Der vorliegende 2. Band der Reihe Baptismus-Dokumentation" gibt einen berblick auf die Ereignisse der Studentenbewegung in Deutschland von 1967 bis 1972 und ihre Auswirkungen im deutschen Baptismus. Aufgezeigt wird insbesondere die Wahrnehmung der 68er Bewegung in der baptistischen Presse und Studentenarbeit sowie die Diskussion in den Gemeinden. Dokumentiert wird die Masterarbeit von Marc Schneider, Absolvent des Theologischen Seminars Elstal (FH).

Wie haben Baptisten in Deutschland ihr Verhalten in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus beurteilt? Der Autor beschreibt und dokumentiert die Diskussionen nach dem Krieg uber Schuld sowie die Entwicklungen bis zum offiziellen Schuldbekenntnis des BEFG. Die 50 veroffentlichten Textdokumente, eingeschlossen sind Vergleichstexte aus anderen Kirchen und Freikirchen, machen diesen Band zu einem wichtigen Nachschlagewerk und regen zugleich an, die gesellschaftliche Verantwortung von Christen heute zu reflektieren."

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.

Baptistengemeinden in Deutschland, seit 1941 im Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden, suchten ihren Weg in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus weitgehend in Anpassung an die politischen Verhaltnisse. Zu den wenigen offentlichen Mahnern gehorte Dr. Jacob Kobberling, der Bekennenden Kirche nahe stehend. Dieser Band dokumentiert zum einen die offiziellen Stellungnahmen des Bundesdirektors Paul Schmidt zu dem Konflikt uber die Weltkirchenkonferenz 1937 in Oxford, seinen Rechenschaftsbericht zum ersten Nachkriegs-Bundesrat 1946 in Velbert sowie das neue Glaubensbekenntnis des Bundes von 1944. Zum anderen werden die Gegenschriften Kobberlings z.T. erstmalig veroffentlicht, jeweils erganzt mit dessen umfangreicher Korrespondenz. Roland Fleischer hat diesen vierten Band der Reihe Baptismus-Dokumentation" erganzt durch eine historische Einfuhrung sowie informative biografische Beitrage zu Kobberling und Schmidt.

The debate over women's roles in the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative ascendance is often seen as secondary to theological and biblical concerns. Elizabeth Flowers argues, however, that for both moderate and conservative Baptist women - all of whom had much at stake - disagreements that touched on their familial roles and ecclesial authority have always been primary. And, in the turbulent postwar era, debate over their roles caused fierce internal controversy. While the legacy of race and civil rights lingered well into the 1990s, views on women's submission to male authority provided the most salient test by which moderates were identified and expelled in a process that led to significant splits in the Church. In Flowers's expansive history of Southern Baptist women, the "woman question" is integral to almost every area of Southern Baptist concern: hermeneutics, ecclesial polity, missionary work, church-state relations, and denominational history. Flowers's analysis, part of the expanding survey of America's religious and cultural landscape after World War II, points to the South's changing identity and connects religious and regional issues to the complicated relationship between race and gender during and after the civil rights movement. She also shows how feminism and shifting women's roles, behaviors, and practices played a significant part in debates that simmer among Baptists and evangelicals throughout the nation today.

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.

In The Sound of the Dove, Beverly Bush Patterson examines one of the oldest traditions of American religious folksong: unaccompanied congregational singing in Appalachian Primitive Baptist churches. Using interviews, field observations, historical research, song transcriptions, and musical analysis, Patterson explores the dynamic relationship between singing and theology in these churches, the genesis of their musical practices, and the unexpectedly significant role of women in their conservative congregations. An hour-long audio recording of Primitive Baptist singing is available separately.

This is a facsimile reprint of the 1964 edition published in New York by Russell & Russell, Inc., which was itself an enlarged version of the original produced in 1867 by the Narragansett Club Publications, Providence, RI.

Unlike other recent studies of the Southern Baptists, Southern Baptist Politics was written after the culmination of the "Baptist battles" of the 1980s, when Fundamentalists had effectively taken control of the denomination. It also considers the SBC not simply as a denomination but as an organization with characteristics similar to other voluntary associations in American society--an approach that promises to be useful for the study of other religious groups in America. Arthur Farnsley concludes that the SBC, as an American denomination, had within itself the seeds of pragmatism and individualism that characterize most American voluntary organizations.

Of primary interest to Farnsley are the crucial issues of authority and power. Taking his cue from Paul Harrison's classic study, Authority and Power in the Free Church Tradition, Farnsley considers how authority has traditionally been exercised within the SBC, and how Fundamentalists maneuvered within this existing authority structure to seize power. According to Farnsley, disgruntled Fundamentalists soon discovered that they could exploit the democratic elements within the SBC polity to their advantage. So successful were they in their efforts that by 1990 all significant leadership positions within the denomination were filled by Fundamentalists, thus enabling them to take, and hold, institutional power.

The lessons of Southern Baptist Politics extend beyond this one denomination. By using the Southern Baptists as a case study, Farnsley asks what the SBC controversy can tell us about religious organizations in America, about dealing with cultural pluralism, and about institutional means for creating change.