andygoodliff

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.

 

Once More Baptists and Same Sex Marriage: A Response to the Current Reality

It's over two years since I last wrote any on Baptist issues on this blog. The last two posts were on how the Baptist Union was responding to same sex marriage. This new post is compelled by the same subject.

The issue then was what Associations (regional bodies) were going to do when the Council of the Baptist Union acknowledged that the Declaration of Principle meant churches were at liberty to discern together (in conversation with Scripture and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) whether to register or not as places of worship in which same sex marriages could be conducted and as a result that ministers would not be barred, if church was affirming and conscience allowed, to officiate or be involved in some way.

Since then some Associations have dissented from this position and have looked and are looking for ways they could exercise control over ministerial settlement and in one case to extend that control over churches who might seek to register.

As was clear in March 2016, the issue is not settled.

In December 2016 I was part of a group of ministers who wrote a statement which called British Baptists to have the courage not to seek to control and divide the Union. It did not have the impact I might have hoped as the two sides - those who are affirming and those who are not - have not, at least to my knowledge, had any spaces or even sought any spaces to be properly begin the conversation we said we still believe is waiting to begin.

What is emerging is a situation of impasse, which desperately needs someone to find a way to gave people round a table. (With some regret I'm not sure there is anyone with enough clout and respect in the Union to do so. I'd be happy to be proved wrong.) 

This is an issue again around the tension between Baptist identity and evangelical identity. This question of identity - what does it mean to be churches, associations and colleges in the Baptist Union - has been rumbling on for decades now. 

A second issue is around whether we are just independent churches or are we interdependent, and if the latter, what kind of authority or weight, do we give to Associations and Unions, especially if we believe they are an expression of being church and not just a network or alliance. If they are ecclesial in same way, how do Association and Union Councils ensure a means of discerning the mind of Christ which take into account all their constituent churches.*

The current problem being I suggest that both Association and Union Councils are relatively small bodies in terms of numbers which are not anyway near enough representative, and therefore what they might say to the churches does not carry enough weight to cause them to listen. Related to that, currently Association and Union Assemblies (larger gatherings of Baptists) do not give any space to deliberation and so to the opportunity to do more representative listening (which of course would take time).

Four Suggestions

I suggest that all Baptists might re-read carefully the statement 'The Courage to be Baptist' and as appropriate to your place in the life of the Union seek to act on it.

I suggest that Associations, and especially those who are unhappy with the Union's current position, need to engage in much longer listening processes, which genuinely have an openness to seek what the churches are saying, along with the humility to admit that there are some who hold a different position from their own for biblical and theological reasons and so to seek to better understand those reasons (and likewise those who are affirming need to admit that they may not understand those reasons, biblical and theological, for those who are not affirming of same sex relationships).

I suggest that those churches and minsters who are affirming do not simply use the Declaration of Principle as a trump card, that says we are free to do what we like, because at the same time we are involved in ecclesial relationships with Associations and Unions that, when done well, are also able to discern the mind of Christ and therefore deserve and perhaps even require us to listen open to the Spirit's wisdom. At the moment, I recognise that where we are currently it is perhaps difficult to see our Associations and Union doing the kind of careful listening that engages with Bible, theology and experience in ways that do justice to each - this sadly is the poverty of our tradition, that although we have the theory of doing theology together, we do not have the practice (or at least enough of it).** 

I suggest that those who care for our shared life together as a Baptist Union and for LGBT people in our churches that we pray that we can find ways to continue a conservation with God and with one another, even where it feels difficult, painful and something we'd rather not do being.

As Sam Wells has said, 'If we can't all stay in the room and talk to each other we're telling the world our gospel isn't true.' 

 

* John Colwell has said that what is needed is for every level and form of ecclesial gathering needs to recognize and affirm the ecclesial character of every other level and form of ecclesial gathering and for all to act as such, meaning committed to a patient and humble attentiveness to the Spirit through the attentiveness to the presence and voice of the other. John Colwell, 'Integrity and Relatedness', Baptist Quarterly 48.1 (2017), 21.   

