Of all the institutions of human society, the Christian Church is surely the most amazing. Standing like a rock amid the shifting currents and cultures of the ages, it has occupied a unique place in man’s life for almost 2,000 years. While other institutions have come and gone, political and economic systems waxed and waned, the Church, alone among them all, has endured.
I have no worry that it will not continue to endure. I do worry, however, when leaders of the Church show signs of jeopardizing its power and influence by taking it away from its main mission. To be specific: As an active churchman for more than forty years, I am concerned that many of the Church’s top leaders today—especially in what are called the “mainstream” denominations—are sorely failing its members in two ways: (1) by succumbing to a creeping tendency to downgrade the Bible as the infallible Word of God, and (2) by efforts to shift the Church’s main thrust from the spiritual to the secular. The two, I believe, are related.…
In my own denomination (Presbyterian) recently, a special committee was charged with writing a “brief contemporary statement of faith.” The committee’s draft of a proposed “Confession of 1967” replaced the ancient Westminster Confession’s strong assertion of the Bible’s “infallible truth and divine authority” with a description of the Bible as a “witness” to Christ as the incarnate Word—and a fallible one at that, since its “thought forms reflect view’s which were then current” and therefore require “literary and historical scholarship” as well as future “scientific developments” to separate the true from the false. This attempt to demote the Bible from final authority to a fallible witness has stirred a storm of protest in church circles.…
Another thing I’ve noted during long years on denominational and interdenominational boards and commissions is this: Whenever any official church body relegates the Bible and its teachings to a lesser place in its program, it almost always turns to activity in non-church fields to fill the vacuum. Thus we see church leadership everywhere expending vast time and energy to push the Church into fields far outside its God-ordained jurisdiction.
Evangelism, traditionally interpreted as the means used to bring men and women to Christ and the Church, has been given a completely new definition.… The Church’s new-type evangelists, without any notable competence in either statecraft or economics, are leaping headlong into such fundamentally secular concerns as federal aid to education, civil rights, urban renewal, and the nation’s foreign policy, and plugging for such controversial issues as the admission of Red China to the United Nations, disarmament, higher minimum wages, and forcible union membership.…
No one would seriously deny that the individual Christian must relate his conscience to the problems of the secular society of which he is a part. It is plainly his duty as a citizen to express his Christian convictions in economic, social, and political affairs. Likewise, no one would deny the pulpit’s right to speak out on civil issues where moral and spiritual principles are clearly involved.…
To commit the Church as a corporate body, to controversial positions on which its members differ sharply is to divide the Church into warring camps, stirring dissensions in the one place where spiritual unity should prevail.
When any individual church or church council, largely dominated by clergymen, issues statements on complex economic and political matters, giving the public the impression that it is speaking for the whole membership, the result is justifiable indignation on the part of the laity. “When I joined the church,” writes one layman from Park Ridge, Illinois, “I stated my faith in Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour. I was not asked to subscribe to any special political, economic, or social view. Is that now about to be changed?”—J. HOWARD PEW, in the Reader’s Digest, May, 1966.
Mainstream Theology
The Work of Christ, by G. C. Berkouwer, translated by Cornelius Lambregtse (Eerdmans, 1965, 358 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Anthony A. Hoekema, professor of systematic theology, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Reading a Berkouwer book is like attending a symposium in which a number of contemporary theologians heatedly discuss vital aspects of theological thought. Occasionally, to add variety, tape recordings are played of theologians now dead, some ancient, some more recent. The genial chairman gives each speaker a fair chance to be heard, asks penetrating questions of the most argumentative disputants, and sums up the discussion of each topic in such a way as to show what we have learned from each man and what is, in the chairman’s opinion, the soundest and most scriptural solution to the problems raised.
This book is no exception. While reading it, one feels that he has been plunged into the midst of contemporary theological debate. Yet there is constant reference to the great theologians, creeds, and decisions of the past. Dr. Berkouwer has a unique genius for combining the best of the past with the most relevant insights of the present, while sifting both past and present through his own discerning, erudite mind.
