Good News for the World

This substantial volume has the most daring of ambitions: to record the global Baptist voice from 1905 to the present, as it has aimed to articulate what Baptists throughout the world and over the years have discerned to be the mind of Christ for church and society. In this, Spitzer has succeeded magnificently, and has put in his debt untold future generations of historians, theologians, and others who just want to know what Baptists have said about the issues of the time, whether concerning peace, freedom, social ethics, economics, justice, racism, the environment, evangelism, or Baptist identity. Setting out chronologically the resolutions and statements of World Congresses, General Committees, and Executive Committees of the Baptist World Alliance, together with those of selected BWA-affiliated organizations, Spitzer has also made it possible to search all these by theme, by detailed topic, or by significant persons. The book is thus a triumph of accurate and exhaustive compilation and analysis of historical material. It is a brilliant exemplar of how to make sources available both to the professional researcher and the interested lay-reader. Few books are indispensable to those writing about and for Baptists, but this is among them.

~Paul S. Fiddes, FBA, Professor of Systematic Theology, and Principal Emeritus & Senior Research Fellow, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford

Lee Spitzer has done the world a service by compiling this encyclopedia of BWA resolutions and statements. Though not binding, these statements demonstrate the spirit of global Baptists on a number of social and religious topics in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Thoroughly indexed and comprehensive, this resource is a must-have for any scholar of Baptist history.

~Melody Maxwell, Associate Professor of Christian History and Director, Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies, Acadia Divinity College