A Free Will Baptist Handbook: Heritage, Beliefs, and Ministries - Book Review

Baptist History and Heritage, Summer-Fall, 1999 by Robert G. Gardher

By J. Matthew Pinson. Nashville: Randall House Publications, 1998. xvi 288pp.

Pastor of a Georgia Free Will Baptist church, moderator of a Georgia Free Will Baptist association, and college instructor in history and religion, J. Matthew Pinson is also completing a Ph.D. in history at Florida State University. How he has found the time to prepare this valuable volume seer's virtually unfathomable, but obviously he has.

The author describes his book as being useful "with new church members, prospective members, or as a `refresher course' for seasoned Free Will Baptist church members or pastors" (p. xi). It is also useful to those of us who are "outsiders," as an introduction to a body of fellow Baptists about whom most of us know very little.

True to its subtitle, the text introduces the reader to the history of Arminian Baptists in England and America; to distinctive Free Will Baptist doctrines; to the church covenant adopted by the National Association of Free Will Baptists; to four of the most important General/Free Will Baptist confessions of faith; to the history, structure, and ministries of the National Association; to Free Will ministries on state and local levels; and to other American Arminian general bodies not affiliated with the National Association.

The author makes an original contribution to the existing literature on Free Will Baptist history with his use of seventeenth-century General Baptist confessions of faith and his probing of theological works by writers such as Thomas Helwys and Thomas Grantham. In this respect, the book breaks new ground and deals with texts that have gone largely unexamined in Free Will Baptist historiography.

Pinson has read widely in Free Will and other Baptist literature. His perspective is shaped by his affiliation with the National Association of Free Will Baptists. Nevertheless, he expresses theological and ecclesiological disagreements with fairness and courtesy. His failure to employ inclusive language leaves something to be desired, as well as his failure to provide a complete index. The volume appears to have been published in haste; closer editorial attention could have removed numerous "smaller" problems that most readers will not observe in the first place. Perhaps its second edition will eliminate these difficulties.

However, a final word of approbation is very much in order. This young researcher has produced a most valuable work that is accessible to the lay reader. It belongs in a wide range of public, academic, church, and personal libraries.--Reviewed by Robert G. Gardner, professor emeritus of religion, Shorter College, Rome, Georgia, and senior researcher in Baptist history, Main Library, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.