A Century Of New Testament Studies
The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1961, by Stephen Neill (Oxford, 1964, 360 pp., $10.50), is reviewed by Richard C. Oudersluys, Albert Biemolt Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.
To attempt a century’s history of New Testament criticism and interpretation is no mean task, but Bishop Neill brings it off in masterly fashion. His survey is no mere Listing of scholarly names and views in chronological succession but a perceptive analysis of tendencies and trends, of changing climates of thought, and of the men and schools contributing to these changes. More than three hundred names appear in the index, indicating something of the scope of this history, which extends from the eighteenth-century challenge to English orthodoxy to the twentieth-century challenge of the post-Bultmannians. On such diverse developments as textual criticism, source and form criticism, historical and theological interpretation, Greek and Jewish environmental influences, Gnosticism, and the like, Dr. Neill’s reporting is accurate and his judgments for the most part discerning and judicious. The book will enable any reader to grasp quickly the difference between the New Testament study of one hundred years ago and that of today. It may also serve as a companion work to Werner Georg Kümmel’s Das Neue Testament (1958), to which Neill makes several allusions.
American readers should understand, however, that the book deals mainly with the history of British interpretation of the New Testament and its relation to German critical developments. American scholars receive short shrift at the bishop’s hands. While he complains against the provincialism of much German scholarship, he displays in turn a Cambridge bias and is overly occupied with persons and positions peculiar to the good old Cambridge tradition. For example, historicism always seems to come off much better than theological interpretation. Karl Barth and Edwyn C. Hoskyns are charged with evidencing an insufficient interest in the history of the New Testament, and perhaps rightly so; but then Bultmann’s pervasive historical skepticism is extenuated because he rightly insists that the Gospel is always kerygma, always contemporary. Oscar Cullmann receives only slight mention, and that not for his theology of the history of salvation. And in the current debate on the semantics of biblical language, Dr. Neill’s sympathies are for James Barr rather than for Thorlief Boman, Oscar Cullmann, T. F. Torrance, and the Kittel Wörterbuch. All of this makes the reader wish that the author had gone beyond inklings here and there and had indicated explicitly and at length the conception of biblical history from which the assessments above proceed. The bishop’s missionary skirt shows a bit when he posits a missionary proclamation pattern and purpose for all the Gospels save Matthew, which is said to be churchly and liturgical. Apart from radical form-critical conclusions, how unchurchly are the other Gospels?
After a century of criticism and interpretation, where does New Testament study stand today? Bishop Neill’s final summary of scholarly agreements and disagreements makes us both grateful and humble: grateful for the positive achievements, humble in the face of continuing problems that call for immediate attention.
RICHARD C. OUDERSLUYS
The Basis Of Freedom
In This Free Land: A Case for Responsible Conservatism, by Charles M. Crowe (Abingdon, 1964, 224 pp., $4), is reviewed by S. Richey Kamm, professor of history and social science, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.
Freedom, the traditional freedom of life in America, is the driving concern of the writer of this volume, who serves a Methodist pulpit in the Chicago metropolitan area. The text of his exposition bears the imprint of a man who has suffered at the hands of liberals in the Church and liberals in politics. He is determined that a case shall be made for the freedoms long associated with American conservatism.
Charles Crowe is a man’s man in his manner of address. When he writes about Communism, he writes as one who is familiar with the latest reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He is positive that the basic issue confronting this country in its relation to Communism is a religious one. He sees no room for compromise or appeasement with Communist leadership. He believes that Christians need not fear Communism.
The modern welfare state, with its increasing regulation of private property and its frequent use of tax resources to provide a wide range of public services, is the number one enemy of American freedom. “Neither social equality or economic security are guarantees of the good life.” Crowe believes with Frederick Hayek that such a system destroys the sense of human dignity on which the American concept of freedom is based. “The Christian causes of human dignity, freedom and brotherhood,” he declares, “are best served in a free state and a free-market economy.”
