Audio for "Andrew Fuller & His Controversies" Now Online

By Steve Weaver

Audio of this year's conference, Andrew Fuller & His Controversies, is now available online for free streaming or MP3 download. The conference, which was held on September 27-28, 2013, featured speakers such as Paul Helm, Mark Jones, Tom Nettles, Nathan Finn and other scholars. You may access the audio for the conference here. Audio of previous conferences is available by clicking on "Conference" on this website's left sidebar. On the conference page, you may choose from previous conferences on the right sidebar. Most of these include the audio of all sessions for free streaming or MP3 download.

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Steve Weaver serves as a research assistant to the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a fellow of the Center. He also serves as senior pastor of Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY. Steve and his wife Gretta have six children between the ages of 2 and 14.

Understand Ourselves Through Understanding Our Past: Two Recent Publications

By Dustin Bruce

Despite what it may seem, your local Baptist church didn’t appear out of thin air. It falls within a long line of Christian history, much of which has shaped the way you understand your Bible and gather as a church, in ways that are hard to overestimate.

Baptists have been shaped by a number of individuals, institutions, and movements. Of the many, perhaps no movements have shaped us so much as the 16^th century Reformation and the 18^th century revivals that formed early Evangelicalism.

If you would like to know more about these movements, I recommend two recent publications.

First, the recent appearance of the 25^th Anniversary Edition of Timothy George’s Theology of the Reformersmarks the revising and republication of a treatise that serves as a great introduction to the key leaders and theological contributions of the Reformation. If you want to know more about the 16^th century Reformation, I heartily recommend this volume. Read it and you may be surprised how much you learn about why you do the things you do.

Second, the publication of Early Evangelicalism: A Reader, edited by Jonathan M. Yeager, comes as a great service to those interested in exploring the roots of the Evangelical movement. This work features a short introductory piece on over 60 persons of key influence, followed by a sampling of their work. This book also comes highly recommended as a helpful guide to exploring the roots of the larger movement of which we are a part.

I don’t believe it to be a stretch to say that you can’t understand yourself as a 21^st century Baptist (or Evangelical) without understanding these two key movements. Whether you know little or much about these movements, these two volumes will undoubtedly be of service to you.

Pick up and read!

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a PhD in Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

Top Five Reasons You Should Attend Andrew Fuller and His Controversies

By Dustin Bruce

With the Fuller Conference coming up later this month, I thought I would present you with five reasons to consider attending this year’s conference. Thanks to Dustin Benge for contributing a number of these.

1. Engage first-class scholarship in the field of Baptist studies. The Andrew Fuller Center exists to further historical research and interest in the field of Baptist history, theology, and related disciplines. The annual conference, which features a number of distinguished speakers, serves as one way we try and do this. This year, you can hear notable scholars such as Paul Helm, Mark Jones, Tom Nettles, Nathan Finn, and more.

2. Equip yourself to face current controversy from a historical perspective. The Fuller Conference is not just for scholars. At The Andrew Fuller Center, what we care about most is the church. With every conference, we aim to empower ministers and lay leaders to serve more effectively in the context of local Baptist churches.

This year is no different. What church does not face controversy from time to time? If you are a ministry leader, come learn how to handle questions on hyper-Calvinism, Arminianism, and eschatology from a historical perspective.

There is truly nothing new under the sun. Controversies don’t die; they just reappear under a different name. You may have never heard the term ‘Socinianism,’ but listening to Dr. Nettles on the topic will guide your approach to dealing with its modern counterpart, Unitarianism. The same could be said about Deism, Socinianism, and more.

3. Engross yourself into another century. Evangelicals all too often fall into what C.S. Lewis described as “Chronological Snobbery,” the penchant to automatically discredit ideas from the past and uncritically accept contemporary thought. At the Andrew Fuller Conference, you will have the opportunity to leave the twenty-first century and travel back to the eighteenth-century. In doing so, you may just find that much of what you assume to be true is false (and vice-versa).

4. Enjoy the close fellowship of a smaller conference. At The Andrew Fuller Center, we thank God for giant conferences that bring together thousands to extol the riches of God’s grace through preaching and song. Yet, this is not our aim. At the Fuller Conference, our intention is to create a thriving environment of brotherly affection centered on the gospel. With our smaller size and more pointed focus, we think we do just that. Come join us and enjoy the fellowship of godly men and women in a smaller, more intimate conference setting.

5. Experience the campus of Southern Seminary. The Andrew Fuller Center has the great benefit of being located on the beautiful campus of Southern Seminary. Come join us and enjoy the amenities of The Legacy Hotel and Conference Center while enjoying Southern’s 80-acre campus located in the Cherokee Park section of Louisville, KY. Close to everything Louisville has to offer, the Fuller Conference would pair great with a family trip to this historical city.

We hope you will join us at the 7^th annual Andrew Fuller Conference. If you have any questions, contact:

The Office of Event Productions

Phone: (502) 897-4072

Email: eventproductions@sbts.edu

or

The Andrew Fuller Center

Phone: (502) 897-4613

Email: andrewfullercenter@sbts.edu

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a PhD in Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

Summary of "Mapping Revivals"

By Dustin Bruce

Catching up on some periodical reading over the weekend, I noticed an article on revival by The Andrew Fuller Center's very own Dr. Michael Haykin appeared in the July issue of The Banner of Truth Magazine.

