Baptist theologians Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon maintain that the congregational freedom cherished by Baptists makes it possible for their local churches to engage in a practice of theology informed by a full range of voices speaking from the whole church beyond the local church, past and present. In their coedited book Sources Of Light, a diverse group of twenty-three Baptist theologians engage in a collaborative attempt to imagine how Baptist communities might draw on the resources of the whole church more intentionally in their congregational practice of theology. These resources include theologies that attend to the social locations of followers of Jesus Christ - not only in terms of ethnic and gender identity, sexual orientation, citizenship status, and physical ability, but also in relation to the wider interreligious and ecological contexts of the contemporary church. They also include the church's efforts to bring its life together under the rule of Christ in its practices of confessing and teaching the faith, navigating moral disagreement, identifying saintly examples for living the Christian life, ordering its life as a worshiping community, and seeking more visible forms of Christian unity across the divisions of the church. This book commends listening deeply to these voices as an ecclesial practice through which the Spirit of God enlightens the church of Christ, whose rule draws the church into deeper participation in the life of the Triune God, forming the church for practices that offer the gift of Trinitarian communion to a fractured world. Contributors include: Amy L. Chilton, Noel Leo Erskine, Nora O. Lozano, Atola Longkumer, Mikeal N. Broadway, Courtney Pace, Susan M. Shaw, Khalia J. Williams, Cody J. Sanders, May May Latt, Jason D. Whitt, Raimundo C. Barretto, Jr., Rebecca Horner Shenton, Curtis W. Freeman, Kate Hanch, Rady Roldan-Figueroa, Stephen R. Holmes, Coleman Fannin, Myles Werntz, Derek C. Hatch, Philip E. Thompson, Jennifer W. Davidson, and Steven R. Harmon.

Embracing in one common trajectory the major Baptist confessions of faith, the major Baptist theologians, and the principal Baptist theological movements and controversies, this book spans four centuries of Baptist doctrinal history. Acknowledging first the pre-1609 roots (patristic, medieval, Reformational) of Baptist theology, it examines the Arminian versus Calvinist issues that the General and the Particular Baptists first expressed. These issues dominated English and American Baptist theology during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Helwys and Smyth and from Bunyan and Kiffin to Gill, Fuller, Backus, and Boyce and were quickened by the awakenings and the missionary movement. Concurrently, the Baptist defended distinctives vis-a-vis the pedobaptist world and the unfolding of a strong Baptist confessional tradition. Then during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the liberal versus evangelical issues became dominant with Hovey, Strong, Rauschenbusch, and Henry in the North and Mullins, Conner, Hobbs, and Criswell in the South even as a distinctive Baptist Landmarkism developed, the discipline of biblical theology was practiced and a structured ecumenism was pursued. Missiology both impacted Baptist theology and took it to all the continents, where it became increasingly indigenous. Conscious that Baptists belong to the free churches and to the believers' churches, a new generation of Baptist theologians at the advent of the twenty-first century was somewhat more Calvinist than Arminian and decidedly more evangelical than liberal.

Essays on key Baptist leaders throughout history Baptists lack a single central figure in their orgins that lutherans, Reformed, Presbyterians, and Methodists have with Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and John Wesley. Additionally, Baptists focus so heavily on the Bible for authority and key beliefs or practices like religious liberty, social justice, missions, and preaching that sometimes Baptists and other Christians forget the significant role that people play in forging and promoting those ideas and practices. This book seeks to address this shortcoming by providing an introductory text of Baptist biographies. Certainly shorter than a full-length biography but definitely longer than an encyclopedia article, this sampling of key Baptist leaders through the years view the story of Baptists through a biographical lens while linking these women and men to a key Baptist distinctive. A short suggested reading list is added at the end of each chapter to enhance further study. Highlighted Baptist leaders include: Thomas Helwys, John Clarke, Benjamin Keach, Anne Dutton, Shubal Stearns, Isaac Backus, Dan Taylor, Andrew Fuller, John Leland, William Carey, Lott Carey, Adoniram Judson, J. Gerhard Oncken, I. T. Tichenor, Robert Cooke Buckner, Charles H. Spurgeon, Lottie Moon, E. C. Morris, E. Y. Mullins, Walter Rauschenbusch, Helen Barrett Montgomery, George W. Truett, William Owen Carver, James Henry Rushbrooke, Nannie Helen Burroughs, B. B. McKinney, Thomas Buford Maston, Herschel H. Hobbs, Henlee Barnette, and Gardner C. Taylor.