Fellowship Archives Blog

One of the great historians of the Church is the Venerable Bede (672/673–735). Although he was best known in his own day for his commentaries on the Bible, over the centuries his most remembered-book is his History of the English Church and People in which he recorded the way that Christianity came to his people, the Anglo-Saxons. He rightly believed that God was active in history, all of history, and though contemporary Christian historians might disagree with some of his detailed judgments about specific divine activity, if we are Christians we cannot disagree with his basic conviction about God’s presence in the historical realm.

But though we agree with Bede, do we take time to read history and learn from it? Specifically, let’s think about the history of our Fellowship of churches: why should we read about it? Well, here are six key reasons.

1. All of us are children of history, immersed in the flow of time. Without the past our lives have no meaning. So, we must study history, and as Fellowship Baptists, this means we must pay some attention to our story as Fellowship Baptists. Our churches did not spring up overnight: we need to know their story to understand the present.
2. Studying Fellowship Baptist history helps to build a sense of humility into the fabric of our lives. The study of the past of our churches informs us about our predecessors in the Christian Faith, those who have helped shape our Christian communities and thus make us what we are. Such study builds humility and modesty into our lives, and so can exercise a sanctifying influence upon us.
3. We are to study the history of our churches so as to learn from the mistakes of the past. To cite the words of a famous proverb: “He who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it.”
4. The study of Church history in general, and Fellowship Baptist history in particular, also liberates us from the tyranny of present-day ideas, what C.S. Lewis once called “the idols of our marketplace.” Believe it or not, our Baptist forebears here in Canada did not think about everything in the way we do now. How could they? They lived in a somewhat different world. Such a study of Fellowship Baptist history is then of major importance in alerting us to the fleeting nature of some of what we and our present-day world values. As Christian historian, George Marsden once put it, “Rather than unknowingly allowing our values to be conformed to passing contemporary standards, we can strive to evaluate our current cultural norms intelligently and to apply to them the transforming values of Christ.”
5. Fellowship Baptist history can also provide us with models for imitation. For instance, in Hebrews 11–12:2, the writer uses the history of God’s faithful people in the old covenant to encourage his readers to run the “foot-race” of faith. He wants them to draw encouragement from the lives of past believers to press on in faith and obedience towards the final goal. And knowing about the lives of our Fellowship Baptist predecessors in the Faith can provide enormous encouragement for our present-day pilgrimage.
6. Finally, the study of Fellowship Baptist history should lead us to the praise of God and his adoration. To study the history of God’s people in our Fellowship of churches should lead us so praise him for his goodness and grace, his mighty acts and glory.

A good place to start would be A Glorious Fellowship of Churches: Celebrating the History of the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada, 1953–2003, which was edited by Robert B. Lockey and myself, and which is being revised for our 70th anniversary as a body of churches.

— Michael Haykin is professor of Church History at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, as well as the professor of Church History at Heritage Seminary and College in Cambridge, ON.