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Whitley Lecture 2022

I'm honoured to be giving the Whitley Lecture in 2022. The current Whitley Lecture series has been running since 1996 and offers a British Baptist scholar a chance to share a piece of theological work to wide audience.

The Whitley Lecture is given at each of the British Baptist Colleges in London, Bristol, Oxford, Cardiff, Manchester, and Glasgow and from 2021 in some format also to the Whitley College, Australia.  Sally Nelson has said this about my lecture:

In this Lecture, Andy Goodliff offers us a crafted exploration of what a Baptist political theology might be. His argument begins with an overview of Nigel Wright’s discussion of church and state but soon moves into a powerful reflection upon what it means today to inhabit a dissenting ecclesiology, one which says ‘no’ to the power of the state and ‘yes’ to the Lordship of Christ. To be baptised is a political act; to accede to the Declaration of Principle implies a political worldview; to be a member of a Baptist church commits us to an ongoing ‘political discipleship’ in which we constantly engage in reflective conversation with the powers around us. This is a Lecture to stimulate both our thinking and our dissent.

A printed version of the Lecture is available from Amazon.

Anthony R. Cross

The sad news was shared yesterday that Rev Dr Anthony R. Cross has died. Anthony, aged 59, was one of the most influential Baptists of the last twenty years, not only in his own contributions to Baptist history and thought, in particular the doctrines of baptism and ministry, but as one of the architects of what might be called Baptist studies in the UK. His creating and editing the series Studies in Baptist History and Thought with Paternoster (under the leadership of Jeremy Mudditt and Robin Parry) for over ten years saw a whole set of volumes produced that created a wealth of historical and theological resources. He went on to inaugurate a similar series for the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, based at Regent's Park College and more recently he had begun a new relationship with Wipf & Stock, seen in Baptist Sacramentalism 3. 

Anthony's early work was on baptism, beginning with two books edited with Stanley Porter (who was then teaching at the University of Roehampton) and then his own comprehensive history of baptismal theology among English Baptists in the twentieth century, Baptism and the Baptists (2000). His work on baptism would culminate with a second volume, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament (2013). On baptism he made the convincing case against what he called the myth of anti-sacramentalism amongst Baptists. His more recent focus has been on ministry, providing two volumes, the encyclopedic 'To communicate simply' (2016) and Useful Learning (2017), with a history of Bristol Baptist College planned.

He co-edited Baptist Sacramentalism (2003) and Baptist Sacramentalism 2 (2008) with Philip E. Thompson and third volume (with more planned) appear this year. Baptist Sacramentalism brought together Clark Pinnock, Stanley Grenz, Curtis Freeman, John Colwell, Steve Holmes, Brian Haymes, Timothy George and others, and is arguably one of the most important works of Baptist theology ever for what it seeks to explore. Both of these were in the SBHT series, which also saw over works, like Paul Fiddes' Tracks and Traces and Steven Harmon's Towards Baptist Catholicity, as well the publication of Ken Manley's work on John Rippon and Frank Rinaldi's on Dan Taylor. The series would also publish the work of European Baptists and several of the papers from the early conferences of the International Study on Baptist Studies.

Anthony's work also liked to highlight that of others. He edited festschrifts for R. E. O. White, Clark Pinnock, John Briggs, Brian Haymes, David Bebbington, Ian Randall and most recently (and his last publication) for Ruth Gouldbourne. This latter book, Re-Membering the Body, was only published this month.  

Anthony trained for ministry with Morris West (Bristol) and Neville Clark (South Wales), and was influenced by George Beasley-Murray, John Briggs (his supervisor at Keele) and his friends Brian Haymes and Ruth Gouldbourne. With Brian and Ruth, he would co-write On Being the Church (2008). He pastored two churches, Zion Baptist in Cambridge and then Calne Baptist in Wiltshire before he moved into academia. He worked at the University of Roehampton, Regent's Park College and more recently held a position at IBTS, where he was able to bring some influence to European Baptists (seen in the contributors to Baptist Sacramentalism 3).

I personally appreciated Anthony's supervision of my MTh thesis on the child in Baptist thought and remember a visit I made to his home near Bath, where he gave me various pieces he thought might be helpful to my work.

A list of his publications can be found here.

Anthony will be remember as a historian, an editor and someone who loved a footnote (he was famous for the meticulousness of his research, demonstrated in his footnotes). His legacy will be a long one. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Reconciling Rites: Essays in Honour of Myra Blyth

Really pleased to announce the publication of Reconciling Rites, a set of essays honouring the contribution Myra Blyth has made to Baptist life and thought. Myra retires this summer as Chaplain and Tutorial Fellow in Theology and Ecumenical Studies at Regent's Park College, where she started in 2004, having previously been Deputy General Secretary of the Baptist Union and an Executive Director of the World Council of Churches.

