The Epistle to Philemon has been generally recognized by the church as worthy of a valued place in the New Testament canon. Its contribution to our knowledge of Paul’s character and gifts and its own grace and cultivation have been treasured and celebrated. The work of a Christian gentleman, it is suffused with considerateness, tactfulness, graciousness, and warmth of affection, and it is undergirded by apostolic firmness and authority. The book is moving and forceful, all the more so because of its brevity. It has been carefully studied for information about the bearing of the Gospel upon master-slave relationships and upon the institution of slavery itself.

GENUINENESS

The authority of Philemon and its Pauline authorship were recognized from the beginning. It was, of course, received as an authoritative communication from the apostle Paul by Philemon and the others in the church in his house, and there is no indication that its origin and character were subsequently forgotten or successfully challenged. Defences of it by Jerome and others indicate some opposition to and difficulty with the epistle, but it has triumphed through the years over all challengers. The earliest example in extant patristic literature of the use of Philemon may be in Ignatius’ epistle to the Ephesians. Professor John Knox has maintained that there is striking evidence of a literary connection between these two works (see Philemon Among the Letters of Paul, 1959, p. 98 ff.). Possible other early reflections of Philemon occur in Ignatius’ epistle to the Magnesians, XII, and in his epistle to Polycarp, VI. Marcion included it in his collection. Tertullian refers to it in his work against Marcion (V: XXI), and remarks that the brevity of the epistle protected it from the latter’s falsifying manipulation. Origen quotes it as Paul’s. It is included in the Muratorian canon, in ancient versions of the New Testament, and was recognized by Eusebius as an undisputed book. The internal evidence of genuineness is quite strong. The style is manifestly Pauline, that is, the author clearly reflected in its form and substance is Paul; its close and wholly natural agreements or connections with other epistles, notably with Colossians, constitute a powerful testimony of its genuineness and theirs (see John Knox, op. cit., p. 33 ff.).

Opposition to Philemon in modern times has not been very plausible or successful. F. C. Baur rejected it as he did most of the other epistles of Paul in the interests of his thoroughly discredited reconstruction of early Christian history; but even he realized that in rejecting it he might appear to be guilty of hyper-criticism. Only a negative criticism which has lost practically all touch with revelation and reality could persuade itself that Philemon is not genuine. Even among nonconservative scholars its genuineness is granted today.

PLACE OF COMPOSITION

Paul was a prisoner at the time he wrote Philemon (vv. 1, 9, 10, 13, 23). As has been indicated, Philemon is closely connected with other epistles, especially Colossians. Timothy is mentioned along with Paul in the opening of both epistles. Those who send greetings at the end of Philemon are said also to send greetings at the end of Colossians. Archippus is among those addressed in Philemon, and a command is directed to Archippus in Colossians 4:17. Philemon was written to go with Onesimus on his return to his master. According to Colossians 4:7–9, Onesimus was to accompany Tychicus to Colossae. Tychicus, it will be remembered, was likewise sent to those addressed in Ephesians (Eph. 6:21–22). (See Knox, op. cit., pp. 34–55.) It should be clear that Philemon and Colossians were written in the same place and at about the same time. Ephesians and Philippians, also prison epistles, were likewise written about the same time and in the same place. The traditional view is that these four epistles were written in Rome during Paul’s first imprisonment there. Less plausible are the suppositions that Philemon was written in Caesarea or in Ephesus. (For a discussion of the problem see C. F. D. Moule: The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians and to Philemon, 1957, pp. 21–25.)

INTERPRETATIONS OF PHILEMON

Philemon has commonly been interpreted as follows: Paul wrote the epistle in behalf of a Phrygian slave Onesimus who had run away from his well-to-do master Philemon, perhaps after having stolen from him. Onesimus had in some fashion come into contact with Paul during the apostle’s first Roman imprisonment, and had been converted and transformed from an unprofitable slave to a useful Christian brother. Although he had become highly serviceable and dear to Paul, and the apostle would have liked to have retained him, it was necessary that he be sent back to his master, that forgiveness be sought from him, and that obligations be met. In the letter Paul asks that Onesimus be received by his master as a Christian brother. Despite the fact that Philemon owes his own self to the apostle, Paul offers to make restitution for loss that Philemon may have suffered. Paul has confidence that Philemon will do more than he asks—and some would take this to mean that Philemon will grant Onesimus his freedom. The letter is sent with Tychicus and Onesimus to Colossae (Col. 4:7–9).

