No New Morality: Christian Personal Values and Sexual Morality, by Douglas Rhymes (Bobbs-Merrill, 1964, 155 pp.,$3.50), is reviewed by James Daane, assistant editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
The “No” in the title is not a rejection of the new morality espoused by John A. T. Robinson and others, but a declaration that it is not new at all. It is, contends Rhymes, as old as the Gospels, for it is the teaching of Christ. Christ indeed has “respect for codes and for moral laws, but … He refuses to accept that there are codes and moral laws which permit of no exceptions.” Christ taught that only the demand of love is unconditional, says Rhymes.
It was Paul who taught another view of morality. Under Greek influence, the Apostle dualistically regarded man as “flesh” and “spirit” and, viewing flesh as the lower aspect of man, summoned men to live not by “the law of the flesh” but by the “law of the spirit.” The Church, asserts Rhymes, strangely followed Paul rather than Christ and, thus misled, adopted a legalistic system of ethics that defines the good as the right relation to law, rather than as a right relation to persons. This is, says Rhymes, “an attitude for which St. Paul, not Christ, must take the blame.”
Today some voices in the Church, and, it seems, the world with almost one voice, are rejecting this impersonal legalistic morality. “This long-standing traditional morality, based upon authoritarian law and suspicion of the flesh,” asserts Rhymes, “is today being rejected on all sides, and especially among the younger generation.” Apparently the world “on all sides” is more perceptive of what constitutes a proper ethic than the Church has ever been since the days of Paul. (It is amazing what liberating theologians ask one to believe!)
Where does Rhymes’s substitution of a “standard of personal responsibility” to love one’s neighbor for a legal “external standard” lead him? In fairness, it must be said that his discussion of the nature of love and of the difference between love and lust is ethically sensitive and highly perceptive. After reading this, one feels it is superfluous to say that Rhymes is not in favor of rape. Yet it is fair to point out that he, on the basis of his ethics, cannot always be opposed to rape (or child abuse, or sexual perversion), because of his basic contention that there can be no moral law or code which allows for no exceptions. To think that the one demand of love can ever be so codified that it unconditionally forbids rape, for example, is to depart from the ethics of Christ and, according to Rhymes, to fall into the error of Paul. Rhymes’s morality, which is older than Paul if it stems only from Christ, would at least seem new to many pagans, who often practice a higher morality than Christ seemingly taught. Pagans have had laws against rape that allowed for no exceptions, least of all exceptions in the name of ethics.
How does Rhymes’s ethics affect his counseling? He reports being asked by a boy why he could not “have sex” if his girl friend were willing. Rhymes’s whole answer was a series of questions asked to sensitize the boy’s feeling of responsibility; “at the end.” says Rhymes, “I told him that no one could really answer his question but himself.” This is the best answer Rhymes could give within his ethical position. If it is the best the Church can give youth, then the Church has no word for the moral decline of our time.
If the demand of love can never take the form of a law that allows no exceptions, then Rhymes (though he seems reluctant) must confess that “it is possible to conceive of situations where such self-giving outside of marriage might have to be judged in the light of all the circumstances rather than be met with outright condemnation.”
Again, it is the substitution of “internal disposition” for a moral law in which some things are always wrong that leads to his view on homosexuality. He frankly asserts that from the standpoint of the morality of his book, homosexuality should be approached from the position that “homosexual affection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection.” If the act is an expression of selfless love for another, it is then a moral act. Such a view of the occasional permissibility of homosexuality, and indeed of any other conceivable sin, is not incidental to Rhymes’s ethics; it is of its very fabric. Indeed, such “proper” exceptions must be regarded not only as permissible but, being an expression of love, as obligatory!
There is in the Christian ethical tradition a recognition of exceptions to moral laws; for example, the right of revolution. But it is one thing to leave moral room for the possible exception and another to recognize exceptions after one has removed that quality from moral law which makes them exceptions.
Rhymes strives for a morality in which love is, without exception, the one absolute requirement. Yet he finishes with a morality of love in which no act is, without exception, always wrong. Very obviously, something has gone wrong in his attempt to relate law and love; he has failed to prove his thesis that love is of such a nature that it cannot regard any act as always evil, without falling into legalism.