Trying to cover “the work of Christ” in one volume is like trying to condense the Encyclopaedia Britannica into one issue of the Reader’s Digest. Berkouwer admits that one can never summarize the many-sided work of Christ in terms of a single theme. But he grapples with the main problems in each area in his usual stimulating and competent manner.
It is, of course, impossible to list all the insights and conclusions reached in this meaty volume. Here are a few highlights: It is mere human speculation to argue, as some do, that the Incarnation would have occurred anyway, even if there had been no fall into sin; the Bible always connects the Incarnation with sin and redemption. The confession of the two states of Christ’s life (humiliation and exaltation)—a confession rejected by many today—is necessary to express the unbreakable tie between faith and history. Practically all theological questions—including those of contemporary thought—are centered around the doctrine of Christ’s triple office. The confession of the virgin birth of Christ is necessary, not primarily to guarantee Christ’s sinlessness, but to safeguard his full deity; Berkouwer agrees with Bavinck that the Virgin Birth was the only way in which he who already existed as a person could also enter into the flesh and still remain the Son of God (p. 119).
The important point to remember about the suffering of Christ is that behind the action of men in crucifying the Lord of Glory we must see the action of God. While admitting that the expression “he descended into hell” was probably not in the original version of the Apostles’ Creed, Berkouwer believes that Calvin and the Heidelberg Catechism were accurate in teaching that Christ suffered the torments of hell in Gethsemane and on the Cross. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not a projection of the mind or a noetic verification of the Cross but a historical event in which Christ revealed his victory over death. The ascension meant, not separation between Christ and his people, but a new type of presence. Discussing the difference between Calvinists and Lutherans on the ascension and session of Christ, Berkouwer states that the Reformed insisted that Christ is both really present and also absent in the Lord’s Supper (p. 238). In a brief chapter on “Christ and the Future,” the author discusses a theme he develops more fully in his two-volume Wederkomst Van Christus (not yet translated into English): The Church must not be caught in the dilemma of either an exclusive this-worldliness or a complete other-worldliness; it must live in the present with an eye to the future.
The last chapter, the longest in the book, discusses the work of Christ under four aspects: reconciliation, sacrifice, obedience, and victory. Vigorously rejecting views that suggest God’s hatred had to be changed into love by the work of Christ, Berkouwer insists that both God’s love and God’s justice are revealed in the work of reconciliation. He maintains that one may not use a text like “God is love” to prove a priority of God’s love over his other attributes, and that it is unbiblical to eliminate from our thinking the concept of the wrath of God. Sharply critical of the universalistic tendencies found in Barth’s theology, Berkouwer says that to suggest that all men are already reconciled to God and need only be informed of this prior fact is to rob preaching of its urgency.
Berkouwer insists on the importance of the concept of sacrifice in describing the work of Christ, holding that substitution is at the very heart of the Saviour’s mediatorial work. While granting that the distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ can be used in an erroneous way, he nevertheless pleads for its retention, pointing out the dangers of denying either of these two essential aspects of the work of Christ. In discussing the victory of Christ, Berkouwer sets forth with appreciation Aulén’s exposition of the so-called classical view of reconciliation, stressing Christ’s victory over demonic powers; he warns, however, that an exclusively “classical” view of the Atonement does not take guilt seriously enough.
Throughout the discussion, there is frequent reference to the Bible. One is constantly amazed at Berkouwer’s skillful use of Scripture not only in refuting opponents but also in grounding doctrinal teachings. Indexes of subjects, persons, and Scripture texts add to the usefulness of the volume.
As a solid, relevant, stimulating treatment of the work of Christ, this book measures up to the excellence we have come to expect from the learned and gifted author. Though the meaning is usually clear, one could wish that the translation had been done in more concise, readable, and idiomatic English.
ANTHONY A. HOEKEMA
Luther’S Catholicism
Obedient Rebels: Catholic Substance and Protestant Principle in Luther’s Reformation, by Jaroslav Pelikan (Harper and Row, 1964, 212 pp., $5), is reviewed by James Leo Garrett, professor of Christian theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
Professor Pelikan of Yale has derived his motif for Obedient Rebels—“Catholic substance and Protestant principle”—from Paul Tillich, to whom he acknowledges no little indebtedness. It is somewhat ironical, therefore, in view of the nature of Tillich’s Systematic Theology, to read Pelikan’s own verdict: “It is a basic Protestant principle that theology must be exegetical or it is not theology” (p. 182). Pelikan applies the motif principally in a study of “Catholic substance and Protestant principle” in “Luther’s Reformation.”
