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

mmunities, the heirs of the Radical Reformation. Other theologians or historians sometimes use other terms such as “Believers Church,” “Free Church.” He uses the term “baptist,” indicating that it is not limited to one denomination of Baptists.”> The need for a community of reference is expressed in the task of theology: it is not a creation of doctrines that later should be marketed by pastors (this is the task of the church, which is called primary theology). The task of the doctrinal theology is a second order task, a step back from the teaching of the church, its critical revision, so that it can bring positive improvement back to the church and her practices.°° Thus, without a church and its primary theology, there is neither a place nor a reason for the existence of secondary, academic theology. Similarly, Paul S. Fiddes argues that when theology is separated from the community, it ceases to be theology. He says, Theology in some university faculties [in the UK] has become detached from the life and mission of the church. It has become a field of study using the same methods of investigation and research as other humanities, and has often obtained respectability by becoming simply identified with Religious Studies — an important discipline but a separate one from theology.”” °4 Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford, Blackwell, 2000), p xii. °° For the criteria of either including or excluding a community into the “baptistic type,” see the section on the baptist vision. °° McClendon, Doctrine, pp 24, 33; cf. Parush R. Parushev, “Carrying out the Theological Task in a Baptistic Way,” Baptistic Theologies, Vol. 6, No 1 (Spring, 2014), pp 53-71. David H. Kelsey also makes the distinction between primary and secondary theology in his Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology, Vol. 1 (Louisville, Kentucky, Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009), pp 19-22 °” Paul S. Fiddes, “Theology and a Baptist Way of Community,” in P. S. Fiddes, ed., Doing Theology in a Baptist Way (Oxford, Whitley Publications, 2000), p 21. See also Friedrich Schleiermacher, who argued that theology always belongs to particular communities, being a reflection of their experiencing God. He suggested that since there are different communities 153 This brings us to the question of what theology is. McClendon’s attempt to provide a definition of theology begins with the presupposition that a definition should not be ‘an intellectual straitjacket.’ It should be able to make sense of what was done in the past, but at the same time it should be ‘neither loaded in favour of some newly chosen doctrinal or methodological way, nor so restrictive that creative development is foreclosed by the very definition.’°® Thus, the way to approach it is by admitting the fact that theology is about something important for people.” Theology is about what people believe in, which introduces a vital term in McClendon’s approach —