An Extraordinary Man Of God
I Stand by the Door: The Life of Sam Shoemaker, by Helen Smith Shoemaker (Harper & Row, 1967, 222 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Peter C. Moore, director, Council for Religion in Independent Schools, New York, New York.
This is a risky book to read, because it was a risk to know this man. A man thrice defeated for high office in the Episcopal Church, a man with an almost hypnotic effect on idealistic young men, a man variously described as a mystical pietist or an unscholarly enthusiast, Sam Shoemaker was unquestionably one of the most controversial clergymen this century has produced.
His wife, Helen, best known as the founder and executive director of the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer, has revealed for us the many threads interwoven in this colorful life. Sam’s Maryland boyhood, his school and university career, his student Christian work in China and back at Princeton, his twenty-eight years as rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York, his deep involvement in the Oxford Group (now known as Moral Re-Armament), his nine years as Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh—all this is presented with vigor, humor, and great warmth, often in words from his own notes and diary.
The effect is to force the reader to come to terms with a style of Christian living and witness with which most people, even most Christians, are unfamiliar. One sees in Sam Shoemaker a number of extraordinary combinations: a free-wheeling response to the Holy Spirit, which made him so appealing to those dissatisfied with the institutional church, coupled with a deep appreciation of the historic structures through which God continues to work; an intense concern that individuals come to a personal commitment to Christ, together with a profound conviction of the Church’s role in the total life of the world; an infectious, never sentimental commitment to Christ, combined with an ease of manner in the company of happy pagans.
I recall a time when Sam Shoemaker, pointing to black and white tile squares on a kitchen floor, said: “People are like that. Most of us are not shades of gray. We’re black and white together, side by side within ourselves.”
The reader who is looking for black squares will not find them in this book. He may wonder if Sam Shoemaker was an easy man to work with. He may ask how in the midst of so much success he managed to remain humble. He may question whether his robust personality ever got in the way of his spiritual effectiveness. Perhaps a biography cannot and ought not to attempt to answer questions like these.
But what no question can obscure is the fact that here was a rare, gifted human being who yielded himself to the task of winning men and women to Christ. Always a loyal and faithful parish priest, Sam nevertheless had an eye out wherever he was—on a university campus, at a conference, at a party—for the potential convert. Thousands were brought face to face with themselves and face to face with their Lord and Saviour through a talk with him in private. Hundreds more are in the Christian ministry today because of his tireless zeal in confronting young men with the challenge of this vocation.
The book vindicates Sam Shoemaker from charges of being against institutions and against social concern. Mrs. Shoemaker claims that much criticism of him stemmed from resistance to the spiritual challenge which his profound and obvious commitment communicated.
I Stand by the Door is filled with sketches of people whom Sam Shoemaker loved and in whose lives he was used by God. He had the remarkable gift of making friends and acquaintances, high and low alike, feel as if they were of vital importance to him, and thus of vital importance to God. He was able to speak boldly about God to others, because he allowed God to speak boldly about others to him.
Three movements that Sam Shoemaker helped to found—Faith at Work, The Pittsburgh Experiment, and Alcoholics Anonymous—are described in a separate section of the book. Each testifies in a different way to his belief in the power of small groups as vehicles for individual and social renewal.
I repeat, this is a risky book to read. You will not be lulled to sleep by its often lyric passages. You will not be entertained with stories of bishops and ecclesiastical politics. You will not be tickled with fashionable heresies nor comforted with reassuring orthodoxies. You will sometimes laugh, sometimes cry. You will burn with anger and indignation, you will be ashamed, you will pray, you will rejoice. Most significantly you will—if you permit it—be deeply moved and deeply challenged by a spiritual movement that even now is confronting men and women with the claims of the Christian life and pointing them to the power available for living it.
Bringing Barth Into Focus
Karl Barth and the Christian Message, by Colin Brown (Inter-Varsity, 1967, 163 pp. $1.95, paper), is reviewed by Fred H. Klooster, professor of systematic theology, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:
• Baker’s Dictionary of Practical Theology, edited by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker, $8.95). Every minister should have this scholarly source book on preaching, hermeneutics, evangelism, counseling, and other aspects of practical theology.
• Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics, by Paul Ramsey (Scribners, $5.95). A Princeton theologian offers trenchant criticism of the “new morality” and insists on some form of “rule-agapism” for a viable Christian social ethic.
• Crisis in Lutheran Theology, by John Warwick Montgomery (Baker, $1.50). An analysis of new emphases within Lutheran theology seen in the light of historic doctrinal foundations. All Lutherans should read this.
