Introducing Historia ecclesiastica
This my personal thank you for subscribing to Historia ecclesiastica, a newsletter focused on my regular reflections on the history of the Christian Faith.
I have devoted myself to the discipline of church history since I was twenty years of age in 1974[1] and have been a full-time church historian since 1982.[2] The key areas of my historical research have been the Ancient Church, especially in the fourth and fifth centuries, and British and Irish Dissent in the long eighteenth century. But all of church history fascinates me.
In recent days my focus has been the world of revival in Particular Baptist circles in the late eighteenth century, the topic of friendship (of perennial interest to me), and the means of grace in the Christian life.
I am currently working on the critical edition of the works of Andrew Fuller (being published by DeGruyter [Berlin/Boston]) and preparing a monograph on some of his key theological ideas (being published by OUP).
I am also composing a collection of essays on the history of colour in Christianity. In this regard, I would also love to write a history of the rainbow.
Another recent project has been serving as the General Editor of the Essential Lexham Dictionary of Church History.
I am also working with colleagues at the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies on the John Gill Project (reprinting select works of John Gill), the Anne Dutton Project (publishing four volumes of Anne Dutton’s writings), the Nicaea1700 Project, preparing for two major conferences to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed in 2024/2025 (at Southern Seminary).
And this fall, the Andrew Fuller Center will host in Oakville, Ontario, a major conference on the history of political theology (https://discoverheritage.ca/events/andrew-fuller-centre/).
Note: This newsletter is free of charge, but if you are interested in exploring church history at a deeper level, you can subscribe to Historia ecclesiastica for five dollars a month/thirty dollars a year, which will bring my longer essays to your mailbox as well as provide three opportunities a year to engage in an online colloquy where we shall explore persons and ideas, texts and artifacts in church history.
[1] I earned my MRel in church history (Wycliffe College/University of Toronto, 1977) with 2 theses in patristics—one on Augustine’s theology of history and one on the concept of the eighth day in Greek Patristic thought.
[2] After I earned my ThD in church history (Wycliffe College/University of Toronto, 1982) with a doctoral thesis on the biblical basis of the fourth-century defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit in Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea, I have taught at Central Baptist Seminary, Toronto; Heritage Seminary and College, London & Cambridge, Ontario; Toronto Baptist Seminary; The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.