(Part 1)

JBTM Book Reviews
130
internal notations. In the introduction, the authors state that footnotes are not incorporated
to preserve word count and because it was written from their personal perspective. However,
direct quotations within parenthesis are not noted. Their perspective is important, but for a
book designed as a textbook, the inability for students to follow a direct quote to the original
document is a major flaw. The authors also choose to provide birth and death dates for some
individuals but not others. In addition, other than Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, the
role of women in Baptist life deserves more attention. Despite these few drawbacks, The
Baptist Story is a strong book, accurate, fair, and well written. The authors tell the story so
well that it is difficult to put the book down. It adds much to Baptist history. I recommend
this book, and it should find its way to every Baptist’s personal library.
- Joseph Early Jr., Campbellsville University, Campbellsville, Kentucky
Baptists in America: A History. By Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015. 329 pages. Hardcover, $29.95.
In Baptists in America: A History, Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins offer the academic
community one of the best Baptist history texts in recent years. Concentrating on the
American context, the authors provide more than enough background of the earliest English
Baptists to bridge the gap to America where the text begins in earnest.
Placed within the broader context of national events, the theme of Baptists in America
centers on how Baptists evolved from persecuted, seventeenth-century dissenters to that
of a nearly-established church in the South by the mid-twentieth century. All of the text
is located within this overarching theme. The research concerning Roger Williams, John
Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, Isaac Backus, and others who stood up to the established church
and fought for religious liberty is well delineated. The Baptist dissemination from New
England to Charleston, South Carolina, and Sandy Creek, North Carolina, demonstrates
not only Baptist growth, but also how they often differed over adiaphora issues, but never
over matters such as the centrality of Scripture, believers’ baptism, and religious liberty.
The portrayals of J. P. Boyce, E. Y. Mullins, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Walter Rauschenbusch,
and many others provide insight into what theological matters demanded attention in their
respective eras.
The authors also provide in-depth analysis of the developing importance of Baptist
higher education, slavery, reaction to evolution, biblical criticism, confessions of faith,
fundamentalism, and the Civil Rights Movement. Moreover, the examination of the 1979
Southern Baptist Conservation Resurgence is recounted in an evenhanded manner. This
feat is rarely attempted or accomplished. The changes at The Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary in 1993 provide valuable information on how these events helped shape the Southern
Baptist Convention’s theological agenda as it entered the twenty-first century. Black Baptists