Loyal Dissenters: Reading Scripture and Talking Freedom with 17-century English Baptists

When Baptists in 17th-century England wanted to talk about freedom, they unfailingly began by reading the Bible—and what they found in Scripture inspired their compelling (and, ultimately, successful) arguments for religious liberty. In an age of widespread anxiety, suspicion, and hostility, these early Baptists refused to worship God in keeping with the king’s command. This book is about how these early English Baptists read the Bible together and were led by that reading to the startling faith convictions—startling, at least, in the context of 17th-century England—that eventually came to define them as a distinctive type of Christians. Author Lee Canipe believes that it’s not only possible for Baptists in the 21st century to recover this habit of using Scripture to articulate their faith convictions about religious freedom, but that doing so is essential to preserving our unique Christian witness. With the boundaries between church and state as contested as ever, Loyal Dissenters offers scholars, clergy, and laypeople a fresh look at what Baptists believe—and how we can once again learn to talk about religious liberty in distinctively Christian language.