Books on Baptist History

I would say they are both good one-volume surveys. As such, they share the strengths and weaknesses of that format, which is being able to cover a lot of material but being unable to focus at length on subjects.

I am more familiar with McBeth's work (which I use as a reference) than Torbets, which I have read and occasionally refer to. While attempting to deal with Baptist history generally, McBeth does not have the space to deal with a number of issues in depth. For example, European Baptists and less-common Baptist traditions in the United States are not covered at length.

McBeth wrote from a Southern Baptist perspective, Torbet from the ABC-USA perspective. Torbet's work is a bit more dated than McBeth's, and McBeth also compiled a separate volume of his source material, which makes for interesting reading.

Bill J. Leonard has recently published Baptist Ways: A History. I have not read it yet, but it's on my list.

 

I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised. It was commissioned by the American Baptist Historical Society (to replace Torbet's work). Leonard is dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest (where I suppose it is in use), and it received good reviews from Walter Shurden, executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer (which uses some of Leonard's work in its Certificate in Baptist Studies program.)

 

Save for a BBFI school why should I care about the others? FYI, Maranatha is (and I think the same is true of Pillsbury\Central) an accredited school. They were founded by men of the Historic Northern Baptist tradition.

 

Any Baptist history, whether old or new, can be tainted by particular schools of theology or, more likely, the viewpoints of the age in which they are written.

There is indeed value in reading the old histories, especially when they are providing information on contemporaneous events. Part of the advantage of reading older histories is that the assumptions that underly the works are obvious in a way that was not evident earlier.

As C.S. Lewis said:

The older historians can make some fascinating reading. (For example, Thomas Armitage in A History of the Baptists spends an entire chapter (17) outlining the efforts of American Baptists in the mid-1800s to support a new translation of the Bible into English.

Unfortunately, a number of older Baptist historians ventured far from the safety of the contemporaneous to the dangers of speculation (and confusing speculation with proof.)

Modern writers have access to the previous histories, as well as other information, and the new histories are written from a perspective that knows how the old debates turned out. They deserve to be read.