Lack of respect for law and order, professional gambling, smutty literature, the heavy use of alcoholic beverages, and the problem of racial integration all come within the purview of his analysis. Skeptical of the impact of the social gospel, he believes, nevertheless, that the leaders in organized Protestantism should take the initiative in a campaign to correct the social evils of the day. This must be prefaced by the recognition that private morality is basic to social reform. Christian leaders who make a “kingdom issue” of open-occupancy laws are indicted for their failure to take the lead in moving into racially mixed neighborhoods.
Charles Crowe is clearly concerned about the role of the Church and of professed Christians in the perpetuation of freedom in America. He is convinced that free government is religiously based. The state, he believes, depends upon a life-force outside itself—the human conscience. Society cannot be Christian until the people first become Christian. “Let those on the far right who speak so glibly of their love for freedom in this country demonstrate that faith by rallying to the support of the church.” Here Crowe’s admonition reveals the shallowness of much of the present conservative trend in American politics.
There is much good sense in this book. The tendency of Western Christians to place undue confidence in political and economic devices for curing the world’s ills is underscored. The tendency for Americans to apologize for their Christian culture abroad is decried. Crowe believes that Americans should understand the religious foundations of their culture and be proud of it as they face the claims of other cultural systems.
“Ours is a Protestant culture,” he declares, “which is the answer to the search of men everywhere for the freedom of mind and spirit that elevate life and make it good.” He is sharply critical, therefore, of any type of authoritarian bureaucracy, whether it be in the National Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic papacy, or the Communist party.
Crowe stands for freedom in the traditional Lockean and American sense. He believes it is time that Christian men and women spoke out against the totalitarian tendencies of liberal leadership in American life. By doing so they will become, he believes, “responsible conservatives.”
S. RICHEY KAMM
No Flatulent Puffery
The Silent Pulpit: A Guide to Church Public Relations, by Edward Greif (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 213 pp., $4.95), and Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy (Atheneum, 1964, 172 pp., $4.95), are reviewed by David E. Kucharsky, news editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
If you seek a carefully prepared manual on how your church can communicate more effectively to the outside world, Greif’s is the latest in a series of books designed for that purpose. If, on the other hand, you wish to approach the challenge in a more interesting though roundabout fashion, try Ogilvy.
Ogilvy is a native of Britain who has been a phenomenally successful advertising executive in the United States. The religious community was the last he had in mind in writing the book, but its content is nonetheless remarkably relevant to churches and clergyman. His thesis is that the advertiser must have a good product, that he must know that product, and that he must tell the public about it in simple, straightforward, and understandable terms. Ogilvy has been revolutionizing the advertising business in the last few years by showing that the factual, informative approach sells more merchandise than flatulent puffery. The book is a delight.
Greif’s book is not meant to be entertaining, but it spells out the best means of getting a church some attention in the mass media. It also presents numerous ideas on economical “exploitation” of other available publicity resources that churches normally overlook. In arguing that public relations work be delegated to members of the congregation, he issues a timely warning to ministers:
“Even if the minister has considerable talent for public relations work, for a number of reasons it is undesirable that he should be its sole administrator. One primary reason is that he should not be mistakenly cast in the role of a personal publicity seeker. Although there is certainly nothing reprehensible about the efforts of a preacher with a message seeking to convey it, nevertheless in this age so many persons seek publicity for purposes of personal glorification that even those who do it for valid reasons become suspect.”
DAVID E. KUCHARSKY
The Southern Mind
Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century, by Kenneth K. Bailey (Harper & Row, 1964, 180 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, professor of history, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:
● Theology of Jewish Christinitity, by Jean Danielou, S. J. (Regnery, $8.50). A careful reconstrrlction and evaluation of the kind of Christian theology that was produced when the Church was mainly Jewish and Jerusalem had not yet gone to Athens.
● Harper Study Bible, Revised Standard Version, edited by Harold Lindsell (Harper & Row, $9.95). A serviceable study Bible that is soundly evangelical; complete with outlines, introductions, annotations, marginal references, index, concordance, and maps.
