An Adventure In Christian Evidences
Reasons for Faith, by John H. Gerstner (Harper, 1960, 241 pp., $4), is reviewed by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Systematic Theology, California Baptist Theological Seminary.
Reasons for Faith is a popular presentation of Christian evidences with some apologetic materials. The first six chapters develop a natural theology and discuss the theistic proofs at a popular level. Commencing with the seventh chapter, the good professor presents the case for special revelation followed by discussions of miracles, prophecy, archaeology, comparative religions, and the influence of Christianity. From this he turns to treat standard objections to Christian faith from science, criticism, and the shortcomings of the Church. He concludes the book with a short chapter called “The Pragmatic Test.”
Dr. Gerstner informs the reader that his exposition is guided by two considerations: (1) that he writes from the perspective of the older apologetics, and not the newer; and (2) that he writes popularly for the average college student. So far as the second consideration is concerned, the goal is achieved. The book is well written and the thought and sentences flow along rather smoothly. Of the first consideration we are not so sure. Dr. Gerstner does not identify the old or the new in apologetics. My guess is that by the old he means the old Princeton school of Alexander, Hodge, Greene, Warfield, and Machen. First, the antiquity of this school is not older than Butler (unless one wishes to equate Butler’s system with that of Aquinas). Thus the new apologetics which Gerstner declines is in point of time much older (going back to Calvin, Anselm, and Augustine) than his old apologetics. Secondly, I do not think that Professor Gerstner accurately represents the old apologetics, at least as it is found in Warfield. There are deep-seated differences between Gerstner’s theses in Reasons for Faith and those propounded by Warfield in his great essay on “Calvin’s Knowledge of God,” or his equally great essay on “Augustine’s Doctrine of Knowledge and Authority.”
Reasons for Faith is a work which will be of help and guidance to those students and lay people who need a straightforward, uncomplicated defense of the main truths of the Christian faith. However, it will be particularly disappointing to those students who are fighting a real battle in their souls with the modern intellectual world. Although the book shows some revelance to twentieth century thought, it is basically nineteenth century in its mode of argumentation, in its philosophical terminology, and the kind of logical inferences it makes. But we simply cannot write apologetics from the philosophical stance of the nineteenth century. Existentialism and analytic philosophies are the contemporary philosophies with which we must contend. Furthermore, can we discuss the proofs for theism or modes of arguing for theism and disregard the writings of Wiggenstein, Carnap, Russell, Ayer, or Feigl?
The author apparently has not read the works of any hard-hitting analytic philosopher, or else he is not familiar with the Oxford debates over the character of theological language. Yet, this is where the alert twentieth century college and seminary student is being pushed, and where an apologetic must become relevant. I am also surprised that Dr. Gerstner has completely by-passed the issues of general and special revelation. This is certainly Zeitgeist with orthodox (Berkouwer, General Revelation) and neo-orthodox thinkers. One has to take sides in the Barth-Rome controversy (the validity of the analogy of being), and the Barth-Brunner controversy (the validity of general revelation) and the Berkouwer-Barth controversy (the validity of the historic orthodox relationship of general and special revelation).
BERNARD RAMM
A Melee
American Catholics: A Protestant-Jewish View, a symposium edited by Philip Scharper (Sheed & Ward, 1959, 235 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by C. Stanley Lowell, Associate Director of Protestants and Other Americans United.
This particular symposium manifests more lack of coordination and planning than do most. It would appear that the editor must have called the writers on the phone and said; “Look, will you be a good fellow and give me 3,000 words on what you think of American Catholics? You take history.”
The result is a hodgepodge in which some topics are inadequately treated two or three times, and certain fundamental problems are not properly faced at all. This kind of project deserved more careful preparation.
