Editorial.

As if the year 2000 has not been the cause of enough conversation, Baptist History and Heritage will use the start of the new century (or the end of the old) as an occasion to reflect. Beginning with this issue, BH&H will reflect, in selected issues, on Baptists and their encounter with the twentieth century.

This edition starts that reflection with a look at the Baptist encounter with selected twentieth-century theologies. Fisher Humphreys provides some needed context by tracing Baptist theology up through the nineteenth century. With that background set, the Winter edition looks at several theological movements of importance for Baptist life. Glenn Miller of Bangor Theological Seminary examines the connection between Baptists and Neo-evangelicalism. While one might suspect that the influence of Neo-evangelicalism on Southern Baptists was strong, Miller proposes that the opposite was true. Baptists shaped Neo-evangelicalism far more than the movement shaped Baptists. Looking at theology on the opposite end of the spectrum, Glenn Hinson writes of the connection between Baptists and Modernism, looking both at Baptist contributions to the movement and proposing reasons why Baptists would logically be attracted to classic American Liberal Theology. Stanley Grenz of Carey Theological College and Regent College, Vancouver, creatively explores ways that Baptists can "do theology" in a Postmodern context. The topics of these articles are by no means exhaustive of the theological issues that have touched the world of twentieth-century Baptists. Many more issues remain to be examined--Fundamentalist Theology, Feminist Theology, Baptists and Neo-orthodoxy--and I invite the readers to submit proposals on these and other issues.

North America and Europe are not the only places where Baptists engage in theological conversation. Two writers, Jorge Pixley and Pablo Moreno, write about Baptist encounters with Liberation Theology. Baptists in Latin America have had, surprisingly to many, a strong presence in this movement, which, until this issue, has not been explored in depth. Finally, from the other side of the Atlantic, Anthony Cross explores the baptismal theology of British Baptists in the twentieth century.

I offer my thanks to all of the contributors to this first issue of the year for their research and their important work. As always, I invite your suggestions for future articles and themes to be explored in this journal. And, as always, I offer my deepest thanks to all the people connected with the publication of this journal, especially Jim Taulman, whose technical expertise is invaluable.

Although this issue is more heavily theological than most past issues, Baptist History and Heritage will not become a journal of theology. Future issues will focus primarily on Baptist history and heritage. However, theology is a dynamic component of that heritage, thus the current issue.

On another note, let me encourage you to attend the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Historical Society in Savannah, Georgia. The planning committee has put together a strong program, which is sure to interest you as much as the city in which we will meet.

Grace, Mel Hawkins