** Brian Haymes has said that 'contemporary British Baptists, children of their age and cultures, are nothing if not pragmatic. We have a wariness of "theology" for we can fear that is remote, academic, out of touch with the realities of life, not least in the church .... But theology as shared thought, speech, and action before God known in Jesus, is crucial to the life of the church.' Brian Haymes, 'Still Blessing the Tie that Binds' in Anthony Clarke (ed.), For the Sake of the Church (2014), 97.

Dissenting Spirit: A History of Regent's Park College

Anthony Clarke and Paul Fiddes, Dissenting Spirit: A History of Regent's Park College, 1752-2017 (Oxford: Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, 2017)

I spent three years of my life at Regent's Park College, Oxford, and I remain still a semi-regular visitor. My links to the College also continue as I edit Regent's Reviews. It was interesting then to read this brand new history of the College by Anthony Clarke and Paul Fiddes. Published in the year that the college celebrates 60 years as a PPH of the University Oxford and 90 years since first arriving in Oxford. The College's first home was in Stepney in 1810, then a move to Regent's Park, where it gets its name, in 1856, before a third home in 1927, where it remains in the centre of Oxford. Clarke and Fiddes trace how the College has grown and changed in relation to the preparation of Baptist ministers, broader education and its relation to the churches. Regent's is unique amongst the Baptist Colleges and probably lots of centres for ordination training. It's faced many challenges, including, not unexpectedly financial ones.

I was especially interested in the College's most recent history from the time of the Principal Barrie White (he became principal in 1972) to the present. Fiddes has been associated with the college from this point and Clarke from the early 1990s. At times this probably means they are too close to the events, (both are still college Fellows), but they seek not to shy away from trying to tell the story truthfully and making critical observations. This of course is harder with regard to the nearly the two decades Fiddes himself was Principal (1989-2007). The title Dissenting Spirit of course references that the college always been a Baptist, and thus, dissenting institution and although that sense of dissent as it was historically understood has largely disappear, the title might suggest, at least in the eyes of Clarke and Fiddes, that it seeks to retain a dissenting spirit. Here dissent not being what the college stands against, but what it stands for, an institution that values community and the cultivation of a Christian mind, not just of the bible and theology, but all subjects. The College continues, in not always an easy climate, to be a witness of thinking in community for the sake of the wider community.  

It's future, especially with regard to the ongoing training and formation of Baptist ministers, will remain an interesting one. No doubt the story sixty years on will see many more changes.

For those interested in reading the history, copies will be available via the College's website.

A (New) Call to Mind

You can find a copy of this short article in the latest Baptist Minister's Journal (July 2017). Permission kindly given to reprint here.

SCM Press recently hosted an event asking the question ‘Does the church really need Academic Theology?’ I wonder what a survey of our churches and Union might reveal.[i] I’m not sure the answer would be a positive one. There is probably still a suspicion of academic theology or sometimes what appears to be an indifference to it. Baptists are generally a pragmatic bunch, we don’t go much in for theological debate.

Back in 1981 a small group of then younger Baptist theologians wrote A Call to Mind.[ii] They believed that with all the excitement then about church growth theory and the charismatic movement, there was also a need to think, to engage in the task of theology, not in the abstract, but for the church: for its faithfulness in a changing world, for its confidence in the gospel it proclaimed, and for its wisdom before the questions of the day. It seems to me that 35 years on, more than ever, we need a theological renewal within our Baptist life and mission.

The last ten years have seen numerous calls to prayer and to mission, but no one has ever thought to call to us to deeper theological reflection.

