Visiting The Early Churchmen
Evangelism in the Early Church, by Michael Green (Eerdmans, 1970, 349 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Donald McGavran, dean of the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
This fascinating book will be read with profit all around the world. Principal Green of the London Divinity School has mined a broad vein of gold unaccountably neglected in the modern emphasis on evangelism and brought out rich treasures. The New Testament writers and the Fathers set forth in detail the vivid, ceaseless, and highly successful evangelism that created the fast-growing early Church, and Green spreads this out for all to see. He saves us from the naïve assumption that by the quality of its life, in the face of fierce persecution the Church of the first centuries conquered the Roman Empire without evangelism! In chapter after chapter, he sets forth the many ways in which the early Christians worked enthusiastically at propagating their religion. All this makes the Gospels and Epistles come alive.
Green is a first-rate scholar, conversant with but not overawed by the modern schools of New Testament thought. He is at home in the churches of the first four centuries. He has read what the best authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have written. Often he agrees with them, building on their insights and often he disagrees.
Green writes for modern readers. In discussing “conversion and the modern mind,” he says, “Conversion as practiced in the earliest Church raises certain problems for us today, of which the following three are, perhaps, the most common.…” Or again, “This is a salutory reminder in days like our own when Christians tend to be rather shy about the uniqueness of their religion.”
Excellent use is made of the writings of the Fathers. Illustration after illustration shows that these men were not merely theologians but rather flaming evangelists. For example, “It would be difficult to better the account of Gregory’s conversion through Origen. We are fortunate in being able to reconstruct a good deal of the story from their own writings.” A most interesting account, entirely germane to the twentieth century, follows. The volume is full of such nuggets. Green enriches his theme by extensive use of the experience of eminent leaders, converts, writers, and bishops of the first four centuries—Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, Justin, Cyprian, Augustine, Tatian, and many others.
Evangelizing the Jews, evangelizing the Gentiles, conversion, evangelistic methods, evangelistic motives, and evangelistic strategy—to name six of the ten chapter topics—are brilliantly set forth. The minister, layman, or missionary who wants to feed his mind on the practice of the early Church cannot do better than to read this book and then read his New Testament in the light of its widespread and effective evangelism.
Understandably, Green sees things from the European and American point of view. He does not see the enormous importance of the web of family relationships in the spread of the faith. He believes, with Roland Allen, that Paul went to the cities because they were strategically important, rather than—as seems more likely—because the Jews were a commercial people and lived there. Paul was simply following his contacts. For instance, those who became Christians in Thessalonica probably told him of daughters married into Jewish families in Corinth, assured him that he would be welcome there, and sent letters and gifts with him. To the Corinthian Jews, he came as a friend of the family!
Though Green correctly emphasizes that in the early Church laymen were by far the most numerous preachers, he curiously does not conclude that Luke not only heard Paul but himself must have preached those basic sermons hundreds of times. He told forth the Good News in its main emphases long before he wrote it down. This is, humanly speaking, the reason why sermons in Acts give “us access to a very old stratum of tradition.” They do indeed!
They were what all Christians had—from the beginning—said about Christ and the Christian way.
Speaking exactly, they do not “reflect an early tradition”—they are the very stuff itself. They are the evangelistic preaching as it existed from the beginning. The variant forms are adequately explained as alterations needed to fit Gentile and Jewish audiences.
This book should be on every preacher’s desk and go abroad with every missionary. It will furnish abundant illustrations for sermons and give biblical and theoretical depth to the greatly needed and currently spreading stress on evangelism and church growth.
Mere Psychological Illusion
Revolt Against the Faithful: A Biblical Case for Inspiration as Encounter, by Robert S. Alley (Lippincott, 1970, 192 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Clark H. Pinnock, professor of systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.
Here we have the declaration of war on the part of a Southern Baptist liberal, more honest and outspoken than most, upon the “faithful” who still believe in the biblical absolutes and persist in their conviction that the Christian faith has definable content worth preserving. It is a book born out of a polemical situation that has left the author bitter toward conservatives like Criswell, whose book is cited as frequently on the one side as the Bultmannian theologians are on the other. Though I myself was delighted to receive Alley’s invitation to join the Flat Earth Society (p. 167), it was more sobering to observe just how blind a writer can be—despite the trappings of scholarship—to the total vacuity and absurdity of his own position.
Christianity, it seems, is about a “free encounter” with divine reality that takes place within personal experience and is entirely contentless and self-authenticating. The major events of saving history are legendary, and the biblical teachings reflect only a first-century manner of looking at things. The Gospel according to Alley has to do with the realization of the full human potential, and all forms of orthodoxy in his opinion frustrate this goal. For Alley, this means the death of the entire factual and doctrinal structure of the Christian faith. His religion is an existential humanism in which man gives revelation to himself and salvation is from within.
