Protestantism in an Ecumenical Age: Its Root—Its Right—Its Task, by Otto A. Piper (Fortress, 1965, 254 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by M. Eugene Osterhaven, Professor of systematic theology, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.
Some of the most pressing questions about the right of Protestantism and its many denominations, the relation of the churches to one another and to the ecumenical movement, and the future of Protestantism are discussed in this timely volume. And they are discussed from a solid theological perspective, with an appreciation of the spiritual values that have given the Church the strength it has had. Ecclesiastical and theological perspicacity, broad experience, and four decades of personal involvement enable the author to treat such questions admirably. In the judgment of this reviewer, there is probably no one on the American scene better qualified to write this book than Professor Piper.
Protestantism’s root is shown to have been Luther’s experience, where Christ made a new beginning in his Church. The office of reformer was, the author says, instituted by Christ. Like Calvin, who considered Luther to have exercised a special office, Dr. Piper sees Protestantism as a decisive event in God’s redemptive history with Luther being the instrument used to intiate it.
Protestantism’s right is seen in the use made of it by Christ in holy history. A denomination’s right to independent existence depends on its making a specific contribution to that history. When “it has irretrievably lost its original spiritual momentum and thus is no longer capable of making its specific contribution, or if it is obvious that the specific gift it has to impart has so completely become the common property of the whole Protestant church that no special denominational agency for its propagation is required,” then that denomination has lost its right to independent existence (p. 169).
Protestant unity, although desirable, must be “motivated by spiritual reasons and controlled by theological thought” (p. 176). Since the Church is the work of Christ, there can be no merely utilitarian approach in which the main concern is organizational bigness, financial and political power, or an impressive public image of Protestantism. Unity must come through spiritual perception and fellowship with Christ, the Head of the Church. In the experience of the presence of Christ effected by a “Spirit-guided understanding of the Bible which transcends all possible theologies,” Christians can come together (p. 214).
In the last chapter, Dr. Piper considers both Protestantism’s future and ecclesiological trends within the Roman Catholic Church. He sees some hopeful signs in the latter, but, as he had shown earlier (p. 93), Roman Catholic theology “is free within narrow limits only.” In confrontation with Rome and with society at large, “Protestantism must realize that the Reformation must go on indefinitely” (p. 239). Its “theology must be carried on as a confrontation of contemporary experience with one’s denominational past, and in particular, its exegesis of the Bible” (p. 247).
Apostle Of Grace
The Theology of P. T. Forsyth: The Cross of Christ and the Revelation of God, by John H. Rodgers (Independent Press [also Alec R. Allenson), 1965, 324 pp., 36s.), is reviewed by James Daane, assistant editor,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
John H. Rodgers, assistant professor of systematic theology at the Protestant Episcopal Seminary in Virginia (located in Alexandria, Virginia), has presented a concise and sympathetic exposition of the main themes of one of the greatest British theologians of modern times. His book fills a need, for Forsyth suffered the fate of the great who prepare the way for the greater: obscurity. As one who attempted to break the grip of the nineteenth-century liberal Ritschl-Hermannian tradition, and also go beyond traditional orthodoxy, Forsyth anticipated the theology of Brunner and Barth; for that reason alone, if for no other, he ought not to be left in obscurity.
The basic motif of Forsyth’s theology is the burning Holy Love of God revealed at the Cross, where it overcomes sin and Satan and reestablishes communion with man the sinner. This objective disclosure of Holy Love is experienced and known by man in his moral self, i.e., in his conscience; here he knows that Holy Love is, therefore, grace. Forsyth was not a systematic theologian; but all the other rich and suggestive motifs of this restlessly questioning theologian are intended as an expanding exposition of this basic motif of God’s Holy Love.
Forsyth was critical of theological liberalism because it separated divine love from divine holiness and thereby reduced love to bland sentimentality. He was also critical of orthodoxy, regarding it as too rationalistic and impersonal. He wanted to overcome and go beyond both, since he regarded both as essentially anthropocentric rather than theocentric.
Did he really succeed? This reviewer thinks that Forsyth is open to more stringent criticisms than are expressed by Rodgers.
