Religion In America
The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America, by Sidney E. Mead (Harper & Row, 1963, 220 pp., $4), is reviewed by Robert M. Sutton, professor of history and associate dean of the graduate college, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois.
The Lively Experiment, a series of nine thoughtful and well-integrated essays by Dr. Sidney Mead, is itself a lively treatise on the shaping and “institutionalizing” of Christianity (i.e., Protestantism) in this country. In the author’s own words, these essays (all but one of which have appeared previously in print) were intended as “interim reports … by one devoted to the exploration of the complex terrain of American church history” and were “originally designed to stand alone, but into each is woven the same central motifs.”
The author’s canvas is a broad one stretching all the way from the colonial foundings in the seventeenth century to the recent past (c. 1930). The study opens with an examination of the early American, be he immigrant or emigrant, and his time-space relationship on the new continent. The existence of almost unlimited space (and the fact of distance that is associated with it) was perhaps the most significant ingredient in shaping the character of American religion throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The vast lands to the west beckoned the various churches and denominations to work out their own destiny on the heels of (and sometimes in advance of) the ever moving frontier.
In this connection, the discussion of the establishment of religious freedom is particularly appropriate. Certain points stand out. One, the favored or “established” churches in particular colonies or areas simply were not strong enough to dominate the religious scene, i.e., to be the established churches. Second, since religious freedom was a practical and legal matter, and not theological, most of the existing and competing churches in eighteenth-century America could unite behind this principle without conflict. Finally, it was the strength of a group of rationalist intellectuals who gave form and substance to this position with the result that, to this day, the Church has not developed a theological defense for religious freedom.
As seems almost inevitable in American historical writing where deep spiritual and philosophical meanings are being sought, the person and message of Abraham Lincoln occupies a central position in this series of essays. Lincoln, then, becomes the personification of this “new” American whose devotion to democracy rests on four fundamental beliefs: belief in God, belief in “the people,” the conviction that the voice of the people is the surest clue to the voice of God, and the belief that truth emerges out of the conflict of opinions. The American dream of destiny and democracy has perhaps never been better expressed than it was by Lincoln in the closing words of his message to Congress on December 1, 1862, when he said: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.” There are no guarantees of success!
Lincoln saw the opportunity to begin all over again in the new land as a gift of God, whose will was to be felt and known in the events of the nation’s unfolding history. Thus these Americans, in the words of Lincoln, came to look upon themselves as the “almost chosen people” set apart by God to serve a peculiar purpose in the history of mankind. This destiny, to be known, must be lived and worked out.
The last chapter, in the opinion of this reviewer, is in some respects the least satisfactory of the nine, perhaps because of the relative recency of the events and the consequent necessity for general and tentative judgments about them. Still, one could wish for a more exhaustive treatment of the antagonisms that in the early twentieth century characterized the interaction of liberalism, the social-gospel movement, and fundamentalism. Nevertheless, the chapter is full of challenging questions. Would exponents of the social-gospel movement agree that in the broad sweep of the pendulum the movement tended to substitute “social concerns for individual Christian experience”? Was it guilty “of identifying the gospel with current schemes for reconstructing society; of judging the work of the church on the basis of its effectiveness in furthering social reform; of substituting sociology for theology” (pp. 182, 183)?
Few, I believe, will quarrel with one of the author’s final conclusions: “On the positive side, the fundamentalists insisted that if Christianity was to survive, it must maintain an identity in keeping with the historical character; while the liberals insisted that if Christianity was to survive it must come to terms with the main currents of modern thought and the social revolutions of the twentieth century. Insofar, both were essentially right. Both were wrong when they failed to recognize the validity and necessity of the other’s point” (pp. 186, 187).
Dr. Mead has long been recognized as one of the leading scholars in the field of American church history. The volume under review can only add to his stature in this field.
ROBERT M. SUTTON
Systematic Trouble
The System and the Gospel: A Critique of Paul Tillich, by Kenneth Hamilton (Macmillan, 1963, 247 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Stuart C. Hackett, associate professor of philosophy, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.
