BOOK NOTES
David Bebbington
Baptists Through the Centuries: A History of a Global People
Baylor University Press, 2010
Baptists have always been a diverse group, caused partly by a variety of influences, historical, theological
and cultural.
Beginning with the divergence between General and Particular Baptists in the early years of the 17th
century, there has been a series of polarizations that have divided Baptists – including race, women in ministry,
the social gospel, and the theological divides between Arminian beliefs and Calvinism, modernists and
fundamentalists, conservatives and liberals, etc.
Though Baptists have a reputation as being evangelical, it took a long time before many Baptists embraced
evangelism, largely due to powerful Calvinist influences which teach that Christ died only for the elect and not
for all humanity, thus reducing, or eliminating the need, to evangelize or go on mission.
Though Baptists have a deserved reputation as advocates for and defenders of religious liberty, “the notion
that Baptists had been rigorous in their demands for freedom of conscience from the start of their existence
calls for scrutiny,” says David Bebbington, professor of history at the University of Sterling in Scotland. “The
attitude of Baptists to questions of religious liberty may turn out to have been rather more varied.”
Despite the diversity demonstrated in Bebbington’s historical survey of Baptists mainly in England and the
United States, the two countries that received overwhelming treatment in Baptists Through the Centuries: A
History of a Global People, there are core tenets to which most Baptists hold. These include the authority of
scripture, a congregational church government, the priesthood of all believers, and the freedom of conscience
marked by the noninterference of the state or government in church affairs.
BOOKS RECEIVED BY THE BWA
Pursuing Unity Defending Rights: The Baptist World Alliance at Work
Baptist World Alliance, 2010
Neville Callam, general secretary, Baptist World Alliance
The Challenge of Being Baptist: Owning a Scandalous Past and an Uncertain Future
Baylor University Press, 2010
Bill J. Leonard, dean and professor of church history at the Wake Forest University Divinity School
Hebrew, Hermeneutics and Homiletics: Collected Works with New Essays and Sermons of Johnson
T.K. Lim
ABGTS Publication, 2010
Johnson T.K. Lim, thesis director, supervisor and lecturer of the Singapore Area Learning Center of the Asia
Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary
Deacons in Today’s Black Baptist Church
Judson Press, 2010
Marvin A. McMickle, pastor, Antioch Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio 29

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32