● Chyistrimas Messages, by Leslie B. Flynn (Baker, $1.95). Bettcr than “messages,” these eleven essays provide a little treasury of approaches, of biblical insights and expositions, that will be helpful in the making of good Christmas sermons.
This purports to be an investigation of the interaction between Protestantism in the South and American culture since 1900. It is a difficult book to review fairly. To a degree the author has achieved his purpose: he has been very diligent in his documentation; he has read widely in certain types of sources; and he has used these sources according to the best canons of historical scholarship. But the book fails to present an adequate picture of the Protestant mind of the South.
This failure is partly due to Professor Bailey’s selection of certain critical national and Southern issues around which to write the book, such as education and social concern. prohibition, evolution, the Depression, and the Age of the New Deal. At times he falls into the error of thinking that the Methodist and Baptist churches represented the Southern mind simply because of their numerical superiority, and he tends to neglect the intellectual and theological impact of other denominations in the South. Very little attention is given to the Lutheran and Episcopal churches. Equally serious is his dependence upon certain states for his treatment of the Baptists and the Methodists. Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee play a major role in the book, and the Carolinas and Virginia are all too often neglected. Indeed, South Carolina fares very badly in his hands. What is the Southern Protestant mind without the Carolinas or Virginia?
It was difficult to escape the conclusion that the real purpose of this book was to poke fun at Southern fundamentalism and to chide this section of the country for being the “Bible Belt.” Professor Bailey seems to have little sympathy with those who stand for the historic Christian faith.
In spite of these weaknesses, the book contains valuable material. There is. for example, an excellent summary of the legal status of the teaching of evolution in the South that affords easy access to widely scattered material.
C. GREGG SINGER
A Good Choice
The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, by Bruce M. Metzger (Oxford, 1964, 268 pp., $7), is reviewed by William L. Lane, associate professor of New Testament, Gordon Divinity School, Wenham, Massachusetts.
Bruce Metzger, professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, has a justly earned reputation as a competent specialist in the text and versions of the New Testament. His achievement in this latest publication is to have made available to the theological student beginning his textual studies, as well as to the more advanced worker in the field, a manual that is comprehensive and lucid and that incorporates the latest resource material, including the important Bodmer papyri (pp. 66, 72, 74, 75). The notes, which are an index to the erudition of the author, call attention to the standard works in the several related fields and include recent bibliographical entries as well.
The material is conveniently grouped into three major sections, each of which is subdivided into logical chapter units. Under Part I, Metzger discusses the making of ancient books and the important witnesses to the text of the New Testament. The history of the development of New Testament textual criticism is traced in Part II by a treatment of the printed editions of the New Testament. The application of textual criticism to the text of the New Testament is the concern of Part III, and here Metzger provides a succinct account of the several schools of textual methodology. The crucial chapter is the final one. in which Metzger outlines an approach that may be used by the beginner, illustrating each step with examples culled from both the New Testament and more modern literature. Through the analysis of passages selected from the New Testament with an eye to the English reader who notes differences in text between the King James Version and the more modern English versions, the layman is introduced to the value of textual criticism at work.
A useful appendix provides a check-list of the Greek papyri of the New Testament, of which there are now seventy-six. In concise form there is supplied a conspectus of basic information on the content of each papyrus document, the latest opinion concerning its approximate date, the present location of the papyrus, the bibliographical reference to the editio princeps, and the text-type or family to which the papyrus is thought to belong. In addition, there is a selected bibliography for further study, a general index, and an index of the New Testament passages to which reference is made in the book. It is clear that if a man is to have one book in his library on text, he could do no better than to secure this very able study by Metzger.
