1st Edition

Testimony and Tradition Studies in Reformed and Dissenting Thought

By Alan P.F. Sell Copyright 2005
    375 Pages
    by Routledge

    375 Pages
    by Routledge

    Internationally recognised for his scholarship in the philosophy of religion and Christian Doctrine, and for his ecclesiastical connections as former Theological Secretary of the Geneva-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Reformed theologian Alan Sell has an established reputation amongst theologians, church and intellectual historians, ecumenists, and ministers of religion. This collection of Alan Sell's work on the Reformed and Dissenting traditions - which includes the Presbyterian, Congregational and United Reformed Church - spans key doctrinal, philosophical, ethical, historical and ecumenical topics. The author illuminates central themes within the history and thought of the Reformed and Dissenting traditions including: the catholicity of the Church and danger of sectarianism, the importance of church meeting, the centrality of the Cross in Christian thought, the need for a viable Christian apologetic. Alan Sell also includes the only modern study of Henry Grove and papers on Andrew Fuller and P. T. Forsyth, in whose work there is currently a revival of interest. With growing interest world wide in the Reformed family, which is the third largest Christian world communion, this book offers an invaluable resource.

    Contents: Preface; Conservation and exploration in Christian theology; The worship of English Congregationalism; Telling the story: then and now; Doctrine, polity, liberty: what do Baptists stand for?; The life and thought of Henry Grove; Andrew Fuller and the Socinians; P.T. Forsyth as unsystematic systematician; What has P.T. Forsyth to do with Mercersburg?; A renewed plea for 'impractical' divinity; Reformed theology: whence and whither?; The Dissenting witness: yesterday and today; From Union to Church: autobiographical recollections of Congregational ecclesiology in the 1960s; Reminiscence, reflection, reassurance; Indexes.