Forsyth stressed the unique character of God’s love at a time when it was regarded as human love raised to the divine exponent. In the light of the Cross he thought he discovered an inherent unity in God’s holiness and love; this, Forsyth regarded as God’s Holy Love. Love, according to Forsyth, is the outgoing of holiness. “If the holiness do not go out to cover, imbue, conquer, and sanctify all things, if it do not give itself in love, it is less than holy.” It is “holiness which makes sin damnable as sin and love active as grace.” Again, “everything begins and ends in our Christian theology with the holiness of God.” In the words of Rodgers, “it is the holiness of God which, in the face of sin, requires both the judgment of sin and the fulfillment of God’s movement toward his creatures in holy love.”
Through all this runs the idea that God’s holiness activates God’s love, and the idea that holiness must in burning love give itself to the removal of sin and the defeat of Satan. At the Cross man is said to experience this as grace. But does this unity of divine love and holiness which is said to be grace properly express the biblical idea of grace? Grace in biblical thought points to salvation as God’s free gift to man and to the freedom of God to give himself in both creation and salvation, as he wills, and only if he so wills. Grace is never a mere unity, it always involves a divine decision. Turning from liberalism’s being in love with love in order to become an “apostle of grace,” did not Forsyth fail to retain the freedom of God to give or not give himself in communion to uncreated, and later, fallen man—an idea that Barth has tried to retain in his idea of Ceschichte?
It is in any event a theological education to watch Forsyth as he contends with Lessing’s problem and grapples with the ideas of Historie and Geschichte, as he struggles with a theology of revelation and reconciliation in personal categories and with the ideas of corporate, racial salvation and individual faith—all within a mighty creative and sanctified imaginative effort to maintain seriously the holiness and love of God and the radical character of man’s sin. Few English theologians are as theologically fresh and exciting as Forsyth, and Rodgers has rendered a service in reconfronting us with him in this lucid introduction to his thought.
JAMES DAANE
Room For A Friend?
The Quaker Contribution, by Harold Loukes (Macmillan, 1965, 128 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Paul Woolley, dean of the faculty, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Like many another man, the Friend (Quaker) faces a problem in today’s ecumenical world. Does he have a contribution to Christian action valuable enough to be worth preserving in the move toward one great Christian Church, which may have little or no room for distinctive contributions?
The author of this book, a reader in education at Oxford and a Friend himself, believes that the followers of George Fox have developed values that we may not, either gleefully or resignedly, allow to pass into disuse. He would be a bold man who would say No to this, but then there are many bold men in the ecumenical movement.
What these contributions are is told in this little book by a joyful, patient, loving pursuit of what has happened at important stages of Quaker history. Again and again the reader is reminded that the Friend is interested in experience, in living, not in an institution. Men today may reach conclusions under inspiration of the same sort as did the writers of the Bible long ago. The Church is more hindered than helped by forms, by fixed theologies, by creeds. There is nothing to be gained by trying to define the relation between the inward and the historic Christ. The New Quest is not useful. The experience of the Christian, his concern for the needs of men, is what is important to the Friend. There are new needs in every generation. The Friend would confront them by his method of face-to-face consideration. A personal search in loving fellowship brings both fire and tears.
The Friend does not necessarily decide what is right for all men. He decides for himelf, and the group decides for itself. The group often communicates its concern to wider and wider groups. The method of decision involves making no decisions until there is agreement. This may not be successful, for lack of agreement may give a negative answer by sheer inaction when such is not consciously intended. But the values of the method are too great to lose. On the other hand, one may not withdraw from responsibility to preserve principles. It was a mistake, for example, for the Quakers to give up governing Pennsylvania in 1756.
The book is a quiet reminder of how much Quakers have done. John Bright is but one of the examples from English history the author recounts. A current instance of concern is seen in the publication of the unusual Towards a Quaker View of Sex (1963). Although the method of producing this work was atypical, the concern was not.
The Friends movement is not a substitute for the church; it is a warning, a theme, an element, a “side”—and a unique one. Friends’ “hearts are not in preaching. Their idiom is rather service and reconciliation” (pp. 121 f.). The theology is inarticulate. “Quakerism cannot stand alone.… But … Christianity … is about not standing alone, about love in difference” (p. 124). That is the Quaker message, and it is worth hearing. Will the ecumenical movement ignore the need of hearing everything that is valuable, in order that it may impose the rule of its hierarchs upon all Christians?