Rhymes decries the fact, and with some right, that the Church is often more indignant about sexual immorality than about other forms. Yet something similar is occurring in the reaction to this so-called new morality. Many people are troubled by what they regard as the undermining of morality by such men as Rhymes and Robinson; yet few decry the doctrinal aberrations on which this morality rests. Rhymes’s easy rejection of biblical authority; his faith in the salvific power of self-awareness; his belief that Christ calls us to know ourselves and thereby to gain that sense of personal responsibility which reduces moral laws to a merely pedagogical function; his contention that Jesus confronted man “with the possibilities which lie within” and revealed to the Centurion “his capacity for faith”; his belief that there is an ethic that “can win acceptance,” one “where Christians and humanists can stand on common moral ground”; and his claim that such an ethic is “entirely in accord with the mind of Christ and the attitude of Christ”—all these doctrinal aberrations should concern us at least as much as does the “new morality.” For the latter is built on the former. Indeed, it is these unbiblical views that lend the air of credence to the grand illusion that this new morality is not new at all but as old as the mind of Christ.
I say there ought to be at least an equal concern; for where your theology is, there will your ethics be also.
The Obstacle To Communism
Religion Can Conquer Communism, by O. K. and M. Moore Armstrong (Nelson, 1964, 258 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Harold B. Kuhn, professor of philosophy of religion, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.
The subtitle of this work, The Spiritual Struggle Behind the Iron Curtain, is more dearly indicative of its contents than the title itself. This volume brings within a readable compass a chronicle of the steps by which Soviet imperialism entrenched itself in the great land-mass of eastern Europe and northern Asia and thereby established a frightful hegemony over a belt of countries in the middle of Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. The writers trace the rise of Marxism, the establishment of the bridgehead of tyranny in Russia in 1917, and the expansionist tactics that have marked Communism’s career during the past forty-seven years. In general, the facts presented are well known and reasonably well documented.
One of the outstanding features of the work is the conciseness of its presentation of a formidable mass of material. The record of cruelty and mendacity by which this “experiment” in the remaking of mankind has been carried forward is presented within the rationale by which it was prosecuted and justified, namely, the materialistic view of man, the rigidly pre-determined dialectic of history, and the relativism of all morality.
The writers speak “from within,” having been involved in politics through elected office, and having served on one of the denominational committees at the San Francisco meetings that organized the United Nations. The tone of the work is moderate when measured against the massive brutalities and cynicism of the Red masters in the achievement of their goals. Chapters four through twelve might well be entitled, “Lest We Forget,” for they are painful reading to a nation whose leaders appear to have thrown away, to a large extent, the fruits of victory in World War II at the conference table.
The volume is basically one with a spiritual orientation. The authors recognize that the application of Marx’s “Total War Upon Mankind” involves a fundamental (as opposed to the claim of some liberals that it is incidental) assault upon the principles and organs of religion. One of the book’s merits is that it unmasks the superficial view that coexistence implies abandonment by the men of the Kremlin of all save economic forms of conflict. It is shown that religious faith has proved to be the one unpulverizable obstacle in the way of Communist planning and a major target for continuing warfare.
Red opposition to the Christian religion is shown in its varied phases: in the U. S. S. R. as initially an all-out frontal assault, coupled with some tactical adjustments (particularly during World War II); outside the Soviet Union, as unbending at the core and pragmatic in some of its methods. The authors see clearly the strategy of the Marxist imperialists and alert us to the major tactical features of the struggle, ranging from attacks with the broadaxe to the somewhat subtle insinuation of secular counterparts for every Christian usage.
The authors utilize their exposition to project their major thesis, namely, that there is something that can be done by the free world, and that this “something” must utilize spiritual resources. Whereas Communist leaders prostitute truth and utilize the Great Lie as a weapon, Christianity possesses within her arsenal forces of truth that can be brought to bear upon the situation in eastern Europe.
