Dr. Michael Haykin was recently interviewed on the Reformed Forum's Christ the Center podcast. The focus of the interview was Dr. Haykin's book, The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers. You can access the episode in which Dr. Haykin was interviewed here.
Trees in winter
What do trees do in winter?
Seemingly frozen, they are waiting.
With trunks and branches
Stretched heavenward, they wait,
For the coming of the sun.
And what of us more sentient beings?
© Michael A.G. Haykin, 2010.
Dr. Haykin on Family Life Today on 02/10 and 02/11
Dr. Michael Haykin has been interviewed for the nationwide radio program Family Life Today to discuss love and romance among Christians throughout history. The two-part interview is scheduled to air on Wednesday (02/10/10) and Thursday (02/11/10). To find a time and station in your area click here.
The topic of this conversation flows from Dr. Haykin's recent book The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers
If you don't have the opportunity to listen when the programs air, you will be able to access the programs online here on or after their airdates.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
Book Review of Puritan Papers, Volume 4
A book review of 
Puritan Papers. Volume 4: 1965–1967, ed. J.I. Packer, by Michael A.G. Haykin has been posted on the Book Review page of this site.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
On image and substance
Given the prevalence of television in the past, and movies and the internet in the present, in forming our culture, it should be obvious to any culture-watcher that we live in an age when image is everything. "Smoke and shadows" are the new reality. This seems a far cry from what the sixties wanted: authenticity. Christianity, with its word-based theology and piety, though, affirms that substance is what life is really about: what we do in time "echoes in eternity."
This is a major challenge for western Christians: how to live lives of reality and substance, not simply image. And it is even a greater danger for a Christian who finds himself or herself in the public limelight: the cultural pressure to maintain an image must be great indeed. May we pray for them that their lives might also be ones of weight and truth.
The state of blogging
Trevin Wax has posted an insightful piece on the state of the blogosphere: http://ow.ly/Qosb .
O come, O come, Emmanuel
For Christmas hymn-lovers, check out this exposition of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" by J.V. Fesko: O Come, Emmanuel.
An 18th Century Great Commission Resurgence
Dr. Michael Haykin is currently writing a series of articles for the state paper of Oklahoma Baptists on the 18th Century Great Commission Resurgence which launched the modern Baptist missionary movement. The Baptist Messenger is edited by the very capable Douglas E. Baker. The first two in the series are now online and others will be posted in the weeks ahead. The first article looks at the conditions among 18th-century Baptists which made a Great Commission Resurgence necessary. The second article focuses on the the Prayer Call of 1784 which preceded the move of God which we know as the dawn of the modern missionary movement. It is hoped that these articles and the ones which follow might provide a historical perspective on a contemporary phenomenon, the Great Commission Resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
Dr. Haykin interviewed on the Trinity
Dr. Michael Haykin was recently interviewed by John Starke of CBMW on the teaching of the relationship of persons in the Godhead in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
The esse of Reformed: a current question
I was just made aware of a recent exchange between Drs Scott Clark and James White vis-à-vis the esse of being Reformed. I have only read Dr. Clark’s response to Dr. White, in which Dr. Clark emphasizes that being Reformed cannot be limited to the five points of Calvinism. I would wholeheartedly affirm this. He then goes on to state that:
“…there wasn’t a single Baptist at the Synod of Dort. Why not? Because no Baptist was eligible to join a Reformed church. Why not? Because the denial of infant baptism wasn’t tolerated in the Reformed churches. …Once more, to state the obvious: there wasn’t a single Baptist involved in the Westminster Assembly. The Baptists had promulgated their own confession in 1644. There were heated pamphlet wars between theBaptists and the Reformed in that period. Baptists were not recognized as Reformed. Why not? Because paedobaptism was regarded as essential to the Reformed faith.” (“Post-Thanksgiving Cartoons: Reply to James White"; http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/post-thanksgiving-cartoons-reply-to-james-white/#more-6079).
It needs noting that Baptists who embraced Calvinistic soteriology did not exist at the time of the Synod of Dort, hence they could not have been there. But the rest of Dr. Clark’s remarks are, of course, all true. There were two Baptists, namely William Kiffin and Samuel Richardson, at the doors of the Jerusalem Chamber in 1646 handing out copies of the The First London Confession (1644; 2nd ed., 1646) to delegates as they went in. But they were not inside and thus not involved in the Westminster Assembly. And there were indeed “heated pamphlet wars” between Baptists and Paedobaptists during the 1640s and 1650s. But these were all seen by the Baptists as battles within a shared faith, as will become clear in what follows.
