C. Douglas Weaver - Böcker

The Bible and Baptist Tradition surveys the ways in which Baptists have engaged with the Bible as a source of authority. That engagement has sometimes taken the form of "proof-texting" the Bible to support beliefs that Baptists "know" to be true. At times, that engagement is a struggle to come to terms with the "plain meaning" of Scripture that challenges those well-worn assumptions of Truth. Mikael Parsons and Douglas Weaver begin with the basic question of what defines Baptist identity. With over four centuries of history, the following themes emerge in the Baptist story: freedom of conscience, believer's baptism and believer's church, soul competency and local church independence, assertions of the sole authority of the Bible rather than adherence to creeds, and the interplay of personal/communal experience, the Bible, and the Spirit. Wherever the experience of freedom is central to identity, diversity of expression is sure to follow. This book traces the role the Bible has played in the formation of Baptist creeds and confessions, the struggle to come to terms with the challenges of higher criticism in biblical studies, and the impact of the Bible on issues of gender, race, and sexuality. The study includes a Baptist-specific interpretation of a particularly important passage in the tradition: Acts 2 and the account of Pentecost and Peter's sermon. Throughout their history, Baptists have grappled with the lively dynamic of personal and communal experience and biblical authority. These are their stories.

The Bible and Baptist Tradition surveys the ways in which Baptists have engaged with the Bible as a source of authority. That engagement has sometimes taken the form of "proof-texting" the Bible to support beliefs that Baptists "know" to be true. At times, that engagement is a struggle to come to terms with the "plain meaning" of Scripture that challenges those well-worn assumptions of Truth. Mikael Parsons and Douglas Weaver begin with the basic question of what defines Baptist identity. With over four centuries of history, the following themes emerge in the Baptist story: freedom of conscience, believer's baptism and believer's church, soul competency and local church independence, assertions of the sole authority of the Bible rather than adherence to creeds, and the interplay of personal/communal experience, the Bible, and the Spirit. Wherever the experience of freedom is central to identity, diversity of expression is sure to follow. This book traces the role the Bible has played in the formation of Baptist creeds and confessions, the struggle to come to terms with the challenges of higher criticism in biblical studies, and the impact of the Bible on issues of gender, race, and sexuality. The study includes a Baptist-specific interpretation of a particularly important passage in the tradition: Acts 2 and the account of Pentecost and Peter's sermon. Throughout their history, Baptists have grappled with the lively dynamic of personal and communal experience and biblical authority. These are their stories.

The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation is a landmark work of research, containing examples of specific ways that Baptists have used Acts in their confessions, sermons, tracts, commentaries, monographs, devotional and denominational literature, speeches, and hymns. Including the entirety of the Acts as translated by Baptist luminary Helen Barrett Montgomery, this commentary beautifully illustrates the diversity of Baptist responses to this book of Scripture, and in so doing, a variety of hermeneutical approaches within the Baptist tradition.

The record is clear that Baptists, historically, have prioritized conversion, Jesus, and God. Equally clear is that Baptists have never known what to do with the Holy Spirit.In Baptists and the Holy Spirit, Baptist historian C. Douglas Weaver traces the way Baptists have engaged - and, at times, embraced - the Holiness, Pentecostal, and charismatic movements. Chronicling the interactions between Baptists and these Spirit-filled movements reveals the historical context for the development of Baptists' theology of the Spirit.Baptists and the Holy Spirit provides the first in-depth interpretation of Baptist involvement with the Holiness, Pentecostal, and charismatic movements that have found a prominent place in America's religious landscape. Weaver reads these traditions through the nuanced lens of Baptist identity, as well as the frames of gender, race, and class. He shows that, while most Baptists reacted against all three Spirit-focused groups, each movement flourished among a Baptist minority who were attracted by the post-conversion experience of the ""baptism of the Holy Spirit."" Weaver also explores the overlap between Baptist and Pentecostal efforts to restore and embody the practices and experiences of the New Testament church. The diversity of Baptists - Southern Baptist, American Baptist, African American Baptist - leads to an equally diverse understanding of the Spirit. Even those who strongly opposed charismatic expressions of the Spirit still acknowledged a connection between the Holy Spirit and a holy life.If, historically, Baptists were suspicious of Roman Catholics' ecclesial hierarchy, then Baptists were equally wary of free church pneumatology. However, as Weaver shows, Baptist interactions with the Holiness, Pentecostal, and charismatic movements and their vibrant experience with the Spirit were key in shaping Baptist identity and theology.

Exploring Christian Heritage provides students and teachers with a rich and substantial introduction to the texts that have shaped the Christian faith. Including works by Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Wesley, John Calvin, and Karl Barth, among others, this collection also highlights essential movements--from the second to the twenty-first centuries--often glossed over in primary source readers. From Pentecostalism and Baptists to feminism and religious liberty movements, Exploring Christian Heritage succinctly joins together the most influential voices of Christian history and theology with those that have been forgotten and sometimes ignored.Now in its third edition, voices ancient and modern, such as Timothy I of Baghdad, Margery Kempe, and Fannie Lou Hamer, have been added to deepen and widen the story of Christianity in varied forms.

The book is a collection of essays from the International Conference of Baptist Studies VI that was held at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina in July 2012. The topic of Baptist Identity remains important for Baptists across the globe. This collection of essays reveals the richness and the diversity of conceptions about Baptist identity that have been shared by and about Baptists. The essays, written by an international set of authors, examine issues of Baptist origins and questions of identity up to the present. Written with attention to historical context and grounded in primary source research, the essays will contribute to current and future debates about Baptist history and identity past and present.-Publisher