Professor Hamilton (of United College, Winnipeg, Canada) might, with equal propriety, have entitled his work The System OR the Gospel. For while he expounds the major aspects of Tillich’s theological system, his principal objective is to show that this particular system of theology, or any system similarly construed, is incompatible with the Gospel. According to the author, Tillich attempts to apply a preconceived philosophical idea of theology, as a coherent system of concepts, to the Kerygma of the Christian message. Since the method by which he does this is itself implied in his formal idea of a system, ultimate authority resides in this idea of theology as a universal ideal, which then embodies itself in various sub-types of which Christian theology, adequately construed, is the most adequate theological expression. The system itself Hamilton regards as a version of absolute idealism in the tradition of Hegel. Tillich borrows existentialist vocabulary, but the idealistic stand becomes patently obvious in the view that thought and being are identical, and in the view that the divine and the human meet in the universal logos, which discerns God non-symbolically as being-itself.
Hamilton illustrates his general thesis by reference to specific concepts in Tillich’s system: particular religions, for example, are symbolic versions of the ultimate metaphysical truth, though the revelation of God in these symbolic forms is essential to man because his state of existence is imperfect and lacking in the wholeness that characterizes God as being-itself. Again, man is a sinner in the sense that in his finite existence he is superficially estranged from God as the Ground of being, and faith is the state of ultimate concern which expresses itself as an eros-love which is the desire to overcome this separation or estrangement; the forgiveness of sins is actually the New Being in which the objective of faith so defined is essentially realized. And finally, Jesus as the Christ is the historical symbol of the New Being as expressing essential God-manhood, while the man Jesus remains a problem of history and is, as such, not essential to the “picture” of a personality that is expressed in the Christ symbol. The Christian revelation of the universal truth is thus not essentially different from other symbolic expressions of that truth, but it is better because it takes a human life as its medium and thus joins together the absolutely concrete and the absolutely universal. In all of this Hamilton sees the reaffirmation of an idealistic, pantheistic monism that denies the reality of existing particulars—of finite persons as true individuals, and leaves no room for a personal God.
Thus understood, Tillich’s system, it is urged, is clearly seen to be incompatible with the Gospel. In consequence, Hamilton concludes: (1) that no apologetic theology can stand which reinterprets traditional doctrine by demanding its conformity to an externally imposed system of assumptions—our criterion must arise out of the Kerygma itself as a witness to the revelatory events; (2) more particularly, that no apologetic can succeed in the tradition of that nineteenth-century liberalism which aligns itself with idealistic philosophy; and (3) that the apologetic task, though always pertinent, must be carried out in dependence on the Kerygma through which the Divine Word confronts us, yet in such a way that authority lies not in the Bible of a rigid orthodoxy, nor in the historic creeds, nor in an ecclesiastical hierarchy, but rather in the saving events to which all of these, rightly understood, bear witness. Perhaps the best approach would be either to adopt a philosophy whose points of contact with the Kerygma make it a suitable framework for the exposition and defense of the Gospel (e.g., Thomism) or to build a philosophy de novo by working out the philosophical implications of the Gospel taken as a starting point. But in the final analysis, Hamilton casts his lot with those who, like Kierkegaard, regard any apologetic system both as impossible in principle and as invariably competing with the Gospel itself, unless it is limited to the task of showing that the Christian message is ultimately an absolute paradox for human reason.
An adequate criticism of Hamilton’s interpretation is impossible, but this reviewer feels impelled to make certain critical observations. First, Hamilton seems to me to be correct in viewing Tillich’s theology as essentially both idealistic in the Hegelian sense and incompatible with the Christian Gospel; second, his extended critique embodies an admirably clear exposition of the main concepts of Tillich’s thought. On the other hand, it is perhaps the case, as Hamilton himself indicates, that the excessive preoccupation with a negative polemic obscures the full impact of Tillich’s viewpoint; furthermore, Tillich’s failure to present a genuinely Christian apologetic in the context of Hegelian idealism does not imply that Kierkegaard is right in regarding an apologetic system or philosophically oriented theology as impossible because of man’s involvement in finite existence. Any interpretative approach to the Gospel involves some philosophical framework as its presupposition; failure to recognize this only blinds the interpreter to the “system” involved in his own approach. The real issue, therefore, is not that of system versus no system; it is rather that of attempting to find a method of justifying the principles of one system as over against those of alternative systems in such a way as to approach an objective viewpoint. Confronted with this issue, I am by no means constrained to discard systematic coherence in favor of absolute rational paradox (even here there is a “system” in disguise); instead, like Tillich, I feel compelled to try again!
STUART C. HACKETT
Real Bridges?