Protestant readers will find greater interest in the Protestant-Catholic confrontation than they will in Judaism and Catholicism. Martin Marty, a parish minister and one of the editors of The Christian Century, undertakes to debunk the Protestant-American dream. There is a petty accuracy in much that he writes. Still, he overlooks the forest for the trees. The Protestant-American dream has been one in which men have lived and moved and had their being. Perhaps America is not a “Protestant nation”—a designation most of the writers seem to deprecate. Yet America cannot be accounted for without this very Protestant-American dream. It deserves more than debunking treatment.
Robert McAfee Brown, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, writing on “The Issues Which Divide Us,” does state on page 73 a number of the major issues dividing the religious communities, but he does not indicate broad understanding of their import. The commanding issue of our day—government subsidies for Catholic schools—receives bare mention, but its relation to the “money barrier” by which tax funds have been denied to churches under our system is not traced.
Dr. Brown may be suspect as to prejudice in his discussion of Protestant-Catholic issues. He discloses on page 83 that he has espoused a view of Roman Catholicism which has little documentary warrant. Why has he done this? He does not give the answer but one can guess. Dr. Brown is a revered participant in what is called “the dialogue.” There is one requirement for participation in “the dialogue” which seems to be rigidly enforced. One must sign a loyalty oath to accept as infallible the Courtney-Murray-John Cogley line on what the Roman church teaches in regard to religious liberty. Dr. Brown writes from this aberrational stance. The fact that he acknowledges the aberration is helpful, but that he rests his work upon aberration is dubious scholarship.
Father Murray is actually an inconsequential cog in the vast mechanism of the Roman Catholic church. His view that this church really does believe in religious liberty in a situation like America, and would not destroy it even if it could, is a view that has never made any headway at the Vatican. Not a single papal encyclical supports it, and there are many that can be cited against it.
Prejudice is again exhibited when Dr. Brown in a footnote attacks POAU for criticizing the Vatican as a church, then as a state depending on “the polemical needs of the moment.” The fact is that the Vatican is a State-Church hybrid which alternately poses as a church and as a state depending on which will prove the more profitable at the moment. The Vatican claims all prerogatives as a state, but denies all responsibilities as a state because it is a church. This aspect of the matter has probably never occurred to Dr. Brown.
Allyn Robinson who heads the New York office of the Conference of Christians and Jews offers what might be expected from a representative of this group. Its leaders are obsessed with the virtues of talk. They are committed to the proposition that if people of different convictions can only get together (preferably at a good dinner) and talk and talk, then tensions can be resolved. One wonders what warrant there is for believing this. Much talk sometimes worsens rather than betters relations. Dr. Robinson’s uncritical and unfair classification of POAU with the Know-Nothing Movement is rather startling in a professional exponent of brotherhood. He gently slaps wrists all around, but always comes back to the Conference theme which stresses sentimental confrontation rather than realistic grappling with issues.
C. STANLEY LOWELL
Exegetical Studies
Notes on the Epistles of Paul, by J. B. Lightfoot (Zondervan, 1957, 336 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Wick Broomall, Author of Biblical Criticism.
Perhaps all ministers who have studied Greek exegesis in seminary days have become acquainted with Dr. Lightfoot’s never-to-be-outdated commentaries on some of Paul’s epistles. Though the good bishop died in 1889, his commentaries have had few equals up to our time.
In the present volume, which contains, in the order of treatment, Dr. Lightfoot’s notes on I and II Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians 1–7; Romans 1–7, and Ephesians 1:1–14, the hand of this old master of exegesis is seen on every page. It is true, unfortunately, that many ministers today, unacquainted with Greek and Latin, will pass over the many quotations from the early Church Fathers; but even those with only a smattering of Greek will find these pages replete with satisfying material for the mind and soul.
Lightfoot will always remain among the elite of commentators. This position has been merited because of his sound and judicious treatment and interpretation of Scripture. His vast erudition is so gently employed in the service of divine truth that even the average reader will understand readily the simple English style found in this volume.