PAUL WOOLLEY
Kittel Is For Pastors
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume II, edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1965, 955 pp., $20.50), is reviewed by Everett F. Harrison, professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
The fame of this work has spread far and wide, so that those who have any acquaintance at all with the tools for biblical study have at least heard of Kittel. But appreciation of the basis of this fame has until recent times been confined to those who know German. Now through Dr. Bromiley’s able translation (he was assisted by Professor F. F. Bruce), the riches are available to many. The second volume covers delta through eta.
What does this multi-volume work do? Its stated purpose is “to mediate between ordinary lexicography and the specific task of exposition, more particularly at the theological level.” It is therefore much fuller than a Greek lexicon but less detailed than a commentary. Where the passages are numerous, not every occurrence of a word is treated; but the effort is made to convey the crucial nuances of meaning so that the interpreter has guidance where he most needs it.
The New Testament passages are not considered until a thorough groundwork has been laid by a survey of previous usage of the word in question. The survey begins with usage by leading classical Greek authors. Then the usual procedure is to follow the term through the Septuagint, noting any significant shifts in the meaning, and to round this off by tracing the term’s occurrence in Hellenistic sources (and frequently in Rabbinic also). By the time the student reaches the discussion of the word in the New Testament, he is able to see how the influences of the past have shaped the meaning of the word and to what extent the New Testament, by reason of the Christ-event, has risen to new heights in the use of old terminology.
Despite some theological differences among the contributing scholars, very little comes through to jar the reader, for these men have made an earnest effort to be objective. The lesson is plain: when workers stay close to the text and wrestle with its words, their agreement is far greater than when they resort to philosophizing.
It is hard to see how anyone could use Kittel without having his understanding of the biblical text greatly increased. Pastors ought not to shy away from the work as too technical. The use of Kittel will help a man to maintain his skill in Hebrew and Greek and provide him with many flashes of insight that will enrich his sermons. Congregations could make no finer gift to a dominie. And if the work has value for the pastor, it has even more for the teacher. In this connection the article by Rengstorf on didasko-didaskalos is a classic. Another impressive contribution by the same author is the treatment of doulos (slave). Grundmann’s “power” is also highly instructive.
EVERETT F. HARRISON
Does Goodness Grow?
The Early Christian Church, by J. G. Davies (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965, 314 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by Bruce Shelley, professor of church history, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.
For whatever comfort it may afford contemporary Christians, ministers in the early Church also inveighed against believers who preferred the theater to public worship, women who used “pigments and pencil-lings” as beauty aids, and men who surrendered to the “Belly-demon” (gluttony) and “Bacchic fuel” (wine). Can we then speak of the development of Christian ethics as we do of the development of Christian doctrine?
J. G. Davies’s book raises many such questions. The student of the early Church will find in this volume little that is new. It is not concerned with interpretation. It is instead a competent summation of the first five centuries of Christian history, and as such it glows with little flashes of insight.
Let me illustrate. Davies says, “Jesus demanded not a reformation of behavior but a transformation of character” (p. 22). He believes the Body of Christ image must be understood from the Hebrew perspective, which views things not as they are but as they are called to be (p. 54). He argues that the New Testament makes no essential distinction between worship and life (p. 57). He contends that the pagan charges of Christian immorality may not have been groundless because lewd assemblies of certain Gnostic sects were well known (p. 88). And he shows that orders of the ministry moved from function into office, from lifelong spheres of service to a graded hierarchy (p. 187).
Davies proves to be an able historian, familiar not only with original sources, but also with recent research. He ranges over a wide variety of subjects, including New Testament criticism, the meaning of history, the development of dogma, and early church architecture.
Reflecting recent studies Davies concludes that the Kingdom both now is and is yet to come, that the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith are inseparable (p. 17), that Jesus’ moral demands presuppose a changed nature (p. 21), that the tests of canonicity are multiple (p. 85), and that early episcopal succession was from office-holder to office-holder, not from consecrated to con-secrator (p. 93).
