Four hundred seventy years ago the Anabaptist movement was launched with the inauguration of believers' baptism and the formation of the first congregation of the Swiss Brethren in Zurich, Switzerland. This standard introduction to the history of Anabaptism by noted church historian William R. Estep offers a vivid chronicle of the rise and spread of the teachings and heritage of this vigorous, important stream in Christianity. In this third edition, The Anabaptist Story has been substantially revised and enlarged to take into account the numerous Anabaptist sources that have come to light in the last half-century as well as the significant number of monographs and other scholarly research on Anabaptist themes that have recently appeared. In interacting with these materials, Estep challenges a number of assumptions held by contemporary historians of sixteenth-century Anabaptism and offers fresh insights into the historical movement to which we owe the notion of religious liberty that prevails today.

Originally published in 1953, this book presents a biography of the renowned British classical scholar Terrot Reaveley Glover (1869-1943). The text provides a detailed account of Glover's life, from his childhood in Bristol onwards. Notes are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the life and works of Glover.

Text and Authority in the South African Nazaretha Church tells the story of one of the largest African churches in South Africa, Ibandla lamaNazaretha, or Church of the Nazaretha. Founded in 1910 by charismatic faith-healer Isaiah Shembe, the Nazaretha church, with over four million members, has become an influential social and political player in the region. Deeply influenced by a transnational evangelical literary culture, Nazaretha believers have patterned their lives upon the Christian Bible. They cast themselves as actors who enact scriptural drama upon African soil. But Nazaretha believers also believe the existing Christian Bible to be in need of updating and revision. For this reason, they have written further scriptures - a new 'Bible' - which testify to the miraculous work of their founding prophet, Shembe. Joel Cabrita's book charts the key role that these sacred texts play in making, breaking and contesting social power and authority, both within the church and more broadly in South African public life.

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 Amersterdam 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.

This book examines the evolution of post-colonial African Studies through the eyes of Africanists from the Anabaptist (Mennonite and Church of the Brethren) community. The book chronicles the lives of twenty-two academics and practitioners whose work spans from the immediate post-colonial period in the 1960s to the present day, a period in which decolonization and development have dominated scholarly and practitioner debate. Reflecting the values and perspectives they shared with the Mennonite Central Committee and other church-sponsored organizations, the authors consider their own personal journeys and professional careers, the power of the prevailing scholarly paradigms they encountered, and the realities of post-colonial Africa. Coming initially from Anabaptist service programs, the authors ultimately made wider contributions to comparative religion, church leadership, literature, music, political science, history, anthropology, economics and banking, health and healing, public health, extension education, and community development. The personal histories and reflections of the authors provide an important glimpse into the intellectual and cultural perspectives that shaped the work of Africanist scholars and practitioners in the post-colonial period. The book reminds us that the work of every Africanist is shaped by their own life stories.

This book presents the history of two religious sects successfully established in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, where it was illegal to participate in any faith other than the legally established congregationalism of the Puritan founders of the colony. Taking a comparative approach, the author examines the Quaker meeting in Salem and the Baptist church in Boston over more than a century. The work opens with the dramatic events surrounding dissenters' efforts to gain a foothold in the colony, and goes on to locate sectarians within their families and communities, and to examine their beliefs and the changing nature of the organizations they founded and their interactions with the larger community and its leaders. The work deals with the religiosity of lay colonists, finding that men and women responded to these sects differently. It also analyzes sociological theories of sectarian evolution, the politics of dissent, and changes in beliefs and practices.

In the English-speaking Western world alone, thousands of men and women begin formal training for Christian ministry each year or informally seek to equip themselves for pastoral ministry. Over the past fifty years, the ancient world of virtue ethics has been re-imagined as a means of forming people of character and morality today. In Shaped for Service, this experience is used as the framework to understand what we are doing as we form Christian ministers now, and how we might strengthen that development by more consciously linking the practices of ministry with the person, spirituality, and wisdom of the practitioner. Writing from the context of a lifetime of pastoral ministry and the oversight of ministers in the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Goodliff explores what pastors do and who they are called to be using a mixture of theological and pastoral enquiry, reflections upon art and personal story. This book will be of interest to those who are charged with forming the next generation of ministers, but anyone beginning that journey of formation for ministry themselves will also find this vision of ministry challenging and inspiring.