In these Notes the reader will find excellent studies on individual passages and words. The reviewer calls attention to katartisai (p. 47), skeuos (pp. 54 f.), hemeis hoi zontes (pp. 65 ff.), apo tou ponerou (pp. 125 f.), hilasterion (pp. 271 f.) dikaioma (p. 292), oikonomia (pp. 319 ff.), anakephalaiosasthai (pp. 321 ff.) and arrabon (pp. 323 ff.) as illustrations of the deft way in which Dr. Lightfoot enriches our knowledge of Paul’s words. Like Ellicott, an equal among exegetical giants, Lightfoot was a careful student of Greek grammar and syntax. Naturally, therefore, the reader will expect to find questions and problems of syntax—largely ignored in more recent commentaries—the subjects of careful investigation. This expectation is well rewarded when one considers, for example, Lightfoot’s treatment of the genitive (p. 15), of hina (p. 151), of me in questions (p. 154) and of similar problems. Nor is that all. Does the reader desire to know the difference between dokimazo and peirazo (p. 21), between ou and me (p. 39), between anagke and thlipsis (p. 45), between to kalon and to agathon (p. 86), between oida and ginosko (p. 179), between bios and zoe (p. 211), between laleo and lego (p. 269), between eulogetos and eulogemenos (pp. 210 f.), or between phronesis and sophia (pp. 317 f.)? If so, Lightfoot will not disappoint him.
Critical and introductory problems receive only scant attention. There are, however, detailed analyses of all the epistles dealt with in this volume—except Ephesians.
Today, in the light of the missile age, secular educators are demanding that our schools return to the fundamentals of learning. Perhaps it is not too late for us to suggest that the ministerial world, grown flabby on a mushy diet of predigested “popular” commentaries, should, right now, return to the study of Lightfoot’s commentaries. These Notes offer a wonderful opportunity to begin an exegetical study of Scripture with the help of a man fully qualified as a guide.
Zondervan Publishing House, let us add, has done a real service to our generation in adding this volume (published posthumously in 1895) to their valuable “Classic Commentary Series.”
WICK BROOMALL
Historical Commentary
The Acts of the Apostles, by E. M. Blaiklock (Eerdmans, 1959, 197 pp., $3), is reviewed by Raymond O. Zorn, Minister of Faith Presbyterian Church, Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.
Readers interested in short commentaries that are neither unduly technical nor unhelpfully brief should procure the commentaries of this series of which the volume under review is the seventh and most recent in publication. As with the others, this book has a neatly printed format and a 33-page introduction dealing with the date, authorship, and historical setting of Acts, which reveals a scholarly awareness of critical problems. A detailed outline of Acts and a brief but adequate bibliography are other helpful features of this book.
Since the book of Acts presents a history indispensable to our knowledge of the earliest decades of Christianity’s advance, the commentator, professor of classics in University College, Auckland, New Zealand, is well equipped to set forth the contents of the book especially with regard to the historical setting in the ancient world.
But the value of the book does not end as an historical commentary. Throughout it reflects a scholar’s knowledge of the original Greek (significant words are given in transliteration) combined with a sincere effort to remain faithful to the basic meaning of the text. Problems are faced and wrestled with to satisfying conclusions for the most part (e.g., the Pentecostal tongues, pp. 55–57); yet there will be differences of opinion on the part of readers over other matters (e.g., the toning down of the predestinarian emphasis of 13:48 on p. 110; the interpretation of “church” in 7:38 as merely political, pp. 82–83; and the feeling that Acts was either unfinished, or that Luke intended to write a third volume, pp. 12 and 195).
The reader will find provocative the author’s treatment of Paul with detailed implications as to the significance of his being a Roman citizen (pp. 83–87); his exegetical effort to prove that Luke was a native of Philippi (pp. 123–124), though the Anti-Marcionite Prologue dating from the latter half of the second century makes Luke a native of Syrian Antioch; his support of the south Galatia hypothesis as the region where Paul established churches (pp. 121–123) to which the Galatian epistle was subsequently sent; his detailed background of Greek achievement as epitomized in the glory of Athens (pp. 132–136), and numerous other matters.
