Upcoming Issues of Eusebeia

Greetings friends of The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. I wanted to whet your appetite and let you know of what the next few issues of Eusebeia will be devoted.

Spring 2008 – The Puritans

Fall 2008 – 17th Century English Baptists

Spring 2009 – T. T. Shields and Fundamentalism

Stay on the lookout for these upcoming issues of the journal. If you are interested in subscribing ($20 USD in North America, $30 USD outside North America) contact Allen Mickle, Managing Editor (allen.mickle.jr@gmail.com).

Building Bridges? Try Andrew Fuller

As most readers of this blog are likely aware, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Founders Ministry recently teamed up to cosponsor a major conference on the role of Calvinism in SBC life. The persons behind the conference recognize that there has been a resurgence of Calvinism in the SBC in recent years, and that there is evidence this is having a polarizing effect within the convention. They were able to gather over 550 SBC pastors, laymen, and educators in an effort to build bridges between those who hold differing opinions on the value of the Calvinistic resurgence.

One of the many highlights of the Building Bridges Conference was Dr. Daniel Akin’s closing address, “Answering the Call to a Great Commission Resurgence.” Dr. Akin’s final words did a masterful job of summing up the themes which had already been discussed throughout the conference. He let it be known that the Calvinism that was in vogue in Baptist circles when the SBC was formed was an evangelical, missions-minded Calvinism. Far from being a threat to evangelism and missions, it actually acted as an impetus to these important emphases. Dr. Akin reminded his hearers:

“The modern missionary movement was launched by a Baptist. It was also launched by a Calvinist. His name was William Carey. He represents the best and healthiest stream of the Calvinist tradition and one I can enthusiastically embrace. Carey did not receive universal support in his desire to get the gospel to the “heathen” as they were called in his day. There was another tributary of Calvinism that was resolute in its opposition to the aspirations of young William. This type of Calvinism was of no value in Carey’s day. It is of no value in our day. I believe significant headway can be made as we depart from this conference if, in heart and confession, it can be said, I am a “Carey Calvinist.” I am a “Judson Calvinist.” I am a “Spurgeon Calvinist.” I am a Calvinist who embraces with my whole being our Lord’s command to take the gospel across the street and around the world.”

As students of Fuller will recognize, he could also have said, a “Fuller Calvinist.” Each of the men he mentioned would have recognized Fuller’s theology as that which informed their minds, warmed their hearts, and moved them to heroic exertions on behalf of the lost. In fact, Fuller’s name came up quite often in the papers presented at the conference. May God grant that the new-found appreciation for Fuller and his theology sparks a renewal in Southern Baptist life as powerful as that which ensued when he lived and worked among British Particular Baptists.

Paul Brewster

Does your Library Subscribe to Eusebeia?

Does your library subscribe to Eusebeia? If not, they should! We are sending a complimentary copy of Issue 8 of the journal to a number of libraries with the hope of their subscription. If your library does not subscribe, please encourage them to do so! $20 USD in North America and $30 USD outside North America. They can subscribe through EBSCO or directly through the journal. Subscriptions can be sent directly to:

The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies
C/O The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
2825 Lexington Road
Louisville, KY 40280

Help promote Eusebeia in any way you can! Look forward to Issue 9 which should be dedicated to the Puritans and Issue 10 to 17th Century English Baptists.

The Works of Andrew Fuller

Attention friends of Andrew Fuller! The Banner of Truth Trust has just released a new one volume edition of the Works of Andrew Fuller (1841 edition). This wonderful, hefty, volume is filled with over 1000 pages of the works of Andrew Fuller, the great Baptist pastor-theologian. In the United States you can order this book directly from The Banner here. If you are in Canada you can order it from the Canadian distributor, Sola Scriptura Ministries International. Don’t pass this up! It makes a wonderful Christmas gift for the bibliophile in your home! Open up peoples eyes to the writings of this great but much neglected servant of Christ!

New Issue of Eusebeia

Issue 8 of Eusebeia: The Bulletin of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies is currently at the printer and due out for mailing shortly. This issue is dedicated to the Cappadocians and should not be missed. First, the editorial by Dr. Haykin is titled “Why Study the Fathers?” and is an important piece to get our hearts and minds stimulated to understanding the early church. Then the articles are as follows:

“Benefiting from the Fathers–A Test Case: Basil of Caesarea on Abortion” by Michael A. G. Haykin

“The Spirit “Worshipped and Glorified” as the Perfecting Cause of our Worship in Basil of Caesarea’s De Spiritu Sancto” by Dennis Ngien

“‘The Fourth Great Cappadocian’: The Life of Amphilochus of Iconium” by Monte Shanks

“Macarius the Augustinian: Grace and Salvation in the Spiritual Homilies of Marcarius-Symeon” by David Roach

“Simplicity and Trinity in Harmony” by Keith Goad

This is followed by a number of book reviews.

Individual issues are $10 within North America and $15 outside of North America. Subscriptions to the journal are available yearly for $20 in North America and $30 outside of North America (in US funds).

