The Pulpit Comes Alive
The Pattern of Christ, by David H. C. Read (Scribners, 1967, 94 pp., $2.95), and The Parables, by Gerald Kennedy (Harper & Row, 1967, 213 pp., $1.60, paperback), are reviewed by Donald Macleod, professor of homiletics, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.
These two books of sermons, each by a preacher of unusual reputation in his own denomination, are representative of the output of men who believe in the efficacy and integrity of the Christian pulpit. Here the similarity ends, for in their source materials and interpretative methods these two homileticians are of very different genres.
In an age in which the integrity of preaching is questioned (especially by those who have never experienced it) and the aim of being a great preacher is suspect (particularly among those who cannot do it), David H. C. Read continues to accept the claim and discipline of what seems to him to be eminently worthwhile. His first book, Prisoner’s Quest (Macmillan, 1945), introduced him to America, and the promise this volume showed has been realized in the five titles that have followed. A recent questionnaire circulated among discriminating sermon-tasters placed Dr. Read consistently at the head of the list of highly effective preachers in the United Presbyterian Church.
In this latest book, Dr. Read, who for ten years has been senior minister of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City, deals with six beatitudes from the sermon on the Mount and one from John 20:29. He interprets the significance of these great sayings for the twentieth century in sermons that show the fruits of a classical education, exegetical know-how, and reading in depth in good literature. He discloses nuances of thought and interpretation that not only give freshness to his message but also accent the disturbing character of the beatitudes. This preacher never fails to be interesting as he explores the unseen dimensions of these sayings and makes germane to our day the transcendent character of Matthew 5–7.
Read is right in saying that the beatitudes “cannot be understood without the framework of the total Gospel in which they are set.” If a criticism may be made, however, of an otherwise excellent book, it should be directed against the handling of this point. There is need for either an initial chapter or a fuller preliminary discussion. Long ago Percy Ainsworth, in his Blessed Life, developed this idea fully under a chapter on “Blessed …” before he launched into the beatitudes. The traditional peril to the beatitudes has been the tendency among the biblically illiterate, the politicians, and the pseudo-statesmen to handle them as pious slogans or as maxims for ethical action. In reality they are proclamations. As John Dow put it so well: “Grace is always in the field ahead of Christian endeavor.… The beatitudes do not frame a command to be lowly, meek, peace-loving: they describe the fact that those upon whom the Spirit of God has come with benediction are and shall be lowly and meek and peace-loving” (This Is Our Faith, p. 201).
Gerald Kennedy, bishop of The Methodist Church, Los Angeles Area, is one of America’s most popular preachers and the author of an ever-increasing list of books and articles. Moreover, he is an omnivorous reader and a careful collector of illustrations and things worth saying from an amazing range of sources. If interest and exciting ideas were the only criteria for judging preaching, Bishop Kennedy would claim distinction with ease.
Here in fifteen engaging chapters the bishop deals with fifteen parables, which he calls “stories Jesus told.” Books on the parables are legion, and most of them are either exegetically dull or prettily superficial. Kennedy’s effort is midway. Few American preachers are so intensely human, so charged with immediacy, and so enthusiastically Christian as he, and he has no equal in making wide and varied reading tributary to his sermons.
His error in this book is that of not remaining at his own métier. He is a topical preacher par excellence; he should not presume to be an expositor. These sermons on the parables have no interpretative method. The parables in the Gospels cannot be interpreted properly unless one takes careful account of the context in which each occurs and the eschatological framework and tone of Jesus’ whole preaching and witnessing ministry. Otherwise, the parables, apart from who said them and when and why, are merely human-interest stories, of which Aesop was equally a master.
On the positive side, let it be said again that few preachers can afford to overlook the techniques and principles of rhetoric that make Bishop Kennedy a pulpit and platform speaker of such unusual competence.
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:
• 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.
• Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume IV, edited by Gerhard Kittel (Eerdmans, $22.50). The fourth installment of a monumental eight-volume work provides invaluable research on key New Testament words.
