Strange Bedfellows?
The Concept of Holiness, by O. R. Jones (Macmillan, 1962, 200 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by James Barr, Professor of Old Testament Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.
It is likely that this interesting work will be followed by many others as the theological interest in modern “linguistic” philosophy develops. Jones discusses the idea of holiness by starting from general and non-technical linguistic usage. Thus he tries to “place” holiness in its logical situation, and when this is done we see its relation to such other realities as power, personality, wholeness, and “the perfect vision.” On the one hand Jones writes with an eye to those whose thought has been formed by the new philosophical methods. On the other he cites and uses a variety of theologians, mainly those of the earlier twentieth century like Oman, Otto, and Farmer, and he makes much use of descriptions of biblical thought by modern biblical theologians.
In a very short review one can only raise some questions. (a) Does Jones avoid some of the misuses of linguistic evidence, e.g. in arguments from etymology, which have been so common? (b) Is it not necessary to see that part of this material must belong to linguistics and cannot meaningfully be called a “logic”? (c) I am not so sure that the author is working through “everyday use” (p. 13) as he himself thinks, or that we should do so, or that modern linguistic philosophy in fact does so. (d) Does he do enough to face and meet the feeling, which many theologians of recent trends may well have, that Christians just do not think this way about holiness, and that he is thus using to expound and justify it a system of ideas with which it will not fit? Or, in other words, can approaches like Jones’s hope to be successfully persuasive within the Church without more explicit confrontation with established positions like the Barthian?
Personally, my chief discomfort about this book is a sense of some incongruity, when the theological world of Oman, Otto, Inge, and Farmer, and the philosophical world of Ayer and Ryle, is found to lie so closely together in one argument with biblical word studies based on Hebrew and Greek, and with the accounts of biblical thought based upon them. Such accounts have in modern thought been used mainly for their incompatibility with that theological and philosophical world. It will take some readjustment to make them fit together again. Attempts to make such a readjustment in the present theological world will have to face realistically the extent of the probable opposition. On the other side, however, it should be realized that work like this by Dr. Jones is performing a real apologetic task, the benefits of which are often too gladly accepted by those who deny the need for them. The kind of discussion which he, with some others, has started will occupy a good deal more of the stage for the next decade or two.
The Hebrew and Greek words unfortunately contain many misprints.
JAMES BARR
Setting The Sights
Christian Faith and its Cultural Expression, by George Gordh (Prentice-Hall, 1962, 354 pp., $7.35), is reviewed by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In this book Gordh conceives of historic Christianity as a total faith having the following three aspects: “It is a vision of the world and its meaning, of man and his significance. It is a set of attitudes toward nature and self, toward others as individuals and in groups. Faith is also a set of expressions in worship and art, in literature and action, in association and thought. All of these together form the wholeness which is historical Christianity.” The discussion thus has as its three main parts “The Vision,” “The Attitudes,” and “The Expressions.” The first part consists, in the main, of a presentation of the basic theology of Christianity. The second part contains a discussion of typical Christian attitudes toward nature, toward the self, toward other individuals, and toward groups. In the third part we have a discussion of Christianity as expressed in worship, the fine arts, literature, thought, and so on.
Gordh presents his material in the form of a textbook designed for introductory courses in the Christian faith, whether the students in such courses be Christians desiring to have a more systematic knowledge of their faith, or non-Christians desiring to know what Christianity is. At the end of each chapter there are suggestions for further reading, as well as questions for discussion.
I found the first section of this book, “The Vision,” vastly more interesting and competent than the latter two sections. Much of the latter two sections is poorly focused. Sometimes this displays itself in the choice of formulations which are clearly inadequate to the thought. For example, Gordh defines private worship as the moment of the realization of faith, though at the same time he makes clear that faith has been realized all along, before the individual ever engaged in worship. Sometimes it displays itself in sentences which, so far as I can see, cannot be construed at all; for example, “The significance of worship in the realization is that, in it, the human being says ‘Thou’ to God the redeemer.” Sometimes it displays itself in contradiction, as, when speaking of corporate worship, he says that this is “the celebration of all of God’s acts,” though later on the same page he says that celebration is at best only one part of corporate worship.
