Sunday, April 16, 2006

Campbellites Are Winning


Gentle readers who still read books may be aware that awhile back SWNID contributed to the book Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement an article that argued, among other things, that the position taken by that movement on the subject of baptism, long a divisive matter for Christians, has gained widespread agreement among scholars of the New Testament in the last generation.

As a demonstration of that reality, we call attention to this picture from the BBC, in which the Anglican Archbishop of York does some good NT-style dipping.

We also question the recent USA Today article that says that baptisms are down in the United States. Since the tally focuses on well-established denominations and doesn't include the many smaller groups and unaffiliated churches that do lots of baptisms, we think the article is statistical bunk about the dunk.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To those who think that SWNID's endorsement of his own article is reason-enough not to read it, I'd say that you should fight your resistance and pick up a copy. His argument is, without a doubt, seldom wrong on the issue of baptism. (And no, I don't get any kickbacks for saying this.)

Anonymous said...

I must admit I did feel for a moment as though I was in the class of a well known CBS theologian who has the habit of making trite refrences to his own work. However, I realized that in the case of SWNID, this is not obnoxious self endorsement. In fact, SWNID was effectively forced to cite himself if he wanted to represent the best form of argument on the issue. Congratulations SWNID for not allowing your gentle humility to form a barrier between your readers and the thruth. (And yes I hope to get a kickback from this.)