Anyone who attempts to summarize the whole of Karl Barth’s voluminous Church Dogmatics has set himself an almost impossible task. But Colin Brown has done an outstanding job in this small book, which is probably the best introduction to Barth’s theology for the beginning student. Even long-time students of Barth will find the focus on main themes rewarding, the interpretation of debated issues challenging, and the suggested central theme inviting.
Colin Brown, tutor at Tyndale Hall in Bristol, England, evaluates Barth from a solidly evangelical, Reformed standpoint. Recognizing that there is much to learn from Barth, he is concerned “neither to whitewash nor to condemn wholesale.” He attempts a sympathetic understanding of Barth’s thought and an evaluation of Barth’s approach to the Christian message.
The author gives us a biographical chapter, a concluding chapter of summary and evaluation, and a brief note on books about Barth, in addition to the main part of the book the three middle chapters. Two of these middle chapters set forth Barth’s view of the Word of God and the knowledge of God and of the bankruptcy of natural theology—the themes of Church Dogmatics I/1 and I/2. The most significant chapter, however, deals with Barth’s Christ-centered view of God, creation, and reconciliation and thus summarizes the themes of the extensive ten parts of Church Dogmatics II, III, and IV. Obviously the nuances and complexities of Barth’s thought cannot be included in such a compact treatment, and there is no substitute for a first hand study of his work. But Brown sketches the main themes quite well.
Brown contends that the underlying unity in Barth’s thinking, the Ariadne thread, is his Christ-idea or covenant concept:
[Barth] saw a union of God and man implied in the union of divine and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ. To this union he gave the biblical name of the covenant. And in the light of the covenant Barth reshaped the entire Christian message.
Barth’s entire theology is a series of variations on this theme. But this covenant concept or Christ-idea rests upon dubious exegesis and actually conflicts with the Christian message of Scripture. Barth’s Christ-idea is a Procrustean bed upon which “some important aspects of New Testament teaching had to be stretched to make them fit, while others had to be lopped off.” In the last analysis “Barth is guilty of Brunner’s charge (a charge which Brunner is himself open to) that he has erected a ‘natural theology on the basis of a statement that has a biblical core.’ ”
Therefore, Brown maintains that the “focal point of conflict between orthodoxy and Barthianism” concerns Christ and the covenant. Over against Barth’s view of a single, all-embracing covenant of grace in Christ, Brown pleads for the Reformed contrast between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, for this involves the biblical view of creation perfection, Adam’s historical fall into sin, and Christ as judge of unbelievers and saviour of believers.
In evaluating Barth’s view of Scripture and the Trinity, Brown is somewhat less satisfying. Although he himself endorses Warfield’s high view of Scripture and makes some significant criticisms of Barth’s view, he thinks evangelicals have often been too harsh with Barth’s view of revelation. Brown’s weakness here lies in his analysis of Barth’s views. He fails to see that the Christ-idea or covenant theme is already present in Barth’s view of revelation, though admittedly less clearly expressed. Brown thinks that this retrograde development of the Christ-idea came to focus in 1942 with the publication of Volume II/2. If only Brown had seen that the Christ-idea is already present in Barth’s view of revelation, and that Scripture is simply the witness to revelation, he would have seen that the gulf between Barth and the Reformers is as great here as it is at the point of the Christian message in general.
Linked to this is his evaluation of Barth’s view of the Trinity. All too quickly Brown dismisses the view that modalism is present in Barth’s theology and asserts that Barth’s teaching on the Trinity is “a penetrating analysis of New Testament teaching.” At this point Brown is inadequate and superficial. Barth’s view of the analogy between revelation in its threefold form and the doctrine of the Trinity is rooted in the same Christ-idea that Brown so clearly sees in other parts of the Church Dogmatics and regards as the “comprehensive error” that has cast a shadow over the whole of Barth’s thinking. Here too the gulf between Barth and evangelicalism is greater than Brown admits. This difference, however, is due, not to inadequacy in Brown’s evangelicalism, insofar as it is evident from this brief work, but rather to his inadequate interpretation of Barth’s views.
Many provocative observations and interpretations are made throughout the work. Brown suggests that Barth does not regard revelation as encounter and does not play off personal over against propositional revelation. On the basis of a 1956 quotation he states that Barth now holds that “there is an objective revelation of God in nature.” These are disputed points, and Brown has done little more than affirm them. He contends that it is Barth rather than Paul Tillich who has come to grips with modern thought and culture. And he believes that Barth presents the elements of a solution to the contemporary debate over the meaning of religious language.
Brown has said that Barth’s “work might have gained twice as much had it been half the size.” Perhaps Brown’s stimulating little book might have gained twice as much if it had been twice the size.
