Last year we challenged our readers to work through 12 classics of Christian theology. Many of you joined in, read the books, and watched or listened to the podcasts that discussed them. Even if you didn’t make it through all twelve, we hope that the list and the challenge provided some encouragement and guidance in mining the riches of the Christian tradition.
This year, we turn our attention to our own theological tradition as Baptists. Only one of the months in our 2021 challenge featured readings from Baptists, namely, the Baptist confessional symbols that we read in October. But this year, we focus the entire list on classics of Baptist theology. We do this for a couple of reasons.
First, we want to show that there actually is a Baptist theological tradition. Historically, Baptists are known for many things: missionaries like William Carey, preachers like Charles Spurgeon, evangelists like Billy Graham, and social activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. But the Baptist movement isn’t often associated with theology per se. In one sense, this observation has some merit: dogmatic theology hasn’t always taken on the kind of depth and dimension in the Baptist movement that it has in other Christian traditions. There is no Baptist Aquinas, Calvin, or Barth (although, interestingly, Barth did reach, on paper at least, baptistic conclusions on baptism). There are reasons for this historically, some cultural and socio-economic and some internal to the development of the Baptist tradition itself. But in another sense, the lack of some standard Baptist dogmatics shouldn’t lead one to conclude that there is no theological vision undergirding the Baptist tradition.
As the reading for 2022 will demonstrate, Baptists have been deeply motivated and guided by theological convictions from the start. There is a certain biblical theology and corresponding political and social theory that gave rise to Baptist convictions in the first place (as readings 1-4 and 12 will show). Baptists have also been eager to demonstrate their trinitarian, Christological, and spiritual orthodoxy in systematic theology as well (as readings 5-7, 10b, and 11 will show). And Baptists have been especially keen to tease out the implications of Christian belief for practical theology, especially how the gospel gives rise to missions and evangelism (readings 8-9) and social action (reading 10a).
Second, we hope that this reading challenge will deepen a sense of Baptist catholicity for those who participate. It is our conviction that the more deeply we go into our own tradition, the more genuinely catholic we will become. Studying our own tradition reveals those places where we have substantial agreement with other traditions (with all Christians on the cardinal doctrines of the faith, such as the trinity and the incarnation, and with our fellow Protestants and evangelicals on the doctrines of grace). It also clarifies those places where we are truly unique and distinctive (especially our doctrine of the church and its entailments). But even in the latter case, studying our own tradition reveals lines of connection and continuity—and even points of contact and consensus—with other Christian traditions.
The List
So, without further ado, here is the list:
1. William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (various): A collection of the most important Baptist (and Anabaptist) confessions of faith in history. Whoever said “Baptists are not a creedal people” needs to grapple with this rich confessional heritage.
2. Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenent of Persecution (1644): Williams only remained a Baptist for a short time, but in founding the first Baptist church in America and setting the agenda for religious liberty in the new world, he cast a long shadow.
3. Nehemiah Coxe, A Discourse of the Covenants (1681): The Baptist case for believers-only baptism is not based on a few prooftexts, nor merely on an argument from silence. It is rooted in a covenantal reading of redemptive history. Coxe, one of the principal editors of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, shows how such a case can be made.
4. Benjamin Keach, Gold Refined (1689): Benjamin Keach was one of the most influential and prolific Particular Baptists of the seventeenth century. In this book, Keach makes one of the most convincing cases for credobaptism.
5. Thomas Monck, A Cure for the Cankering Error of the New Eutychians (1673): Monck was a General Baptist pastor and theologian who was one of the principal authors of the Orthodox Creed. In this book, Monck uses Scripture and tradition to defend the classical view of the divine attributes, the trinity, and the incarnation against the errors of Matthew Caffyn, a General Baptist who denied that Christ partook of Mary’s humanity.
6. John Gill, The Doctrine of the Trinity Stated and Defended (1731): A good case can be made that the eighteenth-century Particular Baptist pastor John Gill is the most significant theologian in Baptist history. He wrote commentaries on every verse of Scripture and then wrote a widely used Body of Divinity. In this influential book, Gill defends classical trinitarianism against the encroaching unitarian errors of the eighteenth century.
7. Anne Dutton, Selected Spiritual Writings, Volume 4: Theological Works (1734-61): It would be a mistake to claim that the poet and writer Anne Dutton was one of the most accomplished female theologians among the English Baptists of the eighteenth century—the gendered qualifier is simply not needed. This volume collects some of her most important theological writings.
8. Andrew Fuller, Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1785): Fuller is perhaps the only writer who could rival Gill as the most significant Baptist theologian in history. In this book, Fuller makes the case, against the hyper-Calvinists, that faith in Christ is a duty laid upon all who hear the gospel. It helped to lay the theological groundwork for the revival of missions and evangelism among the eighteenth and nineteenth century Baptists.
9. William Carey, An Enquiry (1792): Fuller’s friend and fellow London Baptist, William Carey is often recognized as the father of modern missions. Carey helped to found the Baptist Missionary Society and served for decades as a missionary in India. In this book, Carey combats the fatalistic hyper-Calvinism of his day by arguing that God uses means (including prayer and evangelism) to accomplish his sovereignly elected ends.
10. Abraham Booth, Commerce in the Human Species, and the Enslaving of Innocent Persons, inimical to the Laws of Moses and the Gospel of Christ (1792); and John Dagg, Manual of Theology (1859): Dagg’s Manual of Theology was the first systematic theology written by a Southern Baptist. It puts the deep truths of the Christian faith in a simple and accessible format. Including an antebellum Southern Baptist theologian for this list deserves some careful qualification. Though we understand some may reach a different conclusion, we believe there is space between excusing the past and “canceling” the past. We can appreciate what was good and right in their theology without rationalizing or minimizing their sins. In any event, we pair Dagg with another perspective on the slavery question from Abraham Booth, an eighteenth century British abolitionist.
Access Booth online here | Access Dagg online here
11. Octavius Boothe, Plain Theology for Plain People (1890): Boothe was the pastor of the Dexter-Avenue-King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, which was later pastored by perhaps the most well-known Baptist in history, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boothe was a visionary leader and an advocate for justice who helped to found a university, a church, and a state convention for black Baptists in Alabama. This book, recently re-released by CBR friend Walter Strickland, attempts to make theology accessible and practical for the average Christian.
12. E. Y. Mullins, Axioms of Religion (1908): Mullins is one of the most original (and controversial) theologians in Baptist history. The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a key leader in the pivotal years of the 1920s, Mullins sought a fusion of the Calvinism he inherited from a previous generation and more modern forms of theologizing. In this volume, he sets out a distinctively Baptist vision of Christian faith and practice, famously emphasizing his notion of “soul competency.”
Some Tips
Read with a friend, a family member, or a church small group and discuss what you read together.
Go ahead and purchase all of the books and put them on a single shelf in your home or office. Once you complete one of the books, move it to another shelf to mark your progress.
We are tossing around ideas about how best to engage with you all on these readings (we may continue the podcasts or may do a few Zoom calls to discuss the readings). So stay tuned for more information.
It is our hope and prayer that many Baptists (and baptistic evangelicals more broadly and maybe even some non-Baptists) will gain through these readings a deeper appreciation for the Baptist theological patrimony.