The structure of the book is both novel and practical. Davies, Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, treats in each chapter six inter-related aspects of the early Christian community: the environment, sources, expansion, beliefs, worship, and social life. Because of this arrangement, the reader can follow the section on sources, for example, and have an abbreviated patrology. The work also contains illustrations of early Christian architecture and twenty-four glossy pages of archaeological material.
The volume is such a fine example of scholarship combined with readability that one hesitates to pick at details. Nevertheless, while his stress on the Hebrew view of man is praiseworthy, Davies’s explanation of apostolic sacraments (p. 58) strikes me as more Platonic than Pauline. He also fails to support his case linking the decline of belief in the millennium with the emerging belief in purgatory (p. 100). Finally, his treatment of views of the Church held by second-century Christians (p. 98) neglects entirely the continuing emphasis upon local congregations.
These, however, are but fly-specks on a Mount Rushmore. Since Davies carves the likeness of the early Church with experienced hands, the representation will be, I predict, an enduring one.
BRUCE SHELLEY
For Background
Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, by A. Leo Oppenheim (University of Chicago, 1965, 433 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by LesterJ. Kuyper, professor of Old Testament, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.
This is a popularly written, interesting survey of the history of Mesopotamia. Its author has given more than thirty years to study of Assyrian and Babylonian history and culture, and his work is therefore authoritative.
The book deals with the economic and social life of the ancient peoples, beginning with the Sumerians at the start of the third millennium. The amazing uncovering of a vast number of cuneiform writings has brought us much knowledge about the times of the Old Testament patriarchs. The chapter on Mesopotamian religion (IV) shows many interesting parallels and contrasts with the Hebrew religion, although the author does not intend to make a comparison with the Old Testament.
A student interested in ancient languages and the development of writing will find Chapter V of great interest. One cannot but admire the phenomenal amount of study that has been expended to decipher and compile grammars and dictionaries of these ancient writings.
Biblical students wanting to know something of the historical background of the Old Testament will find this book informative. The author has brought the scholarly data within ready grasp for the non-scientific reader.
LESTER J. KUYPER
A Single-Minded Man
Whitefield’s Journals, an autobiography (Banner of Truth Trust, 1965, 595 pp., 25s.), is reviewed by J. G. Norman, minister in the Baptist Church of Scotland.
We have been given a wealth of material in recent years about John Wesley, and now here is a book about Wesley’s fellow architect of the Evangelical Revival, George Whitefield. It includes a previously unpublished journal, an eyewitness account of the coming of Whitefield to an American town, and a letter from Whitefield to Wesley about their controversy over the doctrine of grace.
Autobiography, especially when written with an eye to publication, can make tedious reading. Whitefield shows himself to be a single-minded man, wholly absorbed in his Lord and in the spiritual welfare of men and women; yet this absorption never becomes monotonous. His transparent honesty and humility appear on page after page, and his brotherly spirit is very attractive. Even when he differs from other Christians on points of doctrine, it is always in charity, and his attitude toward those who actively hindered his work is free of malice. We may not agree with his child psychology (he speaks of breaking children’s wills as though one were breaking in a horse!), but it would be hard for us not to love a man in whom the grace and compassion of Christ so evidently appear.
He makes clear that he regarded America as his chief sphere of action, and this lends particular interest to his account of the revival in that country. It is helpful to compare his record with the similar accounts in Wesley’s journal, especially in the way he was led to field-preaching (“I now preach to ten times more people than I should if I had been confined to the churches”), and how he led the reluctant Wesley to this form of evangelism. Among other good things, we read of his contacts with men like Howell Harris, Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, Ralph Erskine, and Jonathan Edwards, and of his close friendship with Charles Wesley. He appears a convinced Anglican, but his catholicity embraced Quakers and Baptists. Reluctant to enter upon controversy, he did so only when compelled by his love of the truth. His Calvinism had none of the rigor often associated with the term but was compassionate and evangelical.
The text of the volume is misplaced on page 184 in two places, and on page 549 one line is illegible; but the book is otherwise well produced, and the publishers are to be commended for its reasonable price.