Ironically, Alley, who wishes so fervently to argue a reasonable case against orthodoxy, has only succeeded in producing a meaningless book. There is no reason to regard his religious encounter as anything more than a psychological illusion, especially when his repudiation of the entire historical framework of Christianity is kept in mind. Feuerbach is waiting at the end of Alley’s present spiritual journey. And even if one is gentle toward his solipsistic fideism, it is only right to insist that “freedom” without “form” is impossible in art or theology. Alley’s absolute is that there are no absolutes. In this case he can criticize those who speak, but must remain totally speechless himself. (The full answer to Alley is the one given to Hebert in a similar debate: ‘Fundamentalism’ and the Word of God by J. I. Packer.)
In the preface, Alley darkly warns that unless his book is soon heeded, “there will be no future for our two boys within the Church.” We feel a deeper concern. The boys we can commend to a greater Father. Should this book be widely heeded, there will be no future for the Church. But in view of the powerful conservative sentiment remaining within the convention, it doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance.
Toward Effective Writing
Rhetoric: Discovery and Change, by R. E. Young, A. L. Becker, and K. L. Pike (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1970, 383 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Cheryl A. Forbes, a member of the staff ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY.
Dr. Kenneth L. Pike, professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan and a board member of Wycliffe Bible Translators, has collaborated with two professors of freshman rhetoric from the same university to write a textbook on rhetoric that they hope students will find both practical and imaginative. Dr. Pike provides the basic theory upon which the book is based, while the other two provide the praotical impetus and many interesting examples (often from their students’ work), bringing the discussion from the abstract to the concrete.
The authors define rhetoric in a way that is geared toward writing rather than public speaking. The traditional meaning is discarded in favor of what the authors feel is the classic meaning, that is, all processes involved in forceful expression. In their analysis, these processes include observation, thoughtful and evaluative choice, development, and editing. The goal is truth, and because of this, ethics enters the discussion, though the authors give no clear guidelines for ascertaining what is and what is not truth.
Each chapter deals with one aspect of the writing process. Emphasis is placed not so much on explanation as on example. There is stress also on the necessity that the student practice what each chapter pursues. Unlike many other writing textbooks, this one offers exercises that are imaginative and creative, designed to stimulate originality. The explanations are short and pointed, and are clearly strengthened by examples. The authors are not dogmatic; their analysis of the writing process is flexible and encourages the student to develop his own style.
Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is the final section, on editing. The authors are concerned with “focusing” (concentration on clarity and conciseness), continuity, and “loading” (expanding short, choppy sentences).
The purpose of the book is to help students form the habit of clear thinking, which is necessary not only for effective writing but also for apprehending truth. For these authors, that is the ultimate basis for any study of rhetoric: “Rhetoric enables you to enter the battle of the mind for it supplies the tools necessary for bringing about changes in the way men think—the way you think and the way others think.” The importance of this for Christians cannot be overestimated.
Newly Published
A Theology of the Holy Spirit, by Frederick Dale Bruner (Eerdmans, 1970, 390 pp., $8.95). Is the Pentecostal teaching on the experience of the Spirit in conformity with the New Testament teaching? Is Acts validly represented by Pentecostalism today? Should all Christians have the Pentecostal experience? This book, originally prepared for a doctorate from Hamburg by an evangelical seminary professor, is an attempt to answer such questions on the basis of a thorough investigation of both contemporary Pentecostalism (Paleo- and Neo-) and the New Testament.
Born to Lose, Bound to Win, by A. A. Allen with Walter Wagner (Doubleday, 1970, 202 pp., $4.95). Autobiography of a flamboyant, tongues-speaking evangelist. Allen’s claim that he “never sinned in any way” since his conversion is questionable, but the book is an interesting glimpse of unashamed Holy Rollerism.
How to Fight the Drug Menace, by William S. Garmon and Phil Strickland (Broadman, 1970, 127 pp., $1.50). Helpful essays of practical advice interspersed with short news reports, of various drug cases.
Sex, by Charles Murphy and Linda Day (Herder and Herder, 1970, 144 pp. and 63 pp., paperback, $2.45 and $1.75). A handbook for teen-agers and a teacher’s manual with such chapter titles as “What Is Sex?,” “Who Am I?,” “The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts,” and “God Is Love.”
Out of My Mind, by Joseph Bayly (Tyndale House, 1970, 192 pp., paperback, $1.95). These short essays taken from His and Eternity magazines are, the author says, “ ‘period pieces,’ the furniture of my mind over almost two decades.”
