British Baptist Historians 3: Karen E. Smith

Karen Smith is actually American, but taught at the South Wales Baptist College from 1991-2018. She was brought up in Georgia (U.S.A.) and graduated from Mercer University in Macon and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She then went to Oxford University where she did research on eighteenth century Baptist life under the supervision of B. R. White (DPhil 1987). She gave the 1994 Hughey Memorial Lectures at IBTS.

Selected Publications

‘Beyond Public and Private Spheres: Another Look at Women in Baptist History and Historiography’, Baptist Quarterly 34.4 (1991), 79-87

‘The Role of Women in Early Baptist Missions’, Review and Expositor 89.1 (Winter, 1992), 35-48

‘The Covenant Life of some Eighteenth-Century Calvinistic Baptists in Hampshire and Wiltshire’ in Pilgrim Pathways: essays in Baptist history in honour of B. R. White edited by Paul Fiddes, William Brackney and John H. Y. Briggs (Mercer, 1999)

‘Forgotten Sisters: The Contributions of Some Notable but Un-noted British Baptist Women’ in Recycling the Past or Researching History?: Studies in Baptist Historiography and Myths edited by Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson (Paternoster, 2005)

‘British Women and the Baptist World Alliance: Honoured Partners and Fellow Workers?’, Baptist Quarterly 41.1 (January 2005), 25-46

‘The Liberty not to be a Christian: Robert Robinson (1735-1790) of Cambridge and Freedom of Conscience’ in Distinctive Baptists: Essays on Baptist History. A Festchrift in Honor of Walter B. Shurden edited by Marc A. Jolley & John D. Pierce (Mercer, 2005)

‘Preparation as a Discipline of Devotion in Eighteenth-Century England: A Lost Facet of Baptist Identity?’ in Baptist Identities: International Studies from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries edited by Ian Randall et al (Paternoster, 2006)

‘The Baptist College in Montreal, 1836-1849: The British Connexion, with special reference to the contribution of the Baptist Missionary Society, Baptist Quarterly 41.8 (2006)

‘Women in Cultural Captivity: British Women and the Zenana Mission’ Baptist History and Heritage 41.1 (Winter 2006), 30-41

Christian Spirituality (SCM, 2008)

‘A Fellowship of Believers: Covenant Relationships among British Baptists’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 36.4 (Winter 2009)

‘James Fanch (1704-67): The Spiritual Counsel of an Eighteenth Century Baptist Pastor’, in Pulpit and People edited by John H. Y. Briggs (Paternoster, 2009)

‘What About the Widows?: An Appeal to Nineteenth-Century Baptist Women’ in Baptists and the World: Renewing the Vision edited by John H. Y. Briggs and Anthony R. Cross (CBHHS Vol. 8.: Regent’ s Park College, 2011).

‘Nonconformists, the Home and Family Life’ in The T & T Clark Companion to Nonconformity edited by Robert Pope (T & T Clark, 2013)

‘The Balfours and the Burns: Baptists battling the power of strong drink’, Baptist Quarterly 45.8 (2014)

‘Charles Frederic Aked (1864-1941): “A Fighting Parson” for Social Reform’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 42.2 (Summer 2015)

‘A Baptist Vision of the Church’, Journal of European Baptist Studies 15.3 (2015)

‘Female Education’ among Baptists in the Eighteenth Century: Martha (Smith) Trinder (1736–1790) and Henrietta Neale (1752–1802)’, Baptist Quarterly 48.4 (2017)

‘Baptists at Home’ in Challenge and Change: English Baptist Life in the Eighteenth Century edited Stephen Copson and Peter Morden (Baptist Historical Society, 2017)

‘Baptists’ in The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions Vol II: The Long Eighteenth Century edited by Andrew Thompson (Oxford University Press, 2018)

‘Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) as Spiritual Guide’, American Baptist Quarterly 37.3 (2018)

‘”Holy Living and Holy Dying”: The Response of some British Baptist Women to “Come Out” of the World’ in Come Out from Among Them, and Be Ye Separate, Saith the Lord: Separationism and the Believers’ Church Tradition edited by Evan L. Colford (Pickwick, 2019)

‘‘The Word Became Image’: The Use of Magic Lanterns in Mission and Evangelism by British Baptists’, Baptist Quarterly 53.4 (2022)

Following on the Way: The Acts of the Apostles as Spiritual Formation (2022)

with Stephen Copson, ‘‘Baptists, Business and Respectability’ Elisha Smith (1754–1819) and Elisha Smith Robinson (1817–1885)’, Baptist Quarterly (2023)

‘Seeking the Kingdom of God: With Mind and Heart’ in Baptists and the Kingdom of God: Global Perspectives edited by T. Laine Scales and Joao B. Chaves (Baylor University Press, 2023)

Baptist Quarterly, October 2009

C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: Part 1: The Question of Baptismal Sacramentalism – Peter J. Modern

A Baptist View of Ordained Ministry: A function or way of being?: Part 2 – Brian C. Brewer

Baptists in Amsterdam – Henk Bakker

Thomas Helwys’ First Confession of Fath, 1610 – Antony D. Rich

The Intimacies of Letters and Diaries: Nonconformist life as seen from the inside – (Review article) John Briggs

Reviews

Nigel G. Wright reviews On Being the Church: Revisioning Baptist Identity by Brian Haymes, Ruth Gouldbourne and Anthony R. Cross

Tony Peck reviews European Baptists and the Third Reich by Bernard Green

Keith G. Jones reviews Communities of Conviction: Baptist Beginnings in Europe by Ian M. Randall