The Dr G.R. Beasley-Murray Memorial Lectures were delivered annually between 2002 and 2012 with the aim of extending the legacy of this significant New Testament scholar and church leader into the twenty-first century. Themes addressed include baptism, ministry, preaching, mission, and theological faithfulness. Having first been delivered at the annual Assembly of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the lectures in this volume are now made available to a wider audience and will be of interest to church leaders across the denominations and across the world, and not least to those who stand in Beasley-Murray's own Baptist tradition. George Beasley-Murray died in 2000. The lectures cover a wide range of topics, from baptism to missions, from Evangelical identity to preaching. The lecturers are: Paul Beasley-Murray, former Principal of Spurgeon's College; David Coffey, former President of the Baptist Union and of the Baptist World Alliance; John E. Colwell, Pastor of Budleigh Salterton Baptist Church; Anthony R. Cross, Emeritus Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, Oxford; Ruth M.B. Gouldbourne, former Tutor in Church History at Bristol Baptist College; Stephen R. Holmes, Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews; Mark Hopkins, Associate Professor of Church History, Theological College of Northern Nigeria; Bruce Milne, formerly Minister of First Baptist Church, Toronto; Michael Quicke, former Principal of Spurgeon's College, London; Brian Stanley, Professor of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh.

Son of a missionary, born in the Congo, Billy endured a strict upbringing before escaping to the Army at 16. Despite the brutality and bullying he survived and did well, being fast-tracked for a commission. He met and married Bev, herself a corporal. Billy soon quit the Army to become a bodyguard to the stars, working with Naomi Campbell, Take That, Bee Gees, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Mel Gibson and others. Billy had always been a drinker but now the celebrity lifestyle introduced him to drugs - dealing, and running with gangsters. He lost his job. Bev and the children suffered as a consequence, and Bev ultimately divorced him. Billy contemplated suicide when a friend reintroduced him to the God he had hated for 30 years. Bev too discovered Christianity: the two would be reconciled, remarry, and have two more children. Now a Baptist pastor, prison chaplain and evangelist, Billy sees in others the miracle that has taken place in himself.

Provides an illuminating look at the diverse world of Black religious life in North America, focusing particularly outside of mainstream Christian churches From the Moorish Science Temple to the Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine to the Commandment Keepers sect of Black Judaism, myriad Black new religious movements developed during the time of the Great Migration. Many of these stood outside of Christianity, but some remained at least partially within the Christian fold. The Black Coptic Church is one of these. Black Coptics combined elements of Black Protestant and Black Hebrew traditions with Ethiopianism as a way of constructing a divine racial identity that embraced the idea of a royal Egyptian heritage for its African American followers, a heroic identity that was in stark contrast to the racial identity imposed on African Americans by the white dominant culture. This embrace of a royal Blackness—what McKinnis calls an act of “fugitive spirituality”—illuminates how the Black Coptic tradition in Chicago and beyond uniquely employs a religio-performative imagination. McKinnis asks, ‘What does it mean to imagine Blackness?’ Drawing on ten years of archival research and interviews with current members of the church, The Black Coptic Church offers a look at a group that insisted on its own understanding of its divine Blackness. In the process, it provides a more complex look at the diverse world of Black religious life in North America, particularly within non-mainstream Christian churches.

Written by a leading authority on Baptist life and thought, this inclusive survey traces the development of the Baptist tradition in North America over the past 400 years.
Shows how from a handful of churches on the Atlantic Coast, the Baptist movement spread to become the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Considers the contribution of all Baptists, including those in the United States and Canada, men and women, Caucasians and non-Caucasians.
Includes statistical data, a timeline, lists of Baptist groups and related institutions, and a glossary of terms.

Baptists through the Centuries provides a clear introduction to the history and theology of this influential and international people. David Bebbington, a leading Baptist historian, surveys the main developments in Baptist life and thought from the seventeenth century to the present. The Baptist movement took root and grew well beyond its British and American origins. Bebbington persuasively demonstrates how Baptists continually adapted to the cultures and societies in which they lived, generating ever more diversity within an already multifaceted group. Bebbington's survey also examines the challenging social, political, and intellectual issues in Baptist historyaattitudes on race, women's roles in the church, religious liberty, missions, and theological commitments. The second edition of this proven textbook extends the scope with chapters on three parts of the world where Baptists have become particularly numerous: Latin America (where Brazilian Baptists number over 2 million), Nigeria (where Baptists are at their strongest outside North America, numbering roughly 5 million), and the Naga Hills in India (where Baptists form over 80 percent of the population). Each chapter also highlights regional issues that have presented new challenges and opportunities to Baptists: holistic mission in Latin America, the experience of charismatic renewal and the encounter with Islam in Nigeria, and the demands of peacemaking in the Naga Hills. Through this new edition, Bebbington orients readers and expands their knowledge of the Baptist community as it continues to flourish around the world.

Best-selling author John Piper puts the life of Andrew Fuller on display as inspriration for all Christians to devote themselves to knowing, guarding, and spreading the true gospel-to the ends of the earth.

