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.

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 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.

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

Michael Kinnamon on Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon

Michael Kinnamon, former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the USA, offers this endorsement of my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Baylor University Press):

"Steven Harmon challenges his own Baptist tradition to receive the gifts held in trust for the whole body of Christ by other churches, even as he implicitly challenges others to recognize the gifts that Baptists, with their 'pilgrim church theology,' bring to the wider church. I strongly endorse his essential premise: not only do Baptists need the ecumenical church, the rest of us need the full, mutually receptive engagement of Baptists if this movement for unity is to move. The book is creative, well researched, passionate, and practical."

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

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future--Contents

What's inside my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community? Here's the table of contents:

Part I: The Baptist Vision and the Ecumenical Moment
1. A Radical Baptist Proposal
2. Seizing the Ecumenical Moment

Part II: Baptists, Biblicism, and Catholicity
3. One Sacred Story
4. One Contested Tradition
5. Radically Biblical, Radically Catholic

Part III: Baptist Identity and Receptive Ecumenism
6. The End of Baptist Denominationalism
7. Receiving the Gift of Magisterium

Part IV: Baptist Theology and the Ecumenical Future
8. The Ecumenical Task of Theology
9. The Theology of a Pilgrim Church
10. The Baptist Eschatological Vision and the Ecumenical Future

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

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future--About the Book

Here's the dust jacket flap "About the Book" description for my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community:

Baptists tend to be the “problem children” of the ecumenical movement. The Baptist obsession to realize a true church birthed a tradition of separation. While Baptists’ misgivings about ecumenism may stem from this fissiparous genealogy, it is equally true that the modern ecumenical movement itself increasingly lacks consensus about the pathway to a visible Christian unity.

In Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future, Steven R. Harmon explores the relationship of the Baptist calling to be a pilgrim community and the ecumenical movement. Harmon argues that neither vision can be fulfilled apart from a mutually receptive ecumenical engagement. As Harmon shows, Baptist communities and the churches from which they are separated need one another. Chief among the gifts Baptists have to offer the rest of the church are their pilgrim aversion to overly realized eschatologies of the church and their radical commitment to discerning the rule of Christ by means of the Scriptures. Baptists, in turn, must be willing to receive from other churches neglected aspects of the radical catholicity from which the Bible is inseparable.

Embedded in the Baptist vision and its historical embodiment are surprising openings for ecumenical convergence. Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future urges Baptists and their dialogue partners to recognize and embrace these ecumenically oriented facets of Baptist identity as indispensable provisions for their shared pilgrimage toward the fullness of the rule of Christ in their midst, which remains partial so long as Christ’s body remains divided.

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

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future back cover

Here's a peek at the back cover of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community, which will be released March 1 by Baylor University Press. Order Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future from Baylor University Press or Amazon.

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future releases March 1

My new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community will be released March 1 by Baylor University Press. A book description, table of contents, and endorsements are on the Baylor University Press site along with ordering information; it's available via Amazon as well. More details are forthcoming here at Ecclesial Theology between now and March 1.

Goodliff anticipates Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

British Baptist minister Andy Goodliff includes my new book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community among the 2016 book releases he's anticipating in his blog post "Some Book Delights forthcoming for 2016."

Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future will be released by Baylor University Press on March 1, 2016. In the meantime, the book may be pre-ordered from Baylor University Press and Amazon.

Radner on Freeman's Contesting Catholicity

First Things has posted on its web site a two-paragraph teaser snippet from Ephraim Radner's review of Curtis Freeman's book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Baylor University Press, 2014) in the magazine's August 2015 issue. Non-subscribers and those without library access to First Things may purchase the full article for $1.99. Here's part of the review preview:

When I’m in a gloomy mood, sometimes I’d like to be a Baptist. Instead of all the venal bishops, political synods, and ignorant commissions, I’d have some controllable integrity to my church life: a good congregational polity with the folks in the pews in charge, Bible reading and preaching at the center, no-apologies evangelism and church planting, a limit on the intrusion of self-important experts and their crazy ideas, no liturgy to mess up, and (unlike their Pentecostal brethren with their shamanistic temptations) good old-fashioned fundamentalist biblical rationalism that makes it easy for most people to smell a pastoral rat in their midst when they have one....(continue reading at First Things)

Book announcement: Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future

I'm pleased to announce that my book Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community has entered the production phase and is scheduled for a March 2016 release by Baylor University Press. I'll post updates regarding the book's publication, including pre-ordering information, here at Ecclesial Theology during the next few months. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here's a draft of the copy for the catalog and back cover description:

Baptists tend to be the “problem children” of the ecumenical movement. The Baptist obsession to realize a true church birthed a tradition of separation. While Baptists’ misgivings about ecumenism may stem from this fissiparous genealogy, it is equally true that the modern ecumenical movement itself increasingly lacks consensus about the pathway to a visible Christian unity.

In Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community, Steven R. Harmon explores the relationship of the Baptist calling to be a pilgrim community and the ecumenical movement. Harmon argues that neither vision can be fulfilled apart from a mutually receptive ecumenical engagement. As Harmon shows, Baptist communities and the churches from which they are separated need one another. Chief among the gifts Baptists have to offer the rest of the church is their pilgrim aversion to overly realized eschatologies of the church and their radical commitment to discerning the rule of Christ by means of the Scriptures. Baptists, in turn, must be willing to receive from other churches neglected aspects of the radical catholicity from which the Bible is inseparable.

Embedded in the Baptist vision and its historical embodiment are surprising openings for ecumenical convergence. Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future urges Baptists and their dialogue partners to recognize and embrace these ecumenically oriented facets of Baptist identity as indispensable provisions for their shared pilgrimage toward the fullness of the rule of Christ in their midst, which remains partial so long as Christ’s body remains divided.

Also in the meantime, check out some other forthcoming releases from Baylor University Press.

Forthcoming/recent books on Baptist studies from Baylor University Press

Over the past few months, Baylor University Press has released several notable books on themes in Baptist studies. Now another is scheduled for a September 2015 release: Evangelical Christian Baptists of Georgia: The History and Transformation of a Free Church Tradition by Malkhaz Songulashvili, whose leadership of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia has been noted in previous Ecclesial Theology posts.

This will follow some significant titles in Baptist studies published by BUP in the second half of 2014:

Baptists and the Community of Saints: A Theology of Covenanted Disciples by Paul S. Fiddes, Brian Haymes, and Richard Kidd

Decoding Roger Williams: The Lost Essay of Rhode Island's Founding Father by Linford Fisher, J. Stanley Lemons, and Lucas Mason-Brown

Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists by Curtis W. Freeman

The Collected Works of James Wm. McClendon, Jr., edited by Ryan Andrew Newson and Andrew C. Wright, Volume 1 and Volume 2

Earlier in 2012, BUP re-issued the Systematic Theology of James Wm. McClendon, Jr. (originally published by Abingdon Press) with a new introduction by Curtis W. Freeman: Ethics: Systematic Theology, Volume 1; Doctrine: Systematic Theology, Volume 2; and Witness: Systematic Theology, Volume 3.

I'm looking forward to passing along information about another forthcoming BUP release in Baptist studies here at Ecclesial Theology in the near future. Stay tuned!

Baptist theology and Baylor University Press

I received the Fall 2014-Spring 2015 Baylor University Press catalog in the mail at the office yesterday. Its new releases include two substantial constructive projects by Baptist theologians: Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists by Curtis W. Freeman and Baptists and the Communion of Saints: A Theology of Covenanted Disciples by Paul S. Fiddes, Brian Haynes, and Richard Kidd. In addition, BUP is releasing The Collected Works of James Wm. McClendon, Jr., vols. 1 and 2, ed. Ryan Andrew Newson and Andrew C. Wright.

These follow on the heels of BUP's 2012 republication of McClendon's Systematic Theology (vols. 1, 2, and 3). With these publications, Baylor University Press is making significant contributions to the furthering of Baptist constructive theology.

Associated Baptist Press on Freeman's Contesting Catholicity

A previous Ecclesial Theology post linked a notice by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology blog of Curtis Freeman's new book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists, due for release September 15 by Baylor University Press. Now Associated Baptist Press has issued a story by Bob Allen titled "New Book Proposes a Theology for 'Other' Baptists" offering a substantial preview of Freeman's book. Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the article:

Four centuries after originating as a protest movement within the church, Baptists today have evolved into a distinct sect committed to preserving its place in a hierarchy of denominations, Baptist theologian Curtis Freeman argues in a new book.... (read the full article at ABPnews.com)