Synopses & Reviews
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4Through a Glass Darkly is a collection of essays by scholars who argue that Baptists are frequently misrepresented, by outsiders as well as insiders, as members of an unchanging monolithic sect. In contemporary discussions of religious denominations, it is often fashionable and easy to make bold claims regarding the history, beliefs, and practices of certain groups. Select versions of Baptist history have been used to vindicate incomplete or inaccurate assertions, attitudes, and features of Baptist life and thought. Historical figures quickly become saints, and overarching value systems can minimize the unsavory realities that would contribute to a truer interpretation of Baptist life. The essays in this volume use the term Baptist in the broadest sense to refer to those Christians who identify themselves as Baptists and who baptize by immersion as a non-sacramental church rite. Over the past four hundred years, Baptists have grown from a persecuted minority to a significant portion of America’s religious population. They have produced their fair share of controversies and colorful characters that have, in turn, contributed to a multifaceted history. But what does it mean to be a “real Baptist”? Some look to historical figures as heroic exemplars of Baptist core values. Others consider cultural, social, or political issues to be guideposts for Baptist identity. Through a Glass Darkly dives deeper into history for answers, revealing a more complete version of the expansive and nuanced history of one of America’s most influential religious groups. Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4Contributors:James P. Byrd / John G. Crowley / Edward R. Crowther / Christopher H. Evans / Elizabeth H. Flowers / Curtis W. Freeman / Barry G. Hankins / Paul Harvey / Bill J. Leonard / James A. Patterson / Jewel L. Spangler / Alan Scot Willis
Review
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4“Through a Glass Darkly is thoroughly researched and annotated. There is no question this book has the requisite merit.”—Arthur E. Farnsley II, author of Southern Baptist Politics: Authority and Power in the Restructuring of an American Denomination
Synopsis
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4Through a Glass Darkly is a collection of essays by scholars who argue that Baptists are frequently misrepresented, by outsiders as well as insiders, as members of an unchanging monolithic sect.
Synopsis
Through a Glass Darkly is a collection of essays by scholars who argue that Baptists are frequently misrepresented, by outsiders as well as insiders, as members of an unchanging monolithic sect.In contemporary discussions of religious denominations, it is often fashionable and easy to make bold claims regarding the history, beliefs, and practices of certain groups. Select versions of Baptist history have been used to vindicate incomplete or inaccurate assertions, attitudes, and features of Baptist life and thought. Historical figures quickly become saints, and overarching value systems can minimize the unsavory realities that would contribute to a truer interpretation of Baptist life.The essays in this volume use the term Baptist in the broadest sense to refer to those Christians who identify themselves as Baptists and who baptize by immersion as a non-sacramental church rite. Over the past four hundred years, Baptists have grown from a persecuted minority to a significant portion of America s religious population. They have produced their fair share of controversies and colorful characters that have, in turn, contributed to a multifaceted history.But what does it mean to be a real Baptist ? Some look to historical figures as heroic exemplars of Baptist core values. Others consider cultural, social, or political issues to be guideposts for Baptist identity. Through a Glass Darkly dives deeper into history for answers, revealing a more complete version of the expansive and nuanced history of one of America s most influential religious groups.Contributors: James P. Byrd / John G. Crowley / Edward R. Crowther / Christopher H. Evans / Elizabeth H. Flowers / Curtis W. Freeman / Barry G. Hankins / Paul Harvey / Bill J. Leonard / James A. Patterson / Jewel L. Spangler / Alan Scot Willis"
About the Author
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4Keith Harper is the author of The Quality of Mercy: Southern Baptists and Social Christianity, 1890−1920 and editor of American Denominational History: Perspectives on the Past, Prospects for the Future.
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Key Themes
1. Baptists, Church, and State: Rejecting Establishments, Relishing Privilege
Bill J. Leonard
2. Democratic Religion Revisited: Early Baptists in the American South
Jewel L. Spangler
Part II. Biography
3. Persecution and Polemics: Baptists and the Shaping of the Roger Williams Tradition in the Nineteenth Century
James P. Byrd
4. E. Y. Mullins and the Siren Songs of Modernity
Curtis W. Freeman
5. The Contested Legacy of Lottie Moon: Southern Baptists, Women, and Partisan Protestantism
Elizabeth H. Flowers
6. Walter Rauschenbusch and the Second Coming: The Social Gospel as Baptist History
Christopher H. Evans
7. "I Am Fundamentally a Clergyman, a Baptist Preacher": Martin Luther King Jr., Social Christianity, and the Baptist Faith in an Era of Civil Rights
Edward R. Crowther
Part III. Historiography
8. "Written that Ye May Believe": Primitive Baptist Historiography
John G. Crowley
9. Reframing the Past: The Impact of Institutional and Ideological Agendas on Modern Interpretations of Landmarkism
James A. Patterson
10. Is There a River?: Black Baptists, the Uses of History, and the Long History of the Freedom Movement
Paul Harvey
11. Symbolic History in the Cold War Era
Alan Scot Willis
12. Southern Baptists and the F-Word: A Historiography of the Southern Baptist Convention Controversy and What It Might Mean
Barry Hankins
Contributors
Index