Books published by Mercer University Press

Offers a comprehensive analysis of Baptist theology. Embracing in one common trajectory the major Baptist confessions of faith, the major Baptist theologians, and the principal Baptist theological movements and controversies, this book spans four centuries of Baptist doctrinal history, acknowledging first the pre-1609 roots of Baptist theology.

William Ross Stilwell was wed to Mary Fletcher Speer (known as Molly) on 8 September 1859 in McDonough, Georgia, in Henry County. William was twenty and Molly was eighteen. Having moved to northwestern Louisiana and having their first child, they returned to Georgia in 1861 so Molly and their son Tommy could stay with the family while William joined Company F of the 53rd Regiment Georgia Volunteer Infantry in May 1862. The 53rd Georgia, on reaching Virginia, was immediately assigned to the brigade commanded by Paul Jones Semmes, a wealthy Columbus banker. The brigade was later commanded by Goode Bryan and then by James Philip Simms. The 53rd Georgia was in the Corps of James Longstreet and fought at Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Cedar Creek. Stilwell maneuvered for a special position and consecutively held positions of brigade headquarters guard, assistant to the brigade quartermaster, and finally brigade courier. Throughout the war, he maintained daily contact with company F. Collected here are 127 of his letters, most written to Molly. He wrote her about once a week for two and one-half years.

What was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s understanding of the State? In this provocative and challenging work, Michael G. Long addresses this very basic but overlooked aspect of King's thought. In King's vision there are three important elements of his view of the State.First, King understood the State to be reflective of and involved in the creating, preserving, and reconciling work of God. Long contends, the foundation of this view is King's christologically grounded vision of the beloved community. While King understood the State to be deeply sinful, he affirmed the role of the State in creating, preserving, and reconciling work of God. Like the individuals that make up the State, the State is not only a force of good, but also of evil.Second, King's theological understanding of the State remained relatively constant in most of its fundamental elements but developed in substantive content and expression throughout his life. With this argument, Long counters King scholarship that posits a radical transformation between the first decade and the last three years of King's ministry.Third, King's understanding of the state has its roots in the African-American tradition he experienced through his family and his Morehouse professors -- many of whom were Black Baptist preachers as well as in European-American religious and republican traditions. Identifying King's thought as that of a bricoleur -- a moralist who uses moral languages for his own use -- Long warns against a tendency to dismiss the interconnections between the African-American and European-American dimensions of King's education. King was a black bricoleur. Finally, the root of King's understanding of the State is not incivic republicanism, theological liberalism, Marxism, Niebuhrian realism, or in any other such school, but in the religious tradition he experienced at home and at college.