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:
• A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, by Gleason L. Archer, Jr. (Moody, $6.95). A serviceable treatment of Old Testament problems, written from the evangelical perspective as a text for college, seminary, and other serious students.
• The Old Testament, by Robert Davidson, from the “Knowing Christianity” series (Lippincott, $2.95). A deeply satisfying biblical interpretation of Old Testament theology that does not jump too quickly to the fuller disclosures of the New Testament.
• The Right to Silence: Privileged Communication and the Pastor, by William Harold Tiemann (John Knox, $4). A discussion of a minister’s legal and theological right to withhold from the courts evidence received in pastoral confidence.
The book promotes no easy optimism, no panaceas. The expositions are made with instruction in mind. No one whose heart beats with the suffering and the oppressed can lay the book down and be the same.
Every work of this type incurs the risk of appearing facile in its proposals. The authors have, however, shown an awareness of the difference between strategy and tactics: their faith is that, in the long pull, Communism’s war of attrition upon the Christian faith will be recorded in history for the ephemeral thing it is. Tactically, they make modest proposals, including the use of information, tourism, and interpersonal contacts to modify public policy in Communist lands. Faith is expressed that the embodiment of the Christian message in human lives may ultimately undermine the cruelty of the system, and finally preside in triumph over the forces of Marxist enslavement.
HAROLD B. KUHN
Who Is The Rebel?
Rebels With a Cause, by Frank S. Mead (Abingdon, 1964, 160 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by William B. Williamson, rector, Church of the Atonement, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
From a “Letter from Jerusalem,” in which the Roman Brutus gives an informal, first-hand account of St. John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul, to “The Big Bass Drum,” the story of the founder of the Salvation Army, Frank S. Mead, relates little-known facts concerning “a rebel’s-eye view of the church and church history.”
The style of Rebels With a Cause is informal and narrative, which makes for fascinating reading. This informality and high readability can be seen in the following quote from Letter from Jerusalem”: “He [Jesus] has become Public Enemy No. 1 in every Foreign Office in this part of our world.… Could you believe that any one man could cause such commotion?” In a similarly easy-to-read manner, Simon and his followers are described as the greatest magicians of them all. Simon was recognized in his day as “the sorcerer” and was thought of by some as the father of Christian Gnosticism. In any event, Simon and his followers contributed much to the “source of the developing debate in the church over the person and place of Jesus Christ.”
Rebels With a Cause sheds light on little-known “rebels” as well as on the well-known ones. “It is concerned with men and women who heard the beat of a different drum and broke step to travel a different road to the kingdom.… They are the imps of God scampering among us as we struggle up the holy hill, jabbing at us with their little darts of ridicule and righteous anger.…” This refreshing book, which covers many branches of Christendom, gives insight into history’s religious rebels and enables us to understand more fully the Christian non-conformist of today. Indeed, each story in Rebels With a Cause makes us think more clearly about those who are considered rebels today. It also shows us that it takes time and understanding to evaluate “rebels” and to see whether they are simply rebels or “rebels with a cause.”
WILLIAM B. WILLIAMSON
The Names And The Issues
Introduction to Theology, by Marianne H. Micks (Seabury, 1964, 204 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Samuel J. Mikolaski, professor of theology, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana.
This book derives from an expansion of lectures that the author gave to a conference on Christian ministries in the Episcopal Church last year. It bears unmistakably the stamp of its purpose, which is to range over certain names and issues of classical and contemporary theology in an introductory fashion. The fifteen chapters are grouped evenly under three heads, corresponding roughly to biblical theology, historical theology, and contemporary theology.
Useful discussions occur on crucial biblical passages that undergird such doctrines as the Incarnation. There are splendid short introductions to Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Abelard, Luther, Cranmer, and the Thirty-nine Articles, among others. In these are reflected the strong incarnation theology of the writer, her perceptive insights into the nature of human sin and guilt, and the need of divinely provided redemption. An interesting feature of the book is its treatment of Luther. Continental writers sometimes complain that Episcopalians ignore the Reformation, but that cannot be said of the author of this volume.