Please send requests and money to:

The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies
2825 Lexington Road
Louisville, KY 40280
800-626-5525
allen.mickle.jr@gmail.com

Name Change of Fuller Center

The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, now located at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, seeks to promote the study of Baptist history and doctrine as well as reflection on contemporary significance of that history. The center is named in honor of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), a late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century British Baptist pastor/theologian who opposed aberrant doctrine among Baptists in England and was instrumental in the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society. Fuller was a close friend and theological mentor of William Carey, founder of the modern international missions movement.

“When English Baptist life was threatened by the winter chill of hyper-Calvinism, Andrew Fuller warmed the churches with the free offer of the Gospel, and thus fueled the modern missions movement,” Russel D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration, has noted with regard to the theological importance of Andrew Fuller.

The Andrew Fuller Center will hold an annual major conference that will examine various aspects of Baptist History and thought. It will also support the publication of a critical edition of the works of Andrew Fuller, and from time to time, other works in Baptist history. In time, it is hoped the Center will have a role in mentoring junior scholars involved in Baptist studies. Twice each year, the Andrew Fuller Center will also publish Eusebeia, a journal that will carry articles and book reviews related to Baptist history and thought.

If you have any questions regarding the Center please feel free to contact me as I will be serving as Administrative Assistant to the Center.

Andrew Fuller on Natural and Moral Inability

The tenets of both Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism maintain that unregenerate sinners ought not to be required to perform that which they are incapable of doing. Therefore, from the Hyper-Calvinist perspective, preachers must not offer the gospel indiscriminately. They need to first look for those who have the inner warrant to come to Christ for their salvation and then preach to them exclusively, whereas the Arminians maintains that sinners ought not to be required to respond positively to the gospel unless they have the ability to do so.

However, for Fuller this dilemma existed because they did not differentiate the distinctions between natural and moral ability. The natural ability was the basis upon which “heathens” have a duty to respond in faith and repentance. The fact that they have moral inability to do so does not in any way invalidate this duty. If the unregenerate “heathens” rejected the message of the gospel, they would be choosing to do so in accordance with their own desires. Their volition simply reveals who they are, as individuals—whether or not they are reprobate or elect—should they respond positively. In either case, the unregenerate are making choices without outside constraints other than those they themselves impose; that is, their own moral inability. Fuller therefore states, “No man in the world, in his right senses, ever thought of excusing another in unreasonable hatred towards him, merely because his propensities that way were so strong that he could not overcome them. And why should we think of excusing ourselves in our unreasonable and abominable enmity to God”?

Moreover, since God used the preaching of missionaries to the unregenerate as his means of salvation, in Fuller’s thought, he was both logical and coherent in illuminating Carey to thus ensure the obligation of missionaries to offer the gospel to all.

As its secretary, Fuller’s contribution to the formation of the BMS was pre-eminent. The perception of him as “the Rope Holder” of Carey’s ministry in India is also an accurate portrait, but perhaps it was in his capacities as theologian and apologist that Fuller made his most vital contribution to the Protestant missionary movement.

[Excerpt from “A Mainspring of Missionary Thought: Andrew Fuller on Natural and Moral Inability,” American Baptist Quarterly 25, no. 4 (winter, 2006): 348-349.]

Register Online for the Andrew Fuller the Reader Conference

You can now register online for the Andrew Fuller the Reader conference being held at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on August 27-28, 2007.

For more information on the conference go here.

Fuller’s advice to bloggers

The studying of Divine truth as preachers rather than as Christians, or, in other words, studying it for the sake of finding out something to say to others, without so much as thinking or profiting our own souls, is a temptation to which we are more than ordinarily exposed.

(‘Character and success of a faithful minister’, Works i. 142.)

Andrew Fuller the Reader Conference Details

For all of you have been waiting with baited breath for details about the up-coming Andrew Fuller the Reader Conference at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on August 27-28, 2007 here you go!

Please go here to download a copy of the brochure which now has all the up-to-date information regarding speakers, times, registration, and costs!

Here is the newly revised schedule:

Monday, August 27

7:30-9:15 am Breakfast & Registration

9:30 am Michael Haykin (Toronto Baptist Seminary)
Andrew Fuller the theological reader

11:00 am Jeff Jue (Westminster Theological Seminary)
Andrew Fuller: heir of the Reformation

12:30 pm Lunch

2:00 – 2:40pm Parallel sessions

a. Michael McMullen (Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Editing Andrew Fuller’s diary

b. Barry Howson (Heritage College, Cambridge, ON)
Andrew Fuller and his reading of John Gill

c. Allen Mickle (University of Wales, PhD student)
Andrew Fuller and the Johnsonians: early theological reading

2:50-3:30 pm – Parallel sessions

d. Paul Brewster (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Ph.D. student)
Andrew Fuller as a pastor-theologian

e. Nigel Wheeler (Pretoria University Ph.D. student)
Andrew Fuller’s ordination sermons

f. Chris Chun (St.Andrews University Ph.D. student)
Andrew Fuller and the sense of the heart

6:00 pm Dinner

7:30 pm Russell Moore (Vice-President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Banquet speaker
The contemporary significance of Andrew Fuller

Tuesday, August 28

7:30-8:30 am Breakfast

9:00 am Carl Trueman (Westminster Theological Seminary)
John Owen’s influence on Andrew Fuller

10:30 am Tom Nettles (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Jonathan Edwards — theological mentor to Andrew Fuller

12:00pm A closing word