• 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.
Freedom Through Surrender
Freedom in Modern Theology, by Robert T. Osborn (Westminster, 1967, 273 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Frederic R. Howe, dean, Graduate School, and associate professor of theology, Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, Portland, Oregon.
This work, written by the associate professor of religion at Duke University, is a critical appraisal and comparison of one major aspect of the theological approaches of Bultmann, Tillich, Barth, and Berdyaev. Osborn uses the control factor or touchstone issue of theological freedom to evaluate the specific theologies of each of these major voices that he has chosen as representative of central options for shaping an ecumenical theology. His analytical ability is keen.
The study is of necessity limited to the freedom of the Christian man and the depth of meaning in the biblical concepts dealing with the “freedom for which Christ has set us free”—to the freedom of the self in its vital relation to Christ. Osborn begins by defining two areas in this kind of freedom, the Hellenistic and the Christian. In the Hellenistic view, freedom is a condition resulting from salvation or liberation. To the Hellenist, freedom, as this resultant condition, meant a true return to one’s self, a regaining of self-control. But the New Testament attacks the problem of man on a different basis. On Biblical ground, says Osborn, we find that the self is seen as fallen, unfree, and thus in need of commitment or surrender to a redemptive and creative force.
The author analyzes in great detail the four major theological positions he has selected and concludes essentially that a combination of Barthian concepts of freedom with added insights from Berdyaev should be basic for building an adequate theology of freedom.
The evangelical reader will appreciate the scope and depth of this study but will be concerned about the basic approach. Osborn rejects the idea of building a system of theology, and thus abandons what vital orthodoxy believes is the imperative task of theological studies—uncovering the depth and true versatility of a biblical system. To Osborn, theology, seemingly, is only an approach. To the evangelical, it is surely more. Osborn’s orientation apparently fails to balance biblical mysticism with biblical realism. He says:
Faith is also mystical, inasmuch as it knows its object in a manner for which it can give no good account, except in its own terms. It knows, as does one in personal relationships, that in its true existence and depth the reality of its object transcends the experienced meaning, the consequent life, or the acknowledged facts. There is no a priori critique of reason that establishes its epistemological possibility. It is, in this sense, mystical.
Osborn feels that a theology of freedom will incorporate these principles or ideas: First, it will be nonsystematic; second, it will be Christological; third, it will be uncommitted philosophically.
I appreciate the depth of Osborn’s study but would seek for a systematic trinitarianism and its dynamic balance of all the biblical factors leading to an exposition of the freedom of the believer in Christ.
The Two Cannot Be Separated
The Christian Life and Salvation, by Donald G. Bloesch (Eerdmans, 1967, 164 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Walter Mueller, rector, St. Mark’s Reformed Episcopal Church, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.
Ever since the Church held its first council in Jerusalem, theologians have debated the relation of faith to works in man’s experience of salvation. Unlike the many theological issues that die with time, this one will always be very much alive. The Christian Life and Salvation is a mid-twentieth-century contribution to the ongoing debate.
Bloesch’s approach to the problem may be stated as a question: “In order to come into the experience of salvation, must a man submit to Christ as Lord as well as trust him as Saviour?” He answers, “Yes!,” implying that though we should distinguish between Christ’s offices as Lord and Saviour, the two cannot be separated. A struggle with words follows. On the one hand, Bloesch seeks to maintain the Reformation principles of sola gratia and sola fide while avoiding the heresies of monergism and antinomianism. On the other hand, he tries to emphasize the unbreakable connection between salvation and a life of submission to Christ without falling into the errors of synergism and legalism.
To accomplish his purpose, Bloesch introduces the Kierkegaardian concept of “paradox.” The paradox of salvation is that “there is a sense in which God does all. Yet in another sense man is active too, … but only through the power of God’s Spirit.” In a day when “cheap grace” is all too prevalent, Bloesch’s emphasis on submission and obedience to Christ as Lord is welcome. There are, however, dangers in this emphasis. Bloesch recognizes these and tries to guard against them with such statements as, “Our position is that only the merits of Christ have intrinsic worth, and only these merits can be regarded as the basis for God’s acceptance of our works.”
