Scriptural Baptism: A Dialog Between John Bapstead and Martin Childfont by Uuras Saarnivaara

Wipf and Stock sent me a review copy of Scriptural Baptism: A Dialog Between John Bapstead and Martin Childfont by Uuras Saarnivaara. The book has an introduction written by Rod Rosenbladt. Uuras Saarnivaara was a Lutheran pastor in Finland who lived from 1908-1998. In the book, Dr. Saarnivaara presents us with a fictional debate between two lay people on the proper subjects, meaning, and mode of baptism. Since Dr. Saarnivaara is a Lutheran, the move obvious danger is that he would present us with some caricature of the Baptist position. However, Saarnivaara bases almost all the statements made by John Bapstead on standard works by Baptist theologians as can be seen in the many footnotes. Surprisingly, there were some statements made by the Martin Childfont character that seemed more like a mish-mash of Calvinist and Lutheran theology rather than providing us with a thoroughly Lutheran response to the Baptist arguments. I didn't like the characters very much. Throughout the book Martin Childfont seemed like he was talking down to John Bapstead and John Bapstead seemed to cave too easily. John Bapstead would say things like, "Don't be so hard on us." But, the book is useful in showing what Baptists believe and why they believe what they believe.