J. G. NORMAN
It’S Only One Way
Marriage Counseling: A Manual for Ministers, by J. Kenneth Morris (Prentice-Hall, 1965, 329 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Truman G. Esau, director, Covenant Counseling Center, Chicago, Illinois.
This solid, comprehensive work was written by a minister with wide experience in marriage counseling. He presents counseling within the framework of Carl Roger’s client-centered therapy. Such an approach is perhaps the safest, but Morris does not clarify the special handling of organic, psychotic, or prepsychotic situations. These problems involve interviewing persons who should not be encouraged to open up their concerns. This non-directive approach has had wide influence in ministerial groups, but it is only one tool in the armamentarium of the experienced counselor.
Morris makes some reference to the possibility of seeing one person in marriage counseling when the partner is unwilling or for other reasons does not come. This seems risky, in view of what it would mean to the persons involved to have a counselor identified with one partner. A moral question is raised, also, in counseling one person and thereby changing the marital balance without the involvement of the other. The author suggests that husband and wife be seen separately at first. He feels that seeing them together brings out into the open the accusatory and destructive elements in the marriage. The reviewer wonders, however, whether sometimes there is not benefit in bringing out the hostility right at the beginning.
The author sees the minister-counselor also as a reconciler. It is unfortunate that he has leaned upon O. Hobart Mowrer for support, since Mowrer clearly does not see guilt in a Christian context. The author, however, does not fall in the pitfalls of Mowrer. He sees the resolution of guilt as a work of grace, and not simply as a psychological penance and resolution.
This volume can be highly recommended to the pastor. It is authoritative, reliable, and particularly perceptive about the minister’s place in dealing with disturbed marital partners. Morris recognizes that one cannot do anything for people who are not self-motivated, and that change must occur within the framework of the Gospel.
TRUMAN G. ESAU
Awe’S Window
Decision at Dawn, by Chulho Awe, as told to Herbert F. Webster (Harper and Row, 1965, 180 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Henry W. Coray, minister, First Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Sunnyvale, California.
This electrifying story, the personal account of a young Korean who lived through the nightmarish days of the Communist takeover in North Korea, proves the idea that truth is not only stranger but also more fascinating than fiction. Awe is a university-trained mining engineer who for his Christian convictions refused to join the Party, thereby passing up material preferments and a lush berth on Easy Street. For his stand he incurred the wrath of the Party leaders and was arrested and thrown into prison. On his release lie identified himself with the Korean underground. He became an architect of the program of sabotage against the Communist masters without, participating in any direct action himself, and held out for a campaign that would not involve the taking of life.
Wrenched by circumstances from his family, Awe was forced to live in a society where he never knew whether or not former friends were now Red spies, neutrals, or patriots. Like Athanasius, he walked with perpetual danger. Arrest and execution lurked around every corner. For him, “in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness” became a real and chilling experience.
Through Mr. Webster, Awe tells his tale simply and with an underplay of the dramatic. This is what gives the book its power. He weaves a thread of dry humor into the serious sections and so opens welcome breaks in the otherwise dark clouds.
The lifting of the oppression when the U. N. troops drove back the Communists, the joy that gripped the liberated cities, the subsequent entrance of the Red Chinese army into the war and the heartaches that followed, the escape to Pusan—these add up to a word picture that leaves the reader almost limp. Here is a window on Communist treachery that our Get-out-of-Viet-Nam-ers, Teach-in-ers, and troop-train-blockers would do well to look through.
HENRY W. CORAY
A New Direction
Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity, by Birger Gerhardsson (C. W. K. Gleerup, 1964, 47 pp., 6 Swedish Crowns), is reviewed by C. H. Pinnock, assistant lecturer in New Testament, University of Manchester, Manchester, England.
A new star has appeared upon the horizon that promises to guide students of the Synoptic problem into new and better paths. This monograph by a pupil of Harald Riesenfeld is a sequel to his important study Memory and Manuscript (1961). It seeks to answer criticisms made by Morton Smith (Journal of Biblical Literature, 82 [1963], 169–76). Both works are directed against the current drift of form criticism, which ignores the conscious method of transmission employed in primitive Christianity. The form critical assumption that the early Church was unaware of pedagogic procedures common to the Jewish milieu, and exercised a free, unhindered creative function in transmitting the gospel material, is utterly unhistorical. Because form criticism continues to conduct its research along the lines of a “biology of the Saga,” its results are wild and almost useless. A method is required that respects the actual techniques of transmitting tradition shared by the early Church and her Jewish environment.
