I didn't know Alan Kreider, but I know he was a gift to us Baptists in England, during his long stay in the UK, first in London at the Mennonite Centre, and then at both Northern Baptist College, Manchester and Regent's Park College, Oxford. Many Baptists appreciated his gifts theological and historical and his witness to the Mennonite way. He was a friend to us as Baptists. His early book Journey Towards Holiness had its origins in talks given at a Mainstream conference.
In 2011 a festschrift of sorts - Forming Christian Habits in Post-Christendom: The legacy of Alan and Eleanor Kreider - was published by Herald Press, in which a number of British Baptists feature - Juliet Kilpin, Sian Murray-Williams, Brian Haymes, Sean Winter, Anne Wilkinson-Hayes and Glen Marshall, a small testament to the impact that Alan and Eleanor had on Baptist life.
I hope over the coming days that some of our gratitude as Baptists for Alan's life will be shared by friends and family. See already from Sean Winter and Ruth Gouldbourne.
Here's a short (and timely) extract from an essay Alan wrote in honour of his friend Brian Haymes:
During my years in the UK I often wondered about how Baptist history functioned in the life of the Baptist denomination. I wondered, from the peculiar perspective of an American Mennonite, why there was little apparent interest in Baptist origins. Why were there no pilgrimages to Jan Munter's bakehouse in Amsterdam, the site of the first English believers' baptisms? Was I right in sensing that Baptist history was a prerequisite for certification for the Baptist ministry that probationers endured rather than anticipated, enjoyed, and experienced as transforming? I was happy to see Baptists were drawing inspiration from the Celtic and Anabaptist traditions, for both have a strong fund of stories, and this indicates that history has the potential to energise Baptists. But I longed for British Baptists to discover their own history as a resource for their identity and mission. I sensed that Baptist stories, both Baptist origin stories and stories of the long haul, are potent and challenging, worth telling and popularising.
... When Baptists pay close attention to their origin stories I believe they are doing something important. And I am grateful to see that some English Baptist scholars now view continental Anabaptists and Mennonites as 'foreparts' whose stories and convictions are a part of conversations about what it means to be Baptist.
... I look for the time when Baptist leaders and scholars will increasingly devote themselves to popularization as well as research. Baptist stories are too good to be left to the specialists. Why should the 1643 debate about baptism between the newly converted William Kiffin and his Puritan critic Daniel Featley not be dramatised and used as candidates are preparing for baptism? These stories can be told in ways that give Baptist church members a new sense of Baptist identity and a new eagerness to participate in God's mission today. When dramas, pictures, pilgrimages and saints days remind Baptists of the stories that give them dignity and identity, then I look for new energy to break forth.
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