I found the article, "Mapping Revivals: Five Marks," to be quite excellent and would like to share a brief summary with the hopes of piquing your interest.[1]

Haykin begins the essay by turning to the great theologian of revival, Jonathan Edwards, to link genuine revival with the work of the Holy Spirit. Haykin rightly understands that one’s understanding of Pentecost frames one’s theology of revival. He summarizes the options for interpretation,

Was that remarkable Sunday [Pentecost] a once-and-for-all event that established the ongoing presence of the Spirit in the church and is it henceforth foolish to pray for his coming? ...Or was Pentecost a paradigm of what happens from time to time as the church wanes and desperately needs reviving and renewing?[2]

For Haykin, the book of Ephesians offers a brief answer to the complex question. He summarizes,

There [in the book of Ephesians] the apostle affirms that genuine faith in Christ is accompanied by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which Paul describes as being sealed with the Spirit, a metaphor that speaks of a reality that cannot be lost. Yet, at the same time, the apostle can urge his readers in Ephesians 5:18 to ‘be filled with the Spirit,’ which implies that a genuine believer who is indwelt by the Spirit can live in such a way that while he does not lose the Spirit’s presence, he nonetheless stands in need of spiritual renewal and empowerment.[3]

The need for spiritual renewal and empowerment is not limited to individual Christians. Haykin goes on,

Now what is true on an individual level is also true on a corporate level: due to a multitude of reasons, God’s holy people can live at a level that really is sub-standard from a biblical perspective and that can only be rectified by what Christian authors have called a fresh outpouring of the Spirit.[4]

After establishing the biblical paradigm for understanding revival, Haykin then turns to three examples of revivals in church history. Citing the far-reaching French Reformation at the hands of John Calvin, the one-day revival experienced by the Puritan John Livingstone, and the extraordinary ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Haykin argues for an understanding of revival large enough to encompass various outpourings of genuine revival.

While revival has manifested itself in sundry ways, Haykin does isolate five marks of genuine revival. He summarizes,

1.    Revival is a work of God in which God takes the initiative and presences himself in power and glory.

2.    In times of revival, according to Jonathan Edwards, the Spirit used the Word of God to make a powerful impact upon people.

3.    Revival is a powerful intensification of the Holy Spirit’s normal activity of convicting, converting, regenerating, sanctifying, and empowering.

4.    Revival involves also a powerful intensification of the Holy Spirit’s normal activity of testifying to the Saviour–in other words, revival is a Christ-centred event.

5.    Revival leads to the diminution of sinful practices in the community.[5]

The remainder of the essay involves Haykin elaborating on each of the five marks of revival.[6]

This short piece provides one of the clearest paradigms for understanding and evaluating revival that I have encountered. In a day and time when churches think so-called ‘revivals’ occur because they get scheduled on the church calendar, Haykin provides a needed corrective by offering a simple, but biblical, paradigm for understanding great outpourings of the Spirit of God.

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[1]Michael A.G. Haykin, “Mapping Revivals: Five Marks­—1,” The Banner of Truth Magazine 598 (July 2012), 20–28. This article is part one of a two-part series.

[2]Haykin, “Mapping Revivals,” 21.

[3]Haykin, “Mapping Revivals,” 21.

[4]Haykin, “Mapping Spiritual Revivals,” 21.

[5]Haykin, “Mapping Spiritual Revivals,” 26. This list is drawn from Stuart Piggin, Firestorm of the Lord: The History of Prospects for Revival in the Church and the World (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000), 11.

[6]Though he only elaborates on the first mark in the July issue, the remainder is forthcoming.

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a PhD in Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

On The Spiritual Value of Historic Christian Texts

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

Until recently, I doubted the merit of meditating on historic Christian writings. I can easily absorb these texts out of intellectual interest, but when it comes to growing spiritually, I reach for the Bible or contemporary devotional writings. However, my attitude has changed after being challenged to spend a month meditating daily on a collection of historic Christian texts. Here are three of my thoughts on why this exercise is enormously valuable to Christians today.

First, the Holy Spirit’s work in the lives of believers is atemporal. He produces spiritual fruits and gifting in every Christian no matter what era he or she inhabits. Thus, to take for granted that Christians today can offer superior resources for spiritual growth and that texts from the past are outdated and irrelevant is to undermine the Spirit’s work throughout history. This posture is also proud and self-righteous because it rests the criteria and source for vital spirituality in one’s culture rather than in the Spirit’s work.

Second, studying historic Christian texts can emend abuses in spirituality today. If a believer limited his or her devotional resources to a particular period, he or she will inevitably adopt the damaging principles and practices of that era. The reason why men like John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and Andrew Fuller offered such excellent and discerning spiritual insight is because they drew heavily from past writings to correct the errors of their day. Meditating on historic devotional texts also helps believers today to avoid imitating the mistakes of previous generations.

Third, meditating on historic Christian texts is beneficial as a companion to studying Scripture because the believer can observe how others have reflected on the Word of God and put it into practice. God designed the church to learn from each other—Paul exhorted the members to actively be “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Col. 3.16). Each individual believer, even though he or she may study and meditate on Scripture tirelessly day and night, needs the example and instruction of others. This cycle of mutual learning and growing should extend beyond one’s local and temporal church body to the church in other ages. Christians from the past have valuable lessons on how to interpret and apply Scripture in worship and action for believers today.

God has provided ample resources for the church to grow in holiness and love. Of course no text compares to the Scriptures to “train yourself for godliness” and correct false thinking and practices (1 Tim. 4.7). But God also uses the example of godly men and women of the past to encourage Christians today, and we would greatly benefit to imitate them as they imitated Christ.

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Ryan Patrick Hoselton is pursuing a ThM at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Jaclyn, and they are expecting their first child in August.

Don’t Judge a Theologian by His Unpublished Musings

By Nathan A. Finn

A good reminder from pastor and Jonathan Edwards scholar Josh Moody:

This brings up a more general point about Edwards’s many notebooks and “Miscellanies” from which Edwards scholars love to quote. They are fascinating, there are many of them, and they are rich with insights into how Edwards’s mind worked. But they can also be dangerous. We must never forget that they were not intended to be published. That they have been is a good thing because they give us insight into the working mind of an undisputed theological genius. But they are not necessarily fully-formed opinions. It’s like looking at Van Gogh’s oil paint palate and drawing conclusions about what kind of painting style he believed in. It might give us insight into his method, and we might draw some connections between that and what he painted, but it wouldn’t tell us finally what he wanted to paint. Only Edwards’s published works, by his own intention, during his own lifetime, reveal with certainty what he wanted to say. Perhaps Edwards has hidden opinions in his notebooks not consistent with his preaching and writing, but the majority of Edwards scholarship has long shown that not to be the case. Each time  I engage with fellow Edwards scholars on the “Miscellanies,” I make a fresh resolution to comb through all my personal extended notes and jottings on theological matters. If I am to be held to the stake for every semiformulated idea I have ever penned in private journals, I had better get rid of some of them before I pass through the veil.

