40% off Towards Baptist Catholicity--now only $21

Wipf & Stock, the American co-publisher of my book Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision (published in the U.K. by Paternoster), offers a 40% off holiday sale through December 31 that applies to this book--retail $35.00, web price $28.00, but now $21.00 with discount. Follow hyperlinked title for ordering information; apply code "Noel" at checkout.

40% off Ecumenism Means You, Too--now only $9.60

Speaking of holiday offers: Wipf & Stock, publisher of my book Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity through its Cascade Books imprint, is running a 40% off holiday sale until December 31 that includes this book--retail $16.00/web price $12.80, but only $9.60 after discount! Enter code "Noel" at checkout (follow hyperlinked title for purchase details).

35% off Every Knee Should Bow through December 31

Through December 31 Rowman & Littlefield is offering a 35% discount on my first book Every Knee Should Bow: Biblical Rationales for Universal Salvation in Early Christian Thought (2003). That takes the list price of $50.99 down to $33.14. Enter promotional code RLWEB3515 at checkout (follow hyperlinked title to ordering information on the Rowman & Littlefield site).

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.

"Ash Sunday"

In response to a request for a "linkable" version of a brief meditation I posted on Facebook this morning, here it is on Ecclesial Theology:

Advent has been called the "winter Lent." That makes today something like "Ash Sunday," for it begins a penitential rather than festive season--not yet "the most wonderful time of the year," though it should lead to wonderful things. Advent is a season of soul-searching, of serious reckoning with our failures, personally and corporately, to participate in God's ever-present Advent toward the world. Let us prepare the way of the Lord--which is to say, let us remove the impediments to our participation in this way.

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.

Judson University Founders' Day address

This Friday (October 16, 2015) I will deliver the Founders' Day Convocation Address at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. I'll speak on the theme "Judson, Baptists, the Whole Church, and God's Mission." Information about the day's events is posted on the Judson web site in the linked articles below:

Judson University to Celebrate History and Heritage During Founders’ Day 2015

Founders' Day 2015 Featuring Dr. Steven R. Harmon

Pope invokes MLK, a Baptist, as a Christian life to emulate (Baptist News Global)

Today Baptist News Global published the article "Pope invokes MLK, a Baptist, as a Christian life to emulate," which includes quotes with some of my reflections on Pope Francis' address to Congress yesterday (follow hyperlinked title to read the story at Baptist News Global)::

Pope invokes MLK, a Baptist, as a Christian life to emulate

Related post:

Baptists excited and hopeful about papal visit (Baptist News Global)

Baptists excited and hopeful about papal visit (Baptist News Global)

Last week I granted a telephone interview to Jeff Brumley of the Baptist News Global staff regarding Baptist perspectives on this week's papal visit to the United States. Some quotations from that interview appear in this story released today (follow hyperlinked title to read the story at Baptist News Global):

Baptists excited and hopeful about papal visit

A benediction

As you go to worship, to study, and to serve, take with you these words of benediction:

May the maker of heaven and earth fulfill God’s creative purposes in you and through you;

May the Christ who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven extend God’s presence in the flesh in you and through you;

May the Spirit who gives us life breathe new life in you and through you;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

---Steven R. Harmon, benediction for the School of Divinity Convocation Luncheon, Gardner-Webb University, Boiling Springs, North Carolina, September 7, 2015