RT Book
T1 The secularization of baptism: how Baptists took God out of baptism, and how to fix the problem
T2 McMaster theological studies series
JF McMaster theological studies series
A1 MacKim, Mark G. 1961-
LA English
PP Eugene, Orgeon
PB Pickwick Publications
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1924918749
AB Does God actually do anything in baptism? Is it more than just a symbol? Most early Baptists would have answered "yes." Most Baptists today would answer "no." How and why did this change happen--and does it matter? Providing thorough documentation of the changing understandings of baptism among American, Canadian, and English Baptists from the 1600s to the present day, The Secularization of Baptism demonstrates that four factors led to the symbolic-only position becoming dominant. These were suspicion, in reaction to Roman Catholicism, of the idea of God revealing himself through the physical; the influence of the Enlightenment (and "embarrassment" with claims that God could be acting in the world today); reaction against the Oxford Movement; and reaction against the understanding of baptism advocated by the Disciples of Christ ("Campbellites"). The now dominant "symbolic-only" position so focuses attention on what the believer is doing in baptism that God is seen as largely absent from, and doing nothing through, the rite; in effect believers' baptism has been secularized. A carefully reasoned biblical and theological argument is made for a return to the Regular/Particular Baptist view that God is both profoundly spiritually present and active in baptism, while at the same time rejecting the "sacramentalist" position advocated by a small number of mid-twentieth and twenty-first century Baptists, such as H. Wheeler Robinson, George Beasley-Murray, Stanley K. Fowler, and Anthony R. Cross
NO Includes bibliographical references and indexes
CN BX6231
SN 979-8-3852-1073-2
SN 979-8-3852-1074-9
K1 Baptists : Canada : History
K1 Baptists : United States : History : 20th century
K1 Baptism in the Holy Spirit
K1 Baptism : Baptists
K1 Secularization (Theology)
K1 Baptistes - Canada - Histoire
K1 Baptême dans l'Esprit-Saint
K1 Baptême - Baptistes
K1 Sécularisation (Théologie)