This is why it’s exciting to see the emergence of events like TINY (Theology in Yorkshire), the Bloomsbury Theological Reflection Days (which I’ve been involved in setting up in London, still in its infancy) and the BMS led Catalyst Live days. Simon Woodman and myself are also hosting a day we’re calling Theology Live in December, which will see a number of Baptist scholars and theologians come and share their research. This is why its exciting to see those in local pastorate engaged in on going research, like Tim Carter, who has recently published a new book on The Forgiveness of Sins.[iii] As we continue to grapple with the current presenting issues of pension deficits, disagreement over same sex marriage, and what it is to be a Union of churches in these days, (and this is to say nothing of the current political, ethical, economic quandaries we inhabit,) I suggest we need a new turn to theological reflection, a new engagement of the mind, that goes beyond sharing a Bible verse.

Take for example same sex marriage. Our conversations thus far have centred around a fairly simple reading of the Biblical texts and I’m not convinced with enough attention to the hermeneutical questions involved. But beyond what we think the Bible says, is the mountain of theological and pastoral work around these questions from both those who affirm and non-affirm. A real theological engagement would take seriously the work of Rowan Williams, Eugene Rogers, Robert Song, Christopher Roberts, Wesley Hill, Oliver O’Donovan, Megan DeFranza and Sarah Coakley, and these names are just a small selection of the serious theological work being done across the spectrum of views. This kind of reading and thinking might make our different positions clearer, but at the very least, it would help us understand how and why others think and believe different from ourselves. This might help with ‘our tone and culture’ (to borrow two words that were used recently within the Church of England), both within our conversations and those who might overhear them.

We need Pastor Theologians (Kevin Vanhoozer gives a whopping 55 Theses on why). We need to do all we can to encourage theological development, not just amongst ministers, but within the whole body of the church. I still remember a minister in the year above me at college who at the end of his training, ended up giving away a load of his books – saying in all but word: who needs any more of this theology stuff! It reminds me of the Stanley Hauerwas anecdote about how no student training to become a doctor gets a choice about having to do anatomy, but too many ministerial students can opt for counselling over Christology![v] Christian ministry is more than a caring profession. Another Hauerwas andecote is his response to a sermon preached to those completing their ministerial training. The preacher said, ‘They do not care what you know. They want to know you care.’ To which Hauerwas writes, ‘Though I am a pacifist I wanted to kill her on the spot.’[vi] We need to encourage Associations to appoint Pastor-Theologians as Regional Ministers,[vii] those who can model, encourage, and help form not just missional communities, but theological ones. We need to create a culture of publication and making research more widely available. Our colleges are full of essays and dissertations gathering dust – the best of these we should encourage to be made more widely available for the good of the church. We need to value more highly Baptist publications like the Baptist Quarterly (£26 a year), the Baptist Minister’s Journal (£20 a year), Regent’s Reviews (free to download). We need to invest more in our Colleges and their research Centres – the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage and the Centre for Christianity and Culture (both at Regent’s Park College, Oxford), the Centre for Anabaptist Studies, the Centre for Family and Childhood Studies, the Centre for Urban Life (all at Bristol Baptist College), the Centre for Spirituality (at Spurgeon’s College, London) and the new Centre for Theology and Justice (at Northern Baptist College).

What might be the implications of a new call to mind? At the local level it might be churches setting up reading groups or ministers tackling theologically the contemporary issues of the day.[viii] At an association level it might be fostering theological reflection groups like TINY. We have people in our Associations overseeing mission resources, mission strategy, finance, children, etc, perhaps we could appoint someone to encourage theology? At a Union level, we might recover the value again of something like the Doctrine and Worship Committee, which brought together some of our best theologians to do some work on our behalf. We might, like the Church of England, explore appointing a ‘Mission Theologian’ in partnership with BMS. This would reflect a new appreciation for those with theological gifts, as well as, ensuring that we were taking the work of theology seriously in all the difficult questions and issues we are confronting today.[ix]

The ‘Introduction’ to A Call To Mind ends with these words:

‘What we plead for is a far greater openness to theological exploration and discussion in our denomination. We repeat, it is no answer to say we need less theology and more commitment or more activity. The implicit theology in much of what we do needs to be examined and aired in the light of the greater and more exciting horizons that await us.’[x]

To which I say Yes and Amen.