Evangelicals will appreciate Bloesch’s position on the person of Christ, the centrality of the Cross (“The foundation of the Christian life is not an existential decision nor a mystical experience but the decisive, irrevocable work of God in the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ”), and the nature of Christ’s death (substitutionary, sacrificial, propitious, and so on). They will not feel, however, that his definition of sin as ignorance, bondage, and estrangement adequately expresses the scriptural teaching on this subject. Most disappointing is his flirtation with universalism and his acceptance of the doctrine of a second chance.
One comes from reading this book newly impressed that though the way of salvation may be understood by the simple, it is not simple to understand.
New Commentaries On Acts
Anchor Bible, Volume 31: The Acts of the Apostles, translated with introduction and notes by Johannes Munck (Doubleday, 1967, 318 pp., $6), and The New Clarendon Bible: The Acts, introduction and commentary by R. P. C. Hanson (Oxford, 1967, 262 pp., $5), are reviewed by David W. McIlvaine, Subject Cataloging Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
The posthumously published volume by Johannes Munck shows the work of an able scholar. In an introduction of ninety pages, Munck defends the Lukan authorship and the historicity of the book. “The historical events related may be influenced by the author’s purpose in writing his work; but on the whole they bear the stamp of reality which is the property of history, rather than of the historical novel.” He dates the work in the first half of the sixties. Munck’s main interest is to reconstruct the historical situation of the primitive Church.
The biblical text is an original English translation from a Danish text prepared by Munck. The translators have done a good job; the text is free-flowing and readable. For each section of the text there are notes on specific points and also a section called “Comment.” Usually this comment is merely a summary of the biblical text. Most of the meat is in the notes. There is no map and no general index.
The appendix contains articles on (1) Luke’s ethnic background, (2) “eyewitnesses” in Luke, (3) Pentecost in Acts (in the commentary Munck takes a traditional position, but C. S. Mann, the writer of this appendix article, takes a different view and says only that something “paranormal” happened), (4) the organization and institutions of the Jerusalem church in Acts, (5) Stephen’s Samaritan background, (6) “Hellenists” and “Hebrews” in Acts 6:1, (7) Simon Magus as “The Great Power of God,” (8) Paul’s education, and (9) the customary languages of the Jews. These articles, written by W. F. Albright, C. S. Mann, and Abram Spiro, are in many ways the most valuable part of the book.
The “Clarendon Bible” Acts follows the text of the RSV and has notes below the text in smaller print. Hanson gives many more references to the primary sources than Munck does, but even these are sparse. The book contains also an introduction of fifty-six pages, a map, and an adequate index.
Hanson’s volume suffers from an unstated presupposition—that miracles cannot happen. He consistently attempts to dispose of miracles through contrived explanations. His explanation of Acts 16: 16 is worthless: “No doubt this girl was trained to tell fortuntes by means of ventriloquism practiced in a pretended trance.” Just how would a rebuke by Paul cause her to lose this acting ability? And why would her owners not find another actress who could play the part convincingly? In other places Hanson just skips over a miracle in the biblical text without comment.
Both Munck and Hanson feel that much in Acts is pure fiction. In the matter of Gamaliel’s speech, they both accuse Luke of historical blunders. Neither offers the least suggestion that Josephus could be wrong and Luke right.
The reader who wishes to buy only one of these two new commentaries should choose Munck’s.
The Eloquence Of The Cathedral
The Heritage of the Cathedral, by Sarted Prentice (William Morrow, 1966, 307 pp., $6), is reviewed by Carl H. Droppers, associate professor of architecture, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
Sartell Prentice slashes through the pages of history and permits an inanimate object, the cathedral, to speak as it once did. The cathedral speaks eloquently of Roman, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance times, as well as the periods between, but only a skillful historian like Prentice can interpret its language. He has a clear understanding of the environment that molded the people and, in turn, the cathedral. In fact, this book might be considered a kind of first book on environment and its effect on the people and the civilization it creates.
