There are many good books and scholarly articles that seek to identify and clarify the doctrines commonly held by Baptists over the past 400 years. Many more attempt to define our shared purpose or mission. Here's a list of ten websites and online articles that, in various ways, set forth commonly agreed beliefs, intended aims and purposes, and/or aspirations of Baptists in community:
1. Baptist beliefs on Wikipedia (a good place to start)
2. Baptist distinctives on Wikipedia (note Walter Shurden's "four fragile freedoms")
3. Phillip Johnson's Creeds archive (note especially 1644, 1689 (two versions), 1833, 1963).
4. Baptist World Alliance's statement of purpose (note especially the points made in the Centenary Message, July 2005).
5. New Baptist Covenant (North America, 2007) - note the three emphases
6. Baptist Union of Great Britain's Five Core Values (1996) - click on the five icons
7. Ken R. Manley, "Shaping the Baptist movement in Australia" (historical essay)
8. David Parker, "'Striving for the Mastery': The evolution of a post-modern church in Queensland 1945-2004" (historical essay)
9. Faith Bowers, "Baptists in the ecumenical context" (essay raising important issues for our outward focus)
10. Blakehurst Baptist Church's statement of beliefs (written by Rod Benson in 2000).
Rod Benson is a NSW Baptist minister and ethicist. He attends Dural Baptist Church.
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3 comments:
Another Recommendation
This is a great little set of links that Rod has put up. Can I further recommend the historic Baptist documents page at The Reformed Reader:
http://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/hbd.htm
Despite the website's obvious Reformed proclivities it does contain a number of important Anabaptist and General (i.e. "Arminian"-ish) Baptist confessions as well. This site is much more complete with regard to Baptist Confessions and Catechisms than Phil Johnson's excellent site. At some point in the future I intend to put up on the web the early confessions/statements of faith of the Bathurst St and Parramatta Churches.
Hefin Jones' useful Reformedreader web page is reproduced at http://baptists-together.blogspot.com/2008/06/historic-baptist-beliefs.html
Just in case there is any confusion The Reformed Reader is someone else's website which I was recommending. As for the early NSW confessions/statements/doctrinal bases I'm hoping to put them up on www.bet.org.au sometime before too long.
Hefin Jones
Chatswood.
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