The Phenomenology of Religion, by Edward J. Jurji (Westminster, 1963, 308 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, professor of missions, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
Because of the nature of its material, this is a difficult book to read and digest. One needs considerable background to understand the subject it discusses. The author has done major research and has brought to his subject much learning and considerable appreciation of the major issues involved. He has labored earnestly to produce an excellent descriptive work and has fairly represented viewpoints with which he disagrees.
The dust jacket states that the author presents an “objective descriptive analysis of the religious essence as it displays itself on the world stage.” He “defines the scope and relevancy of this approach, the phenomenology of religion.” He later examines the role of religion in the world and discusses the factors that have enabled religions to perpetuate themselves on the stage of history. He examines the idea of God as delineated in some of the major religions and indicates how the idea manifests itself via law, doctrine, metamorphosis, and ethics. There are excellent sections devoted to modern developments in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Jurji states that the idea of God is “identical with the truth.… Else there could have been no lamp unto man’s feet as he trudged on a slow and trying evolutionary trail.… The Idea of God is here to stay” (p. 71). But “all ideas about the Idea of God at best can be merely tentative.… Doomed in advance is any attempt to reduce the Eternal to so-called propositional categories of truth, useful and rational as these well may be” (p. 83).
He clearly delineates the views of Kraemer and Barth, both of whom regard Christianity as completely antithetical to all other religions. Kraemer holds that “there is really no way through from the non-Christian religions to the Christian faith.… It is just at this central point that many Christian scholars [including Jurji] take exception to the position that Kraemer maintains” (p. 87). Indeed, Jurji states that Kraemer’s thesis “leaves scarcely any room for interfaith dialogue, let alone meeting of minds” (p. 86). He further asserts that both Kraemer and Barth, who claim abandonment of verbal inspiration, actually are involved in a dichotomy that “suggests reversion to what cannot be too different” (p. 86).
Tillich’s critical existentialism is more appealing to Jurji. This emphasis, he says, proves “congenial to a genuinely ecumenical realism. Incidentally, his [Tillich’s] concept of theonomy provides a concrete base for fruitful Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue” (pp. 94, 95).
Jurji does a commendable job in calling attention to five competitors of the world religions: scientism and humanism; nationalism and collective powers; secularism and atheism; historicism (in which religion is dead); and Communism.
Some of the author’s concluding remarks will not be wholly acceptable to those in the orthodox theological camp. He says, for example, that a sociology that approaches religion as a whole “undoubtedly elicits suspicion. In certain quarters, distressed supernaturalists, disturbed clergy, and highly imaginative individuals might register a vote of no confidence” (p. 293). Who these “distressed,” “disturbed,” and “highly imaginative” people are he nowhere states. Again, “… any definition must prove inadequate that condemns the religions of mankind right out of hand. Any theology is deficient at the core that regards these religions as man’s wasted effort and lets the matter drop at that. To fail in discovering any truth whatever outside Christianity is a theological blind spot that cries out for a remedy” (p. 293). Evidently Jurji favors continuity over against discontinuity, which has been the traditional view. Unfortunately for his case, the witness of the Bible favors the view that all other gods and all other religions are, in point of fact, idolatrous and unable to bring salvation to men. So-called similarities (for example, the ideas of God, sin, and salvation) are not at all real similarities and do not constitute true bridges between Christianity and the non-Christian religions. Despite these observations, however, this book is worth reading.
There is one odd footnote reference which stands out like a sore thumb. Jurji quotes from his colleague, Bruce Metzger (in The Oxford Annotated Bible, RSV), to support the following statements: “The birth and growth of the early church is reflected in the New Testament. Church history was initiated in the Acts of the Apostles, an account of the spread of Christianity during the first thirty years or so after the earthly life of Jesus” (pp. 196, 197). Why such obvious historical facts, known to all, require documentation is a mystery to the reviewer.
HAROLD LINDSELL
Not By Quackery
The Recovery of the Person, by Carlyle Marney (Abingdon, 1963, 176 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Samuel J. Mikolaski, professor of theology, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisiana.
Dr. Marney, the minister of Myers Park Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, if a controversial figure, is a preacher, writer, and lecturer of considerable stature in the South. This book will unnerve some of his critics and startle many of his friends. It is curious that in their blurb on the jacket, Abingdon forgot to add “Southern” to “Baptist Theological Seminary” when describing the author’s education.