See Moody’s helpful (and punchy) chapter “Edwards and Justification Today” in Jonathan Edwards and Justification (Crossway, 2012), ed. Josh Moody, pp. 30–31.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

On Assessing Historical Revivals

By Nathan A. Finn

One of the courses I teach at Southeastern Seminary is a PhD seminar on The History and Theology of Spiritual Awakening. The seminar is cross-listed in the fields of historical theology and evangelism, so the participants include a mix of students studying church history, systematic theology, and evangelism. I have also co-taught a masters-level elective on this same topic with my colleague Alvin Reid, who is an evangelism professor and co-author of a textbook on revival history.

Last summer, I had a conversation with the historian David Bebbington about the difficulties of being a Christian historian who studies revival. We agreed it can be tricky for a variety of reasons. First, there is nothing approaching a universal definition of such terms as revival and awakening among either everyday Christians or scholars. Is revival a surprising work of God or a pre-planned event? Is revival a return to what ought to be normal Christianity or a season of heightened spiritual experience? Is revival primarily about spiritual renewal among believers, gospel advance among unbelievers, or both?  (Bebbington argues for at least five different ways to define revival.)

Second, many folks read their theological biases into various revivals, assessing them as true or false revival based upon their degree of conformity to the presupposed theological criteria. This leads some cessationists to completely dismiss Charismatic revivals, some Calvinists to treat much of the Second Great Awakening with suspicion, and some theological liberals to treat most any revival as little more than social forces influencing the church. Hank Hanegraaff, Iain Murray, and William McGloughlin are representatives of these respective tendencies.

Third, there is the balancing act of being both a historian who wants to treat historical revivals with some degree of critical distance and an evangelical Christian who longs for revival in my own life and church. Finding a balance between cold detachment and filiopietistic preachiness is easier said than done. Harry Stout probably titled to far in the former direction in his controversial biography of George Whitefield, while the works of popular revival historians such as J. Edwin Orr are more about edifying the saints than they are interpreting historical revivals.

Nigel Scotland of Trinity College at Bristol University (UK) is a church historian who has written extensively on the history of evangelicalism in the British Isles. He is also a believing Christian who both writes about and longs for spiritual awakening. In an article in the most recent issue of the journal Evangelical Quarterly, Scotland offers his own definition of revival and suggests nine characteristics that can be used to assess the authenticity of historical revivals. He defines revival as “a sovereign work of God the Father, consisting of a powerful intensification of God’s saving work in and through his people.” His nine characteristics are as follows:

1. A sovereign work of God
2. A work which repeats New Testament Christianity
3. A work which renews the church
4. An enduring work of God
5. A work which magnifies Jesus Christ
6. A work of God brought about by biblically appointed means
7. A work which releases the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit
8. A work which often included the conversion of large numbers of people
9. A work which transforms the community in which it is located

My point in passing on Scotland’s list is not to suggest that he has solved the dilemma. Frankly, I have questions about some of his characteristics. (What does it mean to “repeat” NT Christianity?) I simply want to point out how one evangelical historian is thinking through this particular dilemma. The next time I teach my doctoral seminar, I suspect we’ll spend some time talking through Scotland’s article as we try to balance being revival-minded Christians and careful historians and theologians of revival.

If you want to read the article for yourself, see Nigel Scotland, “Towards a Biblical Understanding and Assessment of Revival,” Evangelical Quarterly 85.2 (Spring 2013): 121–34.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Recommended Books on Baptist Historical Theology

By Nathan A. Finn

James Leo Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four Century Study (Mercer University Press, 2009). This volume, written by the dean of Southern Baptist theologians, is the most exhaustive survey of Baptist theology. As a general rule, Garrett sticks with description rather than prescription, providing a useful summary of major figures, movements, themes, and controversies. One particularly helpful contribution is Garrett’s discussion of Baptist biblical theologians alongside historical theologians.

William H. Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist Thought (Mercer University Press, 2004). Brackney is arguably the most influential Baptist historian in North America. His volume is more interpretive than Garrett’s and is more overtly colored by a more moderate perspective. Brackney is particularly interested in mapping out the evolution of Baptist identity, using the image of genetics as an interpretive grid. Brackney was for many years an American Baptist, so his discussion of theological trends among Baptists in the North is especially helpful.

Timothy George and David S.Dockery, eds., Baptist Theologians (Broadman, 1990). This volume is a collection of essays introducing some of the key theologians in the Baptist tradition. The subjects and contributors represent a wide variety of theological perspectives. A shorter (and more uniformly conservative) version of this book, which includes some new essays, was published as Theologians of the Baptist Tradition (B&H Academic, 2001).

Fisher Humphreys, The Way We Were: How Southern Baptist Theology Has Changed and What It Means To Us All, 2^nd ed. (Smyth & Helwys, 2002). Paul Basden, ed., Has Our Theology Changed? Southern Baptist Thought Since 1845 (B&H, 1994). These two volumes survey the history of Southern Baptist theology from a mostly moderate perspective. Humphrey’s volume does a fairly good job of identifying different theological “camps” among Southern Baptists, while Basden’s collection of essays focuses upon specific doctrinal topics.

L. Russ Bush and Tom J. Nettles, Baptists and the Bible, 2^nd ed. (B&H Academic, 2000). This influential volume looks at the history of Baptist perspectives on the inspiration, authority, and truthfulness of the Bible. The authors demonstrate that Baptists have normally held to a high view of Scripture and defended its inerrancy and infallibility.

Thomas J. Nettles, By His Grace and For His Glory: A Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life, 20^th Anniversary ed. (Founders Press, 2006). Nettles’s volume focuses upon the history of Calvinism in the Baptist tradition. His overall thesis is sound, though historians might quibble with him over specific details and individuals. This revised edition includes controversies in the SBC over Calvinism through 2005.

Anthony R. Cross, Baptism and the Baptists: Theology and Practice in Twentieth-Century Britain (Paternoster, 2000). Stanley K. Fowler, More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism (Wipf and Stock, 2007). These two volumes discuss the history of the debate among British Baptists over the nature of baptism, specifically whether or not there is a sacramental element to baptism. Though relatively few North American Baptists have been participants in this debate, this issue has dominated British Baptist discussions much like biblical inerrancy and gender roles have dominated Southern Baptist discussions.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Francis Wayland and Richard Fuller: Debating Slavery with Christian Civility

By Nathan A. Finn

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be reading a paper at the annual meeting of the Baptist History and Heritage Society titled “Debating Domestic Slavery: The Wayland-Fuller Correspondence in Context.” My paper will focus on the story behind the book Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution (1845). I’ve long been interested in this important book; my colleague Keith Harper and I co-edited a new edition of Domestic Slavery for Mercer University Press in 2008. It was my first book.

