John Paul Newport was perhaps the most influential American Baptist philosopher and apologist of the twentieth century. He became legendary as a Baptist statesman, scholar, peacemaker, and transformational professor, who supervised more than fifty Ph.D. students in philosophy, apologetics, theology, biblical studies, and world religions. Written from the unpublished autobiographical papers of John Newport, this official biography, Like a River Glorious, examines the life and legacy of one of America's premier Baptist scholars.Newport studied with the best minds of his day and taught for more than fifty years in Baptist colleges and seminaries, as well as at Rice University. He was also a churchman in pulpits across the South, serving as interim pastor in more than 150 churches in four states. His best-known book, Life's Ultimate Questions, synthesized the most-asked questions about what it means to live as a human being, and anchored his responses in a reasoned, philosophical, and biblical worldview. Newport spent most of his career at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where he chaired the philosophy department and served as vice president of academic affairs and provost. He was also the special consultant to then-president Russell Dilday and helped to lead the institution through some of its most difficult days. Newport was an open, approachable, and eminently constructive Christian in his day, inviting his audiences to engage with the world of ideas, other Christians, and people of non-Christian faiths. The story of his unparalleled and remarkable journey unfolds in these pages, a testament to his legacy and an invitation for future Christian leaders to follow in his wake.

Revivals are an integral part of Baptist life. Just as Baptists share key convictions regarding believer's baptism, congregational governance, and religious freedom, they have also widely adopted common practices. Revivals have contributed immensely to the vitality and growth of Baptists worldwide. This volume is a contribution to the theme of Baptist revivals. It explores the central role played by revivalism for Baptist life in the U.S. and Canada, Britain and Continental Europe, and the Majority world. For 250 years, beginning with the Great Awakening in the mid-eighteenth century, and in almost every place they have established churches, Baptists have embraced the practice of revivalism. The book offers twenty-five studies of Baptists and their revivals. The authors describe individual revivals and evaluate related issues of gender, race, emotion, and charisma. The chapters push well beyond textbook summaries, which usually notice the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening but often do not find space to include other revivals such as the Laymen's Revival (1857), the Welsh Revival (1904-05), and revivals associated with World War I and World War II. All of these revivals influenced the Baptist story, and all of them are addressed in these pages. Focusing on Baptists at the local grassroots level, many of these studies analyze in some depth seasons of revival followed by seasons of arid spirituality. The authors explore the dynamics of these movements, searching for possible explanations for this religious phenomenon.