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“Seditious Sectaryes”
The Baptist Conventiclers of Oxford 1641–1691
Studies in Baptist History and Thought
Foreword by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
This book offers the first in-depth study of the origins of the Baptist Church in Oxford in the seventeenth century; it charts the people, the places, and the events that helped forge the Baptists into a dissenting congregation over a fifty-year period (1641-1691). It chronicles the rise of Baptist conventiclers during the early days of the Civil War, when Parliamentarians clashed with Royalist interests in the city of Oxford. It proceeds to discuss the significance of the Dissenters during the years of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and the struggle they faced during the Restoration period as a resurgent Church of England sought to stamp its authority on all such "seditious sectaryes." The story is told of a committed group of religious Dissenters, made up mainly of local townspeople who were fully integrated into the civic life of Oxford, seeking to make their vision of God's kingdom a reality in the world in which they lived. An influential tanner, a dedicated glover, a disaffected and outcast soldier, a well-connected cider-maker, and a controversial haberdasher who went on to become Mayor of Oxford all make their appearance here. Although the study is essentially biographical in nature, it drives the reader back inexorably to primary source materials, many of them identified and discussed here for the first time.
Larry J. Kreitzer is a Fellow and Tutor of New Testament at Regent's Park College, Oxford. He also holds a Research Lectureship within the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies and serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal for the Study of the New Testament.
"This elegantly-designed study is of importance both for the history of the city of Oxford and for the people called Baptists. A model of judicious scholarship, it has to be taken seriously because of the range of evidence from a wide variety of sources assembled, which are most meticulously interrogated and expounded as becomes a New Testament scholar deploying his textual skills in the interest of seventeenth-century dissenting history. This is no narrow institutional study but rather provides the reader with a rich tapestry of community history in which religious, political, and social themes intermingle."
--John H. Y. Briggs, Senior Research Fellow in Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, Regent's Park College, Oxford University
"This is the overview which will always be definitive on this important story, and it goes where previous scholars have not. It is also a tribute to the remarkable saga of continuity in one congregation from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day: an English story, but an essential part of the jigsaw of worldwide Baptist history."
--Diarmaid MacCulloch, Fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford, and Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University
"A model of research methodology, Dr. Kreitzer's painstaking scholarship invites readers to enter into the world of these radicals for themselves. Baptists and all interested in the religious and social history of England will be grateful for this unusual but deeply rewarding study of an important local Baptist community that continues into modern times."
--Ken R. Manley, Distinguished Professor of Church History, Whitley College, The University of Melbourne, Australia