Domestic Slavery is a collection of letters between southerner Richard Fuller and northerner Francis Wayland. Both of these men were devout Christians, Baptist leaders, and moderates within their respective camps in the slavery debate. According to Mark Noll, “This exchange was one of the United States’ last serious one-on-one debates where advocates for and against slavery engaged each other directly, with reasonable restraint, and with evident intent to hear out the opponent to the extent possible.”[1]

In the book, Fuller argues that slavery was not inherently sinful, but concedes that there were many sinful practices associated with chattel slavery in the South. For his part, Wayland argues that slavery was inherently sinful, but concedes that in many instances owning slaves was a moral blind spot among otherwise godly men in the South. Wayland also criticizes the abolition movement for being too radical in its call for immediate emancipation.

Fuller and Wayland make their respective cases in different ways. Fuller, who was an eloquent and widely respected preacher, wrote letters that are saturated with Scripture references defending slavery. That said, most modern readers would agree that many of these citations are taken out of context or otherwise misinterpreted. Fuller’s exegesis is a textbook example of the so-called southern theological defense of slavery.

Wayland's letters are rhetorically brilliant, but largely absent of Scripture besides references to the golden rule and Paul’s epistle to Philemon. His arguments are based more on common sense and natural law arguments. He had made these sorts of arguments in his earlier books The Elements of Moral Science (1835) and The Limitations of Human Responsibility (1838). The former was the most popular ethics textbook in America in the nineteenth century, though it was banned at most southern schools because of Wayland’s anti-slavery views.

Their respective arguments notwithstanding, Domestic Slavery is a model of Christian civility. Wayland and Fuller continually refer to each other as “my dear friend,” and in this case, they really meant it. Neither engages in ad hominem attacks of the other. Both men are quick to affirm anything they see as right and truthful in the other’s argument. Though Wayland really does believe Fuller is misreading Scripture, and though Fuller really is convinced Wayland is ignoring Scripture, the two men are always cordial and dignified; they never paint the other as sub-Christian or impugn each other’s motives. These two esteemed antebellum Baptists remind us that it is possible to debate even the most controversial issues in a Christ-like manner.

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[1] Mark Noll, The Civil War as Theological Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 36–37.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Zwingli Against the Zwinglians?

By Ian Hugh Clary

Zwinglianism is the view that the elements of the Lord’s Supper are only a memorial and that Christ is in no sense present—what some have called the “real absence” view, or the memorialist view. The Eucharist was a hotly debated topic during the Reformation that resulted in deep lines drawn between the Reformed, particularly the Swiss, and the Lutherans. Luther could barely bring himself to say that Zwingli was a brother in the Lord because the Zurich theologian refused to believe in consubstantiation. It is often noted that Calvin sought to steer a middle course between the Lutheran and Zwinglian forms by offering a “spiritual presence” view, where the Spirit draws the believer by faith into true communion with Christ in the elements. The so-called memorial view had a continuing influence in subsequent Reformed theology, and even more so in broader evangelicalism. But was Zwingli a Zwinglian?

W. P. Stephens, in his Zwingli: An Introduction to His Thought (Oxford, 2001) puts Zwingli in perspective. The heat of Zwingli’s debate with Luther centred on the words of Christ who said of the bread, “This is my body.” For Zwingli, the word “is” should be understood as “signifies.” For Luther this was anathema. At the Marburg Colloquy (1529), though some headway towards agreement was made, the two Reformers could not agree on this point. However, this did not entail that Zwingli denied any presence of Christ in the supper. After the colloquy, Zwingli expressed his belief in the “real presence” of Christ. Stephens, pointing to Zwingli’s works like An Account of the Faith (1530) and The Letter to the Princes of Germany (1530), says, “Zwingli made it clear that the bread was not mere bread, and he began to affirm terms such as presence, true, and sacramental” (105). In the appendix to his An Exposition of the Faith (1531) Zwingli said, “We believe Christ to be truly present in the Supper, indeed we do not believe that it is the Lord’s Supper unless Christ is present” (Stephens, 105). This change in emphasis came with a greater stress on the bread and the wine, both of which were “divine and sacred” (Stephens, 107).

Stephens does an excellent job tracing out Zwingli’s overall Eucharistic theology. After establishing that Zwingli was not really a “Zwinglian,” as the term has become known, he also makes the important point that Zwingli was consistent in his theology from his early to his later years. While his earlier views were nascent, his later views did not contradict them. In 1523 Zwingli spoke of the soul being fed in the supper. Admittedly he emphasised the “symbolic” understanding of the elements after 1524, yet he held this view when he spoke of feeding on Christ. Stephens summarizes Zwingli’s overall thought saying, “The more positive notes in the later Zwingli do not indicate a real shift in his position, rather a difference of emphasis” (Stephens, 109). The concern for Zwingli, as for other Reformers at this time, was the place of faith in the communicant—he guarded against any gracious effect for the unbeliever who partakes. In this, he appealed to the early Luther who emphasized the need for faith. While issues of Christology and philosophy play into their differences, Zwingli was not as far from Luther as the German Reformer thought. Though he they did not share full agreement, Zwingli was much closer to Calvin, whose view Luther was not so scathingly against.

So, in a sense, Zwingli was against the Zwinglians.

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Ian Hugh Clary is finishing doctoral studies under Adriaan Neele at Universiteit van die Vrystaat (Blomfontein), where he is writing a dissertation on the evangelical historiography of Arnold Dallimore. He has co-authored two local church histories with Michael Haykin and contributed articles to numerous scholarly journals. Ian serves as a pastor of BridgeWay Covenant Church in Toronto where he lives with his wife and two children.

