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

ion. Rather its practitioners need to be aware of the constructive potential and hidden destructive forces of the ministry they aspire to develop. Following the view of Nigel G. Wright presented in his book New Baptists, New Agenda where he argues that understanding ‘who | am’ is an important question, which has to be answered prior to the question ‘how | should live,’ | will attempt to outline the constants that constitute and define a person or a particular group of people — Russian Baptist Church in my case.’° Having studied the core practice (preaching) of the Church, | will single out the constants expressed in preaching, thus providing a tool for deeper understanding of who Russian Baptists are, which in turn would allow further development of preaching and other areas of church life. Hence the subject of baptistic identity’’ and practices that enhance and develop that identity will be the focus of Chapters 6, 7 and 8. Chapter 6 will specifically deal with the various ways of defining Baptist identity. | will use McClendon’s concept of the “baptist vision” as a key to understanding baptistic theology, which is a hermeneutical principle, a lens for reading the Bible in baptistic communities that can be summed up in a motto ‘this is *® Nigel G. Wright, New Baptists, New Agenda (Carlisle, Paternoster Press, 2002), p 11. 7 “Identity” is a loaded concept, which is difficult to define. Interestingly enough, in the Russian language this word does not exist — there are different words that point to different features or facets of the concept. Its usage in different disciplines and contexts is another indication of the complexity of the notion. As this word has a certain ambiguity, it makes it very convenient to use. | am not going to explore all possible ways of defining the concept. When | speak about identity, | will refer to something that makes a person or a community part of one culture (in this case, a baptistic culture), something that makes them distinct from others, that allows them to refer to themselves as one whole, something that sets the direction for their existence and defines their practices — the set of their core convictions, which can be defined as a ‘set of beliefs that shape the actual life and practices of the community. Often, these are guarded by its teachers, or elders, or authoritative leadership cadres.’ (James Wm. McClendon Jr., and James M. Smyth, Convictions: Defusing Religious Relativism, reprint (Eugene, Wipf & Stock Pub., 2002), p 91, originally published as Understanding Religious Convictions in 1975) Thus, speaking about “identity” and “identity formation,” | address the question, of how certain convictions are being formed. that, then is now.’’® Such perception of a particular form of biblicism being at the heart of the movement, highlights the need to define the set of practices, which serve as a bridge from biblical reading to ethics, or communal and indivi