Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

n a Baptist woman (his grandmother), including her involvement with the Baptist Women’s Association in Yugoslavia. While he provides fascinating data - and hopefully his sources will be opened to future researchers for further analysis - he does not draw conclusions concerning the roles or experiences of Baptist women overall. Likewise, women make up many of the leading figures in the papers of Mary Raber and Sharyl Corrado, both on evangelical social and compassion ministries, yet neither paper examines them as women explicitly, focusing instead on the ministries in which they happened to participate. As those who made official decisions and left written records have often been men, research on womens roles in Baptist history will be a special challenge requiring diligence in seeking out sources beyond the official records, such as the personal correspondence, photographs and oral histories used by Peterlin. Nonetheless, such research is necessary in order to tell the Baptist story in its fullness. Certain other avenues of research remain underexplored also, yet will certainly prove crucial in the development of East European Baptist history. While scholars regularly examine the relationship between Baptists and the state, only recently have scholars begun to explore the image of Baptists in society. Perhaps the paper that provoked the most discussion in Prague was that of Aleksandr Negrov and Tat’iana Nikol’skaia, who explore the image of Baptists in the Soviet period as a symbol of a foreign and dangerous sectarianism, a stereotype which endures to this day. They note, however, that such negative attitudes coexisted with a positive image of Baptists as hardworking and faithful. How does Baptist self-identification correspond to the identity bestowed upon them by a secular society, and how should Baptists respond to such misrepresentations and stereotypes? What can be learned about the goals and fears of society by examining its attitude toward Baptists? As such stereotypes remain powerful in much of the formerly Communist world, exploration of their origins and influence are vital. Another aspect of Baptist life that remains unexplored, likely due in part to a dearth of sources, is the area of personal experience of the faith. While theologians have emphasised Baptist doctrine and prescribed rituals of the faith, often emphasising the conversion experience, little research has 11 been done on what personal spirituality actually entailed, or how Baptists themselves experienced their faith. How did they make sense of the rituals and teachings given to them? How did they understand their relationship to the God, the local church body, and to their society? Several papers, including those of Corrado, Wierzchowski and Raber, make special note of how evangelical teaching was reflected in people's lives, particularly in the areas of personal morality and social responsibility, yet little research has be