Some notations may be made. For example, is “universalism” the best theological term to express what the author probably intends as the “universality” of the Church (p. 59)? Does the author really mean “pietism” when she uses the infelicitous term “spiritualism” (p. 73)? Certain definitions like those of “body” (p. 62), “matter and spirit” (p. 71), and the “divine image” in man (pp. 148, 149) require sharpening. Did Luther say that Galatians is an epistle of “straw” (hence worthless) or a “strawy” epistle (hence hard to chew) (p. 68)? Should the impression be left that for Augustine evil is privation, when deprivation or defection of the will also figures prominently in his theology against the Manicheans (cf. Confessions, Bk. VII, chaps. 3, 12, 16)?
While the threefold division of the book into biblical, historical, and contemporary theology is helpful, it succeeds least, I feel, in the crucially important last section. Contemporary theology is employed as the foil for the function of reason in theology, and as a base for an attempt to provide a theological rationale for faith. I have wondered whether the theologians chosen match the terms of the earlier discussion. I have tried but failed to understand how the need of man in his sin (admittedly requiring atonement) can be met in the categories of Kierkegaard and Tillich. Nor have I been able to see (in the appeal to Bultmann) why we should not de-mythicize the eschatology of Jesus or the Cross, which are claimed by Bultmann to be so crucial (pp. 52, 145). With such a splendid thrust made for the doctrine of salvation (p. 120), it is hard to see how the warm personal categories of early Christianity follow from the uncertain existential leap of Kierkegaard or the ontological truisms of Tillich. How can we “limit” (theologically and philosophically) the undifferentiated diffusion of Tillich’s “ultimate concern” with the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
This volume can serve a very useful purpose: to introduce important names and issues of Christian history. It combines the delicacy of Episcopal interest in early confessional theology with interest in certain strands of modern Continental and American dogmatic perspectives.
SAMUEL J. MIKOLASKI
No Heaven For Me!
Hellbent for Election, by P. Speshock (Zondervan, 1964, 183 pp., $2.93), is reviewed by Frank E. Gaebelein, co-editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
Mr. Speshock has written a lively allegory somewhat on the pattern of C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. The main character is a Christian whose suicide was motivated by his disillusionment at the failure of Christians to live in accord with their beliefs and by his desire to spend eternity with his unbelieving sister. Preferring her company to that of Christians he has known, he arrives in heaven determined not to stay there and doggedly persisting in his endeavor to be sent to hell. The book tells of his journey back to earth in immaterial form with Alexis, the Individual Counselor assigned to him. Hellbent recalls crucial experiences of his youth and adult life culminating in his violent death, which is described in harrowing detail.
The book is largely dialogue, at which the author is expert. It is almost always lively and at times brilliant. The inconsistencies and hypocrisies of Christians are unsparingly displayed. The satire is often biting. But there is also a real sense of the joy of the redeemed, conveyed especially through the character of Alexis, the Individual Counselor.
Finally, Hellbent is allowed a visit to hell. Here the picture is terrifying. Those who know May Sinclair’s appalling story, “Where Their Worm Dieth Not,” will recognize the similarity between the concept of hell she sets forth and that of Mr. Speshock. This glimpse of what lostness really is, coupled with the revelation that his atheist sister was converted through his death, reconciles Hellbent to heaven.
The book is astringent and even disturbing. Its chief value is that it shows with a real measure of power the pursuing love of God that will not let his own go. On the other hand, the concept of what constitutes a Christian seems over-rational and almost antinomian. Moreover, the treatment of suicide has questionable implications.
Mr. Speshock is a gifted writer, although obviously no C. S. Lewis. Many will read Hellbent for Election with enthusiasm; others will be perturbed by it.
FRANK E. GAEBELEIN
Between Hostility And Enthusiasm
Psychiatry and Religious Faith, by Robert G. Gassert, S. J., and Bernard H. Hall (Viking, 1964, 171 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, director of health services, University of Illinois, Urbana.
Although this book is written primarily for priests and nuns, it is addressed to the Roman Catholic laity as well. And in a brief foreword, Karl Menninger commends it also to his fellow Presbyterians. The authors are a Jesuit priest and a Catholic psychiatrist.