Helpful Tips on Publishing Historical Monographs

By Nathan A. Finn

I need to begin this post with a caveat: I have never written a historical monograph. There are many reasons for this, chief among them my propensity toward distraction and boredom. Simply put, at this season in my life I can’t think of a single historical topic to which I want to devote 200 or more pages. I can, however, think of dozens of historical topics to which I want to devote 15–50 pages as well as numerous historic primary sources that I wish to see reprinted in critical editions. For that reason, my own scholarly publications tend to fall into three broad categories: 1) journal articles or contributed essays; 2) critical book reviews; 3) editing primary sources. Perhaps I’ll write a monograph or two at some point, but don’t hold your breath. For the time being, that’s not really my style.

Because I have never written a monograph, I’m obviously not an authority on this topic. However, I know lots of authorities on this topic. I also know that many readers of this blog are graduate students and younger church historians who probably do want to write monographs. So my desire in this post is not to position myself as an authority, but rather to point readers to a helpful resource I have found for those interested in publishing historical monographs.

Religion in American History is a consortium blog of mostly college and university historians who study American religious history. Some of the contributors are evangelicals, while others are not. Many have written on topics that at least intersect with Baptist Studies, which is a particular emphasis of the contributors to Historia Ecclesiastica. Religion in American History is a particularly helpful resource if you want to read substantive reviews of recent monographs (and sometimes important journal articles) in the field of American religious history.

Randall Stephens, who serves as one of the three “blogmeisters” for Religion in American History, has written a helpful post titled “Turning it into a Book.” In that post, Stephens collates suggestions from various publishers, along with his own insights on the topic. While Stephens focuses primarily on publishing for university presses, his suggestions also apply to church historians who wish to publish monographs with other types of scholarly presses such as Eerdmans, Baker Academic, IVP Academic, Pickwick, or T&T Clark (to name a few options). I think they also generally apply to historians who wish to publish textbooks or semi-scholarly books with evangelical presses such as Crossway, B&H, Moody, Zondervan, and Kregel. (For the record, the latter presses have scholarly divisions and regularly publish monographs in other disciplines such as theology, biblical studies, ethics, and apologetics. My not including them in the first list is not a “knock” on these fine publishing houses, but simply a recognition of the reality that they rarely publish scholarly monographs in my field.)

If I ever do get around to publishing a monograph (my lonely and heretofore unpublished dissertation is screaming at me from the shelf as I type), then I’ll consult Stephens’s helpful post on the front-end of that project. Perhaps many of this blog’s readers will “beat me to the punch” and publish one or more historical monographs. If so, I hope you folks also find Stephens’s post useful.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Canadian Baptist History

By Ian Hugh Clary

Canadian Baptists have a history too, eh? Though some of you may have heard of T. T. Shields, you are probably not as familiar with names like Alexander Stewart, R. A. Fyfe, Henry Alline, or C. J. Holman (and his powerful wife Caroline!). These are just a selection from a group of men and women who helped establish the Baptist denomination in Canada. Our history is colourful, theologically rich, and is deeply significant not only to Canadian Baptist identity, but to Canadian history as a whole—for instance, did you know that the man who discovered that the Germans were using chlorine gas in the Great War was Col. George Nasmith who attended Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto?

Last month the Canadian Baptist Historical Society met at Heritage College in Cambridge, ON. We were delighted to see our numbers doubled and two members join the executive—including yours truly. Papers were given by our president, Michael Haykin, and one of his students, Michael Plato, who is also a professor at Seneca College in Toronto. Dr. Haykin presented on Andrew Fuller and trinitarianism, while Plato gave a stimulating paper on E. Y. Mullins. You might find it odd that neither address dealt with a Canadian; we’re okay with that, we have confidence in our identity!

The Society is based out of McMaster Divinity College and is connected to the work at the Canadian Baptist Archive. We were thankful to hear a report that the Archive is making progress in terms of preserving old and deteriorating manuscripts, and that they have made changes so that scholars have an easier and more comfortable time doing their work. I, for one, have benefited greatly from the Archive this past year. The Society is also hoping to have a social media presence, so keep your eyes peeled for us on Facebook and Twitter in the coming weeks. Our most important work, however, is the publication of various works related to Baptist history. McMaster’s series in Baptist history published with Wipf & Stock is a vehicle towards that end. Our first book dealt with Baptists in Canadian public life, and our upcoming book is on Baptists and War; many of the papers from a recent Fuller Center conference will be included.

As a Canadian and a Baptist, I am thankful that there are a growing number of men and women committed to keeping the memory of our forebears alive. If you are a Chronicling Canuck with a Baptist flavour, or you if are merely interested in coming to the next event or becoming a member of the Society, please go to our website to find out how.

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Ian Hugh Clary is finishing doctoral studies under Adriaan Neele at Universiteit van die Vrystaat (Blomfontein), where he is writing a dissertation on the evangelical historiography of Arnold Dallimore. He has co-authored two local church histories with Michael Haykin and contributed articles to numerous scholarly journals. Ian serves as a pastor of BridgeWay Covenant Church in Toronto where he lives with his wife and two children.

Gordon Wood on the Threat of Presentism in Historical Studies

By Nathan A. Finn

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of reading Gordon Wood’s fine book The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (Penguin, 2008). The book is a collection of Wood’s published review essays of significant historical books written by others, most of which deal with American history during the Colonial Era and the Early Republic. It is a gem of a book.

In his introduction, Wood warns against the temptation toward presentism that is so common among so many historians.

But the present should not be the criterion for what we find in the past. Our perceptions and explanations of the past should not be directly shaped by the issues and problems of our own time. The best and most serious historians have come to know that, even when their original impulse to write history came from a pressing present problem. The best and most sophisticated histories of slavery and the best and most sophisticated histories of women soon broke loose from the immediate demands of the present and have sought to portray the past in its own context with all its complexity.

The more we study the events and situations in the past, the more complicated and complex we find them to be. The impulse of the best historians is always to penetrate ever more deeply into the circumstances of the past and to explain the complicated context of past events. The past in the hands of expert historians becomes a different world, a complicated world that requires considerable historical imagination to recover with any degree of accuracy. The complexity that we find in that different world comes with the realization that the participants were limited by forces that they did not understand or were even aware of—forces such as demographic movements, economic developments, or large-scale cultural patterns. The drama, indeed the tragedy, of history comes from our understanding the tension that existed between the conscious wills and intentions of the participants in the past and the underlying conditions that constrained their actions and shaped their future.

