Bearing Witness - by Daniel Lee Hill

About the Book

Shows evangelical readers that our abolitionary ancestors have a great deal to teach us about the church's public witness.

Book Synopsis

In an era when the label "evangelical" is hotly contested and often entangled with political agendas, Daniel Lee Hill's Bearing Witness offers a timely reexamination of what it means to live out the gospel in public life.

Drawing on the rich legacy of nineteenth-century abolitionists David Ruggles, Maria W. Stewart, and William Still, Hill constructs a compelling evangelical framework for public witness, anchored in Scripture and the practice of lament and burden-bearing. Hill challenges evangelicals to rediscover their roots in a tradition that speaks powerfully to contemporary debates over church, culture, and the call to social justice.

Bearing Witness will be an indispensable guide for professors, students, pastors, and laypeople committed to a faith that speaks to the public square.

From the Back Cover

"Read this book, listen, lament, and learn . . . and then imagine what could be."

Drawing on the rich legacy of nineteenth-century abolitionists David Ruggles, Maria W. Stewart, and William Still, Daniel Lee Hill constructs a compelling evangelical framework for the church's public witness.

"Required reading for anyone grappling with the church's mission, evangelical identity, and public witness. Hill skillfully retrieves the antebellum witness of David Ruggles, Maria W. Stewart, and William Still and extends their logic into the present to spark the contemporary Christian imagination into faithful prophetic action. A must-read!"
--Walter R. Strickland II, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of Swing Low: A History of Black Christianity in America

"Today's Christians have a lot to learn from Hill. His thoughtful analysis of Ruggles, Stewart, Still, and what they teach us about God, ourselves, and our callings in the world shows--perhaps counterintuitively--that righteousness in public life depends to a large extent on evangelical witness (grounded in the Bible) to the Lord's will with respect to social ethics. Let us make good use of the models and theological wisdom in this book."
--Douglas A. Sweeney, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

"With wisdom, care, and faithful guidance, this book calls the church to a posture of bearing witness. Hill shows us the profound ways that the 'blood and sweat' of David Ruggles, Maria W. Stewart, and William Still 'still speak, ' inviting us to clear-eyed, hope-filled, and catholic listening and action."
--Jessica Joustra, Redeemer University

"The term 'evangelical' is all too often defined by the gifts and liabilities of those of European heritage. Hill shows how this good news tradition is also defined and displayed by three nineteenth-century African Americans. These forebears show us an evangelical faith where the good news is a public faith that involves bearing one another's burdens."
--Vincent Bacote, Center for Applied Christian Ethics, Wheaton College

"Bearing Witness is a treasure. Read this book, listen, lament, and learn . . . and then imagine what could be."
--Darrell L. Bock, Hendricks Center, Dallas Theological Seminary

About the Author

Daniel Lee Hill (PhD, Wheaton College) is assistant professor of Christian theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, in Waco, Texas. He is the author of Gathered on the Road to Zion Toward a Free Church Ecclesio-Anthropology.