WILLIAM L. LANE
One View
The Heritage of Biblical Faith, by J. Philip Hyatt (Bethany Press, 1964, 361 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Alfred von Rohr Sauer, professor of Old Testament exegesis, Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
How should a modern man approach the Bible? The author, a Vanderbilt theologian, believes that the reader may approach it as a piece of good literature, as a primary source for history, or as a handbook of good behavior, but that he ought to read it mainly because it is a record of God’s great acts on behalf of man and of God’s great directives to man. As such a historical record, the Bible is subject to various forms of criticism. These do not set the reader up as a judge over the Scriptures; rather they better enable him to understand the Scriptures. Criticism asks: What was the author’s purpose in writing his book? Which part was added later? By asking such questions criticism enables the reader to become contemporary with the writers of the biblical books, guards him against allegorical interpretation and overemphasis on predictive prophecy, and enables him to see the heights and the depths of the whole span of biblical literature, thus laying the foundation for a theology that is thoroughly biblical. Criticism needs to be controlled, and archaeology has proved to be an effective discipline for such control. Above all, criticism must be correlated with the viewpoint of faith.
Three groups of historical books are distinguished in the Old Testament: the sequence from Genesis to Numbers in the collation of JEP; the Deuteronomic history running from First Chronicles through Second Kings; and the Chronicler’s history running from First Chronicles through Nehemiah. The patriarchal accounts are treated as legends, rather than as actual historical records, and may represent stories about tribes or races rather than about individuals. The patriarchs are regarded as polytheists, each worshiping his own patron deity. The figure of Moses includes much that is legendary, and Sinai was probably near Kadesh-barnea in northern Sinai.
The sovereignty of God and the covenant concept are proposed as the two basic facts that help the reader understand the Old Testament. It was at Sinai that Yahweh became the God of Israel. Among the heathen nations whose kings he constrained to do his will, the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians must be noted. Yahweh was also the creator of the universe. As a righteous God he acted fairly and justly, performing saving acts for them, and he expected righteousness from the covenant people. In love Yahweh chose Israel so that they might serve him; when the entire people refused this service, he focused his concern on a remnant.
Turning to the New Testament, Hyatt explains that a Gospel is not so much history or biography, as we understand them today, but “an account of the good news.” There were reasons why a generation passed before the Gospels were recorded, namely, the imminent return of Jesus, the popularity of oral tradition, and the consideration that the first Gospel was recorded only after the Christian faith began to be threatened. The last days of Jesus in Jerusalem are described in great detail, because the Crucifixion was so important for the early Christian community. There is a distinct theological judgment in Hyatt’s observation that the discouragement of the disciples “turned into hope and great joy when they came to believe that Jesus had been resurrected from the grave.”
Paul’s reference to seeing Jesus in First Corinthians 15:3–8 is the earliest record of such an appearance. He does not distinguish Christ’s Damascus-road appearance to him from Christ’s immediate post-Easter appearance to the eleven.
The author points out that a closed Old Testament canon came only when the true voice of God was no longer heard, that is, in the time of Ezra. The apostolic origin of a New Testament book cannot be the sole criterion for its canonization. Usage in the Church and conformity to the mainstream of Christianity also played a vital part. The interpreter should ask himself, on the one hand, whether all sixty-six books of the canonical Scriptures must be authoritative and, on the other, whether any of the apocrypha have genuine theological value. The answer should be that the Christian interpreter must always insist on evangelical freedom.
In the two final chapters Hyatt takes up the history of the English Bible and the authority of the Scriptures. As a long-time member of the Standard Bible Committee he writes authoritatively on the significance of the various English versions, from those of Wyclif and Tyndale to the Revised Standard Version. After going to great lengths to refute the verbally inspired and wholly infallible character of the Scriptures, he defines the Bible as “a record of God’s disclosure of Himself to men both in His acts in history and in His preaching to men; it is also a record of men’s response to that disclosure—in what they both did and said, whether in faith or in rebellion, whether they understood him correctly or not.”
