andygoodliff

British Baptist Theologians No. 10: Ruth Gouldbourne

PhD (University of London, 2001)

Minister, Bunyan Meeting Free Church, Bedford (1988-1995)
Tutor in Church History and Doctrine, Bristol Baptist College (1995-2005)
Minister, Bloomsbury Central Baptist, London (2005-2018)

Senior Research Fellow, IBTS Centre, Amsterdam

1998 Hughey Lectures, IBTS on 'Ecclesiology and Gender: Radical Reformation, Baptist Beginnings and Baptists Today'

Publications

__ 'Identity and Pain: Women's Consultations, 1987-92', Baptist Ministers' Journal 243 (July 1993), 8-10.
__ Reinventing the Wheel: Women and Ministry in English Baptist Life. The 1997 Whitley Lecture (Whitley, 1997)
__ 'Do women complement men in ministry?', Ministry Today 17 (October 1999)
__ 'Voices', Baptist Ministers' Journal 268 (October 1999)
__ 'This Sad Work: Scandal in Broadmead', Baptist Quarterly 39.3 (July 2001), 146-52.
__ 'Messengers: Do they have a message for us?' in Stuart Murray (ed.), Translocal Ministry (Baptist Union, 2004)
__'Martha's Story — Our Story', Baptist Ministers' Journal 295 (July 2006)
__ 'Being Human: Review of the Whitley Lecture 2006', Baptist Quarterly 42 (April 2007)
__ The Flesh and the Feminine: Gender and Theology in the Writings of Caspar Schwenckfield (Paternoster, 2007)
__ with Brian Haymes and Anthony R. Cross, On Being the Church: Revisioning Baptist Identity (Paternoster, 2008)
__ 'Ecclesiology, gender and persecution: or, why were the Anabaptists so scary?' in Tradition and Formation: Claiming An Inheritance. Essays in Honour of Peter C. Erb edited by Michel Desjardins and Harold Remus (Pandora, 2008)
__ (ed.) with Anthony R. Cross, Questions of Identity: Essays in honour of Brian Haymes (Regent's Park College, 2011)
__ 'Story-telling, Sacraments, and Sexuality' in Questions of Identity: Essays in honour of Brian Haymes edited by Anthony R. Cross and Ruth Gouldbourne (Regent's Park College, 2011)
__ 'In Praise of Incompetence: The 2011 George Beasley-Murray Memorial Lecture', Baptist Quarterly 44.2 (April 2011). Reprinted in Truth That Never Dies edited by Nigel Wright (Pickwick, 2014).
__ 'Liturgical ID-phers for Ecclesial Transformation', American Baptist Quarterly 31.4 (Winter 2012), 379-391
__ 'Not Just A Disembodied Voice: Towards an Understanding of Preaching as an Embodied Practice', Baptistic Theologies 5.1 (Spring 2013)
__ 'Episcope without Episcopacy: Baptist Attitudes to the Bishops in Seventeenth-Century England' in Interfaces, Baptist and Others edited by David Bebbington (Paternoster, 2013)
__ 'Encountering Christ: Zwingli, Signs and Baptists around the Table' in For the Sake of the Church: Essays in Honour of Paul S. Fiddes edited by Anthony Clarke (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies 3; Regent's Park College, 2014), 78-90.
__ 'We are Gathered with the Millions: Celebrating the Communion of Saints' in Gathering Disciples: Essays in Honor of Christopher J. Ellis edited by Myra Blyth and Andy Goodliff (Pickwick, 2017)
__ 'Baptists, Women and Ministry', Feminist Theology 26.1 (2017), 59-68.
__ 'Trinity: The Blessing of Almighty God' in Rhythms of Faithfulness: Essays in Honor of John E. Colwell edited by Andy Goodliff and Paul Goodliff (Pickwick, 2018)
__ (and Anthony R. Cross), The Story of Bristol Baptist College: Three Hundred Years of Ministerial Formation (Pickwick, 2022)
__ 'Response to a Festschrift', Baptist Ministers' Journal 354 (April 2022), 29-32
__ 'Ministry as Improvisation' in Ministry in Conversation: Essays in Honour of Paul Goodliff edited by Andy Goodliff and John Colwell (Wipf & Stock, 2022)
__ (with Faith Bowers), 'British Baptist Women in Ministry' in Baptists Worldwide edited by Erich Geldbach (Cascade, 2022)
__ (with Steve Holmes), 'From one degree of imperfection to another: A consideration of gathering in different ways', Theology in Scotland 29.2 (2022)
__ 'Proclaiming Churches' in Seeds of the Church: Towards an Ecumenical Baptist Ecclesiology (Cascade, 2022)
__ 'Reinventing the Wheel, twenty five years on', Journal of Baptist Theology in Context6 (December 2022)

Douglas Campbell and The Quest for Paul's Gospel

Chris Tilling reviews Douglas Campbell's book The Quest for Paul's Gospel here and in comments, using his wife's name 'Rachel', Campbell engages in conversation. Douglas assures me the book we're all waiting for is coming in January published by Eerdmans. Talking for forthcoming books, the following are also on their way from Paternoster:

Baptist Sacramentalism 2 edited by Anthony Cross and Philip Thompson (Nov '08)

On Being the Church: Revisioning Baptist Identity by Brian Haymes, Ruth Gouldbourne and Anthony Cross (Oct '08)

The Freedom of God: Towards Baptist Theology in Pneumatological Perspective by Philip Thompson (Nov '08)

British Evangelical Identities Past and Present: Volume 1. Aspects of the History and Sociology of Evangelicalism in Britain and Ireland, edited by Mark Smith (Sept '08)

Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ by T.F. Torrance, edited by Robert Walker (Oct '08)

Baptists Doing Theology in Context

I'm back online and back from the 5th consultation of Baptists doing Theology in Context, held in Manchester last week. I gave a paper, some initial thoughts on what kind of theology of the child is present in infant dedication/presentation services - it was well received. It will find it's way into my larger piece of work (MTh Dissertation) looking at baptist theologies of children in the 20th century. Enough about me! Manchester was an opportunity to hear some wonderful papers and have good conversations. I finally met Jim (who has posted a list of all this year's papers here) and Catriona face-to-face after many blog conversations. It was also a good space to meet others. In a Baptist Union which seems these days to be doing less and less theological reflection, this bi-annual gathering is important to our theological health.