Gerhardsson, in his earlier book, traced this procedure back from the late Rabbinic period to the Old Testament itself. The main details stand out clearly: memorization, repetition, imitation. Learning of the teaching precedes even the understanding of it. It is apparent from our sources that Jesus taught after the Rabbinic manner and gathered disciples to himself. These men, to whom he entrusted his word, became the unrivaled leaders of the primitive Church. They exercised themselves in the “ministry of the word.” By recollection and exegesis, in their midst, the gospel tradition as we know it came to be formed. The controlling influence of the apostles cannot be forgotten. Form criticism’s picture of free-floating tradition is pure fancy. The evidence of the New Testament is all against it.
In this essay, the author further develops three basic points. (1) It is not anachronistic to read back the pedagogics of Rabbinic Judaism into the first century. For this process of learning can be shown to be remarkably stable even from Old Testament times. (2) This method of education was not peculiar to the Pharisaic sect but belonged to the broad Jewish stream in post-exilic times. (3) The mode of Jesus’ teaching is similar if not identical to the Jewish method. The Christian movement was eruptive and revolutionary in many respects, but its tradition was unique in content, not in form.
A typical criticism of Gerhardsson’s approach minimizes the thrust by labeling it “extreme.” It suggests the author overplayed his hand, and erred in his enthusiasm, in the same fashion as form criticism but in an opposite direction. The objection is superficial and has little force. Gerhardsson and the form critics are not equidistant from the truth. If he is right, that school is on the wrong track altogether. It is an either/or. Shall we move in the direction of myth or of history? If we make our choice on the basis of the evidence so well presented here, we will move decisively away from form criticism as currently practiced.
In the course of their criticisms, various interpreters have distorted Gerhardsson’s position. Paul Winter has scarcely troubled to understand him (Anglican Theological Review, 45 [1963], 416–19), and Morton Smith has frequently misrepresented him (loc. cit.). He does not, for example, wish to suggest that no differences exist between the apostolic collegium and a Rabbinic academy, or that no modification took place during the process of transmission. “But it is one thing to state that traditions have been marked by the milieu through which they passed; another to claim that they simply were created in this secondary milieu. The evidence suggests that memories of Jesus were so clear, and the traditions with which they were connected so firmly based that there can have been relatively little scope for alteration” (p. 43).
It is one thing to offer methodological objections to form criticism, and another to work out the alternative method exhaustively. There is certainly no single volume covering the ground of Bultmann’s History of the Synoptic Tradition which answers his skepticism point by point. Until there is, his wild conclusions will continue to plague us. Gerhardsson’s essay leaves us with a challenge. A new analysis of the Synoptic material is called for on the basis of his findings. He has scarcely begun to do this himself. The stakes are high—the authenticity of the Gospels and the historicity of Jesus Christ. A new direction has been shown us. It is our responsibility to move in it.
C. H. PINNOCK
Could Be
The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (revised and enlarged edition), by George S. Hendry (Westminster, 1965, 168 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Jerome L. Ficek, associate professor of church history, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which David Friedrich Strauss once described as the Achilles heel of Protestantism, is described by the author of this book as the snorkel tube by which we reach out to the vivifying breath of God in order to avoid suffocation in the systematic shells which we have constructed (p. 12). To an earlier version of the book (1956) this edition adds two chapters dealing with the essential offices of the Holy Spirit as they are indicated in the ancient creeds and in the modern world. The new chapters are from lectures the author, who is the Charles Hodge professor of systematic theology at Princeton Seminary, gave at the Moravian Theological Seminary. The old part of the volume deals with the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit in relation to Christ, to God, to the Church, to the Word, and to the human spirit. This review will treat only the new material.