In his final appeal the author impresses upon the reader that his study of the Bible must bring him into an encounter with God and that such an encounter takes place when he meets Jesus Christ. The reader is advised to translate the Bible’s thought-forms into the thought-forms of today, and to retain both the subjective element of Protestantism and the objective element of Catholicism. The author’s advice to regard the Bible as containingthe Word of God rather than as being the Word of God will be questioned, if not declined, by many.
This reviewer regrets that Hyatt’s personal persuasion, especially in terms of denominational allegiance, is not expressed anywhere in the book. In general his liberal Protestant viewpoint appears to lean more toward the late nineteenth and early twentieth century than to the biblical renaissance that followed World War II.
ALFRED VON ROHR SAUER
Let The Parish Perish?
Death and Birth of the Parish, edited by Martin E. Marty, with Paul R. Biegner, Roy Blumhorst, Kenneth R. Young (Concordia, 1964, 163 pp., $3), is reviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt, editor, Decision, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Martin Marty, editor of this book and author of its opening section, is really three men. First, he is a minister of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod who until recently pastored an overflowing suburban church with all those horrid syndromes that so disturb Dr. Gibson Winter of the University of Chicago Divinity School (The New Creation as Metropolis). Unfortunately Dr. Marty seldom writes as we assume that he preaches, so his books carry no hint of the great Christological doctrines that produced the Missouri Synod.
Second, he is an ecclesiastical sociologist, and it is in this capacity that he edited the present volume. It is devoted to the question: Shall we kill off the parish in its present form or go on in the present hopeless and uncreative way? Dr. Marty and his three Missouri Synod pastor colleagues art dead set against “social clubbism” in the church. They think that it is worldly. On the other hand, they think that the changing world should dictate the direction the churches should take. Since sociologists normally take a poor view of evangelism, no clear suggestion is made that souls be won to Jesus Christ. Whatever the solution is it is apparently not that. In fact, what we have here is not a solution at all but just another book. Fine fellows, hard-working all of them. We wonder what Martin Luther would say to them.
Third, Dr. Marty is an editor. He writes easily, cleverly, lightly. His is the best writing in the book. He says that people accuse sociologists of sticking their noses in limburger cheese and then complaining that the whole world smells. But he says the sociologists do in fact wipe their noses regularly. The trouble is that everywhere they dip their noses they come up with limburger cheese.
SHERWOOD E. WIRT
A Restatement
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, by Hendrikus Berkhof (John Knox, 1964, 128 pp., $3), is reviewed by M. Eugene Osterhaven, professor of systematic theology, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.
In this book, comprising the Annie Kinkead Warfield lectures given at Princeton Seminary this past year, the author, a professor of theology at Leiden, the Netherlands, investigates the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. He sees the Spirit as “the name for the exalted Christ acting in the world” (pp. 115, 28; cf. pp. 24 ff., where the “identification of the Spirit with Christ” is developed). If one asks what this means for the doctrine of the trinity, the answer is that the doctrine needs to be restated. God is one person in movement, really in a double movement, for he comes towards us as Christ, then as the Spirit, and after having found and saved man in his sin he leads him back to Christ, and in Christ man finds God.
In all this God is Person, acting in a personal way, seeking a personal encounter. The triune God does not embrace three Persons; he himself is Person, meeting us in the Son and in his Spirit. Jesus Christ is not a Person beside the Person of God; in him the Person of God becomes the shape of a human person. And the Spirit is not a Person beside the Persons of God and Christ. In creation he is the acting Person of God, and in re-creation he is the acting Person of Christ, who is no other than the acting Person of God. Therefore, we must reject all presentation of the Spirit as an impersonal force. The Spirit is Person because he is God acting as a Person. However, we cannot say that the Spirit is a Person distinct from God the Father. He is a Person in relation to us, not in relation to God; for he is the personal God himself in relation to us [p. 116].
The correct expression for indicating the distinctions within the trinity is not “person,” which is “useless,” but “mode of being,” which reminds us that God does not exist in only one way and which does not create tritheistic misunderstandings. If one would ask whether “mode of revelation” might not be a preferable term, since we know God only in his revelation, the author would object saying that God’s revelation is faithful to his being so that what he reveals of himself he actually is.