This book is on the theological basis and structure of ethics, so one must not demand a complete theological argument when evaluating it. The issue is clearly put: We are split men living in a world of split men. Can the fragments be healed? How can we find the whole (p. 14)? Dr. Marney’s answer is straightforward: Not by any kind of religious or philosophical quackery, as when real problems are afforded only verbal solutions, whether these are of the fundamentalist, neoorthodox, or liberal perversions. The answer lies in real history, in a real Incarnation, by a real Atonement, with real persons in real relations, in a real Church that is the real Kingdom of God come in history.
To me the stress on real history is a refreshing breeze, for surely “events” cannot be events unless they happen. This is largely what Dr. Marney means by humanism—it is to turn from claims to knowledge we are not equipped to handle, to where we are and to what we are (p. 38). He charges that Ritschl’s Christ rides with the odor of docetic gnosticism in the Trojan horse led by Dr. Bultmann. To evade the historicity of the Gospel “requires a whole cavalcade of once-dead docetics to animate the three-story history they project” (p. 17). One cannot by metaphysics get rid of history. The Incarnation means simply that the matter cannot be settled apart from history (p. 97). “Can we have faith apart from history? No more than we can breathe apart from history. Is not Christianity the only faith depending entirely on the historical?” (p. 99). The great danger in recent theology, he says, is not widespread unbelief but the decline of the rational as the real core of our humanity (p. 134). God comes into, is present in, and uses the elements of, history. “Not even God can speak to man without a grammar” (p. 62).
Second, we must opt for persons in interpersonal relations, “in the beginning is relation” (p. 20). God is no abstraction, but Person (p. 91). He says, “Barth’s ‘wholly other’ appeal (s) to me as little as it did when I first encountered it in Plotinus’ incomprehensibility” (p. 33). Barth hesitantly calls God person, then cancels it out by making God the only person there is (pp. 34, 82). Nobody who guards against making God human in the way that Barth does it, he adds, can know 1,500 pages about God, even in German (p. 53). This is particularly true of the love of God, which the transcendentalists, especially Barth and Tillich, tend to undercut by undue stress on the divine impassibility. “Who can know an absolute?” (p. 91).
Further, personal life involves relations that are moral (p. 64). No distortions of doctrine, whether they be classical forms of determinism or perversions of election, justification, or faith, can empty human life of moral responsibility. There never has been a conflict between law and grace (p. 167), and a revitalized doctrine of grace must recover the moral realities of freedom and responsibility (p. 169). In one of his most forceful indictments, Dr. Marney harnesses Schleiermacher, Freud, and Barth in a troika that “denies us our competent existence” (p. 165).
Everything about man hinges upon his individual and solidaric guilt and upon the redemptive act of Christ to redeem and make us whole. Dr. Marney’s stress on human life as interdependent (which reminds me of Denney and Forsyth) is heartening: “Jesus did see that we are involved with the sins of the past, and therefore the guilt of the past” (p. 75). The redemptive act and justifying work is God’s. The Son died—and only he could—the death of us all. “This dying for us is in a class of dying all by itself. There is not atonement in other deaths, there is no atonement in our death, otherwise redemption would be by suicide” (p. 98). Passages that urge this reality of the divine act in history to redeem us are deeply moving (cf. p. 103).
The author argues an “Incarnational realism in ethics resting on a theology of identification.” This means Christ’s identification with us, our deification by him (no absorption in impersonal monism), our involvement in one another’s lives by grace for the re-creation of life, and the fashioning of lives to full personhood. Written at a time when the matrix of spiritual life seems thought by some to be the institutional church, club, or community effort, one is gratified to read here that the Church is the womb within which persons happen and recognize one another.
One does not have to agree with all that a writer says to appreciate his major thrust of thought. Dr. Marney is hard on some, whether they be pietists or philosophers; but surely his plea for a vital, Incarnational, Spirit-filled Christianity should be heard.
The book is organized around an important biblical concept articulated by Irenaeus: “What He was, that He also appeared to be; what He did appear, that He also was” (p. 95). I add one observation: Why not carry Irenaeus’s splendid argument forward to its logical issue trinitarianly, as he did? Irenaeus is one of the few theologians of history that have taken John 17 seriously in a theological way. Trinity is not a logical conundrum but a life we share in Christ. We are called into the Trinitarian life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This alone makes God as Person intelligible as well as experienceable—an intelligibility and experience that need to range more freely across Christian life in general and Southern Baptist life in particular.
