James Wm. McClendon, Jr. was the most important "baptist" theologian of the twentieth century. McClendon crafted a systematic theology that refused to succumb to the pressures of individualism, grew out of the immediacy of preaching the text, and lamented the stunted public witness of a fractured Protestant ecclesiology.

This two-volume set mixes previously unpublished and published lectures and essays with rare and little known works to form a representative collection of the essential themes of McClendon's work. The first volume focuses on the philosophical and theological shifts leading to McClendon's articulation of the baptist vision. The second volume specifically elucidates the more philosophical themes that informed McClendon's work, including ways in which these themes had immediate theological import. Taken together, the set provides the most comprehensive presentation of McClendon's work now available, revealing the sustained and systematic character of his vision over the course of his life. These two volumes will provide scholars, preachers, and students with McClendon's radical, narrative, and connective theology.

For centuries, Baptists have published confessions of faith as formal statements of their beliefs. Chief among these is the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. This doctrinal statement is a spiritual treasure trove worthy of our fresh attention. In this new study, more than twenty contributors unpack its timeless biblical truths, 'things which are most surely believed among us' (Luke 1:1). Our prayer is that the Lord will use this volume to richly edify and sanctify His people worldwide, and to assist the churches in pursuing biblical holiness and doctrinal purity. May these labors send God's people back again and again to the Bible, which is-as the confession states-the 'only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience' (1.1). Includes contributions from: Earl M. Blackburn Brian Borgman Dave Chanski David Charles Jason Ching Victor Claudio Jim Domm Gary Hendrix Steven Hofmaier Jeff Johnson Mitch Lush Lee McKinnon John Price Mike Renihan John Reuther Mark Sarver James Savastio Jeffery Smith Rob Ventura Calvin Walden Sam Waldron Austin Walker Jeremy Walker

For most of the colonial period, Virginia's spiritual landscape was thoroughly dominated by the Church of England, which enjoyed a legal, and virtually unchallenged, monopoly of faith. Evangelical Protestant dissenters dramatically remade Virginia's religious terrain, however, when they rapidly coalesced into congregations in the decades just before the American Revolution, and then overwhelmed a weakened Anglican Church in the war's aftermath. Virginians Reborn examines the intricate processes by which one of these groups, the Baptists, was able to take root, expand, and successfully compete for converts. By 1790, Virginia was the most Baptist state in America, as well as the point of origin of a massive early nineteenth-century western migration that helped spread the faith across the country.

Based primarily on church records, ministers' writings, local records, imperial correspondence, and newspaper accounts, this study looks at the geographical patterns of Baptist expansion, the techniques dissenters used to gain adherents, the distinctiveness of Baptist worship, and its cultural resonances in Virginia. The book traces how the American Revolution created a new context favorable to Baptists and how the rise of this faith echoed and reinforced the development of a distinctive, proslavery form of republicanism. As Virginians embraced new political forms and sought to reconcile them with slavery and household patriarchy, the book argues, they could find instructive models in the particulars of Baptist fellowship.

Ultimately, the book chronicles a dual process of rebirth, as Virginians simultaneously formed a republic and became evangelical Christians.

Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies

The Future of Baptist Higher Education investigates four key issues that inform Baptist efforts at higher education -- the denominational conflict that has afflicted Baptists since the 1980s, the secularization of higher education in America, the dominance of the market-driven tendencies in American higher education today, and the meaning of Christian higher education, but more specifically, the meaning of Baptist higher education. This volume clearly illustrates that the meaning of Baptist and Christian higher education, as with the Christian life itself, is far more complex than any one imperial interpretation.

A fresh examination of the Baptist movement, showing its growth and development to be more complex than hitherto assumed. This book challenges the orthodoxy that seventeenth-century Baptists were divided from the first into two separate denominations, 'Particular' and 'General', defined by their differing attitudes to predestination and the atonement, showing how the position was in fact much more complicated. It describes how from the foundation of the 'Generals' in 1609 there were always two tendencies, one clericalist and pacifist, influenced by the Dutch Mennonites, and one reflecting the English traditions of erastianism and local lay predominance in religion. It re-analyses the confessional struggle during and after the civil war, showing how Independent and erastian sentiment in Parliament increasingly combined to baulk Presbyterian ambition; during and partly because of this process (which they also influenced), the Baptists evolved into three recognisable tendencies. Amongst General Baptists there was a politically radical current, but also a more passive tendency which was starting to gain ground. In 1647-9 most but by no means all Particular Baptist leaders were hostile to the Levellers. The book looks at the nature of religious convictionin the New Model Army, reassessing the role and influence of Baptists in it. In the late 40s, many Baptists, soldiers and civilians, rejected formal ordinances altogether. STEPHEN WRIGHT received his Ph.D. from the Universityof London. He has been visiting lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire and the University of North London.