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. Haykin’s 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 Lord’s 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 theologian’s 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 Lord’s Supper. Michael Haykin’s careful retrieval of the early Baptists’ positions on the ordinances shows that, on the contrary, our Baptist forebearers saw baptism and the Lord’s Supper as two ordinary means of Christ’s 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 Haykin’s outstanding new book offers a much-needed recovery of this doctrinal and devotional tradition.
—Crawford Gribben, professor of early modern British history at Queen’s University Belfast; author of John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat
The Protestant, sacramental understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper is absent from countless Baptist churches today. Baptism is entirely focused on the individual’s experience and the Lord’s Supper—when celebrated at all—has become nothing more than a memorial, one that strangely prides itself on Christ’s 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 believer’s baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s 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 church’s 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 Lord’s 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. Haykin’s 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