Obedient Rebels consists of three major parts. The first is a consideration of Luther’s “ecumenicity in time,” i.e., his understanding of church history, of tradition, of church councils, of liturgy.
Secondly, Pelikan treats in detail an important aspect of Luther’s “ecumenicity in space” that is only vaguely understood by most American Christians, namely, Luther’s relation to Bohemian Christians. The author interprets Luther’s understanding of his own relation to John Hus and his dealings with the Utraquists and, more significantly, with the Unity of Bohemian Brethren. Of particular significance is Pelikan’s presentation of the first English translation of the Consensus of Sandomierz, an agreement made in 1570 by representatives of Calvinism, Lutheranism, and the Unity of Bohemian Brethren in Poland.
The third part of Obedient Rebels deals with the contemporary problems of “Catholic substance and Protestant principle.” Pelikan calls upon American Roman Catholics to broaden their catholicity and commends Protestants for a growing recognition that tradition is “inevitable,” “primordial,” and basically exegetical, if also “relative.” The Missouri Synod theologian concludes by defining the contemporary theological task as “confessional,” conservational, universal, “critical,” and “correlating” in nature.
Two criticisms and three commendations suggest themselves. First, in striving for catholicity (“identity plus universality”) Pelikan has not always succeeded in rightly interpreting those who stand in other confessional heritages. Especially is this true of sixteenth-century Anabaptists, whom, despite his citations of George H. Williams’s works, he confuses with sixteenth-century Spiritualizers and whose ecclesiology he identifies with “a Platonic republic.” Was Dietrich Philips in his The Church of God “Platonic” in his somewhat Augustinian view of the Church? If Anabaptists were so lacking in catholicity, why did Peter Rideman’s Account of Our Religion, Doctrine and Faith follow so closely the structure of the Apostles’ Creed? Secondly, Pelikan seems to exalt liturgy as part of Catholic substance to the neglect of ethics and eschatology as representative of Protestant principle. At least his fellow Lutheran, Walther von Loewenich, hardly agrees: “The Christian Church can look back on a rich liturgical development. But in doing so it must never forget that Jesus’ religion was never centered on the cultus” (Modern Catholicism, p. 187).
On the positive side, Pelikan’s very readable volume serves to clarify the catholicity of Luther the Protestant. It is an important contribution to ecumenical dialogue, especially in making clear the role of theologians. It provides not only a clear beckoning to come out of the sloughs of parochialism and provincialism but also some timely guidance in avoiding the quicksands of present-day “theological fads.”
JAMES LEO GARRETT
What Did It?
The American Revolution: Two Centuries of Interpretation, edited by Edmund S. Morgan (Prentice-Hall, 1965, 184 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, professor of history, Catawba College. Salisbury, North Carolina.
The rather widely held assumption that each generation rewrites history receives fresh support in Professor Morgan’s survey of the widely different interpretations historians have given to the American Revolution. The secession of the American colonies from the British Empire and the ensuing war have been no less productive of disagreement among professional historians than was the secession movement of 1861–1865, or America’s involvement in the two world wars of the twentieth century. Beginning with the earliest view of the American Revolution as found in David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution, Morgan traces the development of subsequent interpretations which gave rise to various schools of historical thought.