We presented the book to her this evening, via Robert (her husband) over zoom following her last chapel service.

The book seeks to take an important theme in Myra's life and thought — reconciliation — and explore it both in terms of church worship (preaching, baptism eucharist, reading the Bible, prayer, liturgy) and life (spirituality, charity, friendship) and in the world of sport. Those contributing to the book are friends, colleagues and former students: Paul Fiddes, Rob Ellis, Paul Goodliff, Sian Murray-Williams, Helen Dare, Matthew Mills, Keith Clements, Deborah Rooke, Michael Taylor and my co-editors Beth Allison-Glenny and Anthony Clarke. The foreword is written by June Osborne, Bishop of Llandaff, Church in Wales.

Its available via Amazon.

 

Reflections for Holy Week & Easter

The Baptist Times are hosting a series of reflections for Holy Week and Easter Week in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which I've co-ordinated.

These are the ones currently posted, and I'll add the others as they appear.

Holy Week — Let us follow Jesus

Scattered yet gathered

Clanging gongs: the perils of cheap talk

Broken and poured out

Waiting 

Footwashing and love

Christ died for our sins

The day of nothingness

Silence in the face of mystery

Covid 19: Lazarus or Jesus?

Resurrection in the time of coronavirus

What difference does Easter make?

New Journal of Baptist Theology in Context

Pleased to announce the first issue of the Journal of Baptist Theology in Context is now live. Website and link to first issue here. 

This is something we've been working for the last 12 months as a way of disseminating some of the papers from Theology Live and encouraging Baptist pastor–theologians to share their work more widely.

There are a small group of British Baptists pastor-theologians engaged in doctoral research, most working part-time on their thesis alongside serving churches. Theology Live and the Journal is about encouraging them, supporting them and offering their work to the British Baptist constituency as an example that Baptists can (and must) do theology. 

Why Geoff Would Make a Good Baptist Union President

Baptists in England have a tradition of a choosing a 'president of the Baptist Union' for one year. They are appointed by the churches in a vote, with accredited ministers also being able to vote as well. Within that there has been a tradition those who have given long service to the Union and a tradition of appointing the charismatic speaker. The president within the Union has become a less profile position, but they still travel the country for a year with a theme and a message to share with churches and associations, something that encourages and challenges.

We are currently able to vote for the 2021 President. 

I suggest we would be well served by Geoff Colmer, currently Regional Minister Team Leader of the Central Baptist Association. 

Why?

— Geoff offers us no answers, he doesn't come with a big vision or a programme of activities.

— Geoff offers us instead an invitation to seek to be attentive to God and for Baptists who are so good at doing and activity, paying some attention to God would be a helpful thing. Especially when our shared Baptist life is currently fairly fragile.

— Geoff offers us someone who has done ministry with humility and patience. Twice Geoff has shared lessons he has learned from ministry here and here, lessons that all of us could do with taking on board.

Theology Live 2020

Theology Live is a one day conference I started with Simon Woodman and Steve Holmes back in 2017. We're back on 23rd January 2020. Its a day for Baptists engaged in post-graduate research and any other interested Baptists to get together to share papers, build friendships and encourage our Baptist family of the important of theology for the life and mission of our national Union and local churches.

We've got a great line-up this year:

Anthony Reddie — Author of Theologising Brexit (2019), Is God Colour Blind? (2010), SCM Core Text: Black Theology (2012) and the new Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, Regent's Park College (from Jan 2020)

Christine Joynes — the new Director of the Centre for Baptist Studies, Regent's Park College, Oxford and author of Perspectives on the Passion (2008)

Joshua Searle — Tutor in Theology and Public Thought, Spurgeon's College and author of Theology After Christendom (2018)

Craig Gardiner — Tutor in Christian Doctrine, South Wales Baptist College and author of Melodies of a New Monasticism (2018)

Israel Olofinjana — Director of the Centre for Missionaries from the Majority World and minister at Woolwich Baptist Church and author of Partnership in Mission (2015)

Gale Richards — Minister of Zion Baptist Church, Cambridge and Co-ordinators the Baptist BME Women's Ministers Network and a PhD student at Bristol Baptist College

Jeff Jacobson — Associate Minister at West Leigh Baptist Church and a PhD student at Bristol Baptist College looking at the Baptist Union's Declaration of Principle

Linda Hopkins — Baptist minister and PhD student at Luther King House, Manchester looking at children and communion

Sian Hancock — PhD Student at the University of Birmingham and author of Re-thinking Children's Work in Churches (2019)

Molly Boot — A Greenbelt Trustee, a Baptist ministerial student and MA student at University of Oxford

Dave Steell — Minister at One Church, Brighton and doing a DThM at the University of Durham on ecotheology

Ruth Moriarty — Minister at Christ Church and doing a DProf at the University of Chester looking at church meetings and discernment

Alistair Cuthbert — Minister at Falkirk Baptist Church and doing PhD at University of St. Andrew's on the theology of Paul Fiddes

Meghan Byerly — Minister at Cemetery Road, Sheffield and doing PhD at Luther King House, Manchester on virtues and Baptist ecclesiology

James Henley — Minister at Budleigh Salterton Baptist Church, Devon and doing a PhD at Bristol Baptist College on the theology of the Eucharist in conversation with Paul Fiddes and William Cavanaugh

Get your ticket here. 

