Check out this article on NYTimes. It refers to the way in which American foreign policy is affected by a particular or peculiar? way of interpreting the Bible in dispensationalism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/washington/14israel.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1164038613-evQuD24ebXTZyRKqERnt2A

Evangelicals and politics is a major topic of conversation currently and well it should be.

I have read a few blogs around and some other sources that are talking about the end of state conventions as viable Baptist entities. These bloggers may be right that the current shape of Baptist connectionalism will change, but I am not so quick to predict the end of state conventions. I think that they will change shape significantly, perhaps morphing into affinity groups rather than geographical entities, but Baptists have been connectional from the very beginning.

The first associations were formed for mutual help and connection. The associations enjoyed getting together for fellowship and discussion about issues that faced the churches. Just read the minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association and you'll see. That association is about to celebrate its 300th aniversary next year.

Baptists are connectional people because they have discovered that they can and should work together to "advance the Redeemer's kingdom" as the founding documents of the Southern Baptist Convention describe things. This connectionalism will remain because Baptists know that they accomplish so much more when they work together.

Baptist conventions and associations are worth keeping not just because we've always done it that way, but because they serve as useful tools to do God's work and connect together for fellowship and Christian love.

Baptists have always utilized confessions of faith to express their understanding of the Christian life. Leon McBeth's Baptist Heritage describes several ways in which Baptists used confessions.

What ways were you particularly interested in?

Are these still valid uses of confessions today?

How can they be abused?

How do they relate to the other notion that Baptists hold called the "priesthood of the believer?"

The theories on Baptist origins have fascinated me since I first began to study Baptist history. I took William Estep's course on the Anabaptist Reformation and wrote a very basic paper on the relationship between Baptists and Anabaptists. Estep was a proponent of Anabaptist influence on the formation of both the General and Particular Baptists. Later on, in my dissertation on Primitive Baptists, I articulated the idea that the successionistic theory of Baptist origins was so popular among rank and file Baptists in the 19th century because they were intent to prove that they did not fall victim to the corruptions that had rendered the bulk of Christianity invalid. Baptists were pure because they had never lost the authentic expression of New Testament Christianity which they found expressed in the pages of the New Testament.

Are Baptists today interested in preserving New Testament Christianity? Is it necessary to do so? Do we need biblical authority for all our organizations such as associations and conventions? These are just some of the questions that can be raised after examining the different theories of Baptist origins. What others can you think of?

I really am a bowtie Baptist. Here I am wearing my "Vitruvian Man" bowtie from Beauties Ltd. of Vermont.

This blog is dedicated to exploring the Baptist Heritage in all its complexity. Along the way I hope to explore this complexity, looking at what it is that Baptists have in common as well as what makes each group distinct.