The Author's Briefing

In the first episode of The Author’s Briefing, host George Mason talks with church historian Bill Leonard about his article “Practicing Gospel Dissent Like Now.”

Leonard traces dissent from the prophets and the early church to the first Baptists. In 1612 those Baptists insisted that God alone is judge of conscience and that there are no Christian nations, only Christian people. He explains how Baptists in America drifted away from that conviction once they became part of the cultural establishment. He also says why he sees the current push to merge Christianity with government as one of the most challenging moments of his lifetime.

Bill Leonard is the founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies and Church History Emeritus at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity.

Read Bill’s article and the full current issue of Christian Ethics Today, Issue 142, at ChristianEthicsToday.com.