 

[i] I think it is also right to ask ‘does academic theology need the church?’ to which I would say absolutely. Steve Holmes remarks how Colin Gunton, Professor of Systematic Theology at King’s College, would say ‘You can always tell when a theologian has stopped preaching; their work loses something vital.’

[ii] That group of younger Baptist theologians were Paul Fiddes, Brian Haymes, Richard Kidd, Keith Clements and Roger Hayden.

[iii] Other examples are ministers who are scholars in pastorate are Edward Pillar, Simon Woodman, Ruth Gouldbourne, Robert Parkinson, Rosa Hunt, Ian Stackhouse and Paul Goodliff.

[v] Hauerwas gives this anecdote in several places in his work.

[vi] Hauerwas, The Work of Theology (Eerdmans, 2013), 105.

[vii] This was the argument of the 1996 Baptist Union report Transforming Superintendency.

[viii] For one example of what this might look like see Sam Wells, How Then Shall We Live? Christian Engagement with Contemporary Issues (Canterbury, 2016).

[ix] I don’t suggest that such a person or any new Doctrine committee would me an abdication for the rest of us from the task of theological reflection, but that such a person or group might act like those on a ship who act as lookouts, asking do you see what I/we see.

[x] A Call to Mind: Baptist Essays Towards a Theology of Commitment (Baptist Union, 1981), p.8.

Four New Books From Baptists

In the last month and a bit, four new books from British Baptists have been published - history, theology, ministry and spanning 17th, 18th and the 20th century.

  

 

Announcing Gathering Disciples!

Really pleased to announce that Gathering Disciples: Essays in Honor of Christopher J. Ellis is now published. It's actually been out for the last month, but have had to keep quiet about it, until today, for this evening we have presented Chris with a copy of the book. This is my first proper book, edited with Myra Blyth (Chaplain and Tutor in Worship at Regent's Park College, Oxford). It offers a set of essays that celebrate the contribution Chris has made to Baptist life. On its own, I think, it also offers a fantastic set of essays on Baptist theology and practice. The book is set around a selection of Chris' hymns, each chapter begins with a hymn, which sets the topic and engagement of the essay that follows. Hopefully it will see Chris' hymns find their way into worship services. 

The contributors are a mix of colleagues, peers and familyl, as well as, some new younger theologians.

The title follows Chris' own books Gathering and Gathering for Worship (and see also Gathering Together from some N. American Baptists).

Please feel free to purchase a copy!

Contents

Foreword by Neville Callam  

Introduction  

1 “Help Us to Search for Truth”: Baptists and Doing Theology —Robert Ellis

2 “The Lord Is Here”: How Worship Confronts the Powers —Craig Gardiner

3 “God of Love We Praise You”: Baptist Worship and Congregational Song —Shona Shaw

4 “In Obedient Living Find Your Home”: Reflections on Baptists and Discipleship —Paul Goodliff

5 “Your Will Be Always Done”: Congregational Discernment as Contextual Discipleship —Stuart Blythe

6 “Seeing Ourselves We Could Be”: Baptist Interpretations of Scripture on the Complementarity of Male and Female —Beth Allison-Glenny

7 “The Water Buries Like a Tomb”: Baptists and Baptism —Sally Nelson

8 “A Sign of Unity”: The Changing Theology and Practice of Lord’s Supper amongst British Baptists —Myra Blyth

9 “To Become the Future Now”: Baptists Being Shaped by the Table —Ashley Lovett

10 “We are Gathered with the Millions”: Celebrating the Communion of Saints —Ruth Gouldbourne

11 “We Need Each Other”: The Ecumenical Engagement of European Baptists —Tony Peck

12 “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”: The Triune Creator in Hymn and Theology —Paul S. Fiddes

13 “The Ground on Which we Dare to Build”: Putting Calvinism to Work —Nigel G. Wright

14 “Missionary God”: The Place of Mission amongst British Baptists —Andy Goodliff 