Disclaiming any intent to deal with the broader theoretical issues between psychiatry and religion, the authors first confront the widespread notion that psychiatry is irreligious. This attitude is characterized as “wholesale presumptuousness,” since psychiatry as a medical discipline is neither more nor less religious than any other science. However, they acknowledge that psychiatry must be distinguished from the practice of particular psychiatrists, which may be dangerous and harmful to the faith of their patients. Needed is a sober medium between an unexamined hostility and an uncritical enthusiasm.
The book is deeply committed to the orthodox Freudian dual-instinct theory and to the controversial unitary concept of mental illness long advocated by Karl Menninger. In a strongly defensive section, the authors discuss a query commonly put to psychiatrists, “Are you a Freudian?” The question is made to appear naïve and irrelevant. “The psychiatrist is embarrassed, not for himself, but for the questioner,” the authors declare, and they then proceed to defend Freud’s place in science. The authors do not recognize that the question usually refers, not to Freud’s psychology, but to his atheistic philosophy; in this context the question is highly pertinent.
The authors’ statement that “the psychiatrist himself cannot be sectarian in his work with patients” asserts an unrealizable ideal. The professed neutrality of the psychotherapist is now generally recognized as wishful self-deception, since every psychiatrist inevitably reveals his personal philosophy in the course of the verbal and non-verbal intercommunication of the therapeutic situation.
The chapters on psychiatric treatment trace the diagnostic process and subsequent management of a patient by a graphic case history, touching upon most of the common methods of therapy. The latter third of the book will be especially helpful to Catholic priests and supervisors, since it deals specifically with psychiatric referral, selection of religious candidates, and the delicate problem of confidentiality involving the patient who is a member of an order, his superior, and the psychiatrist.
This book, described by its authors as “only a primer,” fulfills well its declared purpose of seeking to convey an enlightened attitude toward the mentally ill and the mental health professions. An undeclared objective seems to be to buffer some of the opposition among Catholics to psychoanalysis and psychiatry.
ORVILLE S. WALTERS
A Primer
An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, by J. Harold Greenlee (Eerdmans, 1964, 160 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by John H. Skilton, professor of New Testament language and literature, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Professor Greenlee’s manual is a serviceable introduction to the textual criticism of the New Testament. It is designed as a primer for beginning students but can be read by others with enjoyment and benefit. It offers a brief treatment of such essential subjects as paleography, the sources of the New Testament text, the transmission of the text, and the printed text (with a survey of the history of the textual criticism of the New Testament in modern times), and it furnishes some guidance in the practice of textual criticism. Special features of the work include instruction both in the use of critical apparatuses found in various editions of the Greek New Testament and in the collation and classification of manuscripts.
Naturally, opinions will differ on what subjects should be covered in a primer and how extensive the coverage should be. The reviewer would favor, for example, a longer treatment of Streeter’s theories of textual criticism and of eclecticism. It would also seem desirable to set forth clearly the sharp distinction between the two kinds of internal evidence of readings made by Westcott and Hort (see pp. 78 f.). But appreciation is due Professor Greenlee for the useful information he has included.
JOHN H. SKILTON
Crackling Fresh
From Prison in Rome: The Letters to the Philippians and Philemon, by E. M. Blaiklock (Pickering & Inglis [Glasgow], 1964, 300 pp., 9s. 6d.), is reviewed by A. Morgan Derham, editorial secretary, The Scripture Union, London, England.
Dr. Blaiklock’s academic disciplines have made him so familiar with the world of the New Testament that if he were transported back in history and set down in ancient Rome, probably he would hardly notice that he was no longer in his native New Zealand; he would slip easily into a toga and be only too ready to show you the way to the Forum! Moreover, his knowledge of classical studies makes him rightly critical of the excesses committed in the name of New Testament scholarship, and his position as a layman makes him sharply aware of the realities of life in the non-clerical world in which the great majority of Christian readers (as opposed to writers) live.