Why I’m glad for the inclusion of the prayers in the latest Baptists Together magazine

It appears some Baptist ministers are getting a bit angsty about the prayers included in the Spring 2019 edition of Baptists Together. The magazine, produced by the Baptist Union, has a focus on women in Baptist ministry, celebrating the contribution they have made in the last hundred years. Two of the prayers included at the end address God in fairly unfamiliar terms for the normal Baptist Sunday worship service. One prayer names God as the ‘Trinity of Maiden, Mother and Crone’ and another one is addressed to the ‘Risen Christa.’ Some are suggesting that these prayers are included demonstrates that the Baptist Union has ceased to be orthodox or evangelical! From the comments read most of those concerned claim to be supportive of women in ministry, but not of this kind of ‘liberal’ theology. It raises the question what are appropriate ways of naming God?

Kendall Soulen’s fascinating book Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity (WJK, 2011) suggests we can address God in three ways: theologically, christologically and pneumatologically. The first reminds us of the name God gives to Moses: ‘I am who I am.’ God is Lord and the confession of the New Testament is that the name of the God of Israel is also appropriate to give to Jesus of Nazareth and the Holy Spirit. The second way of naming God is to look at how Jesus addresses God and so we are given the language of ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’

The third way of naming God is that given by the Holy Spirit and here we discover an abundance of ways and metaphors to name God. The breath of languages and tongues, are enabled by the Spirit to praise God, to speak of God and to name God. We consider the ‘I AM’ sayings of Jesus which name God as bread, life, shepherd, gate, truth. Or the different names given to God in the Old Testament. Jesus is named as Word, Image, Imprint, firstborn of all creation. And the Holy Spirit is named as a dove, wind, tongues of fire, the Spirit of holiness, of life, of wisdom, of glory, of grace, as advocate, pledge and seal. No one image or name is enough. A study of the history of the church through history finds God spoken of in a range of diverse ways: Lover, beloved and love (Augustine); Source, wellspring, and living water (David Cunningham); Root, tree, and fruit (Tertullian); Glory, image and light (Basil of Caesarea); Sun, ray, radiance (John of Damascus); Speaker, word, meaning (Karl Barth); Revealer, Revelation, Revealedness (Karl Barth); Playwright, actor, and producer (Wesley Vander Lugt); Womb of life, word in flesh, brooding Spirit (Ruth Duck); Awesome judge, healer of souls, distributor of gifts (Armenian Orthodox); and Creator, redeemer, sustainer (Iona).

What all these different ways of speaking God’s name demonstrate is that God is beyond reduction, our grasp of God is inexhaustible. To speak of God, inspired by the Spirit, is, as Soulen says, ‘to gather up the language of the everyday, often meagre and unpromising in itself, and transform it into praise of the everlasting Trinity.’ Our songs and prayers are an opportunity to declare the breath and depth, the wonder and majesty, the joy and delight that is God. It is in this way that I recognise the prayers we find in the Baptists Together magazine.

If the first way of speaking of God in the name revealed to Moses is a reminder that God is God and so we are not. God is unique in that God alone is creator and all else is creation. God is beyond us. The second way of speaking of God as seen in how Jesus prays to the Father is to find ourselves, as those saved, sharing in this relationship. We have been adopted as God’s children through Jesus our brother. To be is to be in communion. God is with us. The third way of speaking of God in the multitude of words and images, under the Spirit’s inspiration, teach us a new language and to call others to join the song of praise. Not all of these third ways of naming God will be comfortable for all of us, but the playfulness of naming God in different ways is rooted in scripture and not necessarily harmful. What becomes dangerous perhaps is if we let go of the plurality of naming God. While it is appropriate to preference the first and second ways of naming God, there is something lost, something important, if we do not find a place for the third way of naming God.

There is no suggestion I can see that the prayers offered in the magazine are proposed as the only way of addressing God. There is no suggestion that anyone has to address God in these ways. There is equally no suggestion being made that Jesus was not born a Jewish male. The prayers remind me of the inadequacy of all language and they also push me to reflect on how I can inadvertently reduce God to the old man in the sky or speak of God in ways that imply God is a man. These prayers shake us awake, disturbing some and offering affirmation to others, if only more of our prayers would do that! I for one am grateful to see these prayers included, if only to start a conversation of how we name God.