Endorsements

"Gathering Disciples is not only a well-deserved celebration of the contributions of Baptists' most significant liturgical theologian--it serves as a splendid showcase of the impressive theological work now being done by Baptist theologians in, with, and for their own tradition but also in, with, and for the whole church. An indispensable resource for the renewal of ecclesial life in Baptist and Free Church communities and for the ecumenical reception of the theological gifts these communities offer to the global church."
--Steven R. Harmon, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity

"Christopher Ellis's theology provides the beautiful through-line for a collection of essays on worship, ecumenism, doctrine, and life that sings in a distinctive Baptist key. Gathering Disciples is a celebration of scholarship and a testament of love: one that deserves to be read by thoughtful Christians from every tradition."  
--Melanie Ross, Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School

"In celebrating the work of Christopher Ellis, this collection offers a fascinating kaleidoscope of themes and thinkers in contemporary Baptist theology. More to that, however, it is a significant contribution to the wider conversations in Christian theology. Organized around the notion of 'sung theology,' this volume is a convincing illustration of the role of worship in both shaping and reflecting our faith."    
--Lina Toth (Andronoviene), Scottish Baptist College

New Book: Shaped for Service

Shaped for Service: Ministerial Formation and Virtue Ethics is a new book from Paul Goodliff (full disclosure he's my dad). It seeks to explore what is going on when we are preparing ministers for Christian ministry in the church. Where Anglicans churns half a dozen books on ministry out a year, Baptists have been reluctant or indifferent to a proper exploration of what we think ministry is and what we are doing in the period of formation/training. Building on his doctoral research published as Ministry, Sacrament and Representation, Goodliff argues that character formation is at the heart of all ministerial formation and the practices of ministry are linked to the person, spirituality and wisdom of the practitioner.

Part 1 Formation and Virtue Ethics                               

1. Formation for Ministry
2. History and Landscape
3. Virtue Ethics and Practitioners
4. Creation, Eschaton and the Formation and the Practice of Ministry

Part 2 Models of Ministerial Formation

5. Formation and Wisdom
6. Focused Discipleship.
7. Ministerial Formation as Apprenticeship

Part 3 Forming the Person

8. Intellectual Formation
9. Spiritual Formation
10. Character Formation

Part 4 Forming the Practices of Ministry

11. Formation of the Practitioner
12. Forming the Liturgist
13. The Formation of Pastoral Integrity
14. Ministry as Guidance
15. Ministry as Mission
16. Forming the Preacher
17. Forming the Administrator
18. Forming the Leader

Barrie White: In Memoriam

The news has come that Barrie White, the Baptist historian and former Principal of Regent's Park College, Oxford died on Saturday 12th November 2016.

I'm sadly too young to have any memories of Barrie White in his prime. Hopefully others will fill that gap.

White was Principal of Regent's Park College, 1972-1989 and in the 1970s and 1980s the leading Baptist historian of his generation, especially of Baptist 17th century beginnings. His doctoral work completed in 1961 was published as The English Separatist Tradition: From the Marian Martyrs to the Pilgrim Fathers (Oxford, 1971). His other major work was The English Baptists of the Seventeeth Century (1983, 1994), but alongside that was as editor of three volumes of Association Records of the Particular Baptists. There would have surely been other book-length pieces if dementia had not taken its toll on his mind from the early 1990s onwards. White remains one of the most important non-conformist and Baptist historians and will be remembered alongside the likes of W. T. Whitley, E. A. Payne and G. F. Nuttall. He was honoured in 1999 with a festschrift, Pilgrim Pathways, edited by William Brackney, Paul Fiddes and John H. Y. Briggs.

Here are some extracts from early short articles written on the task of Baptist history.

The first is 'Writing and Preserving Baptist History', The Fraternal (April, 1965)

Why does more and better Baptist history need to be written? So that the wisdom and experience of our past may be harnessed to the making of decisions about our present and our future.