And Dr, Clark also points out, à la an article that appeared in Modern Reformation that “the earliest Baptists did not think it necessary to call themselves “Reformed.” They called themselves “General” or “Particular” Baptists”.” This is also true. Particular Baptist or Calvinistic Baptist was the terminology used during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. “Reformed Baptist” is late twentieth-century nomenclature.
But, this is not the whole story as far as those seventeenth-century Baptists were concerned. After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, they were a community under the cross, and for twenty-eight years they suffered grievous persecution, with a number of their pastors and elders dying in prisons, like the blessed Abraham Cheare. Of course, the Particular Baptists were not the only ones to suffer during this time of great persecution. All who dissented from the distinguishing rites and practices of the state church of Anglicanism suffered to one degree or another.
This furnace of common affliction only served to reinforce in the minds of many Particular Baptists just how much they shared with fellow Calvinists who were either Presbyterians or Congregationalists, the latter being then known as Independents. Moreover, there was at hand a document that could concretely demonstrate the essential doctrinal unity between these three groups, namely, The Westminster Confession of Faith. This Confession, the authoritative statement of faith of both the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and their English brethren, had been completed by the Westminster Assembly in November, 1646. The Independents had subsequently used it as the basis of their statement of faith, known as The Savoy Declaration, which was drawn up in 1658 by, among others, John Owen (1616-1683) and Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680). The desire to present a united Calvinist front in the face of persecution consequently led the Particular Baptists to employ the Westminster Confession, as modified by the Savoy Declaration, as the basis of a new confession, The Second London Confession of Faith (1677/1689). In the words of the preface to the Second London Confession:
"One thing that greatly prevailed with us to undertake this work, was (not only to give a full account of our selves to those Christians that differ from us about the subject of Baptism, but also) the profit that might from thence arise unto those that have any account of our labors, in their instruction, and establishment in the great truths of the Gospel; in the clear understanding and steady belief of which, our comfortable walking with God, and fruitfulness before him, in all our ways is most neerly concerned; and therefore we did conclude it necessary to express our selves the more fully, and distinctly, and also to fix on such a method as might be most comprehensive of those things which we designed to explain our sense, and belief of; and finding no defect, in this regard, in that fixed on by the assembly, and after them by those of the Congregational way, we did readily conclude it best to retain the same order in our present confession: and also when we observed that those last mentioned did, in their confession (for reasons which seemed of weight both to themselves and others), choose not only to express their mind in words concurrent with the former in sense, concerning all those articles wherein they were agreed, but also for the most part without any variation of the terms we did in like manner conclude it best to follow their example, in making use of the very same words with them both, in these articles (which are very many) wherein our faith and doctrine is the same with theirs, and this we did, the more abundantly, to manifest our consent with both, in all the fundamental articles of the Christian Religion; as also with many others whose orthodox confessions have been published to the world; on the behalf of the Protestants in diverse Nations and Cities: and also to convince all that we have no itch to clogge Religion with new words, but do readily acquiesce in that form of sound words which hath been, in consent with the holy Scriptures, used by others before us; hereby declaring before God, Angels, & Men, our hearty agreement with them, in that wholesome Protestant Doctrine, which, with so clear evidence of Scriptures they have asserted."[1]
When I read this statement, I hear my forebears, those worthies of the seventeenth century, saying that they shared a common faith with their Presbyterian and Congregationalist brethren. Dr. White is by no means the first to have thought this.
[1] “To the Judicious and Impartial Reader” [A Confession of Faith…1677 (Auburn, Massachusetts: B & R Press, 2000); William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Rev. ed., Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), 244-245].
"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand"
My family and I with some close friends, Adam and Rachel Reynolds, went to see Macbeth today at Stratford. Well done. The staging was superb and so was Colm Feore as the murderous Macbeth. The costume setting, according to the director Des McAnuff was “mythic mid-2oth-century Africa” [“Ideas and Insights”, Macbeth Programme (2009), p.6]. In the famous scene where Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and seeking to rid her soul of guilt, I was struck by the lines “Here’s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (Act V, Scene 1). I thought of the fact that this is not only true for Lady Macbeth, but for all of us. Surely Shakespeare is suggesting in this play that we all harbour murderous passions. See, in this regard, the lines of the Porter in Act II, scene 3—a very important figure—who, as Robert Blacker notes, “steps out of the play to remind us that we too are sinners” [“Crime and Punishment”, Macbeth Programme (2009), p.3].