SAMUEL J. MIKOLASKI
Clever, At Best
The Church in a Society of Abundance, edited by Arthur E. Walmsley (Seabury, 1963, 178 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by E. Merrill Root, author and lecturer, Thompson, Connecticut.
This book is part of the surrender by church “intellectuals” to secularism, sociology, and fashionable clichés of “change” and “welfare.” It surrenders eternity to time; the Kingdom that is not of this world to the bread and circuses of Caesar; the pearl of great price to the world offered as man’s oyster.
It is interesting, sometimes brilliant, and clever in sociological observations. It might be written by contemporary sociologists outside the Church: but is it religion?
Quotations will show the drift. “Our sense of immortality, however false, has been threatened” (p. 45). “He knows that the quickened pace of living and the over-stimulation of the senses have robbed life of many of its pleasures, ‘The things I used to enjoy when I was young.’ Small wonder then that he asks himself in the dark of night, ‘Why bother?’ ” (p. 46). “Otherwise, we may in our concern to prove the continuity and validity of the age-old doctrines of our faith—that men are sinful, finite, dependent on the grace of God—ignore the unique expressions of God’s work in the world and the new values …” (p. 47).
They speak of Supreme Court decisions as “barring trivial religious exercises …” (p. 61). They speak of “the pious religiosity which is a vestige of our attachment to a defunct Christendom” (p. 72). They liken the actions of the Soviets—forced labor camps, liquidation of the Kulaks, planned starvation of millions—to the grim early excesses of accumulating capital in our own industrial revolution (p. 83). (Only lack of intellectual subtlety can explain so gross a confusion—unless it is deliberate.) They parrot Veblenesque clichés (p. 85) like “conspicuous consumption.” They see the mortal war of Communism with freedom as only “technical differences in the methods of economic control” (p. 94). They ridicule “rigidly maintaining old forms of words and acts” (p. 155)—and, of course, are all for novelty. They speak of loss of “status” (p. 159) as the real cause of “divorce, insanity, suicide, delinquency.” Where is the religious sense of our loss of a realization of eternity, our “embezzled Heaven,” our art and philosophy of the hour that stress denial, negation, nihilism?
This book is, at best, clever secular sociology, not religion. No wonder most contemporary pulpits revolt us: as Milton said, “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.” The “Church” that speaks here has lost its continuity with Christ. This book is a slick, synthetic, devitalized product—never the bread of life—wrapped in cellophane and presented (like modern soaps on TV commercials) as “new” and “improved.” It lacks the vitamins of genuine religion.
E. MERRILL ROOT
Science And The Reformation
Science, God, and You, by Enno Wolthuis (Baker, 1963, 121 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Russell L. Mixter, professor of zoology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.
Combining his knowledge of history, philosophy, and theology with a wealth of scientific information, Professor Wolthuis of Calvin College has given us a competent statement of the relations among these disciplines. This is needed, because schools may give only a confused picture of the significance of science and religion. Although God is placed second in the title, he comes out first in the discussion.
Christians have a right and a duty to engage in scientific pursuits, and the Reformers, particularly Calvin, advocated this sphere of activity. They would oppose the current notion that “all men must accept that which is scientifically demonstrated, and for the rest it is every man for himself. If he wishes to believe in a deity that is his privilege.” Because of sin, man finds it easy to accept the hard facts of science and to “relegate the other-worldly claims of religion to the realm of speculation instead of fact.”
The author combats such views as that scientific knowledge is nature’s dictation of facts, rather than “quite a subjective body of information”; that science is “based on facts alone” while religion is “entirely a matter of faith”; and that science can handle questions of morals and goals and emotions. He insists that God has spoken both in the universe and in the divine Word and develops this in his chapter “Nature and Scripture.” One typographical error on page 74 should be noted. In a discussion of attitudes toward nature and Scripture, the text says, “the one which denies Scripture and defies nature”—instead of “deifies” nature.
The synthesis of Wolthuis’s views is found in the concluding chapters: “The Reformation Influence,” “On the Creation of All Things,” “Man, the Crown of Creation,” “Science, a Christian Duly,” and “Victory Through Faith.” He believes that “it was the Protestant Reformation which first objectively challenged the authority of the Scholastic tradition” and thereby provided an atmosphere in which science could grow. Faith in an orderly nature can be had only by a faith in a God of creation.
