Nine Early Baptist Texts on Religious Toleration Everyone Should Read
by Jesse Owens and Jake Stone One of the hallmarks of early English Baptists is their defense of religious toleration. I (Jesse) have argued in previous essays (here and here) that early Baptist arguments for religious toleration were neither dependent on Enlightenment ideals nor were they accidental to Baptist theology. These two points are closely related. First, early Baptist arguments for religious toleration were not dependent...
Is Religious Toleration Accidental to Early Baptist Theology?
There has been much discussion recently on Baptist views regarding religious toleration. The discussion has covered issues such as: whether religious toleration was widely held among early Baptists, whether religious toleration is essential to Baptist identity, whether arguments for religious toleration were merely a response to the persecution that early Baptists faced rather than something more essential to Baptist theology, and...
Eleven Baptist Ecclesiology Texts Every Baptist Should Read
by Jesse Owens and Jake Stone In the fall of 2021, I (Jesse) had the pleasure of teaching a master’s level seminar on Baptist ecclesiology at Welch College. The course consisted primarily of reading and discussing Baptist texts in ecclesiology, many of which were from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We read texts from General Baptists and Particular Baptists on issues such as the nature of the church, believer’s baptism,...
The Midwife’s Baptism: Thomas Helwys and Believer’s Baptism
The Free Will Baptist Treatise defines baptism as the “immersion of believers in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”[1] For this reason, Free Will Baptist churches cannot accept candidates for membership who have not received believer’s baptism by immersion. During my years in ministry, people occasionally have asked why we would not accept the infant baptism of someone who had clearly accepted Christ as...
Recommended Books (Spring 2019)
Whew! The school year is over, and everyone is ready to unwind. However, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become complacent during down times. Our less constrained schedules allow us to focus on other areas of our lives. Students and teachers especially should take this opportunity to develop their minds and spirits at a more even pace. But regardless of your vocation, we have a few reading recommendations for you. We have found these...
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