Each spring and fall CHRISTIANITY TODAY presents a forecast of religious books. These forecasts are not made to sell books—we leave the commercials to the publishers. They are presented for the convenience of those who want to know what is coming in their particular fields of interest, and to alert the lovers of religious books. Many ministers, students, and professors of religion have found it helpful to post these forecasts in their studies to avoid missing significant books as they come from the press.
Anyone who looks to the hand of the future will sometimes see things that are not there, and some things out of proportion. Some of the books here listed as significant on the basis of advertising claims and promises may not be such at all. On the other hand, some omitted may be significant—but then some of the future always slips through the fingers of those who try to judge her hand.
In the category of THEOLOGY there appears to be a full hand. Holt, Rinehart and Winston promises Evangelical Theology: An Introduction by Karl Barth (the lectures Barth delivered in America) and Basic Christian Doctrines, edited by Carl F. H. Henry. Inter-Varsity Press promises K. S. Kantzer’s An Interpretation of Karl Barth (apparently for college students), and Macmillan, C. W. Kegley’s The Theology of Emil Brunner. From the presses of Concordia will come The Structure of Lutheranism by W. Elert, and from Westminster: the third volume of E. Brunner’s dogmatics, The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith, and the Consummation; J. B. Cobb Jr.’s Living Options in Protestant Theology: A Survey of Methods; and—this must be far out for I see dimly now—D. Jenkins’ Beyond Religion. Zondervan predicts the appearance of the first volume of J. O. Buswell Jr.’s Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion and W. R. Martin’s handbook Essential Christianity; and Eerdmans will publish The Elope of Glory by Dale Moody and The Last Judgment by J. P. Martin.
The hand of the future is also full of promise for CHURCH HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. Association Press is ready with The Place of Bonhoeffer edited by Martin E. Marty, and Holt, Rinehart and Winston with a novel on the life of Calvin, The Master of Geneva by Gladys H. Barr. Harper & Row will publish The Twentieth Century Outside Europe, by that dean of American church historians, K. S. Latourette; E. P. Dutton, The Catholic Reformation by H. Daniel-Rops; and Eerdmans, The Reformation by W. C. Robinson. Looking back, David McKay will publish K. Burton’s Leo XIII: The First Modern Pope; Harvard University Press, The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists by L. W. Spitz; Baker, Paul the Missionary by W. M. Taylor; and Hawthorn, The Church in the Eighteenth Century by M. Braure. Westminster promises what should be an interesting book, The Presbyterian Ministry in American Culture by E. A. Smith.
In the category of ECUMENICS Association Press promises to publish two books, The New Delhi Report edited by W. A. Visser ‘T Hooft and The Vatican Council and All Christians by C. D. Nelson. Morehouse-Barlow will publish An Anglican View of the Vatican Council authored by B. Pawley, and Westminster, a historical study by A. J. Lewis, Zinzendorf, the Ecumenical Pioneer. Also scheduled is Ecumenical Beginnings in Protestant World Mission by R. P. Beaver (Thomas Nelson).
In OLD TESTAMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGY Harper & Row promises The Prophets of Israel by Abraham Heschel, and again promises (cf. Spring Forecast) Old Testament Theology by G. von Rad, who does to the Old what Bultmann does to the New Testament. Abingdon is on promise to publish The People of the Covenant by M. Newman, and McGraw-Hill, Our Living Bible by M. Avi-Yonah and E. Kraeling. There will be at least two books of archaeological interest, Eerdmans’ The Bible and Archaeology by J. A. Thompson and Thomas Nelson’s Archaeology and the Old Testament World by J. Gray.
Of special interest in NEW TESTAMENT: D. Guthrie’s General Epistles and Revelation (Volume II in his New Testament Introduction) will be published by Inter-Varsity Press. Scribner’s will present F. C. Grant’s Roman Hellenism and the New Testament and C. K. Barrett’s intriguing title, From First Adam to Last. Hawthorn promises to publish H. Daniel-Rops’ Daily Life in the Time of Jesus; Westminster, T. W. Manson’s Studies in the Gospels and Epistles; Revell, S. E. Wirt’s Open Your Bible to the New Testament Letters; and Harper & Row, John Knox’s The Church and the Reality of Christ, which, according to advance promises, reconciles the Christ of faith with the Jesus of history.