The major shortcoming of the commentary, if it can be classified as such, is its exegetical brevity. However, a commentary of 200 odd pages, the biblical text being omitted as is uniformly true of all in this series, may yet do justice to the exegesis of the text. The author subdivides Acts into rather large pericopes with comment on these sections in the form of condensed essays. Then a brief section on additional notes is appended in which exegetical treatment is given to selected verses of the context. A suggested remedy for future editions of this otherwise useful work, as well as for the commentaries not yet published for this series, might be the enlarging of the “Additional Notes” section by approximately 50 pages. This would still keep the volume within the handy limits of its originally intended range.
Blaiklock, in giving his estimate of Luke, says that he had a “scholar’s ability to strip away irrelevant or dispensable detail” (p. 15). Blaiklock has achieved to an admirable degree this same quality in his commentary.
RAYMOND O. ZORN
Strides In Archaeology
Light from the Ancient Past, by Jack Finegan (Second edition, Princeton University Press, 1959, 638 pp., $10), is reviewed by Charles F. Pfeiffer, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Gordon College.
Since its first publication in 1946, Light from the Ancient Past has been one of the most readable and informative works on the historical and archaeological backgrounds of Scripture. The reader is able to visualize the cultures of Sumer and Egypt, of Canaanites and Hittites, and relate them to the biblical narrative in such a way that both the Bible and ancient history take on new meaning.
Rapid strides have been made in archaeological studies since 1946, and the new edition brings both additions and changes. The volume has been enlarged by 138 pages which in part is old material reworked in the light of more recent studies, and in part consists of material unknown at the time of the first edition. Important in the latter category is the Dead Sea Scroll material.
Finegan has adjusted his chronologies in numerous instances. Changes are in decades rather than centuries. The division of the Israelite kingdom is dated 931/930 B.C. in the new edition, and 926 B.C. in the old edition of this work. The Egyptian twenty-first dynasty began, according to the 1946 edition, in 1150 B.C., whereas the new edition gives 1090 as the date.
The factual nature of Finegan’s work accounts in no small measure for its popularity. When controversial subjects are discussed (e.g. the date of the Exodus, pp. 117–121), arguments for the differing viewpoints are given fair hearing and the author presents his own conclusion in cautious terms.
Biblical studies need to be based on historical data. Finegan will help the student to read his Bible in the light of the world in which it was written.
CHARLES F. PFEIFFER
Spiritual Dynamic
Power Through Pentecost, by Harold J. Ockenga (Eerdmans, 1959, 128 pp., $2), is reviewed by Robert B. Dempsey, Pastor of Carlisle Congregational Church, Carlisle, Mass.
The nations are engaged in a race for power that the world might be changed for the better. Ironically, the Christian Church, the only body that could transform the world, is the one that seems least interested in doing so. Often she does not realize her weakness. When she does, she does not know where to find strength.
In this timely volume, the minister of Boston’s Park Street Church presents a soul-searching study of Pentecostal power in the individual experience. It is not a systematic study of biblical pneumatology but a thoughtful presentation of the secret of the unleashed dynamite of the Spirit in New Testament lives. Such a study will best teach us how this power may be unleashed in individuals and in the Church of this decade.
After two introductory chapters, the author examines the experiences of men wherein the power of the Holy Spirit was plainly manifested. The author repeatedly avers the New Testament truth that every believer is baptized, sealed, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and that this is entirely different from being filled with the Spirit (pp. 41, 57, 58, 60, 61, 74).
The term “second” is boldly used to describe the experience of being filled with the Spirit. It is a second crisis experience (pp. 61, 81, 125, 127). We do not tarry for the Spirit, but we must tarry for his power in our prayer of confession and consecration (pp. 31, 32, 23, 126). Dispelling any notion about sinless perfectionism (p. 23), the author is clear in stating that sin and self-centeredness are a barrier to power (pp. 14, 22). In fact sin will rob us of power and the fullness of the Spirit (p. 24).
