In The Nick of Time

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Read Part 1.

Baptists in America trace their movement directly to the first Baptist churches that emerged from English separatism during the middle third of the seventeenth century. From the very early years, they have wrestled with the problem of finding an organizational pattern that would allow them to work together in cooperative enterprises. Three particular needs have made this problem acute.

Things that appear to be the same are sometimes quite different in important ways. When judicial activists appeal to the rule of law, for example, they may use exactly the same language as originalists, but their meaning is very different. Discussions of mysticism tend to be like that.

The history of Christian mysticism displays a tension between two impulses that are fundamentally incompatible with each other. Both impulses tend to express themselves in similar language, but what they mean by that language is quite different. Let me briefly describe each of these impulses.