I think Gordh has set himself various aims which almost inevitably make for a tedious book; that the first part is seldom tedious is a tribute to him. For one thing, this is an introductory book, and he construes this as demanding that it cover many topics generally, rather than a few in detail. Thus the book has a great deal of scope, but for this, the heavy price is paid of an abundance of truisms and generalities. For example, he raises the question of the possibility of an art which is Christian, yet neither liturgical nor religious in the usual sense. Whether or not there is such an art, and how we could recognize it, are certainly challenging questions, but Gordh has no time to discuss them.
Secondly, the author apparently intends for the most part to give a summary of the views of others and not to present and defend his own. Further, he wants to present the common core of what others have said about faith; if there is disagreement on a crucial point, he simply points out what the disagreement is and lets it go at that, or raises the matter in one of the discussion questions. Rarely are reasons given for the divergent views. Thus the issues which have really gripped Christians in their discussions with each other are played down.
Now I think that these aims—that of presenting a general introduction to the Christian faith, and that of presenting the common core of traditional and contemporary discussions of faith without probing controversial points—are by no means indefensible. Furthermore, given these aims, this is perhaps as good a book as could be written. Certainly Gordh’s broad vision of the Christian faith is admirable. But anyone wondering whether to use this book in teaching will first have to clarify his convictions concerning education. Calvin’s Institutes were also intended as an introduction to the Christian faith.
NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF
From Myth To History
Kerygma and History, A Symposium on the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, selected, translated, and edited by Carl E. Braaten and Roy A. Harrisville (Abingdon, 1962, 235 pp., $5), is reviewed by James P. Martin, Associate Professor of New Testament, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
This book focuses on the shift from myth to history which has taken place in the discussion surrounding Bultmann. It represents a voice, or better, a symposium of voices, speaking out of the heritage and context of Lutheran theology. This is as it should be because Bultmann himself is a Lutheran and cannot be correctly understood or challenged except within the Lutheran structure of thought. Yet with the exception of Braaten’s introductory essay and the concluding essay by Harrisville, all of the contributions in this book are translations from continental scholars. The result is thorough and solid discussion which throws into contrast that superficiality and fad approach which too often prevail in American discussion. We frequently fail to penetrate to the depths or to be aware of the full implications of a theological position because of the relative ignorance of the history of doctrine and biblical interpretation which persists in American theological education.
We are given in this book a series of essays by continental systematic theologians and New Testament scholars (Nils Dahl teaches in Oslo, and Regin Prenter teaches in Aarhus, Denmark; the rest are German). Although there is some reduplication, particularly in surveys of Bultmann’s own program, the essays approach the questions of kerygma and history from mutually supporting perspectives. As a result this book will prove helpful to both the expert and the beginner in this field. For those unacquainted with the complexities of the questions, it seems to this reviewer that they would be oriented best if they read first Nils Dahl’s essay on “The Problem of the Historical Jesus” and then turned to Günther Bornkamm’s essay on “Myth and Gospel.” From here they could read the essays in the order presented.