The genuinely converted will earnestly seek to be filled with power through a Pentecostal experience. Christians who do not come to the place of surrender are living truncated, abnormal, and carnal Christian lives. They will lack power to change the world through revival. Like Peter, Stephen, Paul, and Philip, they are urged to yield themselves to the Holy Spirit.
The Church today needs to understand the secret of the power that rocked the first century world, if it is to rock the twentieth century world for Christ. “If the Holy Spirit is here in the Church and in the believers, there is no excuse for our not exercising power” (p. 104).
The weakest part of this most helpful study is Chapter 10 which expounds Acts 19:2: “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” A treatment of the meaning of the word “received” would have been helpful. Consistently it has been stated that believers already have the Spirit, and therefore questions directed to present day believers about receiving the Spirit seem inconsistent (pp. 95, 99).
ROBERT B. DEMPSEY
Essentially Theistic
Ancient Judaism and the New Testament, by Frederick C. Grant (Macmillan, 1959, 155 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by H. L. Ellison, author, Christian Approach to the Jews.
Dr. Grant, Professor of Biblical Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York, has been for many years one of the leading biblical scholars of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Both his standing as a scholar and his conviction of the vital importance of the thesis put out in his present work demand that we consider it seriously.
Unfortunately the title is doubly misleading. The book is really an urgent plea for a return to a humanistic liberalism firmly based on the Bible and also on our classical heritage from Greece and Rome. The Bible is regarded as above all the treasure of the worshiping Church; its interpretation is to be based on strictest scholarship, but its evaluation is clearly to be a matter of sanctified rational subjectivism. The resultant religion is to be essentially theistic, not Christocentric, and ethical. He makes it clear that his evaluation of Judaism, and indeed of the Eastern religions generally, is in relative and not absolute terms, and he looks forward to Christian-Jewish rapproachment.
The other ambiguity lies in the term “Ancient Judaism.” Dr. Grant accepts, at least in general lines, the Wellhausen picture of the Old Testament and makes the Pentateuch in its present form, the Psalter, and considerable portions of the prophets post-exilic. For him ancient Judaism is not merely the religion of the Jews as it developed in the intertestamental period but also that of the Old Testament taken as a whole in the form that the best elements in the time of our Lord interpreted it.
The greatest weakness in the book is the author’s failure to grapple seriously with the New Testament’s presentation of the problem of the Jew. For him Matthew 27:25; John 8:44; 1 Thessalonians 2:16 would be blots on “any sacred books.” Our Lord’s condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees, his rejection by the Jews, and Paul’s agonized argument in Romans 9–11 are dealt with most superficially or not at all. Paul is even depreciated as a Hellenist to the greater glory of Palestinian Pharisaism.
The last defect we would mention may be due more to the publishers than to the author, for it is a growing defect in American books. Though the author complains rightly of the inability of most to check statements by reference to original sources, he has made it almost impossible for his readers to do so. There is no bibliography and we are given only four footnotes and rare indications of authorities. As a result only the specialist reader will be able to judge whether the strong and often sweeping statements and judgments are correct, as they often are, or whether they are controversial and debatable, or biased and unfair, or sometimes even simply false.
We appreciate Dr. Grant’s deep sincerity and his reaction from many perversions of truth in Christian circles made apparent by the horrors of Hitlerism. We quite understand why it received the 1958 award of the Christian Research Foundation, but we cannot recommend it except those who are sufficiently experts hardly to need it.
H. L. ELLISON
Marxism
Foundations of the Responsible Society, by Walter G. Muelder (Abingdon, 1959, 304 pp., $6), is reviewed by Irving E. Howard, Assistant Editor, Christian Economics.