See Gordon S. Wood, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (Penguin, 2008), pp. 10–11.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Overlooking Scottish Christianity

By Michael A.G. Haykin

Today I picked up a copy of T.M. Devine’s Scotland’s Empire: The Origins of the Global Diaspora (Penguin, 2004): it is an excellent work. Noticed an interesting oversight near the beginning of the book, though. Devine is noting the way that Scottish emigration and “engagement with empire [the British Empire] impacted “almost every nook and cranny of Scottish life.” And then gives his reader a list of these nooks and crannies: “industrialization, intellectual activity, politics, identity, education, popular culture, consumerism, labour markets, demographic trends, Highland social development and much else” (p.xxvii).

Now what is missing from that list? Any Scot living in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century world that Devine is interested in would see it right away: why it is the lack of the word “religion.” Now why do contemporary historians assume that their subjects of study are as secular as themselves? Of course, Devine knows about the presence of religious groups in the period he is writing about: for example, he mentions Presbyterians and Baptists (though his use of the term “Baptistry” to describe the set of Baptist beliefs, on  a parallel with Presbyterianism or Congregationalism reveals a certain lack of familiarity with church history—see p.157). But this list from the beginning of the book may well be a give-away: religion is not important for us, ipso facto, it has never been important. But nothing could be further from the case.

Devine’s main thesis, of course, stands: the British Empire was built by expatriate Scots and were “at the very cutting edge of British global expansion” (p.360). Anyone familiar, for example, with Ontario Baptist life in the nineteenth century will know that nearly all of the key figures in the nineteenth century were Scots or of Scottish descent. Now, there is a thesis or book!

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Michael A.G. Haykin is the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. He also serves as Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Haykin and his wife Alison have two grown children, Victoria and Nigel.

Ellen Charry and Implications for Historiography

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

Ellen Charry’s work, By The Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (1997), is among those rare gems that challenge you to consider a serious paradigm shift in the way you do theology. Even more, I think her arguments have implications for historiography.

Charry contends for the restoration of theology that is sapiential (which she understands as knowledge that emotionally engages the knower to the known), aretegenic, and salutary. She attempts to show that the best Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation theologians thought, wrote, and spoke about God in this way. Theologians such as Basil of Caesarea, Anselm of Canterbury, and John Calvin insisted on correct doctrine—on knowing God accurately—because it was conducive to moral transformation and flourishing in the Christian life. Knowing and loving God rightly enables authentic imitation of him, and this is the key to human virtue, excellence, and happiness. Thus, pastoral concern drove their theological reflection and engagement in doctrinal controversy.

The modernism of Locke, Hume, and Kant severed faith and sapience from reason, eliminating both from the category of knowledge. Charry suggests that these epistemic shifts facilitated the waning of sapience from theology. Modern academic theology, preoccupied with pursuing knowledge of God on the terms of this modern epistemology, reduced theological reflection to factual knowledge, scientias. However, for classical theologians like Augustine, the goal of scientias was to move the knower to sapientia, wisdom.Knowing factual things about God must be paired with knowing God in wisdom and love. The verity of a doctrine rests largely in its result. For example, Basil of Caesarea argued that the Holy Spirit must be God on the basis that he makes us more like God and unites us to him—only God can do that. Basil contended for this doctrine because he believed that if his congregants denied it they would not grow in godliness. These classical theologians did not separate scientias and sapientia in the way that the modern Academy often does. For them, theology and pastoral theology were synonymous. Their doctrinal battles and treatises functioned primarily to protect and promote their congregants’ holiness.

Charry’s thesis applies to church historians as well. Treatments in historical theology that are limited to broad sweeps of ideologies could fall into the modern trap of severing scientias from sapientia. Historians must avoid imposing this modernist separation on past theological thought. Church historians are responsible for uncovering the pastoral concerns that lie behind the subject’s theological reflection. As Robert Darnton says, the point is “to show not merely what people thought but how they thought—how they construed the world, invested it with meaning, and infused it with emotion” (Darnton, 1985, 3). The historian must investigate the relationship between a theologian’s ideas and his behavior, shepherding, and spirituality. This kind of historiography will assist theologians and pastors in understanding why historic Christian doctrines mattered and still matter to the lives of believers.

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Ryan Patrick Hoselton is pursuing a ThM at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Jaclyn, and they are expecting their first child in August.

I'm a Historian, Not a Prophet

 By Nathan A. Finn

Historians are often asked to be prophets. In my classes at Southeastern Seminary, hardly a week goes by that one or more students don’t ask me to speculate about how the past might influence the future. This phenomenon is even more pronounced when I teach on church history in local churches. It is most common, both in class and in the church, when I teach on Baptist history. Many folks suppose that being relatively learned in Baptist history means that one is able to discern what will happen in the future. That might be true of Michael Haykin or Lloyd Harsch or Jason Duesing or Jim Patterson, but not this historian.

Recently, I was reading George Nash’s fine book Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism (ISI Books, 2009). Nash has spent his career studying the conservative intellectual movement in modern America (see his landmark monograph on this topic). Apparently, historians of conservative intellectual history are similar to historians of Christian thought when it comes to requests for one don the prophetic mantle. I like what Nash writes in the introduction to Reappraising the Right.

“Historians are not necessarily good prognosticators, but by deliberately taking a longer view we can try to liberate our readers from the provincialism of the present” (p. xviii).

Now we’re talking. I have no idea if the Cooperative Program will go the way of the buffalo, if the SBC will divide on account of soteriological debates, if the Convention will become less southern and southwestern in its cultural ethos over the next generation, or who will be the next president of such-and-such theological seminary or mission board or other denominational agency (to mention but a few of the questions about which I’m regularly asked to prophesy). I’m a historian, not a prophet.

