andygoodliff

Remembering and Celebrating Brian Haymes a Pastor-Theologian

Open Letter to Members of Baptist Union Council

Dear Baptist Union Council Members,

2025 is the 1700th anniversary of the ecumenical Nicene Council of 325. This is being marked in several ways, both by the World Council of Churches and Churches Together in England.  

The General Baptist 1678 confession known as the Orthodox Creed included the Nicene Creed in its statement of faith as one of three creeds that ‘ought thoroughly to be received and believed.’ It was also included in a 1680 catechism by a Particular Baptist Hercule Collins as a creed that 'ought thoroughly to be believed and embraced by all Christians.' More recently the Baptist Union’s Covenant 21 encouraged the saying of the Nicene Creed (or the Apostle’s Creed) as an affirmation of our faith.

For ecumenical reasons as well as those of Baptist identity, we propose that the Council at one of its meetings this year and at the Baptist Assembly in May take the opportunity to positively affirm our faith in the triune God, the person of Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, and in the gospel story of salvation as they are confessed in the Nicene Creed. This would be one way of saying to our ecumenical partners and to one another as ministers, churches, associations and colleges we understand ourselves still today as a part of 'the great central stream' of the Christian Church and seek the unity that Jesus prayed for.

Your fellow Baptist sisters and brothers

Rev Dr Andy Goodliff, Lecturer, Regent’s Park College, Oxford

Rev Dr Anthony Clarke, Tutor, Regent’s Park College, Oxford

Rev Dr Myra Blyth, Former Baptist Union Deputy General Secretary

Rev Dr John Colwell, Former Tutor, Spurgeon’s College

Rev Dr Rob Ellis, Principal Emeritus, Regent’s Park College

Rev Dr Michael Bochenski, Former President, Baptist Union

Rev Dr Nigel Wright, Former President, Baptist Union

Rev Dr Sally Nelson, Lecturer in Pastoral Studies, Glasgow

Rev Carol Murray, Former Tutor, Regent’s Park College, Oxford

Rev Dr Craig Gardiner, Tutor, Cardiff Baptist College

Rev Dr Chris Ellis, Former President, Baptist Union

Rev Dr Paul Goodliff, Former General Secretary, Churches Together of England

Rev Geoff Colmer, Former President, Baptist Union

Rev Dr Keith Jones, Former Baptist Union Deputy General Secretary

Rev Prof Paul Fiddes, Principal Emeritus, Regent’s Park College

Rev Dr John Claydon, Former Regional Minister Team Leader, Northern Baptist Association

Rev Dr Julian Gotobed, Tutor, Westcott House, Cambridge

Rev Dr Tim Judson, Lecturer, Regent’s Park College, Oxford

Rev Ewan King, Heath Street Baptist Church

Rev Ashley Lovett, Lead Chaplain, University of Portsmouth

Rev Jeff Jacobson, West Leigh Baptist Church

A tribute to Brian Haymes (from Sean Winter)

Baptists can be a rough bunch: sometimes passionate; not always given to nuance or sophistication; an often strange mix of the deeply conservative and the deeply radical. In the midst of all of the spiritual vitality, ecclesial complexity, and ecumenical obstinacy that marks out much of Baptist life, Brian Haymes, who has died, was class.

 

He was the product of an extraordinary generation of Surrey (Sutton), suburban Baptist upbringing, part of a family related (if I recall correctly) to John Le Carre (whose spy novels betray regular acquaintance with Baptist chapel life). Brian trained for ministry at Bristol Baptist College at a young age (one of Len Champion's 'men') which prepared him for life-long ministry within and for British Baptists. Two things stood at the core of that ministry: the importance of preaching and the need for a constant recovery and ongoing interrogation of what being Baptist actually meant.

 

Brian was a remarkable preacher, perhaps the best I have heard with any regularity, with a voice that somehow managed to convey intelligence, authority, and deep pastoral sensitivity at the same time. There was a tremor, just at the edge of the voice that may well have been cultivated but that held your attention. But what was so compelling was the way that the full weight of his intellectual and communicative gifts were offered in service of conveying the mystery of the gospel in ways that connected it to the deepest complexities of human experience. That is as preaching should be.

 

And Brian was a quiet but consistent advocate for a vision of Baptist identity that, frankly, has helped to keep many of us Baptist over the years and that, again frankly, he came to fear was being lost.

 

He did it all with grace and humility, with a certain patrician elegance and a wry sense of humour. I initially encountered him as a senior leader in Baptist life, sought him out as a mentor, shared membership of the same church for a while, and came to regard him as a friend. In my own journey there are a small handful of people that have been a constant reminder to me of why I remain an ordained Baptist, and Brian was one of them. He was always very clear that the Christian life was a matter of 'seeing in a glass darkly', with much that is mystery and far less than we would want that is certain, but he now sees 'face to face'. Thanks to God for a life that was lived 'worthy of the gospel of Christ.'

Baptist Union: Does the Future (Still) Have a Denomination?

Over the last year I've written several pieces that seek to help the Baptist Union as it has faced difficult conversations around ministerial rules and same sex marriage.

The latest piece is for the Baptist Ministers' Journal entitled 'Does the Future (Still) Have a Denomination?' out this month.

It argues for 5 Core Principles that churches, colleges and associations might gather around going forward: Jesus, Scripture, Baptism [and History], Mission, and the Holy Spirit.

Let me know if you would like to read it. 

It is supported in part by an (open-access) article in the Baptist Quarterly: 'English Baptists Confessing the Faith in the Twentieth Century'

and also two other open access articles:

— 'Baptists and the Bible in the Last 100 Years', Journal for Baptist Theology in Context Issue 9 (2023)

— 'The Politics of Disagreement in the Body of Christ', Journal of European Baptist Studies  23.1 (2023)

 

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.