The result of all this is a commentary, paragraph by paragraph, that crackles with fresh and informative comment, throws unexpected light on familiar passages, and makes shrewd thrusts at the easy-going Christianity that flourishes today. Furthermore, Dr. Blaiklock commands a wide vocabulary and a vivid writing style, so that the book is both educational and delightful.
The translation used is Dr. Blaiklock’s own, and not the least among the attractions of the book are the paragraphs in which he shows us the translator at work and gives his reasons for a particular rendering.
A. MORGAN DERHAM
Like No Other
The History Of Education, by John E. Wise, S. J. (Sheed & Ward, 1964, 494 pp., $5), is reviewed by Cornelius Jaarsma, professor of education, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Here is an interpretative history of education written from a Christian point of view. That the author is of Roman Catholic conviction is clear from his analysis of facts, men, and movements. In the preface he states that “history is the narration of facts in perspective,” and he is true to this conception of history throughout his work. The book, whose subtitle is An Analytic Survey from the Age of Homer to the Present, is comprehensive, analytic, and interpretative, and a welcome addition to the historical accounts of developing theory and practice in education. I know of no other history-of-education textbook in the English language that seeks to evaluate educational ideals and theories from a Christian perspective.
The author tries to be objective in selecting and describing movements, events, and ideas, and he largely succeds. Psychological movements in education beginning with Pestalozzi and continuing through Herbart and James are clearly and objectively set forth. Rarely does one find an author of Christian persuasion expounding John Dewey’s views with such fairness and with such an effort at understanding. A Protestant will differ with Wise’s interpretation of Luther and Calvin, but he must admit that the author’s desire to be fair and historically accurate is very much in evidence. The origin of the American public school, with Horace Mann and others, and the development of secularism in American education are accurately and cautiously portrayed.
Among the outstanding features of the book are the selections quoted from educational classics. They are well chosen, set apart in blocks of bold type, and appropriately placed. A comprehensive bibliography is included also.
Christian teachers will study this book with great profit, especially if their reading in the history of education has been confined to secular textbooks. Although Protestants will at times take issue with the author’s views, they will appreciate Wise’s attempt to be Christian in his interpretation of educational theory and practice.
CORNELIUS JAARSMA
Book Briefs
The Story of the Wise Men (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 42 pp., $4.95). The story of the Magi as recorded by Matthew, accompanied by pictures of the same story as carved in four stone capitals in the Cathedral of Autun in Burgundy by Gislebertus, who, though but little known until recently, was one of the greatest sculptors of the Middle Ages. A book of disturbing beauty.
The House of Christmas, by H. Harold Kent (Eerdmans, 1964, 123 pp., $2.95). Short essays on Christmas themes. Biblical material in fine style. A lovely gift, to give or receive.
The Christian Year: Sermons of the Fathers, Volume I, edited by George W. Forell (Nelson, 1964, 384 pp., $6.50). Sermons by men who range from Pope Leo to Jonathan Edwards, from Bernard of Clairvaux to Schleiermacher, arranged in the sequence of the church year.
The Douglass Devotional, by Earl L. Douglass (Evans-Lippincott, 1964, 385 pp., $2.95). An excellent daily devotional reader that will help shift thoughts from the cares of the day to the concerns of the spirit.
The Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic, by Fulgencio Batista (Devin-Adair, 1964, 300 pp., $6.50). The author is the Batista who once ruled Cuba.
The Searching Wind, by Ruby A. Jones (Warner, 1964, 112 pp., $2.50). Devotional material in which nature and grace are blended in exquisite style.
Architects of Conservative Judaism, by Herbert Parzen (Jonathan David, 1964, 240 pp., $5.95). A critical study of the lives of the founders of the Conservative movement, one of the three major Jewish denominations.
World Communism: The Disintegration of a Secular Faith, by Richard Lowenthal (Oxford, 1964, 296 pp., $6). The author, who is at the Free University of West Berlin, traces the inner logic and historic developments of that process in which world Communism is coming apart at the seams.
The Scope of Grace, edited by Philip J. Hefner (Fortress, 1964, 320 pp., $4.95). Learned essays on the wide-ranging subject of nature and grace in which the authors roam from Robert Frost to the morality of God. Compiled in honor of Joseph Sittler, professor of theology at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.