However, I do know that history reminds us to take the long view on each of these issues. The Cooperative Program has only been around for about half of Southern Baptist history and took a generation to catch on after its inception. Though critically important and worthy of our generous support, the CP is not intrinsic to our identity. The relative center of Southern Baptist soteriology has shifted over time because of a variety of factors, some of them non-theological in nature. Besides, its rather difficult to tell to what degree grassroots Southern Baptists have been in step with the relatively small handful of SBC leaders writing on soteriology at any given point in SBC history. The contemporary SBC is far less southern and southwestern (and Caucasian) than it was two generations ago, even if this isn’t entirely clear at the SBC Annual Meeting. But then the Convention is also more age diverse than is evident at the SBC Annual Meeting. As for denominational ministry presidents and other leaders, you simply never know when someone might retire (or not) and who will arise as a good candidate in such kairos moments. Nobody would have guessed in 1975 that Paige Patterson would become the president of not one but two SBC seminaries, to give but one example.

Historians aren’t prophets, and they shouldn’t pretend to be. But historians have something to offer our students and ministry colleagues as we ponder the great questions of our day. That something isn’t some infallible or even possible future, but rather historical perspective. And maybe, just maybe, if we inject a bit more historical perspective into our discussions of said great questions, such conversations might prove to be more profitable (though not prophet-able) than they so often are.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a senior fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Fuller’s Three Classes of Religious Dissenters

By Dustin Bruce

Often when considering the English Reformation, we distinguish only between those who remained within the newly formed Church of England and those who dissented from it. In “A Brief Statement of the Principles of Dissent,” Andrew Fuller reminds us that “as all dissent is expressive rather of what is disapproved than of what is embraced, it is natural to suppose that the objects of disapprobation will be different in different persons.”^[1]

Fuller goes on to distinguish three classes of dissenters:

1. Those who disagree with the theology of the Church of England.
2. Those who approve of the theology, but desire further Reformation within the English Church.
3. Those who approve of the theology, but reject the establishment of a nation church in principle.

Concerning the first class of dissenters, Fuller speaks of those who abandoned the Church of England due to some unorthodox beliefs or practice. For Fuller, disagreement with the doctrine of these dissenters provides no justification for persecuting them. None who hold respect for private judgment and the authority of Christ “can forbear to regret that the Reformation should at so early a period have been stained with blood.”

The majority of Puritans and Nonconformists form the second class of dissenters. These men did not take issue with the establishment of a national church, but desired a national church with a Presbyterian form of government, which they found “more agreeable with the Scriptures.”

For the third class of dissenters, the primary objection to the Church of England was not one of theology, but of the very existence of a national church. Fuller states,

“The temporal power of bishops, the imposition of ministers, to the exclusion of the free election of the people, the mixture of godly and manifestly ungodly characters at the Lord’s table, the corruption of worship, the total want of discipline, and all other deviations from primitive Christianity, appeared to them to be no more than might be expected, if circumstances admitted it, to grow out of a national establishment. They, therefore, peaceably withdrew from its communion, with the view of forming churches on the plan of the New Testament.^”

To this third class of dissenters belongs the Independents and the Baptists. Both holding to a form of congregational church government, the Baptists further dissented from the Independents by rejecting the practice of infant baptism.

Interestingly, Fuller makes two points of application for the third class of dissenters.

1. “If the government should even offer to make theirs the established religion, however they might be obliged to them for their kindness, they could not accept it without relinquishing their first principles relative to church government.^”
2. “Neither can they, without relinquishing the first principles of the system by which they are distinguished from other Christians, persecute any man for his religion, whatever that religion be. They may think and speak of men according to their true character; they may refuse all religious connexion with them; they may expose their principles to just abhorrence; but their hand must not be upon them.^”

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^[1] Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller, Volume 3: Expositions—Miscellaneous, ed. Joseph Belcher (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 459.

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a ThM in Church History at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

The Intellectual Origins of the 1644 London Baptist Confession

By Dustin Bruce

During a recent reading of David Bebbington’s Baptists Through the Centuries, his mention of a scholarly dispute regarding the intellectual origins of the 1644 London Baptist Confession peaked my interest.[1]

The difficulty in view focuses on Article XL (on baptism), which states:

The way and manner of the (Mat. 3:16; John 3:23; Acts 8:38) dispensing of this ordinance the Scripture holds out to be dipping or plunging the whole body under water: it being a sign, must answer the thing signified, which are these: first, the (Rev. 1:5; 7:14; Heb. 10:22) washing the whole soul in the blood of Christ; secondly, that interest the saints have in (Rom. 6:3-5) death, burial, and resurrection (of Christ); thirdly, together with a (1 Cor. 15:28, 29) confirmation of out faith, that as certainly as the body is buried under water, and rises again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints by raised by the power of Christ, in the day of the resurrection, to reign with Christ.[2]

According to Glen Stassen, the Particular Baptist framers of the 1644 Confession are indebted to Anabaptist theologian Menno Simons, especially his Foundation of Christian Doctrine, for the motif of “death, burial, and resurrection” in relation to baptism.[3] Stassen’s claim is significant. If the authors of the early Baptist Confession were drawing heavily from Simons’s work, then an intellectual kinship could be established between the Mennonite Anabaptists and the fountainhead of the Particular Baptist stream. Stanley Nelson, however, counters Stassen’s assertion by proposing a different influence, that of William Ames.[4] Ames’s The Marrow of Theology was a popular work during the first half of the seventeenth-century and the Particular Baptist framers of the Confession were almost assuredly familiar with it.

Upon examining the sources, it is quite evident that Simons uses the motif of “death, burial, and resurrection” in his section on baptism. In his section entitled “Concerning Baptism,” Simons writes:

Behold, this is the word and will of the Lord, that all who hear and believe the word of God, shall be baptized (as above stated), thereby to profess their faith, and declare that they will henceforth not live according to their own will, but according to the will of God. That for the testimony of Jesus they are prepared to forsake their homes, chattels, lands and lives, and to suffer hunger, affliction, oppression, persecution, the cross and death; yea, they desire to bury the flesh with its lusts, and arise with Christ to newness of life, even as Paul says, "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life;" Col. 2:11, 12; Rom. 6:3, 4.[5]

However, it is also apparent that such a motif was available in Ames’s Marrow of Theology as well. In his section on “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper,” Ames writes:

Although it seals the whole covenant of grace to all believers, when it is specially made our own, it represents and confirms our very ingrafting into Christ. Rom. 6:3, 5, We have been baptized into Jesus Christ…being planted together with him; 1 Cor. 12:13, We have been baptized into one body.[6]

While Simons clearly makes use of the “death, burial, and resurrection” motif in his section on baptism, this of itself does not suggest an intellectual influence upon the Particular Baptist framers of the 1644 document. The connection between Romans 6:3-5 and baptism was clearly made by Ames in his The Marrow of Theology, which even Stassen recognizes as influential upon the 1644 Confession.

