Baptist History

In Baptists in America, Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins explore the long-running tensions between church, state, and culture that Baptists have shaped and navigated. Despite the moment of unity that their early persecution provided, their history has been marked by internal battles and schisms that were microcosms of national events, from the conflict over slavery that divided North from South to the conservative revolution of the 1970s and '80s.

Baptist Church HistoryA simple survey for anyone to understandLearn: The early history of Christian churchesTrace that history from the first century truth to early heresies The rise of universal church theologySee the destruction to Christian faith caused by the marriage of government and the church. The brave stand of faithful believersMontanist, Donatists, Paulicians and others stood through fiery trials to guarantee we have the pure Word of God todayAbout The AuthorMarvin McKenzie was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and became a believer at the age of eighteen. He has spent his...

Billy Graham shares God’s gentle, reassuring promise of spiritual calm—of authentic personal peace—amidst a personal life wracked with too much stress, too many burdens, too great a heartache. In Peace with God Billy Graham asks God to help this book “find its way into the hands and...

From a preeminent King scholar, the origin story of the man, minister, and civil rights hero who would lead the nation and change the world. We know who Martin Luther King, Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism? Before Martin...

April 18th, 1521. Martin Luther was on trial for believing the Scriptures were the ultimate authority for the Christian, rather than dogma developed by men. He is quoted as having said, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God” when asked to recant his writings. I’ve taken part of Luther’s statement as my title because while I am thankful to God for myriad men in the Reformed Baptist world that have taught me much, I cannot claim full allegiance to a document written in the 17th century; it beingmostly right. The Word of God – alone! – demands and warrants our full ...

The classic history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of enslaved people. "Gripping." —New York Times “A stinging indictment of slavery.” —NPR Books? Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution—the nation's original sin, perhaps, but...

Known to historians as "the First American," Benjamin Franklin is without a doubt the most accessible of America's founding fathers. His writings have inspired millions of Americans, and even now, more than 200 years after his death, his wit and humor still brighten lives all across the world. But what was this great man's view on faith? Was he really a Deist as so many historians have proposed? Was he a humanist like so many of his French friends? Is there any possibility that he could have been a Christian? In this unique volume, Bill Fortenberry has collected everything that Franklin ...

The revered Bible scholar and author of The Historical Jesus explores the Christian culture wars—the debates over church and state—from a biblical perspective, exploring the earliest tensions evident in the New Testament, and offering a way forward for Christians today. Leading Bible scholar...

When Christa Brown first spoke out about the sexual abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church, she never imagined it would expose the ethical chasm at the core of the Southern Baptist Convention: male religious leaders so focused on institutional protection that they sacrifice the safety of children. A book about speaking out and speaking up, Baptistland weaves together Christa’s revealing story of hope amid Southern patriarchy and religious fundamentalism.

In the post-9/11 world, it is not difficult to see how important religion remains in America and around the globe. An older generation of scholars expected that America and the rest of the Western world was headed inexorably toward secularization and the end of religion. America is undoubtedly...

While the Christian tradition has subordinated John the Baptist to Jesus of Nazareth, John himself would likely have disagreed with that ranking. In this eye-opening new book John the Baptist in History and Theology, Joel Marcus makes a powerful case that John saw himself, not Jesus, as the proclaimer and initiator of the kingdom of God and his own ministry as the center of God's saving action in history.

Read by the author. Read the Bible with Fresh Eyes as You See Scripture's Promise-Shaped Patterns When you read the Bible, have you ever noticed parallels between certain people, events, and institutions? Should we understand Noah as a kind of new Adam, and if so, does that somehow point us to...

An investigative reporter tells the harrowing story of three unsolved civil rights era murders and how he reopened these cold cases, ultimately bringing Klansmen to justice, decades after they'd gotten away with murder. “For almost two decades, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell doggedly...

Discover Jamaica’s Journey: From Ancient Tribes to the Fight for Freedom.

I. The Rise of Community Churches Frontier Roots (1700s–1800s): Sparse populations led settlers to share meetinghouses across denominational lines (“Union Churches”), creating a cooperative spirit. Ecumenical Phase (1880–1920): Influenced by the Social Gospel (Gladden, Rauschenbusch), ministers promoted moral reform and social unity rather than doctrinal precision. Community Church Movement (1910–1940): Liberal leaders like Harry Emerson Fosdick and philanthropists like John D. Rockefeller Jr. envisioned “one church for the whole town.” Riverside Church became the model — ...

In the first title of the "I Will Build" Biography Series, John M. Wiley analyzed several figures of the Early Church. For the second book in the series, he has constructed a narrative that includes two movements: the Anabaptists and the early Baptists. While several books have been written in the last several decades on both movements, some from professional historians and others from historically-minded pastors and Christian leaders, there appeared to be a need for a book to look at both the Anabaptists as well as the Baptists, which would offer both a historically-critical and ...

Discover the exciting story of the Baptist War, the biggest and most important slave rebellion in Great Britain’s Caribbean colonies. This audiobook tells you all about the Christmas War, Sam Sharpe’s War, and the Emancipation War, explaining why it is one of the greatest slave uprisings ever.

An overview of the historical and theological development of these two confessions, with a comparison of content and analysis of them. These two Baptist confessions were written and published by men living in the tedium of life unique to them – in their culture, period of history, and the theological development of their beliefs. While many books have been written by Baptists on the topic of confessions, the preponderance of those books are academic and biased towards the 1689 London Baptist Confession. My intention is to present a non-academic overview of how these confessions came to be...

An acclaimed, timely narrative of how people of faith have historically--up to the present day--worked against racial justice. And a call for urgent action by all Christians today in response. The Color of Compromise is both enlightening and compelling, telling a history we either ignore or just...

In Every Generation: A Baptist Ecclesiology The Baptist Church in Theological and Historical Context by Marvin McKenzie What is the church that Jesus built—and has it survived every generation? In this rigorous yet accessible theological work, Marvin McKenzie presents a compelling case for the perpetuity, authority, and exclusivity of the New Testament church as found in local, visible Baptist assemblies. Drawing from decades of ministry experience and historical research, In Every Generation offers a thorough defense of the biblical identity, structure, and mission of the church—while ...