In the chapter, “The Holy Spirit the Giver of Life and Unity,” Hendry advances the thesis that at the time of the Reformation the threefold work of the Holy Spirit as given in the creeds—solidarity (koinonia), authority (“The Lord”), and vitality (“Giver of Life”)—was dissolved into three unitarianisms corresponding to the three fragments that resulted from the division of the Church (Roman Catholic, Protestant, and spiritualist). It is not bodiliness as such that is incompatible with the solidarity of the Spirit, but the imprisoning of the solidarity of the Spirit in the solidarity of the body so that it loses its renewing, re-creative, and eschatological power. The author is excessively severe on the spiritualists or enthusiasts, saying they insist that God works through individuals, not through institutions. The careful and detailed research of George H. Williams, Roland Bainton, Franklin H. Littell, and the Goshen Mennonite scholars who produce the Mennonite Quarterly Review does not support this general criticism of the movement.
In the last chapter, “The Holy Spirit Is Lord,” the author presses the notion that it is in the Reformation principle of the authority of Christ that the Catholic submersion of vitality under solidarity and the spiritualist submersion of solidarity under vitality are overcome. The Reformers emphasized the actuality of the Word in preaching, and the Word so preached as the source of solidarity. The first consequence of this, not explicit at the outset, was the affirmation of the authority of Scripture over and against the authority of the Church. Rejecting the view that the authority of Scripture was based upon the Church or upon rational arguments, Calvin declared that its authority is so essentially spiritual that there can be no access to it at any level save through the work of the Spirit. He ascribed even the prior conviction of the veracity of God in his Word to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. The authority of the Holy Spirit must always be distinguished from the authority of any doctrine or doctrinal system, if it is to retain its dignity.
This reviewer was struck by the similarity between Hendry’s reinterpretation of the Reformation and Küng’s reinterpretation of the Council of Trent. Hendry asserts that the Reformers were saying that the official interpretation the Church had placed on Scripture could be wrong, and that the same Spirit who inspired the writers was free to interpret them afresh and in a new way. To understand the meaning of a past event, it is necessary to re-create it in its context, noting how contemporaries and succeeding generations have understood it, rather than reconstructing it in accordance with modern presuppositions. If the Reformers were appealing to their private interpretations as over against the official interpretation of the Church, they were doing just what Hendry criticizes the enthusiasts for doing. But they were appealing, in fact, not to private judgment but to the Scriptures, the Scriptures as the Holy Spirit had led the Fathers to interpret them.
JEROME L. FICEK
Book Briefs
There Was a Man, His Name: Paul Carlson, compiled by Carl Philip Anderson, drawings by L. Birger Sponberg (Revell, 1965, 107 pp., $2.50). About a martyr in the truest sense—one who chose to use his technical training to help, in the name of Christ, the diseased and the dying in the Congo. The choice cost him his life.
The Christian Year, Sermons of the Fathers, Volume 2: from Trinity Sunday to Advent, compiled and edited by George W. Forell (Nelson, 1965, 375 pp., $6.50).
John Courtney Murray: Contemporary Church-State Theory, by Thomas T. Love (Doubleday, 1965, 239 pp., $4.95). A complete, systematic analysis of the evolution of John Courtney Murray’s position on the problem of church-state relations in a pluralistic democracy.
Home Before Dark: Learning to Die Is Part of Living, by Bryant M. Kirkland (Abingdon, 1965, 160 pp., $2.75). Short essays that speak the word of Christian comfort and triumph over death. Good background material for funeral sermons.
Sermons I Should Like to Have Preached, edited by Ian Macpherson (Revell, 1964, 132 pp., $2.95). Fourteen sermons, brief but well wrought. Good reading.
Teilhard de Chardin: A Biographical Study, by Claude Cuénot (Helicon, 1965, 492 pp., $9.75). This study is a valuable contribution to the increasing corpus of Teilhardian literature available in English. Though it is perhaps pedantic in points and overly enthusiastic, a critical reader will find it a valuable source of information. The bibliography alone is a wonderful asset to the serious scholar, and the biographical detail appears to be the most extensive yet published.