The author pays particular attention to George Bancroft, who is generally regarded as the first proponent of the “Whig” interpretation of the events of 1776–83. In his History of the United States, Bancroft laid the foundation for the “patriotic” view of the American cause, which regards the Revolution as a struggle for human freedom and popular government against the tyranny of the British monarchy under George III. This view was widely held from about 1850 until the close of the nineteenth century, when a fresh generation of American historians began to take a closer look at Bancroft’s thesis and found it wanting. Morgan includes in his selection the criticisms of Charles Kendall Adams, J. Franklin Jameson, and Daniel J. Borstin, all three of whom subjected Bancroft’s “patriotic” view to a careful scrutiny that left it in jeopardy. Although Morgan includes the revision of the traditional view of the Revolution set forth by J. Franklin Jameson, he fails to include the brilliant insights of Carl Becker in his Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers and the Declaration of Independence. Becker gave added strength to Jameson’s position that there were radical overtones to the American Revolution that had their origins in the Enlightenment, and that gave it a certain kinship to the more violent French Revolution. If Morgan had included portions of Becker, Daniel Borstin’s refutation of this thesis and his insistence on the conservative character of the movement would have taken on more meaning.
A more novel approach to the true meaning of the War for Independence is found in the monumental study of Lawrence Gipson in The British Empire Before the American Revolution, in which the author approaches the events of 1776 in the light of the political situation in Great Britain. Following such previous historians as H. L. Osgood, George L. Beer, and Charles M. Andrews, Gipson goes a long way toward refuting the Bancroft “Whig” interpretation and assumes a very sympathetic attitude toward George III and the problems confronting him after 1763.
Perhaps the best chapter in this collection of essays is the last, in which Morgan calls for a revision of all revisionist approaches and suggests that George Bancroft may well have been closer to the truth than his critics have realized.
This book is in no sense evangelical, but it is an excellent introduction to the problems that confront historians who seek the meaning of history within the historical process rather than in Christian theism.
C. GREGG SINGER
Updated
Introduction to the New Testament, by Werner Georg Kümmel, founded by Paul Feine and Johannes Behm (Abingdon, 1966, 444 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by James M. Boice, graduate student, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
When Werner Georg Kümmel undertook the arduous revision of the standard Paul Feine-Johannes Behm handbook of New Testament introduction for the twelfth edition of 1963, he did so with the intention of bringing the much used German work abreast of present-day scholarship and of incorporating into the volume the sizable and recent contributions of French, British, and American research. As a result, the well-known professor of theology at the University of Marburg has produced a work which is both current and comprehensive, the international significance of which will now be more fully realized through the appearance of A. J. Mattill’s lucid English translation of the latest German edition, the fourteenth.
In this one-volume introduction to New Testament study, Kümmel regards his subject as a purely historical discipline, dealing with questions of authorship, sources, date, place of composition, and the literary and theological character of the writings, and presents as fully as he can a history of scholarly opinion on the major problems of New Testament research. Brief surveys of the origin of the New Testament canon and the history of the transmission of the Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic texts conclude the volume.
By American standards Kümmel, who is already known to English readers through his monographs Promise and Fulfillment (“Studies in Biblical Theology,” 1957) and Man in the New Testament (1962), is far from conservative. He is even less conservative than his forerunners, Feine and Behm, who regarded the pastoral letters as Pauline, the epistles of Jude and James to have been written by brothers of the Lord, and all five of the Johannine books to have been composed by John, the son of Zebedee. But by German standards Kümmel is far from radical. He retains the traditional authorship of the Gospel of Mark together with that of seven of the Pauline epistles (I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, and Philemon) and proposes no authorship alternatives for the remaining nineteen writings. The authors of these works, according to Kümmel, are unknown and unknowable. On questions of integrity, the former president of the Society of New Testament Scholars generally decides for the original character of the transmitted text (notably in reference to I and 11 Corinthians, Romans, and Colossians), and he is close to Feine and Behm on the Synoptic problem, for which he adopts the strict two-document hypothesis.
The real value of this volume, however, does not lie in its critical stances. It lies, first, in its careful attention to all shades of scholarly opinion, even to those the author regards as “audacious propositions,” and, secondly, in its extensive bibliographical selections. The introduction to the text begins with five pages of works that the author considers most important for general study of the New Testament. Discussion of each book is prefaced by an extensive list of major works and articles on the areas to be considered (Acts, for instance, has nearly eighty entries; John has over one hundred and thirty notations, exclusive of reviews), and a listing of the major commentaries on each of the books of the New Testament is given separately. This bibliographical data, complete through 1963, is now supplemented for the fourteenth edition by nine pages of entries that carry the material through January, 1965, including the earliest of the Anchor Bible commentaries. Forty-four pages of indices further enhance the value and facilitate use of the volume.
