Steven Harmon has noted that Paul Fiddes' paper on baptists and receptive ecumenism is now available as a free download. It is published in 2008 in the journal Louvain Studies.
Steven also notes that his own paper 'Dei Verbum § 9 in Baptist Perspective' published in Ecclesiology (2009) can be downloaded.
Neil has an interesting post on challenges facing Baptists
While over at the Scottish Baptist College blog there is the beginnings of series of posts on what is a Baptist shaped community.
You can view the contents of the Journal of European Baptist Studies (2000-) here
It was good see the question of children and church reappear on the Council Agenda with the report on Encouraging Young Missionary Disciples. I hope the opportunity to do some theological reflection and perhaps even make some theological statements about the child from a Baptist perspective is not lost. The relation of children to the church does not have a great history in Council - the 1966 The Child and the Church report was only received (and then there is what Morris West called a 'remarkable silence') and the 1996 Believing and Being Baptized (which had a section on children in the church) discussion document, also only being received.
BU Council also debated the question of civil partnerships and guidance for ministers, which saw a wide spectrum of views expressed, but done in an atmosphere of generosity. The issue of sexuality, as Neil suggests, will continue to challenge Baptists and hopefully we can continue in the same spirit of Tuesday morning. Baptists have avoided making statements about homosexuality, deciding instead to choose an educative process for local churches to work through thoughtfully the questions and issues for themselves. There is then an opportunity for Baptist churches to engage with the material prepared. So far very few churches have taken this up.
There was also a Faith and Unity report which began to tease out how might Baptists speak with authority (although not in an authoritarian way) and find some confidence in Council to make theological statements and judgments. This report had too focuses, first as response to applications from churches to join the BU (what is it constitutionally that makes a church Baptist?) and secondly as a desire that we don't shy away from speaking theologically.
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