Masterpieces of Catholic Literature, edited by Frank N. Magill (Harper and Row, 1965, 1139 pp., $9.95). Reviews by Roman Catholics of 300 important Catholic (most Roman Catholic) works from the first century to 1963. Each review is preceded by a brief statement of the work’s principal ideas. Not so much a reference book as a sampler for whetting the intellectual appetite.
Out of the Jaws of the Lion, by Homer E. Dowdy (Harper and Row, 1965, 254 pp., $3.95). The first complete on-the-scene report of the imprisonment, terror, and martyrdom endured in the Congo by Christian missionaries, including Dr. Paul Carlson. An inspiring story of courage and spiritual renewal even in the face of death.
Concordance to the New English Bible: New Testament, compiled by E. Elder (Zondervan, 1965, 401 pp., $4.95). A concordance (for the New English Bible) of the words not found in the King James Version at all, or not found in the corresponding verse in the King James Version. For all the other words, another concordance covering the KJV is needed.
The Church and Its Culture, by Richard M. Pope (Bethany Press, 1965, 618 pp., $8.95). More a story than a history of the Church.
Galileo: The Man, His Work, His Misfortunes, by James Brodrick, S. J. (Harper and Row, 1964, 152 pp., $3.50). An interesting account of an interesting man. The author says that the question of papal infallibility was not involved, for Pope Urban himself never officially taught that “heliocentrism was heretical.” But he does say that the pope “was wrong and stupid” and that of Pope Urban “so little good can be said.”
The Positive Thinkers, by Donald Meyer (Doubleday, 1965, 358 pp., $4.95). A study of the American quest for health, wealth, and personal power, from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale.
Victory in Viet Nam, by Mrs. Gordon H. Smith (Zondervan, 1965, 246 pp., $3.95). The story of religious victories in a land where victories are scarce.
Phenomenology and Atheism, by William A. Luijpen (Duquesne University, 1964, 344 pp., $6.50). An eye on existential philosophy alert to its development in an atheistic direction.
The Praise of God in the Psalms, by Claus Westermann, translated by Keith R. Crim (John Knox, 1965, 172 pp., $4.25). A scholarly investigation of the Psalms for the sake of returning the praise of God to the position it deserves in the Church. First printed in Germany as Das Loben Gottes in den Psalmen in 1961.
The Breath of Life: The Problem of Poisoned Air, by Donald E. Carr (W. W. Norton, 1965, 175 pp., $3.95). “The air we breathe is as deadly as nuclear fallout: a report on the least recognized menace to human life.”
Beacon Bible Commentary, Volume II: Joshua through Esther, by Chester O. Mulder, R. Clyde Ridall, et al. (Beacon Hill, 1965, 704 pp., $5.95). A practical commentary, by men in the tradition of Wesleyan Arminian theology, which explicitly stresses the plenary inspiration of the Bible but gives little indication of appeal to the original Hebrew.
Born for Friendship: The Spirit of Sir Thomas More, by Bernard Basset (Sheed and Ward, 1965, 220 pp., $4.50). The life story of a great and interesting man in church history, rightly respected by both Roman Catholics and Protestants.
From the Mennonite Pulpit: Twenty-Six Sermons from Mennonite Ministers, edited by Paul Erb (Herald, 1965, 200 pp., $3.75).
The Ministers Manual, 1966, compiled and edited by M. K. W. Heicher (Harper and Row, 1965, 357 pp., $3.95). A treasury of sermonic outlines, practical religious suggestions and aids, Sunday school lessons (International), and much else, for the discriminating user.
No More Strangers, by Philip Berrigan, S. J. (Macmillan, 1965, 181 pp., $4.95). Father Berrigan summons men to rid society and Christianity “of the taints of poverty, discrimination, and racial hatred.” A hard-hitting book.
The Old Testament Stoty, by Carl Gordon Howie (Harper and Row, 1965, 183 pp., $4.50). Although the author’s concept of revelation remains vague and at times ambiguous, he has gathered the strands of Israel’s history into a unified pattern and presents a story that is very readable and informative.
God’s Son, by DeVere Ramsay, illustrated by Rita Endhoven (Eerdmans, 1965, 48 pp., $1.95). Stories about Jesus for little children. Biblically sound, attractive, and illustrated.