Of Love and Of Suffering, by Robert E. Fitch (Westminster, 1970, 176 pp., paperback, $2.75). Calling himself “a pious positivist … a devout agnostic,” the author thoroughly examines the ethics of love and suffering from a Christian standpoint; each chapter is based on several Bible passages. He concludes that an ethic of love requires belief in God as “the Lord of History, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Judge and Redeemer of mankind”; “an incarnate logos,” Christ as the embodiment of God’s love; and the immortality of the individual.
Religion, Language and Truth, by Leslie Dewart (Herder and Herder, 1970, 174 pp., $5.95). A valiant effort at a radical approach to theology via linguistics, but why choose Noam Chomsky’s theory of linguistics (one of the more traditional, currently) on which to build?
The Rich Christians and Poor Lazarus, by Helmut Gollwitzer (Macmillan, 1970, 108 pp., paperback, $1.45). An advocate of the kind of social action called for at Uppsala in 1968 by the World Council of Churches states his case, passionately. Sample chapter title: “Criticism of Society and Criticism of Capitalism as a Task of the Church.”
Pastoral Psychology, by Carlo A. Weber (Sheed and Ward, 1970, 160 pp., $6), and Where God Comes In, by William E. Crane (Word, 1970, 147 pp., $3.95). Here are two important books for all ministers concerned with counseling. In the first the author tries to show how an understanding of psychology is important in religious counseling, practical as well as theoretical; on the whole, he succeeds. The second is a reminder that without God’s Spirit no counseling will be effective. These two books, taken together, present a balanced outlook.
The Creation of Death and Life, by Rachel H. King (Philosophical Library, 1970, 444 pp., $8.95). Beginning with the second law of thermodynamics (“the belief that the over-all tendency of matter is toward … randomness, and action will cease”), the author presents a carefully reasoned attempt “to relate the over-all scientific view to the over-all biblical view of God and the world and men.”
English Church Music 1650–1750, by Christopher Dearnley (Oxford, 1970, 308 pp., $10). A lively, well-written discussion of the history of church music in the century following the Restoration; entertaining as well as informative.
Sect Ideologies and Social Status, by Gary Schwartz (Chicago, 1970, 260 pp., $9). A study, originally a Ph.D. dissertation, of Pentecostalism and Seventh-day Adventism that attempts to develop a general theory of the relation of belief to behavior.
Toward Creative Urban Strategy, compiled by George A. Torney (Word, 1970, 249 pp., $5.95). Practical essays by such men as Elton Trueblood, Walker Knight, and Stephen C. Rose telling what Christians can do about and to the inner city.
The Negro in America: A Bibliography originally compiled by Elizabeth W. Miller and enlarged by Mary L. Fisher (Harvard, 1970, 351 pp., $10). In this revised edition there are 6,500 entries, with valuable annotations and subject groupings—a tool with which all who want to know more about black Americans should be acquainted. Black religion, however, is under-represented.
Religion and Capitalism: Allies, Not Enemies, by Edmund A. Opitz (Arlington House, 1970, 318 pp., $7). At a time when so many writers argue that Christian belief demands the advocacy of socialism in some form, it is good to be reminded that there are alternatives.
Come, Fill the Cup, by Lee Bryant (Word, 1970, 207 pp., $4.95). Gripping account of the author’s fight against and ultimate conversion to Christianity.
Overcoming the Fear of Death, by David Cole Gordon (Macmillan, 1970, 115 pp., $3.95). A badly written attempt to simplify a complex problem, succeeding only in being prosaic.
Some of the above books will later be reviewed at greater length.
In The Journals
“How Does Revelation Occur?,” by Bernard Ramm, Spectrum, Winter, 1970, pp. 7–32 (Box 866, Loma Linda, Calif. 92354; single copy $3). Includes responses by three Adventist Theologians. “Christianity and Public Policy,” four articles by four Adventists, Spectrum, Summer, 1970, pp. 23–70. Thoughtful articles from a religious group known rather for its social service than for its social action.
“Recent Work on Old Testament Prophets,” by H. L. Ellison, The Churchman, Summer, 1970, pp. 115–25 (7 Wine Office Ct., Fleet St., London, E.C. 4; single copy $.80). “Trends in Pentateuchal Criticism Since 1950,” by G. J. Wenham, The Churchman, Autum, 1970, pp. 210–20. Good Surveys.
“Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History,” by Wayne Ham, Courage, September, 1970, pp. 15–22 (106 E. South, Lamoni, Iowa 50140; single copy $1.50). A man who until very recently was a religious-education leader in the second-largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement concludes that loyal members should be able to “read the book as a product of the American frontier and honor it as an interesting artifact.…” Courage is evidence of Mormon liberalism.
