Description
Originally published in 1959, updated in 1969, and revised again in 2011, Baptist Confessions of Faith contains every important Baptist confession of faith from the forerunners in the early seventeenth century through the 2000 revision of the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Faith and Message. The newly expanded text encompasses contemporary statements and confessions from:
• Mexican Baptist Convention
• National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
• Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
• Alliance of Baptists
• Primitive Baptists
• American Baptist Churches USA
• Baptist World Alliance
This comprehensive resource also provides confessions of other nationalities, originally including German, Swedish, French, Canadian, and Russian, and newly updated with international confessions from:
• Baptist Unions of Nigeria and Southern Africa
• Statements of Faith from the Baptist Theological Seminaries in Beirut, Lebanon, in Malaysia, and in Hong Kong
• Declaration of Faith from the Japan Baptist Union.
Each statement and confession is reevaluated in light of contemporary research and related to Christian life today.
Author Bio
Bill J. Leonard holds the James and Marilyn Dunn Chair of Baptist Studies at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity where he was the founding dean. In 2010 he retired as dean but continued to teach church history in the divinity school and the religion department of the university.
Prior to joining the faculty of Wake Forest in 1996, Leonard served as Professor of Church History at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, 1975-1992. While there he was for a time Associate Dean, president of the Faculty Association, editor of the Review and Expositor, and W. W. Brooks Professor of American Religion. From 1992 to 1996 he was Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama.
Leonard is the author or editor of some 15 books including The Nature of the Church; Word of God Across the Ages: Using Church History in Preaching; God's Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention; Appalachian Christianity: Profiles in Regional Pluralism; Baptist Ways: A History; and Baptists in America. His most recent books are Baptist Questions, Baptist Answers, and The Baptist Bible (co-editor), both published in 2009. Leonard is also the author of over 400 articles published in a variety of journals, periodicals and books.
Dr. Leonard holds a BA from Texas Wesleyan College (1968), an MDiv from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1971), and a PhD from Boston University (1975).
His spouse, Dr. Candyce Crew Leonard, is professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University with specialization in Spanish literature. They have one daughter, Stephanie. The Leonard's are members of First Baptist Church, Highland Avenue, the oldest African American Baptist congregation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
William L. Lumpkin (19161997) was longtime pastor of Freemason Street Church in Norfolk, Virginia. He also taught religion at the University of Richmond and served as Associate Professor of Church History at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.