A fascinating interpretation of the situation which produced Philemon and secured its admission into the corpus of acknowledged Pauline epistles has been advanced by Professor John Knox in his book Philemon Among the Letters of Paul (see also his Introduction and Exegesis for Philemon in The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. XI). Not every point in Knox’s hypothesis may be new, but the total reconstruction is marked by originality and forcefulness. Regrettably it is intimately connected with a faulty conception of early Christian history and of the formation of the New Testament canon. The validity, however, of certain positions taken does not rest upon the validity of the context in which Knox places them.

In Philemon, as Knox sees it, Paul is really requesting something for himself. In verse 10 Paul is asking for Onesimus, not simply in behalf of him. What he desires is that Onesimus be sent back to him by Philemon for the service of the Gospel. The letter from Laodicea referred to in Colossians 4:16 is taken to be Philemon. The master of Onesimus is not Philemon but rather Archippus, who is considered to be a resident of Colossae and head of the household referred to in Philemon. To Archippus rather than to Philemon the body of the letter is directed. The “service” of Archippus, mentioned in Colossians 4:17, was to return Onesimus to Paul for the apostle’s use in spreading the Gospel. Philemon himself may have been a resident of Laodicea and overseer of the churches in the Lycus valley. The epistle was sent first to Philemon at Laodicea; from there Onesimus and the epistle proceeded to Archippus and the church at Colossae, which was under Philemon’s oversight. In Knox’s view Onesimus was released by Archippus, went on to a career of distinguished service, became bishop of Ephesus, is frequently mentioned in Ignatius’ epistle to the Ephesians in a section of the epistle in which very significant use is made of the epistle to Philemon. Knox would suggest that Onesimus was concerned in the publication of a body of Paul’s letters at Ephesus, and that because of his special interest in Philemon, the letter to him was included. Ephesians, which, according to Knox’s view, drew notably on Colossians, another epistle of special interest to Onesimus, was composed to head the collection. In all this Onesimus was providing “devoted ‘service’ ” and was of continuing usefulness to Paul. Marcion’s supposed employment of this Ephesian corpus of Paul’s letters is magnified: Marcion’s use of this corpus and his making it the larger portion of a new “Bible” “gave the decisive impulse toward the formation of the New Testament, as a second formal and authorized canon” (op. cit., p. 108). In this development Knox would find an explanation for the prominence of Paul’s writings in the New Testament. He conceives that if his reconstruction should be found valid, Philemon might well be from the viewpoint of the history of the New Testament canon “the most significant single book in the New Testament—the living link between the Pauline career and the Pauline tradition, between the letters of Paul and the New Testament of the Church” (idem).

Although one must disagree for substantial reasons with Knox’s view of the large contribution which Onesimus is conceived to have made via Marcion in the formation of the canon of the New Testament, there is no decisive objection to the identification which he favors of the Onesimus of Philemon with the Onesimus of Ignatius’ epistle to the Ephesians. It is, of course, conceivable that the influence and eminence of Onesimus might have been a factor in the recognition and preservation of Philemon by some, but the epistle has intrinsic marks of inspiration and authority that command the recognition of God’s people. It is not merely an informal private letter to be preserved at least chiefly because of personal interest, but it is a communication which for all its tenderness and particularity is rather formal and dignified, being addressed to a church as well as to individuals. Although not a tractate, it is concerned with a problem of more than local and passing interest. The date proposed by Knox for the publication of Paul’s letters, like the dates which he assigns to a number of New Testament books, is much too late. The suggestion that Paul is appealing to Onesimus’ master for the slave that he may be free for the service of the Gospel is attractive and compatible with the language used by Paul, although it is not demonstrably right. It is interesting to observe that the more that Paul actually? and plainly requests in verse 10, the less there remains for Philemon to do in addition (v. 21). On this point we consider the position which Knox takes in his exegesis of Philemon in The Interpreter’s Bible ad loc. That Paul is addressing himself chiefly to Archippus in the epistle, rather than to Philemon, is hard to credit. The mention of Philemon first (verse 1) gives him a natural claim which Knox’s argumentation cannot overthrow. The position that Philemon is the “letter from Laodicea” likewise does not compel conviction (see C. F. D. Moule, op. cit., p. 17 f.). The “service” or “ministry” of Archippus mentioned in Colossians 4:17 (“Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it”) is plausibly interpreted more broadly than Knox’s interpretation. Whatever this “service” may have been, whether the reference was to the performance of the work of a deacon, an elder, evangelist or to something else (see J. B. Lightfoot: Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 1927, p. 307), it does not appear to be only one proposed act of service. The restrictive relative clause that follows the word “ministry”—“which thou hast received in the Lord”—best applies to a service previously assigned.