The promises of the future for PASTORAL THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY are few: Abingdon will give us J. H. Ziegler’s Psychology and the Teaching Church; Zondervan, J. B. Wilder’s The Young Minister; and Seabury, R. N. Rodenmayer’s I John Take Thee Mary.
The future promises to be niggardly also in the area of APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE. A. N. Well’s The Christian Message in a Scientific Age will be published by John Knox, W. E. Stuermann’s Logic and Faith: A Study of the Relations Between Science and Religion by Westminster, and C. Tresmontant’s The Origin of Christian Philosophy by Hawthorn.
Reflecting the problems and agonies of our time, the following will appear in the area of ETHICS AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS: The South and Christian Ethics (Association) by J. E. Sellers; Albert Schweitzer’s Peace or Atomic-War? (Holt, Rinehart and Winston); The Christian in Politics (Oxford Press) by W. James; The Christian in Business (Revell) by J. E. Mitchell, Jr.; Ethics and Business (Scribner’s) by W. A. Spurrier; and Christianity and Sex (Inter-Varsity) by S. B. Babbage.
A clutch of books are promised in LITURGY AND WORSHIP, reflecting the continued growing interest in this area. Bethany Press will print L. R. Smith’s Four Keys to Prayer; Revell, Michael Daves’s Famous Hymns and Their Writers; John Knox, The English Hymn by L. F. Benson; Augsburg, Altar Prayers for the Church Year by C. H. Zeidler; World, Christian Hymns edited by L. Noss; and, finally, Hawthorn promises These Are the Sacraments by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
The wide interest in missions and in the crucial problems which arise as Christianity encounters non-Christian religions is pointed up by the forthcoming books in MISSIONS AND EVANGELISM: Why Christianity of All Religions (Westminster) by H. Kraemer; Upon the Earth (McGraw-Hill) by D. T. Niles; To the Whole Creation: The Church Is Mission (Judson) by J. P. Skoglund; The Ministry of the Spirit (Eerdmans) by Roland Allen; The People of God (Seabury) by A. D. Kelley; Apologetics and Evangelism (Westminster) by J. V. Langmead; and, of a different type, The Home Front of Jewish Missions (Baker) by A. Huisjen, These Too Were Unshackled by F. C. Bailey, and Spurgeon on Revival by E. Hayden (the latter two by Zondervan).
SERMONS—few are offered. Baker will present Expository Preaching Without Notes by C. W. Koller. As the late Clarence Macartney so eloquently insisted, preaching without notes is great. But what about the man who needs not only notes but also sermons? Eerdmans will take care of that by offering these three books: In the Midst by G. D. Gilmore, The Forty Days by G. R. King, and The Inevitable Encounter by Edward L. R. Elson.
In the needy field of RELIGIOUS EDUCATION the offerings are again few. Eerdmans will publish Bernard Ramin’s The Christian College in the Twentieth Century, and Westminster, The Teaching Office in The Reformed Tradition by R. W. Henderson. The University of Pittsburgh Press will issue Wider Horizons in Christian Adult Education edited by L. C. Little, and Abingdon, Religious Drama: Ends and Means by H. Ehrensperger.
RELIGIOUS LITERATURE AND DEVOTIONAL: Harper & Row will present Chad Walsh’s From Utopia into Nightmare; Columbia University Press, H. N. Fairchild’s Volume V of Religious Trends in English Poetry, which covers the period 1880–1920; and Augsburg, three books in this field: Printer’s Devil from Wittenberg by T. J. Kleinhans, A Practical Guide for Altar Guilds by E. Bockelman, and Thy Word in My Heart by F. P. Reid.
