How the Pope Teaches

The Baptist News Global Perspectives blog has published my post "How the Pope Teaches." An excerpt from the beginning of the post follows.

Word is out that Pope Francis’ long-awaited encyclical on the environment will be published later this month with the titleLaudato Sii—“Praised Be You”—words from the Latin text of St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun. (Baptist News Global readers will be familiar with it in the form of the adapted hymn text “All Creatures of Our God and King.”)

This encyclical will not merely reflect the personal perspectives of the pope—contrary to what some critics with unfortunate access to news media seem to think. As an expression of Catholic magisterial teaching it will have undergone a process of thoroughly communal formulation with collegial input from others in the Catholic Church, including its theologians, ethicists, and Scripture scholars, lay as well as religious; collegial input from others in the wider church; and collegial input from the scientific community, including its Catholic, non-Catholic Christian, and non-Christian members....(read the full post at Baptist News Global Perspectives)

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!

New publication--"James Wm. McClendon, Jr.'s Narrative Christology in Ecumenical/Ecclesiological Perspective"

The November 2014 issue of the Pacific Journal for Baptist Research (vol. 9, no. 2) includes my article "James Wm. McClendon, Jr.'s Narrative Christology in Ecumenical/Ecclesiological Perspective," The issue in its entirety is available online in PDF (click on hyperlink above); the abstract for the article follows:

ABSTRACT

The reception of Baptist theologian James Wm. McClendon, Jr.’s proposal of a “two-narrative” Christology has focused on its relation to the Chalcedonian “two-natures” Christology. While not ignoring this question, this article addresses the ecumenical and ecclesiological implications of McClendon’s Christology by turning to a pair of different questions. First, what does McClendon’s seemingly non-Chalcedonian Christology look like when viewed through the lenses of the attention bilateral ecumenical dialogue has given to Christology as central to efforts toward confessing “one faith,” in particular in light of the progress in overcoming the fifth-century Christological divisions made in the ecumenical dialogues between the non-Chalcedonian churches of the East and Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches during the past four decades? Second, what are the ecumenical implications of McClendon’s suggestion of a link between his two-narrative Christology and ecclesiology?

New publication--"Free Church Theology, the Pilgrim Church, and the Ecumenical Future"

The new issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies (vol. 49, no. 3, Summer 2014) includes my journal article "Free Church Theology, the Pilgrim Church, and the Ecumenical Future" (pp. 420-42). The précis published at the beginning of the article follows below:

Within the framework of receptive ecumenism, this essay addresses the question: is there anything distinctive about theology in the Free Church tradition that constitutes some portion of the ecclesial gifts that the rest of the church might contemplate receiving from the Free Churches? The author’s own Baptist tradition serves as a particular example that represents the larger Free Church tradition in this connection. A survey of the international bilateral dialogues with Baptist World Alliance participation reveals a Free Church theology that is both radically biblical and radically catholic and yet relentlessly pilgrim in its resistance to overly realized eschatologies of the church and its doctrinal formulations. After establishing connections between Free Church and ecumenically shared expressions of a pilgrim church theology, the essay concludes by proposing seven ecclesiological theses rooted in the narrative Christology of Baptist theologian James Wm. McClendon, Jr., regarding what it might mean ecumenically for the church to embody the story of Jesus as a pilgrim people.

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.