Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community by Steven R. Harmon (review)

Steven R. Harmon believes that ecumenism is currently experiencing a "season of winter," with energy to issues of doctrine and church order among ecumenical institutions waning and ecumenical leaders passing on with few taking up the torch they have left burning (21–22). Yet Harmon, a US Cooperative Baptist theologian, holds that the work of ecumenism remains vital to the church. In Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future, he seeks to convince Baptists of the need for "catholic" unity and lays out a carefully crafted argument for the gifts that this broad tradition may offer for the ongoing work of ecumenism.

Baptists, according to Harmon, are in need of a qualitative catholicity—one that consists in a particular way of practising the Christian faith that distinguishes it from other, non-Christian or "sub-Christian" forms of faith—"because it will help their church form more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ" (8). After framing this argument in an introductory chapter and developing a case for Baptist participation in ecumenical efforts, Harmon offers three chapters that name various points of "differentiated consensus" (79) that can be described among Roman Catholic and Baptist views and among practices of interpreting their common story as captured in the canon of Scripture, their adherence to and contestation of the authority of tradition, and their shared patristic roots that ground radical biblicism and catholicity. In the next section, he shifts his gaze to "receptive ecumenism": how "an approach to ecumenical dialogue according to which the communions in conversation with one another seek to identify the distinctive gifts that each tradition has to offer the other and which each could receive from the other with integrity" (150) can be forged through the distinctiveness of denominations and the church's teaching authority. In the final section, Harmon explores how theology can aid in the task of ecumenical unity, addressing the importance of systematic theology, the gift of a Baptist pilgrim theology that sees the church as continuing the story of Jesus, and how a Baptist eschatological vision can spur greater levels of ecumenical unity.

This book represents a strong appeal for the ecumenical spirit to emerge from its hibernation and once again foster unity in Christ's universal church. It helpfully suggests a path forward on this journey, one that relies on each tradition involved to remain firm in their denominational identity; in this style of ecumenism, each member can bring their strengths to the table while being receptive to ongoing transformation in light of the gifts of others. This is precisely the posture that Harmon exemplifies in his book, rooting himself in his identity as a Baptist yet making a case that Baptists, as "dissenting catholic Christians" (112), can move toward an ecumenical future only as they embrace their catholicity. Although at times the Baptist-Catholic identity that Harmon imagines seems to involve Baptists venturing into that shared liminal space further than their Catholic brothers and sisters, he gradually broadens his argument to make the dialogue a mutual practice in which both parties embrace their shared roots as catholic Christians who were transformed by the Reformation.

This text rests on arguments that are well researched and build on one another to compel the reader to embrace the author's vision for an ecumenical future. Yet Harmon's desire for Baptists to offer attention to ecumenism is somewhat undermined by the structure of the text. Replete with run-on sentences and academic jargon, this book is clearly a work of scholarly theology in a historical mode. Yet if Harmon is firm in his belief that the two key loci for encouraging ecumenism among Baptists are "institutions of theological education and local churches" (264), then his own text undermines his purpose in the difficulty with which seminarians and clergy might have in making sense of the argument he unfolds. Perhaps this can...