Dr. Walter G. Muelder, author of Foundations of the Responsible Society, is dean and professor of social ethics at Boston University School of Theology. In this volume, he betrays an awareness of the thought of the so-called neo-orthodox theologians, if not of the orthodox, but he is himself a religious liberal of the old school. What is more significant, he holds uncritically several Marxist dogmas. Thus, he states on page 53: “Karl Marx, for example, showed that class conflict characterized Western society.” This Marxian dogma of the inevitability of class conflict in a capitalistic society has distorted much modern thinking. However, both Kenneth Boulding and Ludwig von Mises have shown that a capitalistic market economy makes for peaceful cooperation while government intervention in a planned economy produces tension, conflicts, and war. Of course, this is the contrary to what Dr. Muelder assumes. One should read the Foundations of the Responsible Society with the understanding that it has been written from a Marxian point of view.
The early American political philosophy, which produced our Constitutional system, is ridiculed without being identified. The core of that philosophy was fear of government. Says Dr. Muelder on page 108: “Too much thinking about the state today is rooted in fear.…” While agreeing with opponents of the omnicompetent state, Dr. Muelder continues by describing the function of government in such a way that it implies a government with power equal to any totalitarianism. “The state takes logical and ethical precedent over the economic order,” says Dr. Muelder as he continues an argument for a welfare state which extends beyond national boundaries. A government with the power to do all that Dr. Muelder wishes to have it do would be a government with too much power to be controlled by the so-called “democratic process.” Indeed, the government Dr. Muelder describes looks like a lamb with compassion for the welfare of people, but, if realized, such a government would “speak like a dragon.”
Since Dr. Muelder reports the various ecumenical conferences as though they represent the synthesis of “Christian” thought, this book is valuable as documentary evidence of the direction the ecumenical movement is taking in social ethics. It is valuable for little else. It offers no biblical insights into the problems discussed. It misrepresents both capitalism and the political philosophy of the American Constitution. Nevertheless, it is a persuasive book which uses a descriptive approach and makes a pretense of scholarly objectivity while it is, in truth, a clever example of special pleading for the welfare state.
IRVING E. HOWARD
Neglected Heritage
Freedom and Federalism, by Felix Morley (Henry Regnery, 1959, 274 pp., $5), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry.
A champion of limited government and of free enterprise traditions against socialist encroachments, Felix Morley’s political perspective cherishes America’s neglected heritage of Federalism. With the blurring of representative government into majoritarian democracy, he warns, “the era of the American Republic” may be “drawing to a close” a scant two centuries after its beginnings. The implementation of centralized government, rather than the dispersal of political power, is the corrupting evil.
Although more an idealist than a biblical theist in temperament, Dr. Morley is alert to the political implications of Christianity. He views the maintenance of limited government as a moral issue, its preservation as much dependent upon the alertness of the churches as upon legislators and law courts. “The growth of Big Government goes hand in hand with the loss of Big Convictions” (p. 240).
CARL F. H. HENRY
Sermon Methodology
We Prepare and Preach, edited by Clarence Stonelynn Roddy (Moody Press, 1959, 190 pp., $3.25), is reviewed by H. C. Brown, Jr., Professor of Preaching, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Throughout the history of Christianity successful preachers have stimulated other ministers to give more diligent attention to the art of preaching. But alas, it is also true that some undiscerning preachers have imitated and copied in toto their more talented brethren and have thereby destroyed their own creative talents. The level of pulpit excellence rises and falls to the degree that the mass of ministers is motivated toward copying or creativity. Blessed is that capable preacher who can convey to his fellow ministers “abiding principles” without causing them to become slaves to homiletical minutiae or without encouraging them to become “addicted to plagiarism.”
Creative practice should produce creative principles and rules, and these in turn should make for better practice in the next generation. In recent years several volumes of sermon methodology by successful contemporary preachers have been compiled for the purpose of improving preaching. This volume by Clarence Roddy is another volume attempting this task. It makes available biographical sketches, sample sermons, and personal homiletical theories of William Ward Ayer, Donald Grey Barnhouse, Howard W. Ferrin, J. Lester Harnish, Robert G. Lee, J. Vernon McGee, Harold John Ockenga, Alan Redpath, Paul Stromberg Rees, Wilber Moorehead Smith, and J. R. W. Stott.
