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.

Western evangelical and baptist theologies have largely avoided experience as a source of theology. By not seeing, or not utilizing, lived experience in its own theologies and rejecting it in "contextual" theologies, these traditions have failed to recognize the full presence of God as revealed in the world. Current theological dialogues arising from admittedly contextualized experiences, such as LGBTQI+, black, or various women's theologies struggle to find a place at the theological table, because they ring untrue to evangelical and baptist ears. What we are then left with is an idiosyncratic deity who mirrors the community in power. Theology in Many Voices presents an understanding of theology as a practice of the church, one that both makes space for lived community experience in theological content and also provides the means necessary for encountering, engaging, and incorporating the theological insights of the global and historic church into Western theological discourse. Amy L. Chilton engages the contemporary use of Alistair MacIntyre's concept of "practice" in theological method, particularly through the writings of James Wm. McClendon, Jr., to show how it can be used as a means of moving beyond the "Scripture vs. experience" divide while still retaining the norming role of Scripture and the essential nature of God's revelation in context. Two other figures illuminate Chilton's vision of experience-oriented theology, giving fuller voice to the church's witness of faith and practice: the Roman Catholic Jon Sobrino, whose work with the Salvadoran poor influenced his christology through his "Christo-praxic" method, and Muriel Lester, whose communal living practices influenced her theology of peace and ability to move across religious boundaries and shows how to do theology as practice intercontextually. Finally, whereas the methodological use of practice has found little in-roads to Christian doctrine, Chilton explores the doctrines of the Trinity and theological anthropology in light of the practiced contributions of the church global, especially women and the marginalized.