movement, the contributions of these catholic Baptists may bear the fruit of a more widespread Baptist reception of the gifts of Catholics and other Christians in a way that becomes evident only many decades after their lifetimes. I have written this book in the hope that the tribe of those who long for the visible unity of Christ’s church might increase among Baptists, and that other Christians might recognize them, so that together we can make our pilgrim journey toward the ecumenical future (pp. 18-19).

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

Neville Callam on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future (EthicsDaily.com)

Neville Callam, General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, devoted his July/August BWA Connect column to my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press). My previous Ecclesial Theology post linked the version of the column that originally appeared on the BWA web site; now EthicsDaily.com has published a version of the column as well.

Here's an excerpt:

....Many discerning readers will welcome not only the vision of the ecumenical future that Harmon espouses and commends, but also what Harmon’s excellent book implies and actually states concerning the proper work of theologians.

The project Harmon undertakes is done in the service of faithfulness to the Lord of the church. Harmon writes primarily as one who is dedicated to the service of the church and its unity. His is not a fascination with theological ideas for their own sake. His articulation of the vocational dimension of a theologian’s work is as clear and impressive as that offered by another outstanding contemporary Baptist theologian, Molly Marshall.

In richly documented chapters crafted by a competent Baptist ecumenical theologian, Harmon deals with a number of issues which Baptists may need to rethink in the light of the long and rich history of the one church of the living God of which they are a part. Readers will appreciate the clarity that marks Harmon’s book – a clarity that is born in a profound understanding of the issues themselves and also in enviable communications skills.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future should be required reading for Baptist leaders....(read the full article on EthicsDaily.com)

Order Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

Baptist World Alliance General Secretary on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Neville Callam, General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, devoted his July/August BWA Connect column to my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press). Here's an excerpt from the column:

....Many discerning readers will welcome not only the vision of the ecumenical future that Harmon espouses and commends, but also what Harmon’s excellent book implies and actually states concerning the proper work of theologians.

The project Harmon undertakes is done in the service of faithfulness to the Lord of the church. Harmon writes primarily as one who is dedicated to the service of the church and its unity. His is not a fascination with theological ideas for their own sake. His articulation of the vocational dimension of a theologian’s work is as clear and impressive as that offered by another outstanding contemporary Baptist theologian, Molly Marshall.

In richly documented chapters crafted by a competent Baptist ecumenical theologian, Harmon deals with a number of issues which Baptists may need to rethink in the light of the long and rich history of the one church of the living God of which they are a part. Readers will appreciate the clarity that marks Harmon’s book – a clarity that is born in a profound understanding of the issues themselves and also in enviable communications skills.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future should be required reading for Baptist leaders....(read the full article on the Baptist World Alliance web site)

Order Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future now on Kindle

My latest book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press, 2016) is now available in the Kindle e-book format. On the book's Amazon Kindle page, one can download a free sample that includes frontal matter with preface, chapter 1, and a few pages of chapter 2--but without viewable footnotes. (The paid Kindle e-book does include access to the footnotes,)

Order the Kindle version of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future from Amazon.

Order the print version of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

Pilgrims Together: Baptist Identity and Christian Unity

Next week George Mason (Senior Pastor, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas) and Laura Anne Rodgers Levens (Assistant Professor of Christian Mission, Baptist Seminary of Kentucky) will host a conversation with Curtis Freeman (Director of the Baptist House of Studies, Duke Divinity School) and me about our recent books on Baptist identity in ecumenical perspective and their implications for Baptist congregational and denominational life during a workshop at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Greensboro, NC. Both books will be available for purchase and signing at the workshop. The workshop will be offered 1:30-2:30 PM on Thursday, June 23. Details from the General Assembly workshop schedule follow below; see the end of the post for ordering information for both books.

Pilgrims Together: Baptist Identity and Christian Unity
Location: Auditorium I

Description: Join George Mason and Laura Levens for conversation with Curtis Freeman and Steve Harmon, whose recent books explore Baptist identity in relation to Jesus’ prayer that his followers be one.

