Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

at the theology of Polish Catholic theologian Father Waclaw Hryniewicz. Considering Hryniewicz’s epistemology of complementariness, views on the processual character of reality and religious pluralism in inter-religious dialogue, Patalon finds intriguing points of convergence between Hryniewicz’s theology and the philosophical theology of the process theologian John B Cobbs. In her essay, Lina Andronoviene skilfully relates the particular and local of a minority contemporary Lithuanian Baptist community to features of identity common to all Baptists. Taking her lead from biblical themes of 1 Peter and using original hymnody as her means of inquiry into primary theology of the community, she singles out two key themes of ‘strangeness’ and ‘suffering’ as formative for Lithuanian Baptist spirituality and relates them to the traditional cultural heritage. Dr Albert Wardin traces the way in which Baptist life spread within the Russian empire in the nineteenth century, taking in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other Baltic regions, Poland, Ukraine and the Caucasus. The areas of German Baptist expansion and the links with the emerging Slavic Baptist mission are carefully traced. In thinking about mission in these areas, a crucial conclusion that Albert Wardin draws - one that has continuing relevance - is that foreign missionaries were not the primary agents in spreading the Baptist message in Russia. Johan Oncken and others certainly saw the benefit of financial support from abroad for native Baptist work. But as then, so now, the most effective witness was that undertaken by local lay people and evangelists. The Revd Dr Parush R Parushev, Academic Dean, IBTS An understanding of covenanted church 5 An understanding of covenanted church: Is there a contemporary relevance? Introduction We live, in the West, at any rate, in a fast-changing culture and society, and in an age of changing paradigms or core metaphors of meaning and imagination. This is self-evident. However, as a denomination, Baptists have always argued that some things {not everything!) should remain unchanged - they are best left as they are - and that appears at variance with the prevailing mood of the time. For example, generally, we maintain an understanding of church as associated with both the idea and the experience of covenant, of church as community. Indeed, more than that, we have always held that the covenant is essential or integral to our ecclesiology - both the divine over-arching covenant and the more localised covenant between committed members. We have held on to this belief fairly consistently and almost tenaciously at times since the beginning of the seventeenth century - four hundred years - so it’s well rooted in our denominational and theological DNA. However, the question is whether it ought to be. Some are arguing that commitment and close relationship are not very post-modern concepts and asking whether th