And we too shall find, like Lady Macbeth, there is no perfume of this world shall “sweeten” our sinful hands. Only One and one act—sweet Jesu and his death.
Which Church Father Are You?
Dr. Haykin completed this quiz and discovered that he is actually Melito of Sardis. Complete the quiz to see which Early Church Father you are. Post your result in the comment session.
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You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers! |
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
Reformation Conference with D.A. Carson and Joel Beeke
17th Annual ADBC Reformation Celebration October 30 - November 1, 2009
D.A. Carson and Joel Beeke will be speaking at Audubon Drive Bible Church's annual Reformation Celebration. Details below.
Oct 30 (Friday) 7:00pm - Don Carson: The Parable of the Bags of Gold (Matt 25:14-30) 8:00pm - Joel Beeke: Practical Lessons from John Calvin's Life
Oct 31 (Saturday) 9:00am - Joel Beeke: Calvin on Intimate Prayer 10:00am - Don Carson: Calvin as Bible Commentator and Systematic Theologian 11:00am - Joel Beeke: Calvin on Evangelism and Missions 12:00pm (women's luncheon) - Joel Beeke: Practical Lessons from Idelette Calvin's Life 12:30pm (high school & college students) - Don Carson: The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) 2:30-3:30pm - Q&A with Don & Joel 6:30pm (men, young men and boys) - Don Carson: The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)
Nov 1 (Sunday) 9:15am - Don Carson: The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25:31-46) 10:30am - Joel Beeke: Cherishing the Church (Matthew 16:18)
There is no charge for the conference!
Refreshments and some meals provided
For more information call the church at 601-649-8570 or email us at churchoffice@audubonchurch.org.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
Tuesday at Union University
The conference, Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, and the Future of Denominationalism, began Tuesday at Union University with two sessions which lay important frameworks for the sessions which are scheduled to follow. Dr. David Dockery, president of Union University, has put together an excellent program that matches well-qualified speakers with important topics. The two sessions on Tuesday night featured presentations by Dr. Ed Stetzer and Dr. James Patterson. Stetzer addressed the topic of “Denominationalism: Is There a Future?" and Patterson provided a survey of four hundred years of Baptist history. Both of these topics are obviously foundational. First, as Stetzer himself joked, if he answered “no” to his topics question, then we could all just go home and skip the rest of the conference. Patterson’s address provided a helpful summary of the history of Baptists that will allow the conference attendees to better assess where we are now as more specific topics are addressed throughout the remainder of the conference. Ed Stetzer answered “Yes” to the question in his session’s title regarding whether or not denominationalism has a future. The conference continues. Stetzer says that denominations have a future because they are inevitable if churches are going to cooperate together to fulfill the Great Commission. This is the only kind of future that he believes denominations should have. A future in which churches are cooperating together increasing to accomplish God’s mission in this world, the salvation of lost men and women. Denominations can become problematic if they become more self-focused than focused on the mission. This is a tendency of denominations as they grow with more staff and more ministries. We can become more interested in self-preservation than in the proclamation of the gospel to the lost. In order for denominations to be effective in the future, Stetzer believes that they must have a confessional basis that provides doctrinal uniformity in beliefs (as in the BFM), while at the same time allowing for methodological diversity in worship styles, etc. Some denominations pride themselves on their doctrinal diversity, while maintaining a methodological uniformity through a strict liturgy. Southern Baptists must do the opposite to survive in the future.
James Patterson provided a helpful (and humorous) summary of 400 years of Baptist history in about an hour. He began with a Baptist history rap which he does for his students. You must get the audio for this. Patterson began by acknowledging the importance of Nicene Theology and Chalcedonian Christology for Baptists. He also noted the contributions of the Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation and the Magisterial Reformers. The rest of the presentation was organized by the four centuries of Baptist life (beginning of course with the 17th century). Patterson noted key developments and challenges in each century. Patterson concludes with the following admonition: In light of our messy past, we need humility in celebrating our heritage, as well as a recognition that we too will ultimately be judged.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
To blog or to tweet? That is the question...
To blog or to tweet? That is the question with which I have been debating for about a week or two now. Some would say, do both, and I wish I had the time to be able to indulge, but I really do not. Now that I have begun to see that I cannot adequately do both, I have decided to focus on blogging, which is a lot more personally satisfying (arguments can be developed and points made at length, etc ), while much in the world of Twitter still seems to me to be very juvenile.