The systematic theologians stress the essential relation of kerygma and history in terms of the history of doctrine, and the place of the Church rather than a modern world view as the proper source of heuristic principles. The New Testament scholars discuss the familiar questions about the historicity of the New Testament materials and the proper methods of establishing historical fact. The title of the book accurately indicates the nerve center of all the discussion. All agree that the New Testament provides both kerygma and history. But no one succeeds in uniting these two concepts into one synthetic concept. We are left, it seems, with something like the problem of the relation of the two natures of Christ. As far as history in the New Testament is concerned, it appears that scholarship is still operating with the hermeneutics of the Enlightenment, existentialist historicity notwithstanding. Perhaps this “modern man” who is of such great concern to Bultmann and his followers is “modern” in an extended sense; that is, his intellectual roots are not truly in modern physics but in an obsolescent rationalism which permeates the substructure of his thought. On the other hand, it is clearly recognized by these scholars that the foundation of faith is not critical historical science (which is always an effort to conquer history and never be conquered by it) but believing personal response to the Christ proclaimed in the Gospel. This book indicates what it means to “walk by faith,” confessing at the same time that the object of faith is One whose historical manifestation to the world is datable. Christianity is a historical religion, not only in the sense that it obviously has its own history (like other religions), but also in the sense that the past historical life of its Lord reveals the meaning and goal of all history and not merely the individual’s historicity. Anyone who is able to take his Christianity as meat, not milk, will profit greatly from this book.
JAMES P. MARTIN
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:
★ On the Love of God, by John McIntyre (Harper, $4). An unusually valuable and provocative discussion of the meaning of God’s love; the kind of writing which at once is a theology and a personal confession of faith.
★ A Study of Communism, by J. Edgar Hoover (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, $3.95). FBI Director describes the origins, appeal, power structure, and world expansion of Communism and how to meet its challenge to freedom.
★ Historical Atlas of Religion in America, by Edwin Scott Gaustad (Harper & Row, $8.95). A brilliant blend of fact and illustration tells the colorful story of three centuries of religion in America.
Call To Social Action
Saints and Society, by Earle E. Cairns (Moody, 1960, 192 pp., $3.25), is reviewed by Henry Stob, Professor of Ethics, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Professor Cairns, who is Chairman of the Department of History and Political Science at Wheaton College in Illinois, has written a good book. The book is chiefly concerned to set forth the social impact of the eighteenth-century English Revivals, but the historical survey is rounded out by a constructive account of how evangelicals can make Christianity socially meaningful in the twentieth century.
The author provides a setting for evangelical reform by depicting the state of affairs in England during the period 1648–1789. He then discloses the sources of this reform in the Wesleyan Revival and in the Evangelical Revival centered in Clapham Commons and at Cambridge. Thereafter an account is given of the role played by English evangelicals in the abolition of slavery, in prison reform, and in bettering the lot of the working man. The work of leaders like Wilberforce and Shaftesbury is highlighted, but the considerable contribution of Christians like Clarkson, Macauley, Buxton, Howard, and many others is recorded. An analysis is then given of the spirit in which these earlier evangelicals undertook their social tasks, and the book closes with an appeal to contemporary Christians to work for social improvement in the same spirit. Guidelines for such action, drawn from the historical survey and from the Scriptures, are provided also.
This reader found the historical sections enlightening and calculated to impress upon the mind the power of the Gospel to structurate society when servants of the Lord really try to give a social and political dimension to Christian compassion and concern. When the author at the close recommends that contemporary Christians meet their political, economic, and social responsibilities, he does so in a soundly biblical way and with practical good sense.
This reviewer is happy to recommend the book. Written in a simple style and unencumbered by technicalities, it is adapted to Everyman, and when taken in hand is bound to remind evangelicals of their obligation to relate biblical faith and ethics to the problems of society.
HENRY STOB
French Catholics
Catholicism and Crisis in Modern France, by William Bosworth (Princeton University Press, 1962, 407 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by J. D. Douglas, British Editorial Director, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
What would be the temporal impact of 40 million French Roman Catholics united in one great cause? Why is such a union unlikely? What is Catholicism’s real effect on French social and political life? These are some of the questions which Dr. Bosworth, teacher of political science at Hunter College, sets out to answer in this volume on French Catholic groups at the threshold of the Fifth Republic.
