*** warning - research post - normal readers beware ***

Markus Bockmuehl in Seeing the Word (see earlier post for details) offer fives theses on the implied reader of the New Testament, which I have reduced down to a few phrases (so there's a level of interpretation here)

The implied reader is:

1. a stakeholder
2. a convert to the gospel
3. a person who sees NT as authoritative
4. a person who is part of a faith community and reads within that community
5. a person inpsired by the Holy Spirit who expects the NT to speak

From this I have postulated an equivalent five that might perhaps apply to the reading of Baptist history

The implied reader is

1. a stakeholder
2. a committed Baptist - or at least committed to understanding Baptist ways
3. a person who is looking for some sort of authoritative information
4. a person who will probably be part of a Baptist community, but who will probably read in splendid isolation
5. a person for whom this information is somehow relevant

I'm not entirely sure that the 'essence' of these are necessarily all that helpful - though I need to think about it more.  Anyone reading any non-fiction or text book presumably hopes it will give reliable information and be relevant insome way.  The reader will in some sense have a committment to the ideas or ideals contained.

This is not do belittle or diminish what I've read, on the contrary, it is only in seeing it written down that I became aware of these factors - yet another 'duh, I'm so fikk' moment (or an 'aha! now I get it moment', to be more positive).  I think these five themes can be useful questions as I seek to 'paint' my implied reader - how is this person a stakeholder?  what kind of authority might this person assign this information?  And so on.

Alas, when I think of real readers of much Baptist history - and even of the Bible - the gap between implication and actualisation can seem enormous.

Today I am luxuriating in reading.  It is a quiet week so far in Dibley, which is as well as the last one was utterly crazy.

In Markus Bockmuehl's Seeing the Word: Refocussing New Testament Study, Grand Rapids, Baker Academic 2006 I found this great quotation on page 37:

It is consdiered an embarrassment if a dissertation fails to engage with a relevant work published eighteen moths ago.  The entire nineteenth century, however, can be disregarded with impunity.  Scholars merrily copy from each other's cliched prejudices... It is still a distressingly small number... who bother to crack open the apposite volumes... or indeed who show any first-hand awareness of the two thousand years of Christian biblical interpretation.  By the late twentieth century, the Neutestamentler's cappucino has too frequently become all forth and no coffee.  What further encourages this trend is that the road to primary socurces has become so thoroughly covered with slippery hypotheses that few aspriring PhD students any longer fell safe to walk on it.

 

This made me smile and nod.  One of my ongoing fears is that I'll miss something published recently that does what I am trying to do.  More positively, I now find someone saying what I've felt for ages, that an awful lot of stuff is built on secondary (tertiary and beyond) sources.  Be it Spurgeon, Aquinas, Tillich, Tertullian, Wesley or whoever, most of what we think we know is often someones' interpretation of someone's quotation taken out of context.  As for 'old is irrelevent' well that;s exactly what I'm trying to counter...  And of course, as a latte drinker, I make sure that the coffee get well mixed with the milk!

I am enjoying this book - it is written in an engaging conversational style yet with great academic rigour (envy, spit), it is challenging yet not, at least so far, aggressive.  I guess it is really a book for people who have some clue about Biblical studies but the opening chapter, a reflection on Simon Marmion's Saint Luke Painting the Virgin Mary is worth reading inits own right - and may form a starter for ten for an act of worship at some point.

Many of us will be familiar with the name of Rob Frost, a Methodist and founder of Share Jesus International, whose recent work included the Essence outreach material and a millenium musical called Hopes and Dreams.  A committed evangelical with a strong social conscience, so far as I can understand, his work is well repected across denominational and theological spectra.

It seems that in the summer he was diagnosed with cancer, that treatment was not successful and he died on Sunday.

He will be missed by many, but the work he began will continue to the glory of the Lord he loved.

Today's Baptist new esweep says...

"The Baptist equivalent of General Synod, Baptist Union Council starts today..."

Is it?  I kind of hope it isn't!  Not that I am anti-Synods, it just doesn't sound like Baptist speak or Baptist doings.

I'd always seen it as somehow more like the Deacons' Meeting - given that we seem to equate Assembly to the Church Meeting.  Or maybe I have a funny view of these things...

There's that nice triangle diagram thing that has minister at the bottom of the heap, then deacons, topped by members - I guess unless/until we have an archbishop equivalent then we lose the minister layer at Union level, but Council seems to sit in the middle - does all the hard work and slog, thinks, prays and formulates things that go as recommendations to Assembly.

I might have this totally wrong, but I thought Synod (in Anglican not URC parlance) was the voting body, not only the thinking body. 

I guess that BU Council must have the potential for as much frustration as Deacons' meetings when all your hard work can be dismissed by a show of hands by people with only part of the information.  Maybe the difference is that the procedures for 'due process' are more clearly defined and propsoals are always circulated with enough time for people to think/pray about them.  Whilst I/we try to model that in our church working, I know it isn't always so straight forward.

Anyway, to those I know who are at Council and who are likely to read this... no blogging in the back/front row unless it's really dull, and pay attention to your nice Moderator!

Last Thursday's Church Meeting included sorting our arrangements for services over the holiday period when the school is closed.  Because of how Christmas falls, and because of other complexities, it means we will be out of school for three consecutive Sundays, and January isn't a whole let better!

We began with Sunday 23rd December- would people be around (only about half of them) and would they like to join with another church or do something of our own?  Were we really justified in paying out to hire a room for a dozen people?  Options were listed - join with D+1., join with Meths, join with Anglicans, meet in my house, meet in someone else's house...  next thing I know, we've agreed to join the Methodists in the morning and come to me in the evening for tea and a short service - so now I have an extra servcie to be at (the Meth's one) in a manic week.  How'd that happen?!

December 30th - I am off - and it's almost a 'wasted' free Sunday because they aren't going to hold a service.  This has been practice since we closed the building because it is one Sunday I always take off - along with 99% of ministers I suspect.  I know that about half of my folk will go to one of D+1, D+2 or the Meths; a few will go Penty, the rest will take the day off.  I'm glad as many as half want to go somewhere; I'm also glad we are seen as people who make arrangements for our folk over this period.  As for me, I shall be asleep!

Janaury 6th - we will be at D+6 to farewell one of their ministers and then at D+1 for a joint service - unless we can persuade them that it's too much to do 3 p.m. and 6 p.m in which case only the former.

January 13th we have our own service - which will probably be Covenant - something I think is important.

January 20th I preach at WPCU joint service for Churches Together at Meth's building  I think.

Janaury 27th is World Leprosy Day - and we hope to have raised enough to buy a house in India.

Yeek! That's a twelfth of the way through 2008 without drawing breathe!  How'd that happen too?!

Feeling dizzy yet?  I sure am!!