The reader should study and analyze, compare and contrast, and agree and disagree with Roddy’s contributors if he is to receive full benefit from this book. Since these men are individualistic in their methods, the reader wall profit most by making a personal homiletical synthesis from the preaching theories expressed. When the digest has been prepared, then let the reader pass judgment on the various parts of his synthesis. This book has much to teach the careful and thoughtful reader.
H. C. BROWN
Inter-Testamental Period
Between the Testaments, by Charles F. Pfeiffer (Baker, 1959, 132 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Edward J. Young, Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary.
What occurred in Jewish history between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New? This is a question upon which many Christians are ill-informed. To many the period is hazy, and it is difficult to keep events clearly in their proper order. One need has been for a concise, popular history of the period that would help to place events and people in their proper perspective.
That need has now been filled. The present work is a popular history dealing with the period between the two testaments. It treats of matters in a popular, readable style, and whets the appetite for more. Despite the concise nature of the book, the author has managed to include a tremendous amount of useful material and to do justice to all the principal events. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls are included, and the author is most competent to deal with these.
Helps are provided for further study. The reading of this excellent little work should make the general outlines of the period clear to anyone. The writing of the book must have been a difficult task, but Dr. Pfeiffer has done a most creditable job. This book is ideal for young people, and indeed for anyone who wishes to understand the period of which it treats.
EDWARD J. YOUNG
Limitation Of Offspring
Planned Parenthood and Birth Control in the Light of Christian Ethics, by Alfred Martin Rehwinkel (Concordia, 1959, 133 pp., cloth $2.25, paper $1.50), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister, Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, N. Y.
Rehwinkel defines planned parenthood or birth control as “the voluntary limitation of possible offspring by artificial means.” Having listed hygienic, eugenic, and economic considerations, he concludes that “there are times and circumstances in the life of a married couple when they are free to practice birth control with a good conscience and that the method employed is of no maerial importance from the moral point of view.”
It was the late Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, a man not to be suspected of strong evangelical leanings, who said: ‘The only proper form of birth control is self control.” Sublimation has its virtues. Rehwinkel, however, holds continence in low esteem, regarding it as being under normal conditions “contrary to nature and undesirable from a psychological point of view.” With regard to contraceptive devices he seems to have no such scruples.
The command, “Be fruitful and multiply,” has not yet been repealed, and children are still “an heritage of the Lord.” Let us be thankful that our own ancestors did not deprive us of the opportunity of temporal and eternal life. Let us thank God that Leah did not stop with three boys and that Jesse had an eighth son named David; else the Messiah had not come. In gratitude, let the omniscient Father of us all determine the size of our families. He does it with infinite wisdom, and often permits us fewer children than we wish. And yet one may look upon the subject of birth control with considerable equanimity when we view the wholesome desire for children manifested by most young married couples, and the likelihood that the people who are best fitted, spiritually and morally, to be parents are the least apt to limit the number of their offspring.
Rehwinkel, a professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has written one most excellent book, The Flood. Probably the outstanding influence of the present work—whatever the intention of its author may have been—will be to foster a sexual life divorced from its basic purpose and responsibilities.
E. P. SCHULZE
The Fundamentals
God Hath Spoken, by T. Roland Philips (Eerdmans, 1959, 181 pp., $3), is reviewed by Massey Mott Heltzel, Minister of Ginter Park Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia.
The great Glasgow preacher, Norman MacLeod, often visited a certain elderly, sick lady in his congregation. On every occasion she would place her ear horn to her ear and say, “Now, Normie, gang ower the fundamentals.”
That is what Dr. Philips does in this book of sermons. He goes over the fundamentals. He deals only with the great biblical themes. He lets the reader hear again and again the good tidings of God’s saving grace. He rides no theological hobbies, but presents a rounded view of the Christian faith.
