Baptistic Theologies, 2009

n by what authors wish to write about for the advancement of their own research interests. This is where Baptistic Theologies ventures out in a new way. With this new journal we remove the focus upon a geographical area, Europe, to an ecclesial grouping, baptistic. Here we want to emphasise we are following the approach pioneered by the late Lesslie Newbigin, who drew a distinction of greater Christian families referring to the orthodox family, the catholic family and the protestant family, but then adding what he called the ‘pneumatic’ family . 1 2 3 This has been further nuanced by the late Jim McClendon who used the word ‘baptist’ with a small ‘b’, now further developed into a particular understanding of ecclesial communities as baptistic gathering, convictional, intentional communities, bearing marks of # o the Kingdom vision. 1 Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God: Lectures on the Nature of the Church (New York: Friendship Press, 1954), p. 88. 2 See J.W. McClendon Jnr, Systematic Theology: Volume One, Ethics (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986), pp. 27-35. 3 See for instance Keith G. Jones, A Believing Church: Learning from some Contemporary Anabaptist and Baptist Perspectives (Didcot: Baptist Union of Great Britain, 1998); Keith G. Jones ‘Towards a Model of Mission for Gathering, Intentional, Convictional Koinonia’ in Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume Four, No. 2, January 2004, pp 5-13; and, more recently, Parush R. Parushev, Christianity in Europe: The way we are now, with response from Vija Herefoss, in the Crowther Centre Monographs Series, Edition 7 (Oxford: Church Missionary Society, 2009); and Parush R. Parushev, ‘Doing Theology in a Baptist Way’, an open lecture at the Free University of Amsterdam, 16 th April 2009, forthcoming. VI Baptistic Theologies These baptistic communities are engaged in primary theology . 4 We are convinced their voice is not sufficiently heard within the current pantheon of theological journals and so Baptistic Theologies is designed to strengthen the contribution of the ‘baptist’ communities to and within the world of theological publishing and to ensure such an important stream of theological reflection and dialogue is more fully exposed to the wider world. This journal will be published twice a year in spring and autumn (fall). Our intention is that it should be thematic and we already see themes emerging to cover the first few years. In this first edition of volume one we take seriously the notion that baptistic communities are formed in their worship - reading the Bible together and reflecting on the Word, singing, submersion of believers and celebrating around the table - and inevitably disciples are dismissed into the world to engage in the mission of God. So, we explore the common reality in such communities that the gathering of believers comes frequently through times of revival, or awakening. Renowned international Baptist historian