RUSSELL L. MIXTER
Book Briefs
The Holy Merriment, by Arnold Kenseth (University of North Carolina, 1963, 70 pp., $4). Religiously oriented poems, carefully crafted and refreshing in their nuances of thought and emotion.
Woman and Man: Their Nature and Mission, by F. X. Arnold (Herder and Herder, 1963, 151 pp., $3.95). A provocative discussion of the mystery of man and woman, within a Roman Catholic perspective.
Faust Revisited: Some Thoughts on Satan, by Marshall W. Fishwick (Seabury, 1963, 182 pp., $3.95). The author probes sharply into the realities of life to uncover evil and the devil. His words are edged and his sentences a sword thrust. Some questionable theology, but very worthwhile reading.
Men Twice Born, compiled and edited by David R. Enlow (Zondervan, 1963, 147 pp., $2.95). Twenty-six men from all walks of life tell how they became Christians. These true and reassuring stories make good reading for those who doubt the power of the Gospel and of Christian witness.
Of the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis (Revell, 1963, 63 pp., $1). Selections from a Christian classic; devotional reading in pocket size.
Geographical Companion to the Bible, by Denis Baly (McGraw-Hill, 1963, 196 pp., $5.95). A high-grade achievement of an experienced geographer tells of the land and its formation, the climate, vegetation, and trade routes of Bible times. A very helpful companion for intelligent Bible reading.
Natural Childbirth and the Christian Family, by Helen S. Wessel (Harper & Row, 1963, 287 pp., $4.95). An unusual blending of the Christian faith and the principles of medicine, throwing light on this neglected area.
East Bay and Eden: Contemporary Sermons, by Browne Barr (Abingdon, 1963, 160 pp., $3). Readable, well-composed sermons which for the most part circle around but rarely get to the center of the Christian faith.
Premarital Guidance, by Russell L. Dicks (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 141 pp., $2.95). Author believes that the marriage-choice is more important than either the career or religion-choice; he has a doubtful definition of marriage and divorce, but within such strictures he has good advice—three bags full—for Christians no less than for others.
Paul Tillich: An Appraisal, by J. Heywood Thomas (Westminster, 1963, 224 pp., $4.50). A Welshman presents a basic critique of Tillich’s attempt to wed theology and philosophy. Embellished with an introductory essay on the life and development of the man himself. An appendix presents Roman Catholic criticisms of Tillich.
Teaching and Morality, by Francis C. Wade (Loyola University Press, 1963, 269 pp., $4). A Roman Catholic urges that colleges should teach students to be good as well as to know, and then faces the problem that virtue, unlike knowledge, cannot be taught.
Living Springs: New Religious Movements in Western Europe, by Olive Wyon (Westminster, 1963, 128 pp., $2.50). The stories of new Protestant and Roman Catholic religious communities, such as Taizé in Burgundy, St. Julian’s and Lee Abbey in Great Britain, and many more. A good report on a religious phenomenon of especial interest to Protestants.
Christianity in Africa, by Cecil Northcott (Westminster, 1963, 128 pp., $2.95). A clearly drawn picture of the face of Africa showing its strength and weaknesses, and its possibilities of tomorrow; by a competent author.
The Pastor and His Work, by Homer A. Kent, Sr. (Moody, 1963, 301 pp., $4.50). Much sound advice on just about everything about the pastor and his work. The treatment is sometimes inadequate, but it is always practical.
The Ministers Manual 1964, compiled and edited by M. K. W. Heicher (Harper & Row, 1963, 363 pp., $3.95). A treasury of suggestions for nearly every kind of service (worship, funeral, and the like) a minister must perform. Prayers, poems, and International Sunday School Lessons. Valuable if rightly used.
The Multiple Staff in the Local Church, by Herman J. Sweet (Westminster, 1963, 122 pp., $2.75). A discussion of the roles, functions, needs, and problems in the church that has a staff of workers and not simply one minister attempting to do everything.
Pitirim A. Sorokin in Review, edited by Philip A. Allen (Duke University, 1963, 527 pp., $10). An analysis and assessment of the controversial sociologist who was founder and long-time head of Harvard’s sociological department. Part I presents Sorokin’s autobiography; Part II, estimates of him by such men as A. Toynbee and R. K. Merton; and Part III, Sorokin’s reflections on his work in the light of his critics’ analyses.
