Book Review: More Than A Symbol

Stanley K. Fowler, More Than Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism (Paternoster, 2002, reprinted by Wipf and Stock, 2006), 276pp. (with thanks to Wipf and Stock for review copy)

Stanley Fowler is one of the recent Baptist theologians to recover a baptist theology of baptism that goes beyond seeing baptism as a mere symbol and arguing for a sacramental understanding. The book is first and foremost a history of baptist views of sacramentalism. Fowler's chief argument is that the emphasis on baptism as sacrament in the 20th century articulated by many, but especially by H. Wheeler Robinson (a past principal of Regent's Park College) and George Beasley-Murray (a former principal of Spurgeon's and internationally renowned New Testament scholar), was a return to the original roots of Baptist thought in the seventeenth century. Fowler goes on to make his own analysis of  baptism in the New Testament and concludes that 'a baptist-sacramental exegesis of the New Testament references to baptism is readily defensible' (p.195). 

This is a well-written and well-researched historical study that roots baptismal sacramentalism in the baptist tradition and the New Testament. As some (perhaps too many) Baptists continue to be confused about the what and why of baptism, Fowler helpfully shows that a baptist theology of baptism is properly a sacramental theology.

Comments

[graham]

It is a great book, isn't it. Also, it is a good example of historical theology at its best.

I wish more Baptists would read Fowler.

Have you had a chance to read 'Baptist Sacramentalism'? There's a nice (and very welcome) growing collection of books on the topic.

[Stan Fowler]

Thanks for the kind review of my book. It's good to know that others are thinking about baptismal theology. Perhaps Baptists in general will begin to connect to the actual Baptist tradition, rather than the mythical version commonly asserted.

[Cam]

Wondering if there's been a similar recent treatment of the Lord's Supper? TIA for any help.

[andy goodliff]

Other Baptist or baptistic studies include:

Given for You: how communion shapes character by Eleanor Kreider

Baptists at the Table by Michael Walker (1992)

and chapters in Promise and Presence by John Colwell (2005), Tracks and Traces by Paul Fiddes (2003), and the edited collection of essays called Baptist Sacramentalism (2003), and there will no doubt be some in the forthcoming sequel (which should be out later this year) called Baptist Sacramentalism 2