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.

Curtis Freeman to speak at Gardner-Webb University Oct. 26

Dr. Curtis Freeman, Research Professor of Theology and Baptist Studies and Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University Divinity School, will present a lecture titled "Undomesticated Dissent" on Monday, October 26, at 7:00 P.M. as part of the Joyce Compton Brown Lecture Series sponsored by the Life of the Scholar program at Gardner-Webb University. The lecture will be held in Faith Hall in Tucker Student Center on the Gardner-Webb University campus in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. A reception with light refreshments will follow.

Dr. Freeman is the author of Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Baylor University Press, 2014) and editor of A Company of Women Preachers: Baptist Prophetesses in Seventeenth-Century England (Baylor University Press, 2011), Baptist Roots: A Reader in the Theology of a Christian People (Judson Press, 1999), and Ties That Bind: Life Together in the Baptist Vision (Smyth & Helwys, 1994). (Copies of Contesting Catholicity will be available for purchase and signing after the lecture.) Dr. Freeman is currently co-chair of the commission to the international ecumenical dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council and has also served on the commissions to the international ecumenical dialogues the Baptist World Alliance has held with the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.

The point of departure for Dr. Freeman's lecture "Undomesticated Dissent" is Bunhill Fields cemetery in London, where there are stone memorials to John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe and William Blake. The lecture focuses on three narratives of dissent: Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Blake’s Jerusalem. According to Freeman, "By telling the story of dissent in this way, it will become clear that the voices of dissent are always subject to the forces of domestication, by becoming 'hand-tamed' to the powers that be. At times the radical spirit slumbers away in uncomfortable dreams while the nations rage or becomes gentled to the touch and taste of polite culture, only to rise again unexpectedly in all its undomesticated fervor. Perhaps by remembering these stories of those memorialized in stone, the slumbering saints may be awakened and the voices of undomesticated dissent may arise yet again."

Dr. Freeman will also serve as guest preacher for the Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity chapel service earlier that day (Monday, October 26) at 1:00 P.M. in Dover Chapel on the Gardner-Webb University campus. His message, titled "Beastly Powers," will be based on Revelation 13:1-18. The public is invited to attend both the School of Divinity chapel service and the Joyce Compton Brown lecture (free of charge, no reservations required).

Auxiliary aids will be made available to persons with disabilities upon request 48 hours prior to the event. Please call 704.406.4264 or email servicerequests@gardner-webb.edu with your request.

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)

Looking toward 2017

October 31, 2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of one of the key events in the complex of 16th-century Protestant and Catholic reforming movements, the posting of Martin Luther's 95 Theses on the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg (traditional site in photo at left). The cover story of the July 8, 2015 issue of the Christian Century addresses well the ecumenical issues at stake in how the whole church and its divisions choose to mark this event. In "Repent and celebrate: The Reformation after 500 years," co-authors Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, assistant research professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, and editor of Lutheran Forum, and Thomas Albert Howard, professor of history and director of the Center for Faith and Inquiry at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, cite as a way forward the paradigm of "receptive ecumenism" that I've found fruitful for my own work in ecumenical theology:

What we are looking for is an elimination of the necessity of enemies, not an elimination of the necessity of arguments. We look forward to a multiplicity of purged confessional theologies, maintaining the particular gifts and insights on all sides while remaining open to the truly Christian insight of the other, even of the old enemy. In the words of the Catholic ecumenist Paul Murray, we propose a "receptive ecumenism" and encourage all parties to ask: What can we offer and what can we receive from others to foster a deepened communion in Christ and the Spirit?

The whole article is available on the Christian Century web site. In this connection I also commend From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017, a resource issued jointly by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation based on five decades of bilateral international ecumenical dialogue between the two communions. From Conflict to Communion offers helpful guidelines for ecumenically responsible observances of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (available online in PDF; click on hyperlinked title). Baptists and others in the free church tradition will find an account of Baptist/free church identity in ecumenical perspective that resonates with what Wilson and Howard propose in Curtis Freeman's book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Baylor University Press, 2014).

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!

Journal of Baptist Studies engages Towards Baptist Catholicity and Contesting Catholicity

The current issue of the Journal of Baptist Studies (sponsored by California Baptist University) includes a pair of articles engaging proposals regarding the relation of Baptist identity to the larger Christian tradition in my book Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision and Curtis Freeman's more recent book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists: “Baptists and the Catholicity of the Church: Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity” by Matthew Y. Emerson and R. Lucas Stamps, and “Baptists and the Apostolicity of the Church” by James Patterson. Stamps also reviews Freeman's book in the issue. This engagement by Southern Baptist theologians is informed by a "post-conservative" theological trajectory exemplified by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, contrasted with the postliberal trajectory exemplified by George Lindbeck and within which they place Harmon and Freeman (a fair assessment). Last year Emerson and I had a constructive interchange regarding our perspectives on our respective blogs.

The full issue is available online; the Table of Contents appears below:

Volume 7 (2015)

Editorial, p. 1

Contributors, p. 3

Articles

“Baptists and the Unity of the Church,” by Christopher W. Morgan, p. 4

“Baptists and the Holiness of the Church: Soundings in Baptist Thought,” by Ray Van Neste, p. 24

“Baptists and the Catholicity of the Church: Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity,” by Matthew Y. Emerson and R. Lucas Stamps, p. 42

“Baptists and the Apostolicity of the Church,” by James Patterson, p. 67

Book Reviews

Currid, John D. Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament, reviewed by Kenneth J. Turner, p. 83

Freeman, Curtis W. Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists, reviewed by R. Lucas Stamps, p. 86

George, Timothy. Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed., reviewed by John Gill, p. 91

Hays, Christopher M. and Christopher B. Ansberry, eds. Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism, reviewed by Matthew Y. Emerson, p. 95

Holmes, Stephen R. The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity, reviewed by Michael A. G. Haykin, p. 99

Sanders, Fred. Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love, reviewed by Christopher Bosson, p. 101

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)

Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology on "Baptist Catholicity"

The Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology blog has posted a notice for Curtis Freeman's book Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists, about which I'll say more here at Ecclesial Theology when it's released by Baylor University Press next month. The post situates Freeman's book in a trajectory of Baptist theology that includes my book Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision; it mentions Ecclesial Theology, too.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the post:

An interesting development of the last decade or so has been the appearance of a distinctively Baptist strain of “evangelical catholic” theology.  It is strongly ecumenical and seeks to affirm Baptist links with the larger tradition of the Church  Perhaps the most prominent advocate of this approach has been Steven Harmon.... (read the full post at Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology)