Towards Understanding of the Practice of Proclamation: The Core Element of Russian Baptist Worship, Timofey Cheprasov, 2015

lso adopted by the Council of the European Baptist Federation in 2006. The Statement provides an extensive list of Baptist convictions related to various areas of theology and ecclesiology. There are obvious benefits for having such a Statement, since it helps to define the place of the Baptist Church on the ‘denominational map.’ At the same time, the Statement does not create tight constraints for various Baptist churches, since it aims at providing information, rather than to be normative for its member unions and local churches (A short “Message from the Centenary Congress,” which is based on fuller declaration, can be accessed at http://ebf.org/statement (accessed on 02.04.2015)). 140 serve as a mirror for churches, forcing individual congregations to ask whether they can be called an Ortho-church, thus having the potential of starting (if needed) a revisionary process of the church’s convictions and practices.”* Humphrey’s work provides another good illustration and a slightly different list of Baptist convictions. The author attempts to provide a comprehensive description of who Baptists are (in this case Southern Baptists are the focus). In the first part of the book he speaks about ‘majority traditions’ that Baptists share with all Christians, with Protestants, with Revivalists, and, which is most important for this work, those features that are uniquely Baptist.** According to Humphreys, there are eight major beliefs that all Baptists share: (1) only believers baptism; (2) baptism can be only by immersion; (3) believers’ church is a result of believers’ baptism; (4) autonomy of the local church; (5) democracy inside the church in discerning God’s will; (6) cooperation between local churches for better witness; (7) the church is separated from the state; and (8) no creed but the Bible.”? This account may serve as an explanation of who Baptists are, or are striving to be, to those outside the Baptist churches. In light of the general inability of Baptists to define themselves, this approach can also serve as a useful tool for better self-understanding, and for putting these principles into practice. The existence of multiple volumes on this subject makes the task of discerning what the majority of Baptists believe only a matter of time. All one needs is to collect several confessions of different communities within the target group, analyse them and define the convictions which most Baptists share.”’ Of course, the above mentioned lists can be expanded, as different groups might add one feature or another. There might be arguments about whose understanding of certain points is more correct than that of others.”? Nonetheless, this approach seems to be less helpful, when we consider that 21 Keith G. Jones, “Orthodoxy, Orthopraxy, Orthohexy, Orthopyre,” in John H. Y. Briggs, general editor, A Dictionary of European Baptist Life and Thought (Milton Keynes, Paternoster, 2009), p 371. 2 Humph