The author served nearly 40 years as pastor of the Arlington Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. From his pastoral experience he draws effective illustrations for his sermons. He deals with profound matters in simple terms and his down-to-earth language has clarity and force. The sermons are straightforward and hard-hitting. Here is a sample: “I buried a man who belonged to a certain fraternity. They had a service at the grave, and in the ritual they said this: ‘We cannot hope to see beyond the veil. We can only seek for truth, and hope that we shall find it.’ Well, that may be true of them, but that is not true of me. I am not seeking for truth. I have found it. I am not hoping. I know.”
This book is not what could be called gripping. The reviewer admits that, in spite of the good qualities just mentioned, he did not find the sermons interesting. This is due not to the themes handled, but to something in the manner of handling, for the reviewer finds the “fundamentals” not only interesting, but exciting. He would not give this book as a Christmas present to a minister friend. But he would, without hesitation, give it to a seeker after basic Christian truth.
MASSEY MOTT HELTZEL
Maps And History
Rand McNally Historical Atlas of the Holy Land, edited by Emil G. Kraeling (Rand McNally & Company, 1959, 88 pp., including 22 maps in color, 70 photographs and line-cut maps, and a Table of Early History, $2.95), is reviewed by William Sanford LaSor, Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary.
This volume is essentially a reprint of the maps and some of the other materials in the Rand McNally Bible Atlas (1956), together with a very brief sketch of early history in the form of extended captions for the illustrations. While it is a useful work, it is too brief for serious study and too much vitiated by the uncertainties of extreme critical scholarship. The reproduction of the Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll (Plate 5) is upside down.
WILLIAM SANFORD LASOR
The Apostolic Idea
Preaching to Meet People’s Needs, by Charles N. Pickell (New York: Exposition Press, 1958, 82 pp., Bibliographies, $3), is reviewed by Andrew W. Blackwood, Author of Leading in Public Prayer.
The subtitle, ‘The Meaning of the Acts as a Guide for Preaching Today,” accurately describes the contents and purpose of this little book. It opens up a field that has been strangely neglected. Preaching bulks large in the Book of Acts, but there is in print no adequate discussion of the preaching by Peter or Paul, as an example of what to preach today, as well as how and why.
The author has read the appropriate literature by C. H. Dodd and others. The book reaches sound conclusions about the preachers and the preaching of apostolic times as ideals for today. In his Boston ministry, according to my friends there, this young man’s pulpit work follows these ideals.
His book will serve any student or class as a suitable guide for a fresh and rewarding way of dealing with the Acts. The subject deserves fuller development and discussion of the good ideas in this book.
ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD
Seminary Centennial
A History of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, by William A. Mueller (Broadman, 1959, 256 pp., $4), is reviewed by Richard L. James, Minister, of the Riverside Christian Church, Jacksonville, Fla.
When an American institution passes the hundred year mark, it deserves an appraisal from the perspective of history. Professor Mueller does this in an interesting manner. Though of primary value to Southern Baptists, the book will assist others in appreciation of the development of theological education in America.
Professor of philosophy of religion at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Mueller approached his task largely from the biographical viewpoint. He follows the development of the seminary by concise accounts of the lives of its founder, the presidents, and faculty members.
The separation among Baptists and the organization of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 left the South without a source of training for its ministry. To meet this need Southern Seminary came into existence. It was a difficult struggle and its achievement owed much to James P. Boyce, John A. Broadus, Basil Manley, Jr. and William Williams, the “Faithful Four” who constituted the founding fathers and original faculty.
Under James P. Boyce, the Seminary pioneered in the study of the Scriptures in the English language in contrast to the practice of other institutions which specialized in Bible study in Greek and Hebrew. The development of a system of electives in the curriculum was also in keeping with the experimental spirit of the founder.
The shadows of the founders have lengthened into an institution celebrating its centennial, and the story makes for fascinating reading.
RICHARD L. JAMES