The author traces the means of communicating the Word. In time the cathedrals became so vast that the voice could no longer be heard; only the actions of the priest had meaning. He tells of the need to instruct hundreds of new converts with the picture language of the mosaic, the painting, and later the beautiful stained-glass windows; to tell an entire Bible incident in one piece of sculpture; to illustrate a whole book with a few carefully chosen figures and their actions.
He records the influence of transportation on environment, from the castles on the rivers that controlled the movement of ships to market, to the Roman roads that made possible rapid movement of troops, to the seas and overland routes that brought in new ideas from distant countries.
We see the influence of taxation on environment. Heavy taxes made the land sought in the Hundred Years’ War an almost worthless prize. We feel with the peasants the futility of tilling land that was sure to be taxed or plundered. We understand why they moved from the coastal areas, where they had no protection from plunder and could never meet the taxes imposed.
We discover how the philosophies of kings and popes fashioned the environment, and how in turn the wars, crusades, invasions, and counter-invasions shaped the people, their trades, their towns, their communities, and the buildings in which they lived and worshiped. We see how their beliefs and fears were recorded in the stones of their cathedrals. We see their triumphs and defeats carved in stone for others to “read.” We are stirred by a people who as a team willed great cathedrals into being—and as we tour the cathedrals we are still amazed at the unlettered men, men of spirit, who built them. They were men of vision, for they lived in what we would call slums but went forth and built to the honor and glory of God.
Sartell Prentice leaves us with an unwritten question: If we can see these influences on environment in past generations, why not look at our own? Might we not shape our environment rather than let it shape us?
An Illicit Love Affair
A Christian Critique of American Culture: An Essay in Practical Theology, by Julian H. Hartt (Harper, 1967, 425 pp. $8.50), is reviewed by Melvin G. Williams, assistant professor of English, American International College, Spring-field, Massachusetts.
It is regrettable that most readers will put down Julian Hartt’s A Christian Critique of American Culture after reading only the first few chapters. For in spite of his annoying reliance on the abstract jargon of the philosopher, he has a message of interest for more than simply “persons of philosophical-theological speculation.”
“Once it had become clear that the apocalyptic appearance of the Kingdom of God was not imminent,” Hartt begins “the people of the church had at least to modify their concrete relations with the ‘world’ if not their feelings and opinions about it.” Today, too, Christians must continue to evaluate the culture within which they live. But in doing so, Hartt says, the Church will have to disengage itself from its “fitful and illicit love affair with the world.”
With this awareness, however, come two major hazards for the Christian critic of culture: self-justification and irrelevance. The Church runs the risk of trying to establish its own empire above the heads of the tarnished world, or of becoming sophisticated beyond the reach of “everyday.” Liberal Christians whose passion for relevance obscures the divine foundation of their faith come under fire here. But so do the revivalists, whose message, Hartt asserts, “invariably reinforces anxiety even if it reduces guilt momentarily.”
Christians, themselves, however, are not the ultimate focus of Professor Hartt’s study. For though he points out that “Christian criticism of … culture must begin with the life of the church itself,” the most interesting part of the book is the third section, the practical applications—to the arts, to politics, and to mass culture. On politics he counsels his readers to seek out the truths that are so often hidden behind the blurred “syllabus of illusions” of Jonathan Wesley Sunday III, his imaginary representative of “everyday.”
How unfortunate that Hartt’s penetrating insights so often get buried under heaps of turgid sentences like these:
The structures [of being] have no inherent powers of existence; and so far as they are incorporated into actuality they wholly depend on God the Spirit. A generic ontological principle is exemplified in this assertion: structures are everywhere dependent upon the power of actual agents. This perhaps amounts to saying that existence precedes essence, but only if precedes means ontological rather than chronological priority, that is, in the order of being as such.