Presenters: George Mason, Senior Pastor, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas; Laura Rodgers Levens, Assistant Professor of Christian Mission, Baptist Seminary of Kentucky; Curtis W. Freeman, Director of the Baptist House of Studies, Duke Divinity School; Steven R. Harmon, Visiting Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity.

Curtis Freeman's book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Baylor University Press, 2014) is available from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

My book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press, 2016) is available from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

Panel response to Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Next Tuesday (May 24) a panel representing the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion and the Baptist History and Heritage Society will respond to my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press, 2016), followed by my own response. The two organizations are meeting at Baylor University's Truett Seminary. Baylor University Press will have copies of the book available for purchase and signing after the panel session with a special conference discount.

Order Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or via Amazon.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future at Calvary Baptist Church, Asheville, NC

I will be speaking on themes in my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press) at Calvary Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina (531 Haywood Road, Asheville, NC 28806) on Wednesday evening, April 20, 2016. A spaghetti dinner will be served at 5:30 PM ($6/person) prior to the teaching session, which will begin at 6:00 PM.

This educational opportunity is sponsored by the Pittman Center for Congregational Enrichment at Gardner-Webb University.

Contact Calvary Baptist Church with questions about the event: (828) 253-7301 or office@calvaryasheville.com.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future book signing at Gardner-Webb

I'll be signing copies of my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press) during the "Meet the Authors" event at Gardner-Webb University on Monday, April 11, from 3:00 until 5:00 PM at Dover Library on the Gardner-Webb campus in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the signing, courtesy of the campus shop.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future is also available from Baylor University Press and via Amazon.

Wordle rendering of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

What's my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future about? Here's a rendering of prominent themes in the text courtesy of the Wordle word cloud generator.

Order Baptist identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community from Baylor University Press or Amazon.

Baptist News Global previews Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Baptist News Global today published an article by news editor Bob Allen previewing my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press). Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the article:

Baptists tend to be the “problem children” of the ecumenical movement but have gifts both to give and receive from the broader Christian community, a Baptist theologian who teaches in the school of divinity at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., says in a new book.

Steven Harmon, who previously served on the faculties of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., and Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, N.C., argues in Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future, released March 1 by Baylor University Press, that Baptist communities and the churches from which they are separated need each other to be faithful to Jesus’ vision of a visibly united church in his high priestly prayer in John 17....(read the full article at Baptist News Global).

Order Baptist identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or Amazon.

Pilgrim Community: Ecumenism, Baptist-Style

On Friday, March 18, I'm leading the workshop "Pilgrim Community: Ecumenism, Baptist-Style" during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina General Assembly at Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh. The workshop draws from arguments and proposals in my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press). If you're attending the assembly and already have a copy of the book, bring it and I'll sign it. If you don't yet have a copy, there's still time to get one from Amazon; I'll also have flyers with a code for a 20% discount and free shipping from Baylor University Press (exp. 3/31) available at the workshop and at the Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity booth.

William Henn on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Fr. William Henn

Fr. William Henn, Professor of Ecclesiology and Ecumenism at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, offers this endorsement of my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press):

"This book was written ‘in the hope that the tribe of those who long for the visible unity of Christ’s church might increase among Baptists, and that other Christians might recognize them, so that together we can make our pilgrim journey toward the ecumenical future.’ Based on extensive experience of dialogue with other Christian...s, his richly documented and insightful treatment of such crucial themes as scripture, tradition, sacraments, authority, and the pilgrim church open fresh avenues for moving toward the unity for which Jesus prayed."

Order Baptist identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or Amazon.

About the Book
Contents

Michael Kinnamon on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future
Henk Bakker on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future
William Henn on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Henk Bakker on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Dr. Henk Bakker

Henk Bakker, Professor of Baptist Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands, offers this endorsement of my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press):

"Harmon’s book is a thorough and challenging appeal for visible unity in faith and order between Baptists, Catholics, and all other Christians. After all, ‘Baptists are dissenting catholic Christians’—they are a pilgrim community brought to visibility by ecumenical engagement. This is a must read for every Baptist student."

Order Baptist identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or Amazon.

About the Book
Contents

Michael Kinnamon on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future
Henk Bakker on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future
William Henn on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future