Tradition has a place: what the Holy Spirit taught yesterday may have, must have, a bearing upon what He would teach us today. Nevertheless we must beware of a crude fundamentalism, which in place of "Holy Church says" or "the Bible says" inserts "the Puritans say" and so commit our mind and conscience to the keeping of another age. That way lies blind dogmatism and a theological strait-jacket. Some of our brethren might like to appeal to John Smyth, others to the Confession of 1677, others yet again to the assembly of 1689, and still others to the wide canvas of the 17th century Baptists. They are all wrong: we may not confide ourselves to the keeping of a man, or of a confession, or of an assembly, or of an era. But we should listen respectfully to what they have to say when, in the light of Scripture and of the Spirit, we are on our knees on behalf of our tomorrow.

When we make up our minds about our denominational policy and future (and these may not be quite as much bound up together as some people think), when we strive to evaluate just what it is that God has entrusted to us, which we have to contribute to the wider family of the people of God- then let us take into account our yesterdays. To neglect this is to deny, implicitly at least, that the Holy Spirit ever had anything worth saying to another generation which has not yet been said (or heard!) by ours.

... the brutal fact of the matter is that the state of Baptist historical writing at the moment, in both quality and quantity of work done, is such that it is virtually impossible to claim that any era of our history has been treated in depth.

I believe it is high time that we got down to producing big books on Baptist history ... What we need is detailed studies covering the ground at six inches to the mile, and they are just not available. And not only are the monographs chiefly notable for their absence but, as a denomination we are, generally speaking, almost criminally careless with our primary records.

 ... it is really remarkable that there is no detailed study of what English Baptists have said about Baptism over the years. Neither have there been full-length studies across the centuries of our attitudes to ordination, to the Lord's Supper, to authority in Church and State.

Fifty years on we have made some progress. Some big books have been written - the four volume series on English Baptists, to which White contributed the 17th volume, and more recently David Bebbington's one volume Baptist Through the Centuries. Likewise we now have more detailed studies of Grantham, Kiffin, Taylor, Keach, Rippon, Fuller, Spurgeon, Faringham, Steele, Shakespeare, as well as a reader on 17th Baptist Women Preachers.

Sadly I think it might be said that we can still be not as careful with our recent primary records as perhaps we should, but as Baptists we now have a wonderful, accessible resource in the Angus Library, in which Barrie must have spent many hours.

The second selection of extracts comes from 'The Task of the Baptist Historian', Baptist Quarterly 22 (1968):

... "Why bother with Baptist history anyway?" there are certain things which can be said at once: first, if Baptists do not investigate and care about Baptist history no-one else will. No-one else is likely to take the time or the interest to sift the diamonds from the dust of our denominational yesterday. No-one else will be prepared to attempt the reconstruction of that yesterday from our generous but annually diminishing early source materials. No-one. else will have the same creative sympathy with that yesterday and under- standing of the texture, the subtle overtones and undertones, of our denominational heritage in its national setting. To say this does not, of course, mean that non-Baptists should not be encouraged to write Baptist history or that Baptists from other lands should not touch English Baptist history. There is certainly always a sense in which the onlooker sees most of the game: a detached observer may well discern patterns and meanings which those too closely caught up in their own personal or partisan enthusiasms. may miss. Nevertheless, when all this has been readily and cheerfully admitted, it remains true that if Baptists are to wait for others to do their fundamental research for them they will still be waiting, with a sense of growing disappointment, for a good many years to come.

... Baptists can far less easily ignore their own history, their own heritage, than they can that of other Christians. To slam the door, as it were, upon their yesterday would be, first, to lose their identity and most of their understanding of why they stand where they do and, secondly, to limit all their insights into the Word and the Will of God to the narrow vision of the present generation and even, on some occasions, to that of the local congregation. On the other hand Baptists dare not allow their yesterday to dominate their today for two other reasons: first, because their own past does not speak with one voice; there is, for them, no golden age of an "undivided church" where all the Fathers spoke with a single unanimous voice. T h e second reason why Baptists cannot allow their past to have the last word is that to do so would be to bolt and bar another door: that against the continuing, contemporary, guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

... Baptist historiography is always in danger of domination by a spirit of historical fundamentalism according to which the past becomes a chunk of dead rock from which anachronistic but superficially relevant proof-texts are chiselled to the required shape.