Elsewhere in the volume there are good discussions on the Spirit and the mission; the Spirit and the Church; the Spirit and the individual; and the Spirit, the world, and the consummation. These will be helpful to many. Some readers will be jolted, however, by the repudiation of classic trinitarianism embodied in the description of the phrase “the three persons of the trinity” as “confused and confusing” (p. 115). At this point, the author, like Barth and Cyril C. Richardson, points up the perennial problem of the doctrine of the trinity—who has said the last word on it?—but it is questionable whether the substitution of a modalistic approach for the more generally accepted doctrine is an advance. That, at least, is the judgment of this reviewer, who, incidentally, has high regard for Professor Berkhof.
In closing, the author’s Christo-centricism is evident here as elsewhere in his writings. One sees it, for example, in the insistence that “we have to think of the Spirit in strictly christocentric terms.… The Spirit is always and everywhere the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (p. 24); in the position that the Christian doctrine of “the essential unity of the human race is a consequence of the universal meaning of the incarnation” (p. 101); and in the overall structure of Berkhof’s treatment.
M. EUGENE OSTERHAVEN
Preparing The Way
Theology and Pastoral Counseling, by Edward E. Thornton (Prentice-Hall. 1964, 144 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Gwyn Walters, associate professor of pastoral theology, Gordon Divinity School, Wenham, Massachusetts.
“Prepare the Way for.…” These words appear in the titles of five of the nine chapters of this book, which does commendably help “prepare the way for” fuller marital bliss for the post-honeymoon newlyweds, “Theology” and “Pastoral Care.” Describing their interpenetration, coherence, or correlation, the author shows how pastoral counseling aids not only the application and communication but also the apprehension, criticism, correction, and illumination of theology.
Autobiographically, he shows his developing grasp of the doctrines of sin and grace, of man (and his unconscious motivations), of suffering, and of the church and ministry, in his experiences with various counselees. “Pastoral care and counseling are forms of religious ministry which integrate the findings of the behavioral sciences and theology in an effort to prepare the way for divine-human encounter in the midst of human crisis.”
God intends to meet us with salvation in every experience of life—in mental illness and emotional health, in unconscious and conscious mental processes, in isolation and in the community of faith. The struggle against grace must be solved if the creature is to encounter the Creator. This struggle is found even in ministers who are spurred more by competition than by compassion and gratitude.
In Bonhoeffer’s idiom, the “penultimate” word can be spoken by the ministry of “proclamation” and “participation” in preparation for the “ultimate” word of justification by faith that is spoken by God alone. Thurneysen is (too?) heavily taken to task for arrogantly speaking the ultimate word in the “breach in the pastoral conversation,” thus presuming to substitute himself for God’s grace and sovereignty.
Psychiatrists and pastoral counselors differ about the relation between health and salvation. Health is potential in salvation and vice versa. The detailed case of “Mr. Mills” shows the author’s eliciting the patient’s trust as a “penultimate” which proved effective for health and salvation.
The interpenetra (linkage) between man’s brokenness and bondage leads to health when accompanied by repentance and faith. The leap of faith is a commitment that involves being “possessed” by new purpose, which is superior to being “called” to ministry. Such commitment shows the “celebrative use of conflict.”
Readers expecting an extended treatment of the relation between specific doctrines and counseling situations will be disappointed. Some will question such statements as: “The Christian community understands itself to be the continuing incarnation of God in the world.” “Some men will discover that unbeknown to themselves they have been on God’s side all along.… They respond unconsciously to the vicarious suffering of God-in-Christ …” (p. 29). “The rational constructs involved in Christian commitment are logically absurd—that the Word became flesh, for example” (p. 95). “Man’s most fulfilling possibility is … in irrational commitment to the Lord of a confessing community” (p. 96).