The continuing large interest in the study of the Bible is again indicated by the full hand the future holds in the area of BIBLE STUDY, COMMENTARIES, AND DICTIONARIES. With Thomas Nelson’s exclusive publishing rights to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible running out at month’s end, other publishers are quickly moving in. A. J. Holman will issue the Holman Study Bible, and Oxford Press, The Oxford Annotated Bible; both are based on the RSV. Holt, Rinehart and Winston will reissue Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible. John Knox will publish Volumes VIII, XV, XVII, and XXIV of the Southern Presbyterian Church’s The Layman’s Bible Commentary. Baker will issue Thessalonians by H. J. Ockenga and Hebrews by C. S. Roddy, both volumes in the series Proclaiming the New Testament, and The Epistle to the Philippians by W. Hendriksen, a volume in Baker’s New Testament Commentary series. From Thomas Nelson will come The Gospels and the Book of Acts and The New Testament Epistles (Volumes VI and VII of Nelson’s Bible Commentary), both by F. C. Grant; and from Westminster, The Psalms, A Commentary (The Old Testament Library series) by A. Weiser. Moody Press will publish The Wycliffe Bible Commentary co-edited by C. F. Pfeiffer and E. F. Harrison, and Harcourt, Brace and World, The Revelation of John—a translation by R. Lattimore. McGraw-Hill will print The Clarified New Testament: The Four Gospels by E. G. Kraeling. Zondervan will publish Pictorial Bible Dictionary edited by M. C. Tenney; W. A. Wilde, a revision of W. M. Smith’s Profitable Bible Study; Eerdmans, The Spirit of Holiness by Everett Lewis Cattell.
Things have come a long way since Bibles were handwritten and chained to the medieval pulpit lest something so valuable be stolen. Today the printing press produces the riches of scholarship in innumerable inexpensive paperbound editions.
In the field of PAPERBACKS publishers in the next six months will give us Sören Kierkegaard’s Edifying Discourses (2 volumes), Karl T. Schmidt’s Rediscovering the Natural in Protestant Theology, Harupa and Nold’s Advent Day by Day, L. Mero’s My Christmas Book (all from Augsburg); H. Thielicke’s Advice for Young Theologians and G. Stob’s Handbook of Bible History (both from Eerdmans); A. L. Creager’s Old Testament Heritage, R. Hazelton’s New Testament Heritage, R. L. Shinn’s The Sermon on the Mount (all from United Church Press); W. E. Waldrop’s How to Combat Communism, J. Bloch’s Armour of Light, How to Make Pastoral Calls by R. L. Dicks, The Living Christ in Our Changing World by J. Daniel Joyce, and The Delinquent, The Hipster, and The Square edited by A. I. Cox (all from Bethany Press); E. F. Harrison’s John, A Brief Commentary and C. F. Pfeiffer’s The Epistle to the Hebrews (both from Moody). Other paperbacks to appear are Jean-Jacques Von Allmen’s Preaching and Congregation (John Knox), Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison (Macmillan), W. E. Post’s Saints, Signs, and Symbols (Morehouse-Barlow), and H. R. Landon’s Reinhold Niebuhr: A Prophetic Voice in Our Time (Seabury). Oxford is bringing out Volumes IV, V, and VI of Arnold J. Toynbee’s A Study of History, Volume IV bearing the title The Breakdown of Civilizations, V (Part 1) and VI (Part 2) the title The Disintegrations of Civilizations.
If interpreting the past is difficult, interpreting the future is precarious. Yet looking back on these scannings of the future it seems safe to say that the schedule of coming productions of religious books seems to indicate no new significant patterns of change in the religious situation. Areas of busy religious and theological activity in the past will continue to be busy; those that were weak will continue weak. It appears that the Church still has a healthy appetite for biblical studies, commentaries, historical and theological studies, and for missions, and a continuing smaller appetite for the important areas of liturgy, religious education, and ethics. Also lacking is a deep and sustained concern by conservative evangelical scholarship for that central theological-philosophical issue of our time: the question of revelation and history. Matters could, however, soon change for the better, for I have looked at only six months’ worth of the future,
J. D.
