Baptist identity and the ecumenical future
Subtitle: story, tradition, and the recovery of community
By: Steven R. Harmon
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Waco, Texas
Language: eng
Number of pages: 345
ISBN-13: 9781602585706
Subjects: Christian union; Baptists; Interfaith relations; Relations
Description: Baptists tend to be the "problem children" of the ecumenical movement. The Baptist obsession to realize a true church birthed a tradition of separation. While Baptists' misgivings about ecumenism may stem from this fissiparous genealogy, it is equally true that the modern ecumenical movement itself increasingly lacks consensus about the pathway to a visible Christian unity. In Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future, Steven R. Harmon explores the relationship of the Baptist calling to be a pilgrim community and the ecumenical movement. Harmon argues that neither vision can be fulfilled apart from a mutually receptive ecumenical engagement. As Harmon shows, Baptist communities and the churches from which they are separated need one another. Chief among the gifts Baptists have to offer the rest of the church are their pilgrim aversion to overly realized eschatologies of the church and their radical commitment to discerning the rule of Christ by means of the Scriptures. Baptists, in turn, must be willing to receive from other churches neglected aspects of the radical catholicity from which the Bible is inseparable. Embedded in the Baptist vision and its historical embodiment are surprising openings for ecumenical convergence. Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future urges Baptists and their dialogue partners to recognize and embrace these ecumenically oriented facets of Baptist identity as indispensable provisions for their shared pilgrimage toward the fullness of the rule of Christ in their midst, which remains partial so long as Christ's body remains divided.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-310) and index.
Table of contents: title: Part I. The Baptist vision and the ecumenical moment. A radical Baptist proposal; title: Seizing the ecumenical moment; title: Part II. Baptists, Biblicism, and Catholicity. One sacred story; title: One contested tradition; title: Radically biblical, radically Catholic; title: Part III. Baptist identity and receptive ecumenism. The end of Baptist denominationalism; title: Receiving the gift of magisterium; title: Part IV. Baptist theology and the ecumenical future. The ecumenical task of theology; title: The theology of a pilgrim church; title: The Baptist eschatological vision and the ecumenical future.