Any questions?
Resuscitating An Old-Style Liberal
The Reality of Christianity: A Study of Adolf von Harnack as Historian and Theologian, by G. Wayne Glick (Harper & Row, 1967, 359 pp., $7.50) is reviewed by Robert H. Gundry, associate professor of biblical studies, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.
Adolf von Harnack was the embodiment of old-style liberal theology. This study of him is third in the series “Makers of Modern Theology,” edited by Jaroslav Pelikan. Despite a repetitious and sometimes turgid style, the book provides valuable information about both Harnack himself and the history of Continental theology during his career.
Glick portrays Harnack in a variety of poses—theologian of Kantian ethics; historical researcher of amazing erudition; conservative critic against the history-of-religions school and the radical form critics; pious apologist for Christianity to cultured materialists; Ritschlian rebel against unprogressive Lutheran orthodoxy and ecclesiasticism; Marcionite rejector of the canonicity of the Old Testament—but never as a heretic, despite his denials of Jesus’ physical resurrection and of other major features of biblical and historic Christian faith. In fact, Glick finds it odd that a conference in Mecklenburg entertained a formal proposal to place Harnack under the anathema of Galatians 1:7–9.
The title, The Reality of Christianity, is a translation of the title of Harnack’s most famous book, Das Wesen des Christentums, and refers to the heart of Jesus’ message. For Harnack, this was (1) the (uneschatological) kingdom of God and its coming, (2) the fatherhood of God and the infinite value of the human soul, and (3) high ethics, with special emphasis on love. Thus Harnack denatured the New Testament kerygma by removing its eschatological and Christologically redemptive features and provided a base for the social gospel in Jesus’ ethical teaching.
Glick traces Harnack’s pilgrimage from a slightly pietistic orthodoxy to liberal theology via Ritschl, with influences from Engelhardt, Baur, Hegel, and Goethe. Then come summaries and critiques of Harnack’s major works. The author faults Harnack for reducing the Gospel excessively and for failing to see that his own theology was determined by factors other than open-minded historical investigation. But the orthodox reader will wonder whether the proof of Harnack’s unself-conscious subjectivism really helps matters; so long as a high view of Scripture is considered hopelessly out of date (so Glick), the theologian is adrift whether or not he is aware of his subjectivism.
The tone of the critiques is theological throughout. The author makes no attempt to evaluate the many contributions of Harnack to textual, higher critical, and historical studies apart from their theological implications—except for laudatory remarks about the breadth and depth of his scholarship and the prolificness of his writings. One also feels that Harnack’s antisupernaturalism, which predetermined the direction of his historical and theological pursuits, should have received more critical attention, especially in view of Pannenberg’s recent attempt to show that acceptance of the possibility of the supernatural does not foreclose valid historiography. Leaning the other way, Glick draws the moral that modern theology must learn from Harnack ever to be assiduous in rigorous historical research and to be subject to the strictures of historical criticism.
Toward A Responsible State
Protestant Faith and Religious Liberty, by Philip Wogaman (Abingdon, 1967, 254 pp., $4.75), is reviewed by Graham L. Hales, pastor, University Baptist Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
This book is a lucid and valuable contribution to the debate on religious liberty. Large government programs in education and the War on Poverty, along with recent Supreme Court decisions, have caused deep confusion. The inevitable complexities of our highly inter-related society make strict separation of church and state no longer possible.
Wogaman is looking for a solid foundation from which Christians can advocate religious liberty as public policy. Although he admits value in each of five major positions now supported in Protestant and Roman Catholic circles, he considers none adequate in itself.
In his own position, built on the basic Protestant principles of critique of idolatry and openness to truth, he seeks a mediating point beyond skepticism and relativism. But his argument only partially succeeds. One cannot help feeling that too much of Christian certainty is compromised. A sounder basis for religious liberty can be found in the earthly ministry of our Lord, who, while he made absolute claims, granted aboslute freedom of rejection. God’s choice of the cross prohibits coercion to faith by external authority, either of church or of state.