... it is not the denominational historian's task to be a partisan, he must always be aware of the greater army marching the same way to the left and right of him; he must resist the temptation to rub the rough edges off history in the interests of a later respectability and he dare not forget that whilst Baptists have often been brave they have even more often been bigoted. It is not the Church historian's task to whitewash anyone, least of all his own side.

... One thing should now be entirely plain: whilst the basic ingredients [of Baptist history] may remain the same, there is a great. deal more involved in telling that plain, unvarnished tale adequately than perhaps some of our predecessors ever realised.

There will be a thanksgiving service at New Road Baptist Church, Oxford, where Barrie had been a member for many years, on Monday 28th November, 12pm.

A Further Reflection on the Baptist Union Statement on Same Sex Marriage

Whatever we make of the Baptist Union's Council statement on same sex relationships last month it will not be the last word. Those Baptists who feel they are unable to affirm any kind of same sex relationship and who see this as a victory for a perceived 'majority', will find that the statement will not be the last word. In fact it may well be that the statement will galvanise those who seek to affirm same sex marriage to be more open in their conviction, and will also lead others, not affirming themselves, to more vocal as well, in arguing that an affirming position be acceptable within the Union. That is, rather than drawing a line in the sand, the statement has ignited a bigger conversation.

Those who affirm same sex marriage amongst BUGB Baptists are more numerous than the conservatives realise; not a majority within the Union, but then I challenge the view that the conservatives hold the majority either. (I'm not convinced that speaking in terms of 'majority' is helpful, because it smacks of democracy rather than communal discernment). I suggest that many sit in the middle between the two extremes, and find themselves pulled by both Bible and culture, but are driven most, by wanting to find pastoral solutions. If I'm right then the view of the Baptist Union, if the Union is to hold together, must be one of reconciled diversity on this issue. The question that must drive the Steering Group and the Council and all those who care about the future of the Union, must be, (as Angus Ritchie's suggests with regard to the Church of England): 

can we find a way of living together in one Body that preserves the integrity of opponents as well as supporters of change?

This is what we have done on the issue of women in ministry, we generally tolerate a diversity. We do not (openly) seek to unChristian those who hold a different view from our own - and this is not always easy.

We need to find ways not to unChristian one another of the issue of gay and lesbian relationships. To quote Ritchie again:

This requires traditionalists to accept they are not the only orthodox Christians, and those of an affirming view to accept that traditionalism is not always based on homophobia.

What is needed are those on both sides to say, in view of the tie that binds us, can we for the sake of unity and mission, seek to listen to one another, hard and painful though that may be, to see if that tie is strong enough to enable us to continue to walk together. My hope is that the Steering Group might, behind the scenes, seek to make that happen. 

The Council's statement attempted to 'humbly urge' those who affirm same sex marriage not to press ahead, in all reality, this will carry little weight. The seeming imbalance of the 'mutual respect' asked of those churches who have registered or are seeking to register, challenges any moral authority they might otherwise see the statement as having. 

It is my own view that neither those who are against or those who affirm hold the monopoly on truth on this question. In fact much of the arguments for or against I find wanting. As on many other issues, it remains contested, and it remains contested, also amongst those who identify as gay or lesbian. 

This will continue to not be an easy time for the Union, especially those who hold office at a national level. For them we must pray especially. Whilst I don't think they can or will (at least not quickly) retract the statement, I hope that the Steering Group and the Council (when it next meets), will recognise they will have to come back to this issue, that we have not reached a settled place. A more theological conversation is now all the more pressing and the willingness of all sides to participate is essential if we are to avoid the fragmentation of our Union. This is the story of all other church traditions, Baptists are no different.