Some will also question the relation described between calling and vocation, between being “called” and being “possessed” (p. 105 ff.). Not all will agree that “the marriage ceremony [involving a divorcé] was … the celebration of the grace of God made manifest in the midst of conflict” (p. 114).
All in all, however, the author is persuasive in his contention that theological education must increasingly establish the link between learning and the ministry so that through the dialogue of theology and pastoral counseling, the Church may be able more fully to “prepare the way of the Lord.”
GWYN WALTERS
Book Briefs
Readings in the History of Christian Thought, by Robert L. Ferm (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 619 pp., $7.75). Selections expertly chosen from the writings and documents of mainline Christianity (with the exception of those from Unitarian W. E. Channing), excluding those of the Apostolic Fathers and those written after 1800. Selections focus on methods in theology, the Trinity, the person and atoning work of Christ, sin and grace, and Church and sacraments. Editorial introductions are brief and objective. A very valuable little one-volume library on historical theology, providing for the reader an easy opportunity to get a good taste of other theological traditions and a background against which to gauge his own.
Contraception and Catholics: A New Appraisal, by Louis Depré (Helicon, 1964, 94 pp., $1.95).
Magnificent Promise, by Sherwood Eliot Wirt (Moody, 1964, 129 pp., $2.75). Dynamic writing that sees the Cross as the key to the meaning and the understanding of the Beatitudes. Essays that will awaken the mind. A revised edition of what originally appeared under the title The Cross on the Mountain.
Lovejoy: Martyr to Freedom, by Paul Simon (Concordia, 1964, 150 pp., $3). The fascinating story of Elijah Lovejoy, who used the press for freedom and the abolition of slavery and who, martyred at thirty-five, helped to change history. Well told by a newsman and state senator.
The Ministers Manual. 1965 Edition, compiled and edited by M. K. W. Heicher (Harper & Row, 1964, 363 pp., $3.95). Sundry incidental aids that a minister will find useful; chiefly suggestive sermon outlines on biblical themes. That man shall be blessed who uses this book, and twice blessed if he does not abuse it.
Revell’s Minister’s Annual 1965, edited by David A. MacLennan (Revell, 1964, 377 pp., $3.95). Fifty-two morning services, fifty-two evening services, and fifty midweek messages; all recommended for the pastor who is looking for superficial, moralistic homilies that tell people how to deal with their fears, emotions, and whatever else disturbs them, and that will encourage many to stay home next time. Also some suggested topics for sermon series, sans sermons or outlines—which is just as well. Includes a 3½-page glossary that explains twenty terms, from Barthianism to secularism, plus other trivia that a busy minister may find handy.
The Heart and Mind of John XXIII, by Loris Capovilla (Hawthorn, 1964, 192 pp., $5.95). A tribute and close-up insight, by the late pope’s private secretary.
Paperbacks
The Sermon on the Mount, by Eduard Thurneysen, translated by William Childs Robinson (John Knox, 1964, 82 pp., $1).
Portrait of Karl Barth, by Georges Casalis (Doubleday, 1964, 115 pp., $.95). Introduced and translated by Robert McAfee Brown.
The Lord Protector: Religion and Politics in the Life of Oliver Cromwell, by Robert S. Paul (Eerdmans, 1964, 438 pp., $2.95).
The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 2, edited by David Noel Freedman and Edward F. Campbell, Jr. (Doubleday, 1964, 420 pp., $1.95).
The Abolition of Religion, by Leon Morris (Inter-Varsity, 1964, 111 pp., $1.25). A very lucid and critical discussion about the newly popular term, “religionless Christianity.” This short, incisive treatment throws much light on current usage of the term.
God’s Friend: Studies in the Life of Abraham, by Alan M. Stibbs (Inter-Varsity, 1964, 88 pp., $.75). Solid little biblical essays; excellent devotional reading.
My House Is Your House, by Rafael V. Martinez (Friendship, 1964, 128 pp., $1.95). Pleasant introduction to Spanish Americans.
