Boothe stood firmly in the theological tradition of the Nicene Creed, the Five Solas of the Reformation, and the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith. The real strength of any good book of theology is its content. Plain Theology is orthodox, evangelical, and reformed For that reason, I believe that Plain Theology for Plain People is a wonderful book to read with other Christians in your local church, particularly new believers.Ģ. Boothe did not set out to chase down every rabbit hole and so what he produced is a volume distilled down to theology’s most important topics. Plain Theology’s limited scope allowed the book to focus on the main points of theology. So why pay attention to a short, basic theology written by an ex-slave over 100 years ago? What follows are five reasons to read Plain Theology for Plain People for the edification of your own soul and the benefit of your local church. And so Boothe wrote a “plain theology” for “plain people” that brought the depths of God’s Word to the everyman. Generations of black Americans were denied access to the kind of education that would allow them to ingest the tomes of Augustine or Calvin, John Owen or Lemuel Haynes. Now, do not read “plain” as “watered-down.” The vernacular may be plain, but the content is robust. Plain Theology For Plain People was written for one simple reason: to bring theology down to a level where the average sharecropper could understand. Boothe went on to be the pastor of the First Colored Baptist Church of Meridian, Mississippi and later the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, now known as King Memorial Baptist Church, named after its most famous pastor, Martin Luther King Jr.

A slave from birth in mid-19 th century Alabama, Boothe was freed from his master by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865 and freed from his sin by God in the same year. Strickland II, who lobbied for its republication. This new edition of Boothe’s book includes an excellent introduction by Dr. Boothe’s relatively unknown work has recently been republished by Lexham Press. – and you might be tempted to answer “yes.”Ĭharles Octavius Boothe wrote his systematic theology, Plain Theology for Plain People, in 1890. Must all classics of systematic theology be dense? Passages in the works of Francis Turretin, for example, can sometimes take a third, sometimes even a fourth look to comprehend.Īnd must all classics of systematic theology, particularly Reformed theology, be written by white men? Simply read the list of the most popular Reformed systematic texts – Bavinck, Berkhof, Boyce, Grudem, Frame, et al. Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics is in four massive volumes. Must all classics of systematic theology be long? One thinks of John Calvin’s Institutes which spanned some 80 chapters in its final edition published in 1559.

Charles octavius boothe