JAMES M. BOICE
Better Than Intended
The Early Church, by W. H. C. Frend (Lippincott, 1966, 288 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Bruce Shelley, professor of church history, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.
“History,” Thomas Carlyle once said, “is the essence of innumerable biographies.” While W. H. C. Frend casts a skillful eye at the social currents of history, especially politics, he does not overlook the power of personality. He has, in fact, a gift for tracing a man’s shadow by a few fit phrases. Under Frend’s pen the image of some traditional heroes is slightly ink-stained.
He says, for example, that the years following 306 made Constantine’s character clear, “a lust for power, a strong element of cruelty, a capacity for quick thinking and acting, and a religious sense which allowed him to attribute his success to the intervention of higher powers” (p. 133).
Athanasius in particular takes some lumps. His gifts, says Frend, were those of a politician. “He was wily, brutal and unscrupulous, and he was harsh and unforgiving to his opponents. He could see little beyond the righteousness of his own immediate cause” (p. 157). This expose reminded me of Lord Acton’s apt word that practically all great men are bad men and that hardly any public reputation survives the exposure of private archives.
We may blame Frend for roughing up the hero of the Arian crisis, but his treatment of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria is almost masterly. He shows how we can detect at that early date (c. 200) the roots of later Catholic-Orthodox differences. “By 200,” he concludes, “two theologies based on different eschatologies, different understandings of the Trinity, and even different ethics were characterizing East and West respectively” (p. 96). We could add “different anthropologies.”
In addition to his knack of biographical summation, Frend reveals special competence in the history of persecution and in archaeology. He treats early Christian persecutions guardedly, as they should be. We simply do not have enough evidence to delineate details of Roman policy from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. Rather than postulate a specific Roman law against the Christian religion, he accepts the collegium (association) theory, that is, that Christians were regarded as members of some illegal Jewish association that was perverting worship of the gods in the provinces (pp. 56, 57). I agree.
Frend’s experience in archaeology enhances the value of the volume. While he deals occasionally with early Christian sites excavated (p. 108), he brings the evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls to bear upon early Christianity most effectively. The Qumran community and the early Church, Frend argues, show similar ecclesiastical organizations. Both communities were called edah, and the three Christian “pillars of the church” (Gal. 2:9) and twelve apostles have their counterparts in Qumran’s three priests and twelve laymen—“men of special holiness”—who administered the affairs of the covenanters (p. 36). Frend clearly points out the striking relationship of early Christian organization to Jewish groups and the similar apocalyptic beliefs of Christian and Jew.
Only those who have attempted to study the early Church in some depth can appreciate Professor Frend’s contribution. Unfortunately I cannot agree with the editor of this “Knowing Christianity Series” when he offers the volume to thinking laymen as a solid but non-technical presentation of ancient Christianity. It is not easy reading. I have found few “thinking laymen” who would either understand or appreciate The Early Church. It is not an introductory work; it is a well-organized, careful study of early Christianity.
BRUCE SHELLEY
Book Briefs
All Things to All Men, edited by Joseph F. X. Cevetello (Joseph F. Wagner, 1965, 438 pp., $5.95). Help for ministers in difficult fields. Special attention is given to special cases, such as the blind, the deaf, the drug addict, the alcoholic, gambler, and homosexual.
Jesus of Nazareth, by Norman Vincent Peale (Prentice-Hall, 1966, 38 pp., $3.95). The story of Jesus as reflected in the story of a contemporary named Joshua, as told by Norman Vincent Peale. Over-priced.
Time of Testing, by Jon R. Littlejohn (Concordia, 1965, 224 pp., $3.95). A novel about an American Lutheran clergyman in England; somewhat slick, somewhat stereotyped and superficial, but competent, and better-than-average entertainment.
Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, by Donald Pizer (Southern Illinois University, 1966, 176 pp., $4.50). A tight scholarly study, disappointing in its failure to explore the spiritual implications of its subject.
If Ye Continue, by Guy Duty (Bethany Fellowship, 1966, 186 pp., $2.95). A defense of the position that salvation depends on the human fulfillment of certain conditions.
