Glenn Hinson's newest book argues that Baptists should recover the contemplative tradition with which they began in the early seventeenth century and to teach others how to live contemplatively in an age and culture far removed from contemplation. Through our four centuries, especially in America, cultural experience has reshaped and is reshaping our spirituality and worship in ways whereby God ends up as the one we expect to serve our programs and whims rather than the one we serve.

In this small volume I will look first at what I call the crisis of Baptist spirituality posed by our current lifestyle and ask how well prepared we are to meet the challenge. From there I will take you back to Baptist/ Puritan beginnings as contemplatives engaged in a quest for heart religion manifested in transformed lives and social concern, remarkably close to the goal of contemplatives through the centuries. Next we will look at the reshaping of Baptist spirituality as a consequence of the Great Awakening and the frontier revivals and of the impact of the burgeoning business model on Baptist spirituality. In the final chapter I will try to project a vision for Baptist spirituality today. Above all, we Baptists should seek to make our churches schools of love that will offer to the world something it doesn’t already have more of than it needs.