After building his case, the author discusses the applications and limitations of a public policy of religious liberty. The Christian desires a “responsible state,” he says, and should seek to bring this into being, individually and through political pressure from church blocs.
Wogaman’s position, when applied in specific areas of public concern—e.g., public and religious educational systems, political action, and religious establishment—will seem radical to those who object to any Christian social action in the public sphere. Moderates would draw the limits tighter than he does. Nevertheless, his conclusions are well reasoned and help to clarify the main elements of the problem of religious liberty.
Wogaman concludes with a call for Protestants to engage in open dialogue with all Christian groups, with Marxists, and with secular humanism. He sees this as the best way to gain supporters for the principle and practice of a universal policy of religious liberty.
Read this book. The issues raised are The issues. And the answers given will prod you to develop your own.
Book Briefs
Call to Adventure: The Retreat as Religious Experience, edited by Raymond J. Magee (Abingdon, 1967, 160 pp., $2.25). Twelve enlightening essays on how the Christian retreat can advance people spiritually.
Recent Homiletical Thought, A Bibliography, 1935–1965, edited by William Too-hey and William D. Thompson (Abingdon, 1967, 303 pp., $4.75). Scholars will greet enthusiastically this excellent annotated bibliography on preaching.
Yearbook of American Churches, 1967 Edition, edited by Constant H. Jacquet, Jr. (National Council of Churches, 1967, 258 pp., $7.50). Authoritative, indispensable data on all religious organizations.
The Century Bible: Leviticus and Numbers, edited by N. H. Snaith (Nelson, 1967, 352 pp., 50s.). Uses the documentary hypothesis to dissect the third and fourth books of the Pentateuch.
Salute to Sandy, by Dale Evans Rogers (Revell, 1967, 117 pp., $2.95). Dale’s touching description of the life of son Sandy, the third child in the Roy Rogers family to die, conveys the power and greatness of God’s love in the lives of those who trust him.
To Understand Each Other, by Paul Tournier (John Knox, 1967, 63 pp., $2). Understanding—particularly between marriage partners—requires openness, courage, love, realization of differences, and primarily mutual submission to Jesus Christ. Helpful advice, says this Swiss physician, is incomplete without spiritual renewal.
At the Lord’s Table, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker, 1967, 141 pp., $2). Sermon-meditations from a Presbyterian minister on twenty-one aspects of the Lord’s Supper.
Herod: Profile of a Tyrant by Samuel Sandmel (Lippincott, 1967, 282 pp., $5.95). A detailed history by a Jewish scholar of Herod the Great, the ambitious and cruel despot best known for his slaughter of the innocents at the time of Christ’s birth.
Augsburg Historical Atlas of Christianity in the Middle Ages and the Reformation, by Charles S. Anderson (Augsburg, 1967, 68 pp., $7.50). Colorful maps and helpful explanations that trace a millennium of Christianity from Pope Gregory through the Thirty Years’ War.
Paperbacks
Are You Going to Church More But Enjoying It Less?, by Gary Freeman (R. B. Sweet, 1967, 260 pp., $2.95). Many of these concise, clever essays get right to the point of Christianity in contemporary life.
Christ’s Ambassadors: The Priority of Preaching, by Frank Colquhoun (Westminster, 1967, 93 pp., $1.45). The case for clear, biblical preaching incorporating both kerygma and didache is presented convincingly in this new addition to the “Christian Foundation Series.”
The Altizer-Montgomery Dialogue (Inter-Varsity Press, 1967, 96 pp., $.95). A complete transcript of the “death-of-God” debate between Thomas J. J. Altizer and John Warwick Montgomery at the University of Chicago, February 24, 1967.
Team Teaching in Christian Education by Frances M. Anderson (Evangelical Covenant Church of America, 1967, 92 pp., $1.25). The author says that team teaching—which requires greater effort from the teachers—stimulates pupil interest and participation and actually extends from koinonia (Christian fellowship).