Plain Papers on the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, by C. I. Scofield (Revell, 1965, 80 pp., $1.50). By the Scofield. Good reading. First published in 1899.
Living with Sex: The Students’ Dilemma, by Richard F. Hettlinger (Seabury, 1966, 185 pp., $4.50). Another good study in a well-harrowed field.
Cities of the New Testament, by E. M. Blaiklock (Revell, 1965, 128 pp., $3.95). A study of where Christianity first went.
S. R. O.: Overpopulation and You, by Marjory L. Bracher (Fortress, 1966, 216 pp., $3.50). A clergyman’s wife took a trip and returned with an ache of heart and a desire to write about what she saw. She saw and wrote perceptively.
The Human Church, by William H. DuBay (Doubleday, 1966, 192 pp., $4.50). The Watts priest who asked the Pope to remove Cardinal McIntyre as archbishop is an angry young man. In this book he reveals his idea of Christianity and the Church. Calling for a secular Christianity, he declares that the greatest contribution of the Hebrews was their elimination of religion and that “Yahweh was the first atheist, the great iconoclast and demythologizer.” DuBay dedicates his book to John XXIII, “a pope who led.”
Saints and Sanctity, by Walter J. Burghardt, S. J. (Prentice-Hall, 1965, 239 pp., $5.50). A study of saints in terms of the meaning of sainthood in the modern secularized world.
The World of David and Solomon, by Eugene H. Maly (Prentice-Hall, 1966, 182 pp., $5.95). An excellent study that lays all recent research under tribute and makes it pay off.
Papyrus Bodmer: Esaïe XLVII, 1–LXVI, 24, edited by Rodolphe Kasser (Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1965, 206 pp., Fr. 98.—).
How to Deal with Controversial Issues, by William M. Pinson, Jr. (Broadman, 1966, 128 pp., $1.50). How to face controversy creatively. Worth reading.
The Priest: Celibate or Married, by Pierre Hermand (Helicon, 1965, 144 pp., $3.75). The author argues that Latin rite priests should, as do Eastern rite priests, have the choice to marry or not.
The Social Novel at the End of an Era, by Warren French (Southern Illinois University, 1966, 212 pp., $4.50). An analysis of the social novel, whose day ended with the years 1939–40. Attention is fixed on Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Hemingway.
Letters to Karen: On Keeping Love in Marriage, by Charlie W. Shedd (Abingdon, 1965. 160 pp., $3). A father writes letters to his engaged daughter, warm, intimate, and very human.
The Forgiving Community, by William Klassen (Westminster, 1966, 253 pp., $6). An extensive study of the theology and psychology of biblical forgiveness and the need of the Church to be a forgiving community.
Paperbacks
Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine, by Roland Mushat Frye (Princeton, 1965, 314 pp., $2.95). First published in 1963.
A Private and Public Faith, by William Stringfellow (Eerdmans, 1965, 99 pp., $1.45). With a new foreword. First published in 1962.
Sunday’s Fun Day, Charlie Brown, by Charles M. Schulz (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965, 124 pp., $1). First published in the Sunday papers, comic section.
A Short Life of Kierkegaard, by Walter Lowrie (Princeton, 1965, 271 pp., $2.95). A kind of classic.
Inasmuch: Christian Social Responsibility in Twentieth Century America, by David O. Moberg (Eerdmans, 1965, 216 pp., $2.45). A passionate evangelical plea for Christian social action and involvement. For thoughtful evangelicals, this is must reading.
Pilgrims and Pioneers in the Congregational Christian Traditon, by John Leslie Lobingier (United Church Press, 1965, 191 pp., $2.95). Biographies of fifteen Congregational Christians, written chiefly for the Evangelical and Reformed sectors of the United Church of Christ. Good reading.
Reprints
The Suffering Saviour: Meditations on the Last Days of Christ, by F. W. Krummacher (Moody, 1966. 444 pp., $4.95). Abridged; first published in 1854.
Historical Introductions to the Book of Concord, by F. Bente (Concordia, 1965, 266 pp., $3). First published in 1921.