I shall still keep my Twitter open but enter Tweets from my computer when I have time.
100-year-old Publishes Book on Abraham Booth
Baptist Press has posted a story about a new book by Dr. Ray Coppenger, A Messenger of Grace: A Study of the Life and Thought of Abraham Booth, which was recently released by Joshua Press. This book can be ordered on Amazon.com.
In his day, and for many years after his death, Abraham Booth was regarded as one of the leading Baptist theologians and thinkers of the eighteenth century. Relatively little, though, has been done, to explore his theological contribution to Baptist life and thought. This work by Dr. Ray Coppenger provides what amounts to a primer on Booth’s ministry and theology.
“Booth’s theological perspectives, particularly with regard to ecclesiology and soteriology, need to be studied afresh at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and I can think of no better place to begin the study of this mentor than this book by Dr. Coppenger.” Michael A.G. Haykin—Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Raymond Arthur Coppenger was born in 1909 near the small town of Tellico Plains in the mountains of East Tennessee. Sensing a call to ministry in his twenties, he went to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, from which he graduated with a Th.M. in 1936. After seminary, he served as associate pastor of First Baptist Church, Newport, Tennessee, and then as pastor of churches in Butler, Tennessee, and Pennington Gap, Virginia. After World War II, he went to Edinburgh, Scotland, for doctoral studies. He received his Ph.D. from Edinburgh University for his work on Abraham Booth in 1953. Subsequently, he taught philosophy and religion at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee, and Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. An emeritus professor since 1974, Coppenger continues to supply-preach and join in the ministry of his local church—and he does his best to keep up with his five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren!
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
"It fills me with alarm": Stonewall Jackson on humility and my reflections on doing history
Here is a great quote from Stonewall Jackson (1824-1863). He is speaking of the almost idolatrous way people elevate fellow human beings: "The manner in which the press, the army, and the people seem to lean upon certain persons is positively frightful. They are forgetting God in the instruments He has chosen. It fills me with alarm." [Stonewall Jackson's Book of Maxims, ed. James I. Robertson, Jr. (Nashville: Cumberland House, 2002), 85].
This is one reason a Christian historian cannot do history simply the way the secular historian does history. To be sure, he must use all of the methods of historical research faithfully and as accurately as he can. But the actions of men are never simply that and nothing more. While no contemporary historian is blessed with inspired insight, nevertheless, some judgement as to God's actions in the past needs to be made, lest we forget God in the instruments he uses.
Study Guide for Tim Keller's The Prodigal God
Dr. Haykin and Principal Kirk Wellum of Toronto Baptist Seminary have started a new reading group with Tim Keller's The Prodigal God (last year they lead a group through C.J. Mahaney's True Humility). Dr. Haykin is writing study guide questions for discussion in this group and I will be posting them online as they make progress through this book. Questions on the first two chapters have already been posted on this site's Study Guide page. It is hoped that this might be a service to others who might be working through the book in a similar way.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
Papers Commemorating John Calvin's 500th Birthday
Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin recently spoke at Sola Scriptura's Toronto National Conference celebrating John Calvin's legacy on his 500th birthday. Dr. Haykin's three papers focused on:
These papers are available in pdf format at the above links or on the Papers page of this website.
Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.
Great Conference Next Month at Union University
Next month, I (Steve) will be attending what promises to be a great conference in Jackson, TN on the campus of Union University. According to the conference webpage, the conference promises to address "some of the most vital issues facing Southern Baptists and Evangelicals as we prepare to move into the second decade of the 21st Century."
The conference, which is being held in recognition of the 400th anniversary of the Baptist movement, features an impressive lineup of Baptist theologians and historians. Those slated to present at the conference are Duane Litfin, Michael Lindsay, Timothy George, Albert Mohler, Robert Smith, Danny Akin, Ed Stetzer, Steve Harmon, Mark Devine, Nathan Finn and Union University’s own David Dockery, Ray Van Neste, Jerry Tidwell, Hal Poe and Jim Patterson.
You can register online through September 30th, but I encourage you to register soon to ensure your spot at what promises to be a historic gathering. Cost for the conference will be $85, which will include four meals and three continental breakfasts.
Previous conferences of this kind sponsored by Union have become touchstones for conversations in Baptist life and this one looks to be of a similar quality. Papers from previous conferences have been published by Crossway Books in the volume Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future. Don't miss the chance to be at this conference, if at all possible.
If you are unable to attend, I will be providing summaries throughout the conference on this site, as well as on my personal blog.