He shows the steady decline in votes cast for Catholic political parties (3.4 million in 1889, 0.8 in 1914), tells how a revolutionary new school law in 1959 ordered state-payment of teachers in most Catholic schools, and includes a useful section on Vatican policy-making which may make the thoughtful reader wonder about the source and accuracy of the inside information. Sometimes the uncritical quotation of Catholic pronouncements begs questions. “No Catholic,” we are told, “is permitted to consider a Papal document out of date because the circumstances that fostered it have changed.” This is shaky ground: what about the notorious Unam Sanctam bull of Boniface VIII, or the Syllabus Errorum of Pius IX?
There is an informative chapter on Catholic Action, and a particularly comprehensive one on the Catholic press, illustrating its range over widely differing aspects of community life and the hierarchical control exercised lest “Catholic editors or publishers … lack the required humility.” The church, having learned its lesson, says the author, “does not want to meddle in partisan politics”; but a few lines later he points out the hierarchy’s right to “comment” on political questions, without suggesting that for many of the faithful such comment has the force of a directive. Dr. Bosworth’s quotation from Msgr. Ancel on page 82, which states that the church has not intervened in the Algerian crisis, should be read in conjunction with his later references on pages 208 ff., and with the equally well-documented but startlingly different approach of Edmond Paris in The Vatican against Europe.
Dr. Bosworth finds the Catholic Church’s social doctrine incapable of precise definition—not surprisingly, for here surely is an area almost entirely neglected by popes till Leo XIII’s day 80 years ago. In such an exhaustive work as this, it is inexplicable that the Dreyfus affair, with its widespread impact on church and state relations, should be dismissed in a mere five lines.
Sometimes it is difficult to know whether the writer is paraphrasing Catholic views or expressing his own. The reader who reaches the last page by the legitimate route will readily acknowledge this to be no shoddy or incomplete work. Even the bibliography at the end supplies also most useful notes on authors and books listed. The book is very much a specialist’s project which makes heavy reading, and the reviewer found the undoubtedly erudite approach altogether too clinical, and with as much human warmth as the multiplication table.
J. D. DOUGLAS
A Vital Matter
The King of the Earth, by Erich Sauer (Eerdmans, 1962, 256 pp., $3.95; Paternoster, 16s.), is reviewed by Stephen S. Short, Evangelist, Weston-super-Mare, England.
Erich Sauer, the “Biblical Theologian” of the Wiedenest Bible School in West Germany, is well-known to Christian readers both in his own country and throughout the English-speaking world by such books as The Dawn of World Redemption and The Triumph of the Crucified. The present volume, published in German in 1958, has been translated by Michael Bolister. The subtitle of the work is “The Nobility of Man according to the Bible and Science”—a vital matter, particularly in view of the bestiality to which nations and individuals have descended during the two world wars of this century. The author, as the blurb on the dust jacket rightly asserts, “demonstrates the high purpose of God in and for man, the diabolical powers that encompassed his ruin, the renewal of that original purpose of God in and through the Second Adam, and the practical realization of man’s high calling through the redeeming and regenerating grace of God in Christ.” In an interesting and well-informed concluding section, the biblical account of creation is compared with the discoveries of modern science.
STEPHEN S. SHORT
Essays Of Merit
Vox Evangelica, Biblical and Historical Essays, edited by Ralph P. Martin for the London Bible College (Epworth Press, 1962, 75 pp., 6s), is reviewed by R. E. Nixon, Tutor at Cranmer Hall, Durham, England.
Here is a most diverse and interesting volume which does credit to the staff of L.B.C. First we have a good general survey of “The Greek and Roman Background of the New Testament” by C. Carey Oakley. There follows a short but suggestive note by Leslie C. Allen on “Isaiah 53:11 and Its Echoes” where the possible translation of the Hebrew term “by his submission” is shown to illuminate Daniel 12:4 and Romans 5:19. The editor has an important, up-to-date survey of “The Composition of I Peter in Recent Study” in which he exposes some of the ingenious nonsense which has been written lately on this theme. But his conclusion that “I Peter stands as a genuine letter but as including two baptismal homilies, one delivered before and the other after the rite,” may not command general assent.