The United States and Africa, edited by Walter Goldschmidt (Frederick A. Praeger, 1963, 298 pp., $6). An edition revised to bring up to date the significant and exciting things that have happened in Africa since 1958.
An Autobiography of the Supreme Court, edited by Alan F. Westin (Macmillan, 1963, 475 pp., $7.50). An informal account of the growth and development of America’s unique institution, provided by the justices themselves in their speeches, letters, and memoirs, from 1790 to 1961.
Adventures in the Holy Land, by Norman Vincent Peale (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 176 pp., $5.95). With word and picture Peale shares the experiences and impressions gained on his trip to the Holy Land. The script is good, the photography excellent.
Get Off the Fence!: Morals for Moderns, by Thomas A. Fry, Jr. (Revell, 1963, 127 pp., $2.50). A clear call to basic social and personal morality within the context of today’s problems, hopes, and fears. Good reading.
Patriarchs and Prophets, by Stanley Brice Frost (McGill University, 1963, 232 pp., $4.50). A very liberal interpretation of the biblical patriarchs and prophets.
Truth for Today, edited by John F. Walvoord (Moody, 1963, 255 pp., $2.95). Twenty-three evangelical theologians contribute as many articles to celebrate thirty years of publication of Bibliotheca Sacra by Dallas Theological Seminary.
Paperbacks
Planning a Year’s Pulpit Work, by Andrew W. Blackwood (Abingdon, 1963, 240 pp., $1.25). A valuable discussion about preaching which provides considerable practical wisdom for the man who could use some help in making sermons. First published in 1942.
Piety and Politics: American Protestantism in the World Arena, by Alan Geyer (John Knox, 1963, 173 pp., $2.25). A freewheeling but useful discussion of the role and influence of American religion, for good and ill, in recent events of world politics.
Karl Barth’s Table Talk, edited by John D. Godsey (John Knox, 1963, 101 pp., $1.75). For many years Barth had special sessions with English-speaking students to informally discuss aspects of his thought. Here are the questions asked by the students and Barth’s informal answers.
The Silent Struggle for Mid-America, edited by E. W. Mueller and Giles C. Ekola (Augsburg, 1963, 180 pp„ $3.50). The lectures and findings of a conference interested in finding out what is happening to the church and the small communities in Mid-America.
I Believe in God …, by Klaas Runia (Inter-Varsity, 1963, 77 pp., $1.50). A good Reformed scholar writes plainly about the creeds and their relevance for today. Trenchant criticism is directed especially against Bultmann.
Missionary Opportunity Today, edited by Leslie Lyall (Inter-Varsity, 1963, 160 pp., $1.50). An up-to-date survey which brings the reader into touch with the most recent developments in the worldwide mission of the Church. A valuable study.
Christian Beliefs: A Brief Introduction, by I. Howard Marshall (Inter-Varsity, 1963, 96 pp., $1.25). A solid, evangelical exposition of basic Christian doctrines that wastes no words. Excellent for students.
Peter and the Church: An Examination of Cullmann’s Thesis, by Otto Karrer (Herder and Herder, 1963, 142 pp., $2.25). Father Karrer presents his response to Oscar Cullmann’s Peter, in which he contended that Peter was only the primus of the early Church and at an early date yielded his primacy to James the Less. Top-level Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue.
The Church in the City, by Paul Peachey (Faith and Life, 1963, 115 pp., $1.95). From an initial consideration of the difficulties that cultural differences and big-city life present to the extension of the Mennonite faith, the author, a Mennonite, discusses how these same difficulties confront every Christian group.
The Reformed Pastor, by Richard Baxter (John Knox, 1963, 126 pp., $1.50). By “reformed,” this eminent seventeenth-century Puritan meant “recalled to faithful service.” His perceptive and instructive book has been helping pastors toward this end for more than 300 years.
The Quiet Men: The Secret to Personal Success and Effectiveness by Men Who Practice It, by Richard C. Halverson (Cowman, 1963, 133 pp., $1.95). Quiet men tell the secret of their personal success and effectiveness. The secret is the Christian faith; and the men, twenty-three of them, include Governor Mark Hatfield, General M. H. Silverthorn, Judge Boyd Leedom, and W. C. Jones. Interesting stories and proof of the power of the Gospel.