Launching Rhythms of Faithfulness

October ended with a great occasion today at Spurgeon's College. (The month began with me submitting my PhD thesis and also hosting Sam Wells at the church I serve). Today folk gathered for a day of theological reflection on the Order of Baptist Ministry, but really it was an excuse to surprise and present Rev Dr John Colwell with a festschrift that I have edited with my father Paul.

Rhythms of Faithfulness: Essays in Honor of John E. Colwell (Pickwick, 2018) is a collection of eighteen essays that recognise the contribution John had made to be many of us as Baptists but also wider. The title of the book borrows from John's own book The Rhythm of Doctrine and it reflects some of its contents as part of the book reflects on the different seasons and feasts of the Christian calendar that shape John's sketch of Christian doctrine. The other half of the book is a theological exposition of the Daily Office of the Order of Baptist Ministry, which John help found in 2009.

We hope this book both honours John, but also is a contribution to the life of the Order of Baptist Ministry and an encouragement to Baptists and other Christians to reflect on the place of daily prayer and liturgical life that participates in the Christian story.

The books contributors are Geoff Colmer, Chris Ellis, Sean Winter, Richard Kidd, Margaret Gibbs, Joseph Haward, Anne Clements, Ian Randall, Sally Nelson, Steve Holmes, Nigel Wright, Anthony Clarke, Paul Fiddes, Ruth Gouldbourne, Helen Paynter and myself and my father Paul. We are also thrilled to have a foreword written by Stanley Hauerwas who has played such a big part in John's own theological life and writing.

John we thank you as one who has been a teacher (at Spurgeon's College where we met today), a pastor, a theologian, a colleague, a mentor and a friend. 

 

This is My Story by Paul Beasley-Murray (Wipf & Stock, 2018)

Paul Beasley-Murray, This is My Story: A Story of Life, Faith and Ministry by (Wipf & Stock, 2018)

Last year Baptist minister Keith Clements published an autobiography of his life: Look Back in Hope. We know have a second autobiography from a similar period in this account of his life by Paul Beasley-Murray. Both autobiographies interestingly mention the other in passing from their time overlapping as students in Cambridge. Paul is the son of George Beasley-Murray, one of the leading Baptist New Testament scholars of the twentieth century. He followed his father into Baptist ministry, into doing a New Testament doctorate and into being Principal of Spurgeon's College. Here is a story of what it is like to be child of the manse and of college (George taught at Spurgeon's College and the International Baptist Theological Seminary while Paul was growing up). Paul although following in his father's footsteps has charted his own course - he trained for ministry at Northern Baptist College while doing his doctorate at Manchester, spent two years as a Baptist missionary with BMS and had two long pastorates in churches that grew.

Apparently when Douglas McBain published his book Fire Over the Waters in 1997 many wanted to read it for what they hoped would be juicy stories of someone on the inside of Baptist institutional life. Many may want to read Paul's book for his account of what happened at Spurgeon's when he was Principal. The story of why Paul stepped down as Principal is one that never been told (although as Paul points out an unnamed version did appear in Alistair Ross's Evangelicals in Exile). It has been a unspoken moment, which no hint of difficulties is given in either Ian Randall's history of English Baptists in the 20th Century or his history of Spurgeon's College (A School of Prophets). In the chapter Paul sets out to tell the story honestly and carefully from his own perspective on the difficulties that he faced during this period. The vice-principal, tutors at the College and the governing body do not come out well. It is a very sad account, especially with the impact it had on his children, and it is testimony to Paul in the way he responded to the fallout and the silence until now that he has kept. As Paul says it is for others to tell of their own involvement. I know Spurgeon's is a different place to how it sounds it was during the 1980s and some of this is down to Paul's innovations and modernisation, which arguably saved the college at that time.

Outside of the Spurgeon's chapter, the chapters on his time at Altrincham and Chelmsford Central give in an insight to the life of being church pastor and leader and Paul's own particular style and approach. The impact of church growth theory, his involvement in Mainstream and then from 1994 Ministry Today and more recently the College of Baptist Ministry. I could have done without the appendixes on his leadership style and why he is a Christian and other bits - these are typically Paul Beasley-Murray pieces. I would have been more interested in his reflections on wider Baptist life, but then perhaps the title of the book is a clue - This is My Story - which stresses his story. 

Paul has had a mixed reception amongst Baptists and reading this autobiography has the potential for people to see him differently, but for others it may confirm their already held view. Regardless This is My Story is well worth a read as a story of one Baptist minister living though the last fifty years. Perhaps Paul and Keith have started a trend, which will see similar accounts emerge. I for one would love to read them.