Sociological View Of A Church
To Comfort and to Challenge: A Dilemma of the Contemporary Church, by Charles Y. Glock, Benjamin B. Ringer, and Earl R. Babbie (University of California Press, 1967, 268 pp., $5.75), is reviewed by Edwin M. Yamauchi, assistant professor of history, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
This is an evaluation by sociologists of a poll on political and social issues answered by 100 bishops, 259 priests, and 1,530 parishoners of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Two facts immediately limit the usefulness of the survey: (1) The respondents to the poll came from one denomination. Their responses cannot be taken to hold true for the Church at large, as the authors suggest. (2) The survey was made in 1952; this study of the survey was not published sooner because of various intervening demands upon Glock, the senior author. The authors’ contention “that the portrait to be drawn reasonably characterizes the church-at-large, then and now” must surely be subject to question in the light of the many developments since 1952.
The authors developed a scale of involvement for the parishioners on the basis of frequency of church attendance, membership in church organizations, the reading of church periodicals, and so on. It is an interesting comment on the denomination of Bishop Pike that “the sponsors of the 1952 study felt questions pertaining to religious beliefs might offend respondents.”
The survey seemed to confirm the “comfort theory” of the Church’s function. At one extreme, young, upper-status men, with complete families tended to be least involved. At the other extreme of involvement were elderly, lower-status women with neither spouse nor children. “In sum, the church offers a refuge for those who are denied access to valued achievements and rewards in every day American life.” Since many of those who are deeply involved in the Church are involved because they need the Church’s comfort, they are not naturally responsive to the Church’s challenge to change the inequities of society.
The authors do not suggest that the Church abandon its function of comforting in order to challenge its parishioners. They are realistic enough to see that a one-sided emphasis on such matters as civil rights would alienate many members who need the Church’s comfort.
They offer three positive suggestions to enable the Church to challenge its members as well as it comforts them: (1) The Church should decide which deprivations (e.g. bereavement, old age) should be comforted and which (e.g. poverty) should be corrected. (2) The Church would be more effectively served by a dual structure—the parish to comfort and problem-oriented, interdenominational groups to challenge. (3) The Church should educate its parishioners in applying Christian principles to all areas of life. Two of the authors (with one dissenting) suggest that this education may be more effectively achieved by the presentation of both sides of an issue rather than a partisan position.
Book Briefs
Faith and Speculation, by Austin Farrer (New York University, 1967, 175 pp., $5). The well-known Oxford theistic philosopher gives a restatement of his arguments for the divine existence in an essay especially recommended to any swayed by the God-is-dead fantasy.
The Parables, by Don O. Via, Jr. (Fortress, 1967, 217 pp., $4). The subtitle, “Their Literary and Existential Dimension,” indicates the strength and weakness of this new study of the parables of Jesus. A promising start in a fresh literary appreciation ends up in tangled existentialism.
God and Word, by Gerhard Ebeling (Fortress, 1967, 53 pp., $1.50). The author stands at an active frontier of European theology and speaks to the American scene with a strong Brunner-like accent.
The Formation of Christendom, by Christopher Dawson (Sheed and Ward, 1967, 309 pp., $6). The doyen of Roman Catholic literary critics offers a popular treatment of Christian history, defending the thesis that Catholicism preserves the idea of the Church as a universal spiritual society.
The Church as a Prophetic Community, by E. Clinton Gardner (Westminster, 1967, 254 pp., $6). Yet another volume on the role of the Church in the secular order, but with the secularization of the sacred and the sacralization of the secular, we are left in a tizzy.
The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America, by J. Stillson Judah (Westminster, 1967,317 pp., $7.95). A source-book on modern para-religious vagaries such as spiritualism, theosophy, and Christian science. Contains much useful biographical data and fills an obvious gap.
The Theology of Existence, by Fritz Buri (Attic Press, 1965, 112 pp., $4). A translation of Buri’s 1954 volume that clarifies his shift of position away from the so-called Berne school and left-wing Bultmannians. His new stance is that of Heilsgeschicte, but of an existentialist, not Cullmannian, type, and begs the whole question of history.
The World of the Patriarchs, by Ignatius Hunt, O. S. B. (Prentice-Hall, 1967, 178 pp., $5.95). An up-to-date, readable, and useful summary of modern discussion on Genesis 12–50 that draws upon archaeological data and form-critical studies. A Roman Catholic scholar is here grappling with problems of historicity and theology in the Old Testament and leans toward (while not fully accepting) a heilsgeschichtlich approach within the framework of the Roman encyclical.