Few conservative scholars are so well read as Donald Guthrie, who takes us with his normal judiciousness over the field of pseudepigraphy. He shows that many lightly made statements upon this subject just will not do. Finally we are edified (and possibly entertained) by Harold H. Rowdon’s comparison of the J. N. Darby-B. W. Newton quarrel in nineteenth-century Brethren circles with that between Cyril and Nestorius in the fifth century.
This is altogether a worthy volume. We look forward to more such from this source in the future.
R. E. NIXON
Book Briefs
Theology and the Scientific Study of Religion (Lutheran Studies Series, Vol. II), by Paul L. Holmer (T. S. Denison, 1962, 238 pp., $4.95). This book argues that there is a scientific language of religion which does not, as some think, displace the passionate, confident, unhesitating language of faith.
The Realities of Faith, by Bernard E. Meland (Oxford, 1962, 368 pp., $6.50). The author finds commonality between Christianity and non-Christian religions in man’s createdness; each man and religion is thus related to the depth of God’s being with the result that no one revelation is definitive, and revelation and creation are, in the author’s view, at bottom the same thing.
The Bible and Archaeology, by J. A. Thompson (Eerdmans, 1962, 468 pp., $5.95). Formerly appeared as Pathway Books: Archaeology and the Old Testament (1957), Archaeology and the Pre-Christian Centuries (1958), and Archaeology and the New Testament (1960). Now with added maps, photographs, and new information.
William Penn’s “Holy Experiment,” by Edwin B. Bronner (Columbia University Press, 1962, 306 pp., $6). The story of religious toleration and the utopian attempt of Pennsylvania to establish through its “holy experiment” a colony which would be an example to mankind.
Genesis and Evolution, by M. R. DeHaan (Zondervan, 1962, 152 pp., $2.50). The well-known radio preacher contends against evolution and finds the lessons of conversion, separation, spiritual reproduction, and the like in the Genesis creation story.
A Guide to Biblical Preaching, by Chalmer E. Faw (Broadman, 1962, 198 pp., $3.50). A substantial and practical discussion and guide on how to actually preach the Bible. The book oozes enthusiasm and challenge.
Jefferson on Religion in Public Education, by Robert M. Healey (Yale University Press, 1962, 294 pp., $6.50). Written in the context of the current controversy over religion in public education, here is the first book on the thought of the man who gave it so much attention: Thomas Jefferson.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early Church, by Lucetta Mowry (University of Chicago Press, 1962, 260 pp., $6.95). A study of the theme of redemption in the Qumran community and in the early Christian church.
Martin Luther: Hero of Faith, by Frederick Nohl (Concordia, 1962, 151 pp., $2.75). A brief, simple, and highly readable presentation of the life of Luther from boy to professor.
Beginning the Old Testament, by Erik Routley (Muhlenberg, 1962, 159 pp., $2.50). On the basis of composite authorship of the Pentateuch and an admitted uncertainty as to “what actually happened,” the author interprets the historical beginnings of the Old Testament.
Existentialism and Religious Liberalism, by John F. Hayward (Beacon Press, 1962, 131 pp., $3.95). A religious liberal faces the question of whether religious liberalism can survive existentialism’s assault upon its doctrine of man and emerge with a positive content in which it can still believe.
Oxford Bible Atlas, edited by Herbert G. May (Oxford, 1962, 144 pp., $4.95). An up-to-date and authoritative reference work; combines fine cartography and map printing with knowledge of the most recent archaeological discoveries. Poor binding.
The Epistles to the Galatians and the Ephesians, by Andrew W. Blackwood, Jr., and The Epistles to Timothy and Titus, by Paul F. Barackman (Baker, 1962, 211 and 155 pp., $3.50 and $2.95). Two more volumes in Baker’s Proclaiming the New Testament series. Not so much commentaries as comments calculated to aid Bible readers and preachers.