The God We Seek, by Paul Weiss (Southern Illinois University Press, 1964, 258 pp., $5.50). The God for whom Yale University Professor Weiss seeks is one for whom Christianity is only a species of religion in general. As the title suggests, such a God has not yet been found.
The Twentieth Century Atlas of the Christian World, by Anton Freitag, S.V.D. (Hawthorn, 1963, 200 pp., $20). The story of Christian missions, Roman Catholic version; with maps, pictures, and illustrations, and one chapter on Protestant missions. An educational volume of fine craftsmanship.
The World’s Cardinal, by M. C. Devine (Daughters of St. Paul, 1964, 356 pp., $5.75). The first full-length biography of Richard Cardinal Cushing.
The Layman’s Bible Commentary: Vol. V, Deuteronomy, Joshua, by Edward P. Blair; Vol. VII, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles, by Robert C. Dentan; Vol. X, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, by J. Coert Rylaarsdam; Vol. XI, Isaiah, by G. Ernest Wright (John Knox, 1964, 124, 155, 160, 159 pp., $2 each). With these four volumes the Layman’s Bible Commentary, a product of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., is completed.
God’s Glory: Romans 14:13–16:27, by Donald Grey Barnhouse (Eerdmans, 1964. 202 pp., $4.50). Volume X in the “Exposition of Bible Doctrines” series, taking the Epistle to the Romans as the point of departure.
The Collect’d Writings of St. Hereticus, edited by Robert McAfee Brown (Westminster, 1964, 153 pp., $3.95). Humorous writing.
The Art and Thought of Michelangelo, by Charles de Tolnay (Pantheon, 1964, 194 pp., $7.95). An unencumbered study presenting a cross section of Michelangelo’s ideas as they appear in his writings and in his artistic works.
Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism, by James Burnham (John Day, 1964, 312 pp., $5.95). The author argues that the contraction of the West on the world’s scene is due to the inadequacies of the liberal political faith, which is the weakness by which the West may commit suicide. Delightful reading.
Bible Encyclopedia for Children, by Cecil Northcott (Westminster, 1964, 176 pp., $3.95). A useful, very attractive presentation of the chief people, events, and ideas of the Bible for children—from about ten years and up.
Dramatic Personages, by Denis de Rougemont (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 170 pp., $4.50). Perceptive essays that are to be savored by the religious connoisseur, rather than gulped down by the unknowing. Translated from the French.
Paperbacks
Money, Mania and Morals: The Churches and Gambling, by Lycurgus M. Starkey, Jr. (Abingdon, 1964, 128 pp., $1.50). This book explores all aspects of gambling, including the arguments for and against legalization, and comes to the verdict: No dice! Starkey argues that gambling is wrong in principle, not merely in excess.
The Meaning of Sanctorum Communio, by Stephen Benko (Alec R. Allenson, 1964, 152 pp., $3.85).
Spirit of Power, by Paul W. F. Harms (Concordia, 1964, 94 pp., $1).
Audio-Visual Resource Guide 1965, edited by Janet Isbell (Department of Audio-Visual and Broadcast Education, National Council of Churches, 1964, 524 pp., $3.95). For use in religious education. Classified evaluations of more than 3,750 current, church-related A-V materials.
David Brainerd: Beloved Yankee, by David Wynbeek (Eerdmans, 1964, 256 pp., $2.25). First published in 1961.
Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, by P. T. Forsyth (Eerdmans, 1964, 270 pp., $1.95). By an author who believes that Christianity stands or falls with its preaching. First printed in 1907. Very worth reading.
Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel, by H. Wheeler Robinson (Fortress, 1964, 40 pp., $.75). A study of the concept that throws light on the oscillation between the individual and the group in the biblical designation of Israel.
Theologians of Our Time, edited by Leonhard Reinisch (University of Notre Dame, 1964, 235 pp., $2.25). Five distinguished critics evaluate the thought of a dozen great contemporary theologians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Good reading for students and studious ministers.
