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Crossing the Threshold of Hope, by John Paul II (Alfred A. Knopf, 244 pp.; $20, hardcover). Reviewed by Ashley Woodiwiss, professor of political science

at Wheaton College, Wheaton Illinois.

These are troubling times within American evangelicalism. Mark Noll and David Wells, among others, have identified intellectual and theological pathologies within the community that threaten its long-term vitality and spiritual strength. At the same time, and perhaps in response to these conditions, a number of well-known evangelicals have hit the road to Canterbury, Rome, and Antioch. In recent months, talk of strengthened alliances between American evangelicals and Catholics has created controversy in both communities.

In this context, the publication of Pope John Paul II's Crossing the Threshold of Hope is most timely. While the book does not resolve the historic differences between the Protestants and Catholics, many evangelicals will welcome it as a morally courageous and theologically compelling statement. Three themes within Threshold are particularly pertinent to the reinvigoration of evangelicalism: John Paul's robust account of the human person, his approach to evangelism, and his ecclesiology.

These themes are interwoven throughout the pope's responses to the 35 questions posed for him by the volume's editor, Italian journalist Vittorio Messori. The answers are wide-ranging, usually short and to the point, and cover such topics as the papacy, theological questions concerning the Trinity, salvific history, the place of evil and suffering, the variety of religions, signs of God's work in the world, and the world's response to Catholic teaching.

(A caveat for those encouraged by Knopf's prepublication hype to expect a book that is readily accessible to the man or woman on the street: Threshold can be very dense, as when the pope invokes thinkers such as Paul Ricouer, Emmanuel Levinas, and Karl Jaspers. Readers who are uninitiated in European history, Polish culture, and Catholic conciliar literature will also find it tough going at times. Still, the pope's pastoral intention is clear, and the patient reader will be rewarded.)

CHRISTIAN HUMANISM

It is in the section on human rights that the pope, in a revealing statement, speaks of how his pastoral experience in Poland led to the development of "the concept of a personalistic principle" (emphasis in the original, here, and in the following quotations). This principle is "an attempt to translate the commandment of love into the language of philosophical ethics. The person is a being for whom the only suitable dimension is love." John Paul has made the nature of the human person the central focus of his pastoral work. Thus, in those contemporary controversies that surround the Catholic church's teachings about life, the pope has consistently argued that these issues point to something deeper, that they "are ultimately bound up with the truth about man."

Evangelicals could benefit from seriously wrestling with the pope's "affirmation of the person as a person," helping us to clarify whether we are world-affirming or world-denying. Some will fault this concept as simply a humanistic turn unworthy of the gospel and of God's sovereignty. They may sniff Pelagianism, that ancient heresy first hatched in the garden that man can of his own will attain his salvation. But John Paul repeatedly insists that "salvation cannot be attained without the help of grace"; that, "Ultimately, only God can save man." Still, the pope adds, "He expects man to cooperate." If there exists a form of Christian humanism, its foundation lies in the principle of personalism.

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June 19 1995, Vol. 39, No. 7