Upon examination of the texts, there is no reason to conclude the authors of the 1644 London Baptist Confession were necessarily drawing from the Anabaptist Simons. The association of the “death, burial, and resurrection” of Christ with baptism was available in Ames’s work. Then again, it could be that the originators of the first Particular Baptist confession were not relying on either work, but thoughtfully reading their Greek New Testament.

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[1] David W. Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries: A History of a Global People, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010, pp. 30-31.

[2] The First London Confession of Faith, 1644 Edition, available at http://baptiststudiesonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1st-london-1644-ed.pdf.

[3] Glen H. Stassen, “Anabaptist Influence in the Origin of Particular Baptists,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 36 (1962): 322-48.

[4] Stanley A. Nelson, “Reflecting on Baptist Origins: The London Confession of Faith of 1644,” Baptist History and Heritage 29 (1994): 34-35.

[5] Menno Simons, A Foundation Plain Instruction of the Saving Doctrine of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 1554, available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/simon/works1.iv.vii.html.

[6] William Ames, A Marrow of Theology, trans. John Dykstra Esuden,Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997, p. 210.

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a ThM in Church History at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

The poor estate of English roads in the 18th & early 19th centuries

By Michael A.G. Haykin

In an early nineteenth-century French gazetteer, there is an interesting comment on the state of the roads in London: “Les rues de Londres sont mal pavées; les grandes routes ne le sont point du tout” (Méthode abrégée et facile pour apprendre la Géographie [Lyon: Blache et Boyet, 1806], 222). Putting aside the possibility of French bias when it comes to all things English, this is a fascinating comment that, if it is borne out by other sources, would illumine the challenges of getting around eighteenth-century London.

Of course, the poor repair of roads in general in eighteenth-century England is a factor that explains the isolation of Nonconformist causes in the land. And here is a good example of how geographical knowledge can be invaluable to historians.

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Michael A.G. Haykin is the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. He also serves as Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Haykin and his wife Alison have two grown children, Victoria and Nigel.

Diarmaid MacCulloch: All history writing is autobiography

By Ian Hugh Clary

Recently I had the opportunity to hear Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch give a lecture on the history of Christianity and sexuality. MacCulloch is a church historian from Oxford who specializes in the English Reformation. As an evangelical, I find that his interpretation of history squares with my own, so I was perplexed by his talk.

For those who may not know, Prof. MacCulloch is an out-of-the-closet homosexual—just check the acknowledgements section of his masterful biography of Cranmer. He is also an advocate in the Church of England—where he was once an office-bearer—for gay rights. He recently left the church and now considers himself a “friend” of Christianity. As you can imagine, his lecture provoked questions. I believed that I would hear a very careful handling of sources, though admittedly there may be revisionist elements. I was wrong in my assessment.

Before I explain why, I should say that MacCulloch is an exciting lecturer—the hour or so he took in his first talk went by quickly. He addressed the role of sexuality from the Old Testament to the late Middle Ages; it was fast-paced and he covered a lot of ground, but it was never confusing or boring. I could only imagine what it must have been like to take one of his classes.

As the lecture progressed, however, I became troubled. From beginning to end, MacCulloch gave a large polemic against traditional interpretations of scripture and history. I also became more and more incredulous. This was not due to hearing an historian defend gay rights, that doesn’t shock me—it’s commonplace in academia. My upset was due to my hearing one of the world’s leading ecclesiastical historians be so shaped by his personal bias that it allowed him to crudely handle texts and history. As for scripture, MacCulloch used Boswell’s hermeneutic, alluded to gay relationships between figures like David and Jonathan, and drove a wedge between the sexual ethics of Jesus and Paul (saying the latter was the more liberal); all of this has long since been repudiated by scholars like Robert Gagnon. MacCulloch was dishonest to his audience by making his case seem so open and shut, when such is far from the case.

MacCulloch based his historical arguments on Hellenization that he argued infected the early church so that it denigrated the physical world and thus sexuality. He also hammered against the celibacy that has so dominated the western church. While I have sympathies with his views of monastic celibacy, he did not give a rounded view of the early church on the goodness of sex and marriage—the work of David Hunter offers a needed corrective. Though I was not able to attend his second lecture the next day, a friend told me that MacCulloch also did not deal with the Puritans and their views of sex, marriage, and the body—the Puritans, as Leland Ryken and others have shown, had a healthy view of sex, and were not Platonists in their view of the material world.

In the Q & A I shocked myself by raising my hand. Seemingly without control I stood and asked, “If you will allow me to ask a personal question, that is not at all meant to be cheeky, I wondered how you view your reading of history in light of your own personal story and struggles in the church. Could traditional historians not accuse you of allowing your own bias to inappropriately control your historiography, as you have accused Augustine?” He was gracious in his response, and even acknowledged the importance of the question. He replied that “all history writing is autobiography.” I found this so perplexing to hear from a scholar who has been such a model historian to me. For one who could appropriate the findings of Catholic revisionists like Eamon Duffy, yet do so while being true to the English Reformation and vindicating earlier historians like A. G. Dickens, I was disappointed to hear him justify a reading of history that would not square with his earlier historiographic methods.

Professor MacCulloch serves as a reminder to all of us: as historians, now matter how great or prestigious, we must be aware of our personal biases and strive towards objectivity. While pure objectivity is impossible, I do believe that historians can put forth a body of work that can withstand scrutiny from specialists. And while my autobiography may lurk, I cannot allow it to so colour my work that it misleads readers.

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Ian Hugh Clary is finishing doctoral studies under Adriaan Neele at Universiteit van die Vrystaat (Blomfontein), where he is writing a dissertation on the evangelical historiography of Arnold Dallimore. He has co-authored two local church histories with Michael Haykin and contributed articles to numerous scholarly journals. Ian serves as a pastor of BridgeWay Covenant Church in Toronto where he lives with his wife and two children.