Baptist Ways: A History

by Bill J. Leonard, Edwin S. Gaustad (Foreword by)

This exhaustive resource traces significant aspects of Baptist history from the 17th through the 20th centuries. It surveys basic beliefs, events, and experiences evident in Baptist communities and provides one of the most comprehensive resources on Baptist history available. Author Bill Leonard skillfully covers of the Baptist faith in the United Statesemergence of English, British, Irish, and Caribbean Baptistsdevelopment of African American Baptistsnumerous denominations that emerged in the twentieth centuryStudents, teachers, professors, and pastors alike will find in Leonard's resource an exceptional history that provides a foundation for this enduring faith

Genres: History, Church History

480 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was required reading for my seminary class (Baptist History). I don't usually enjoy required reading and this was no exception. The author was very detailed in his writings, which can be good, but it was almost to the point of boredom. I fell asleep many times reading this book.

It took a long time to read and I didn't really enjoy it.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an immensely helpful book. It definitely is very dense, and there most definitely needs to be a re-edit of the book as there are simple errors (i.e. “Caladian” instead of “Canadian”); yet this has been very useful for getting a macro perspective of Baptists and with some great micro details.

[Don Incognito · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very informative survey-level history of Baptist churches, associations, missionary groups, etc. through the end of the twentieth century.

The weakness is that the editing and the publication quality are unacceptably poor. With the extreme number and degree of typos that reduce entire paragraphs to near-gibberish, it's probably not the author's (a history professor) fault and possibly not even the editor's; someone or something probably screwed up in the printing process. If author Bill Leonard publishes a revised version, hopefully he uses another publisher, because this edition's publisher, a Judson Press, looks amateurish.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A thorough, detailed, stunningly boring work.