If you're interested in reading some of the papers from past consultations, I've made a list here of papers that have been published.

Under the Rule of Christ

Jim and Sean have already drawn attention to the finally released Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality. But here's the contents page:

Preface

1. Baptists and Spirituality: a Rule of Life - Paul S. Fiddes and Stephen Finamore

2. Spirituality as Attentiveness: Stillness and Journey - Paul S. Fiddes

3. Spirituality in Suffering: a Defining Experience - Richard Kidd

4. Spirituality as Discipleship: the Anabaptist Heritage - Nigel Wright

5. Spirituality and Scripture: the Rule of the Word - James Gordon

6. Spirituality in Everyday Life: the View from the Table - John Weaver

7. Spirituality in Mission: Gathering and Grace - Christopher Ellis

Elijah and Elisha Reduced

I spent the last week speaking at a children's holiday camp called Lemmings. We were looking at some of the stories of Elijah and Elisha.  Here's the reduced version I wrote with my friend Miriam for the final night.

God calls a chosen people – Israel
He tells them his name Yahweh, I AM
They want a king like the other nations
It all starts with Saul
Then David
Then Solomon
Then Rehoboam
Then Jeroboam
Then Nadab
Then Baasha
Then Elah
Then Zimiri  
Then Omri
Until we get to Ahab – a new champion of evil!

So God sends Elijah to tell him
That drought is coming, no more rain!
Elijah is a voice standing out in a world of echoes
He is fed by ravens in the wilderness
And then the stream dries up

So God sends him to a widow in Zapraeth
She has almost nothing left
But in her giving, God provides more
And more and more
Things take a turn for the worse
As her son gets ills and then his breathing stops
Elijah calls on God
For whom nothing is impossible
And breath returns to the boy

Three years go by without a drop of rain
and Elijah tells Ahab to bring the people to Mount Carmel
It’s Yahweh versus Baal, who is really God?
The prophets of Baal dance and shout
And nothing happens, not a flicker
Elijah takes his turn
Having made it all ten times harder
As water is poured not once but three times onto the altar
He prays that Yahweh will show himself to be God
And
Fire comes
Burning strongly, all-consuming
The people of Israel cry
Yahweh is God!
Then Elijah prays again
A cloud appears, and then another
And it rains and rains and rains

When Jezebel hears, King Ahab’s wife
She is furious and lets it be known she wants Elijah dead
He’s on the run for his life
Worn-out and wanting it all to end
He collapses under a lonely tree
He is woken by angels who tell him to eat
Not once but twice
And then he’s on the move again
To the mountain of God
Where God is not in the wind, the earthquake or fire
But found in the sheer silence
God is there in the midst of troubles
Every rock-bottom
For God doesn’t grow weary or faint
he’s there in every moment morning and night
He picks up Elijah and tells him to go
Giving him new help in Elisha

Elijah and Elisha become a good team
Doing God’s work together
But then comes the time for Elijah to go to heaven
Just before, he goes to Bethel, Jericho and Jordan, the river
And Elisha wont let him out of his sight
Hanging on to every last moment
In a whirlwind Elijah goes
Leaving only his cloak
Elisha stands watching
And then rips up his cloak because he’s so sad
He then picks up Elijah’s cloak
And its like the baton has been passed
The spirit of Elijah lives in Elisha

There’s a general called Naaman
Proud and important
But covered in leprosy, he’s desperate to be healed
When nothing else works
A servant girl says what about Elisha, the prophet from Israel?
When Naaman arrives at the house of Elisha
The prophet stays indoors and sends out a message
To wash seven times in the Jordan
Naaman is furious with the lack of face-to-face
And the instruction to wash in a river, and the Jordan to boot!
But he’s finally convinced by his servant who helps him see sense
After he washed, seven times in all
His skin is healed and so is his heart
The disease of his soul is cured  
Thanks be to Yahweh, the God of miracles
Who is there
In
Every
Situation

IJST, July 2008

The Infinity of God in the Biblical Theolgy of Denys the Areopagite - Dennis Hou

Ressourcing the Father? A Critical Analysis of Catherine Mowry LaCugna's Appropriation of the Trinitarian Theology of the Cappadocian Fathers - Charles D. Raith II

Dante, Bunyan and the Case for a Protestant Aesthetics - William A. Dryness

The Imago Dei and Election: Reading Genesis 1:26-28 and the Old Testament Scholarship with Karl Barth - Nathan MacDonald

Body, Soul, and (Holy) Spirit: Karl Barth's Theological Framework for Understanding Human Ontology - Marc Cortez

Book reviews include Iain Taylor's Pannenberg on the Triune God (T & T Clark), John Swinton's Raging with Compassion (Eerdmans) and Stanley Hauerwas' The State of the University (Blackwell)