Inward Baptism: The Theological Origins of Evangelicalism

Abstract

the contributions to scholarly debates, which the arguments of these chapters provide, have already been made in another form. The benefit of this volume is that it provides a series of introductions to a variety of different topics in early Christianity and, as such, presents the student of early Christianity with a number of tools, by which they can understand their subject in a way that places human action at the forefront. However, it must still be said that this volume does suffer from a lack of cohesion. There is a notable gap between the subjects seperated by the two parts of the book, and it can be difficult to see how they are relevant to each other. The first part of this book is intended to present a general way of understanding religions, which the second part compliments by applying this general method to the particular case study of early Christianity. However, the latter chapters of the book do not particularly concern themselves with the category of religion or Christianity’s status as a religion. It could be said that this is in keeping with the methodology of part one, in that the datum which might be considered religious, is treated in the same way as any other social phenomenon. Nevertheless, it should still be noted that in spite of deeply problematising the category of religion in the first part of the work, Braun uses the term religion without critical reflection at several points in the later chapters (e.g., 67–69, 98–100, 128). Also, there is a notable difference in tone between the first and second parts of the work. The chapters that compose the first part of the work have a strongly polemical tone. This tone is fair and understandable within the context of the academic debate in which these pieces were originally published. However, when taken out of context, as they necessarily are within this volume, they can read as unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational even by a sympathetic reader. What does unite this text is its anthropocentric methodological core, which underscores its analysis of the range of topics the work covers. Through combining these chapters into a single volume, this book aims to champion the anthropocentric method as a distinct and foundational approach to the academic study of religion, and in particular to the study of early Christianity. For those who seek to teach how to study early Christianity from a secular, historically grounded perspective, or those who seek an introduction to an array of topics on early Christianity, this book may serve as a useful introductory teaching aid or personal guide.