Text and Authority in the South African Nazaretha Church tells the story of one of the largest African churches in South Africa, Ibandla lamaNazaretha, or Church of the Nazaretha. Founded in 1910 by charismatic faith-healer Isaiah Shembe, the Nazaretha church, with over four million members, has become an influential social and political player in the region. Deeply influenced by a transnational evangelical literary culture, Nazaretha believers have patterned their lives upon the Christian Bible. They cast themselves as actors who enact scriptural drama upon African soil. But Nazaretha believers also believe the existing Christian Bible to be in need of updating and revision. For this reason, they have written further scriptures - a new 'Bible' - which testify to the miraculous work of their founding prophet, Shembe. Joel Cabrita's book charts the key role that these sacred texts play in making, breaking and contesting social power and authority, both within the church and more broadly in South African public life.

Many scholars have documented how migration from Latin America to the United States shapes the interconnected spheres of religious participation, political engagement, and civic formation in host countries. What has largely gone unexplored is how the experiences of migration and adaptation to the host country also shape the ecclesiological arrangements, theological imagination, and communal strategies of immigrant religious networks. These communities maintain close ties with their home countries while simultaneously developing a religious life that distinguishes them both from their home countries and from faith communities of the dominant culture in their host countries. Joao Chaves offers an account of the dynamics that shape the role of immigrant churches in the United States. Migrational Religion acts as a case study of a network formed by communities of Brazilian immigrants who, although affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, formed a distinctive ethnic association. Their churches began to appear in the United States in the 1980s due to Brazilian Baptist missionary activity. As Brazilian migration increased in the last decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of Brazilian evangelical churches were founded to cater to first-generation immigrants. Initially their leaders conceived of these churches as extensions of their denomination in Brazil. However, these church communities were under constant pressure to adapt to their rapidly changing context, and the challenges of immigrant living pushed them in exciting new directions. Brazilian churches in the United States faced a number of issues peculiar to their nature as diasporic communities: undocumented parishioners, membership fluctuation caused by national and international migration patterns, anti-immigrant prejudice, and more. Based on six years of ethnographic work in eleven congregations across the United States, dozens of interviews with Brazilian pastors, and extensive archival history in English and Portuguese, Migrational Religion documents how such churches adapted to unique challenges, and reveals how the diasporic experience fosters incipient theologies in churches of the Latinx diaspora.

Provides an illuminating look at the diverse world of Black religious life in North America, focusing particularly outside of mainstream Christian churches From the Moorish Science Temple to the Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine to the Commandment Keepers sect of Black Judaism, myriad Black new religious movements developed during the time of the Great Migration. Many of these stood outside of Christianity, but some remained at least partially within the Christian fold. The Black Coptic Church is one of these. Black Coptics combined elements of Black Protestant and Black Hebrew traditions with Ethiopianism as a way of constructing a divine racial identity that embraced the idea of a royal Egyptian heritage for its African American followers, a heroic identity that was in stark contrast to the racial identity imposed on African Americans by the white dominant culture. This embrace of a royal Blackness—what McKinnis calls an act of “fugitive spirituality”—illuminates how the Black Coptic tradition in Chicago and beyond uniquely employs a religio-performative imagination. McKinnis asks, ‘What does it mean to imagine Blackness?’ Drawing on ten years of archival research and interviews with current members of the church, The Black Coptic Church offers a look at a group that insisted on its own understanding of its divine Blackness. In the process, it provides a more complex look at the diverse world of Black religious life in North America, particularly within non-mainstream Christian churches.

The inspiring and entertaining biography of a very unconventional missionary who spent more than thirty years in Zaire building schools, hospitals, churches, and roads and who championed the transfer of authority over missionaries to native religious leaders.

This is a reprint of the original 1845 book about the scriptural legitimacy of slavery. ""Domestic Slavery"" originated in the nineteenth century as a literary debate between two Baptist leaders over the Bible's teachings on slavery. The chapters were originally letters published in a Baptist newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts. Southern pastor Richard Fuller and Northern educator Francis Wayland were each able defenders of their respective positions. These men were also good friends who believed that a difference of opinion about slavery should not necessitate a breaking of Christian fellowship. Unfortunately, these two Baptists leaders proved naive in this regard. Just weeks after the publication of the correspondence in book form, Fuller's Southern Baptist Convention broke away from the larger Baptist denomination and formed a new ecclesiastical body. A number of issues factored into the division, though the slavery debate was what ultimately led to the creation of a separate Baptist denomination in the South. Historians of Southern religion consider ""Domestic Slavery"" to be one of the major contributions to the nineteenth-century debate over the peculiar institution. This critical edition of ""Domestic Slavery"", which includes annotations and an appendix of related documents, represents the first reprint of this important work to be published since the mid-nineteenth century. Scholars of Southern culture and religious history will benefit from a close examination of what was undoubtedly the most significant Baptist contribution to the slavery debate in the years leading to the Civil War.