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Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition
Product Information
▼▲Title: Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition By: Michael A.G. Haykin Format: Hardcover Number of Pages: 136 Vendor: Lexham Press Publication Date: 2022 | Dimensions: 8.25 X 5.50 (inches) Weight: 12 ounces ISBN: 1683595858 ISBN-13: 9781683595854 Stock No: WW595854 |
Publisher's Description
▼▲"Amidst Us Our Belovèd Stands will help all pastors and theologians, whether Baptist or not, to consider our own understanding of the sacraments afresh in light of the past." Themelios
Baptists are sacramental
When it comes to baptism and the Lord's Supper, many Baptists reject the language of sacrament. As a people of the book, the logic goes, Baptists must not let tradition supersede the Bible. So Baptists tend to view baptism and Communion as ordinances and symbols, not sacraments.
But the history of Baptists and sacramentalism is complicated. In Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands, Michael A. G. Haykin argues that many Baptists, such as Charles Spurgeon and other Particular Baptists, stood closer to Reformed sacramental thought than most Baptists today. More than mere memorials, baptism and Communion have spiritual implications that were celebrated by Baptists of the past in sermons and hymnody. Haykin calls for a renewal of sacramental life in churches todayBaptists can and should be sacramental.
Author Bio
▼▲Editorial Reviews
▼▲Amidst Us Our Belovèd Stands will help all pastors and theologians, whether Baptist or not, to consider our own understanding of the sacraments afresh in light of the past.
Themelios
Michael A.G. Haykins learned and edifying treatise recounts the Baptists rich and deep roots in Reformation sacramental theology. Many modernists are shocked when they learn their forefathers believed baptism and the Lords Supper were means of grace intended for Christian community, but provocation may also lead to delight and blessed renaissance. Amidst Us Our Belovèd Stands must be counted among this outstanding historical theologians most significant contributions and comes with my hearty commendation.
Malcolm B. Yarnell, research professor of theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas
It is commonly argued today that Baptists are non-sacramental when it comes to baptism and the Lords Supper. Michael Haykins careful retrieval of the early Baptists positions on the ordinances shows that, on the contrary, our Baptist forebearers saw baptism and the Lords Supper as two ordinary means of Christs sanctifying grace to his people. This is a must-read for anyone attempting to understand the Baptist position on the sacraments, credobaptist or not.
Matthew Y. Emerson, professor of religion and dean of theology, arts, and humanities, Oklahoma Baptist University
In previous centuries, Baptists sustained a deep and rich appreciation of the church as a distinctive sphere of activity for the Holy Spirit, and therefore of baptism and eucharist as actions having far more than merely symbolic value. Drawing on some of the most popular hymns and most formative theological writing in Particular Baptist history, Michael Haykins outstanding new book offers a much-needed recovery of this doctrinal and devotional tradition.
Crawford Gribben, professor of early modern British history at Queens University Belfast; author of John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat
The Protestant, sacramental understanding of baptism and the Lords Supper is absent from countless Baptist churches today. Baptism is entirely focused on the individuals experience and the Lords Supperwhen celebrated at allhas become nothing more than a memorial, one that strangely prides itself on Christs absence. Sadly, the true meaning of the sacraments has been lost. Praise God for Michael Haykin, whose new book opens our eyes to the myriad of ways our Baptist forefathers established and cultivated the sacraments, convinced as they were that these sacraments were a means of grace. May this book return the church to its sacramental roots, sacraments that God has given to his church for her nourishment, sacraments indispensable to communion with the risen Christ.
Matthew Barrett, associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; host of the Credo podcast
At the end of this book, Michael Haykin offers, to assert the practice of believers baptism and the celebration of the Lords Supper is to be counter-cultural. If your church wants to blend in with its surroundings, this book will either be dismissed or it will challenge your churchs capitulation. If your church is willing to stand out from the crowd, this book will support its radical commitment to immerse new believers and to enjoy communion with the Lord who is present in its midst.
Gregg R. Allison, professor of Christian theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine
The notion of grace communicated to recipients by mere external rites is foreign to the theological DNA of Baptists. In this book, however, Michael Haykin skillfully demonstrates that early English Particular Baptists considered the Christian ordinances of baptism and the Lords Supper to be a means of grace. The author shows that these exemplars of Baptist faith and order eschewed mere externalism and bare memorialism. Rather, without lapsing into sacramentalism, they were persuaded that the ordinances, properly understood and observed, acted to secure profound spiritual realities between the believing soul and the ascended Christ. The book is, by turns, a fascinating historical and theological analysis and a stimulus to spiritual reflection. Here the reader is introduced to long-lost devotional material and challenged to revisit their understanding of Baptist piety and practice. The church is much in Dr. Haykins debt as (to quote C. S. Lewis) he enables us to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds.
Edwin Ewart, principal, Irish Baptist College
In the twentieth century, evangelical theology became minimalist, often taking a back seat to pragmatic methodology. Divinely appointed means were neglected, replaced by practices developed out of revivalism or flowing from the reductionistic tendencies of fundamentalism. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, however, steps toward retrieval of older forms of Christian faith and piety have received much attention. Contributing to this project, Dr. Haykin has produced a valuable examination of the place of the sacraments (or ordinances) in Baptist churches since their appearance in the 1640s. Avoiding the Scylla of sacerdotalism and the Charybdis of mere symbolism, his work points the way toward a full-orbed recovery of genuine sacramental practice among Baptists. James M. Renihan, president, IRBS Theological Seminary, Mansfield, TX
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