A Global Introduction to Baptist Churches

This work offers insight into the diversity, breadth, and complexity of the cultural influences that shaped Baptist identity.

Robert E. Johnson (Author)

9780521701709, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 September 2010

470 pages, 22 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.3 x 2.6 cm, 0.63 kg

'This volume not only is a comprehensive study, historically and theologically, of the Baptist family around the world but also explores such often overlooked issues as identity and relationships. The work places Baptist bodies in their sociopolitical environment and provides valuable material on such matters as the role of women as well as the indigenous character of Baptist bodies outside the matrix of the Anglo-American world.' Albert Wardin, Professor of History Emeritus, Belmont University

Coinciding with the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Baptist movement, this book explores and assesses the cultural sources of Baptist beliefs and practices. Although the movement has been embraced, enriched, and revised by numerous cultural heritages, the Baptist movement has focused on a small group of Anglo exiles in Amsterdam in constructing its history and identity. Robert E. Johnson seeks to recapture the varied cultural and theological sources of Baptist tradition and to give voice to the diverse global elements of the movement that have previously been excluded or marginalized. With an international communion of over 110 million persons in more than 225,000 congregations, Baptists constitute the world's largest aggregate of evangelical Protestants. This work offers insight into the diversity, breadth, and complexity of the cultural influences that continue to shape Baptist identity today.

Introduction
Part I. Foundations: 1. The primal shaping processes of the global Baptist movement
Part II. Age of Emerging Baptist Denominational Traditions, 1600–1792: 2. Seeds for diversity amid an early Anglo prevalence
Part III. The Frontier Age, 1792–1890: 3. Baptists' frontier age in the British Empire
4. Baptists' frontier age in the United States
5. Baptists' frontier age in the European continent, Africa, Asia, and Latin America
Part IV. The Age of Proliferating Traditioning Sources, 1890–Present: 6. Baptists' evolving traditioning sources in Africa, Asia, and Oceania
7. Baptists' evolving traditioning sources in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Eurasia
8. Baptists' evolving traditioning sources in North America
Part V. Beliefs and Practices: 9. Baptists' beliefs and practices.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], Baptist Churches [HRCC92], Church history [HRCC2]