I’ve learned that Stuart Murray’s new book, The Naked Anabaptist, is scheduled for publication in July 2010. It’s about Anabaptist Christianity “stripped down to the bare essentials.” Here’s some extracts:
In many nations, then, not only in Britain and Ireland, there are growing numbers of ‘neo-Anabaptists’ and ‘hyphenated Anabaptists’. Neo-Anabaptists identify with the Anabaptist tradition and are happy to be known as Anabaptists, but have no historic or cultural links with any Anabaptist-related denomination. Hyphenated Anabaptists find inspiration and resources in the Anabaptist tradition, but do not identify themselves as Anabaptists. They might be Baptist-Anabaptists, Methodist-Anabaptists, Anglican-Anabaptists, Pentecostal-Anabaptists or various other combinations.
‘Post-Christendom’ celebrated the demise of imperial Christianity and welcomed the opportunity to rethink all kinds of issues as the church found itself back on the margins of society. It suggested that, as the mainline traditions associated with imperial Christianity struggled to adjust to this new situation, perhaps some of the necessary resources are to be found in the radical tradition associated with Anabaptism.
As a neo/hypenated Anabaptist I’ll be looking forward to it.
Curious Christian 
I’ve just re-read Dissident Discipleship by Augsberger (which I think I first saw mentioned on this blog), and am feeling very of Post-Alt-Neo-Something along those lines. When they weren’t going mad and seceding from the state, the Anabaptists managed to combine counter-culturalism with responsibility for community in a way that those that weren’t shut out of Christendom have never managed. Not that that’s the sole criterion by which to judge a movement, but it’s an impressive object lesson in the consequences of good heart theology.
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I’m reading an advanced copy now and… Wow! Really good.
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Good to hear. I look forward to seeing this on the shelves.
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Although I met Stuart Murray when he visited Hopestreet a few years ago and ran seminars at Morling which I attended, I have not read any of his books yet.
Can you suggest a good intro text to his body of work?
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I’ve read Stuart Murray’s book on Church Planting which was quite good, and a few articles, but that’s about it.
You could try starting with this list of Stuart Murray’s books on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stuart-Murray/e/B001KI6BU4/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1267006510&sr=1-1
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Got my copy of Naked Anabaptist now. Busy reading through it.
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