ANALYSIS OF PHILEMON

Address (1–3). The structure of the address or salutation of Philemon is threefold. As in the other epistles of Paul and in secular letters of the day there is first a nominative section, in which the name of the author is given; then a dative section, in which the destination of the letter is announced; and finally a section of greeting. The address of a Pauline epistle does differ from that of the typical secular letter of that time, not only in length and variety but also in its Christian character.

The first word of Philemon is an assertion of authorship. Paul then proceeds to describe himself as a “prisoner of Christ Jesus.” He does not need to stress his apostleship here as he had to do in Galatians, and his desire is to beseech rather than to enjoin (8–9, and see Lightfoot, op. cit., on verse 1). The suffering of Paul for the Lord as indicated by the words “prisoner of Christ Jesus” might well move Philemon and cause him to realize how small by comparison would be the personal loss which his granting of Paul’s request would entail (cf. Lightfoot and C. F. D. Moule ad loc.). Paul regards his imprisonment as a privilege, since it is from the Lord and for His praise and the Gospel’s sake (cf. Phil. 1:29).

The dative section mentions Philemon first, for he is the person chiefly addressed in the epistle. Paul affectionately describes him as beloved and fellow-worker, a term used of one who labored with the apostle for the advancement of the Gospel and in the care of the churches. Philemon was a resident of Colossae (cf. Col. 4:9). He was converted through Paul’s instrumentality (v. 19), probably in Ephesus, and made an effective testimony by his life of genuine Christian love. He was a man of means and of generosity. His house was open to the church. Apphia the sister, the second person addressed, may have been the wife of Philemon, and Archippus, the third person addressed, may possibly have been their son. As was noted above, Archippus exercised a ministry (Col. 4:17). The fact that he is mentioned in Colossians 4:17 right after the reference to Laodicea by no means indicates that he was a resident of Laodicea. From his close association with Philemon in the address of this epistle he would seem, like Philemon, to have been a resident of Colossae. Paul describes him as “our fellow-soldier” (cf. Phil. 2:25 and see Knox, op. cit., p. 67 ff.). The typically Pauline greeting, in which grace and peace are represented as coming from both God and our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, concludes the salutation.

Thanksgiving (4–7). A section of thanksgiving, characteristically Pauline, follows the address. The Christian grace and the devoted activity of Philemon provide a firm basis and warm encouragement for thanksgiving and rejoicing. One who is of such exemplary character as Philemon would respond favorably to such a request as the apostle is about to make of him.

The Appeal ofPhilemon (8–21). Rather than command, Paul on account of love entreats Philemon. Paul the aged (or possibly “ambassador”) beseeches him (cf. Eph. 6:20, and see Lightfoot ad loc.; Edgar J. Goodspeed: Problems of New Testament Translation, 1945, pp. 185–187; and James Hope Moulton and Wilbert Francis Howard: A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. II, 1929, pp. 86 f.).

Paul had been instrumental in the conversion of Onesimus, to whom he refers in verse 10 as “my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds” (cf. 1 Cor. 4:15). The name “Onesimus” means “useful,” “helpful,” “profitable.” The form which is employed here is possibly to be rendered “as Onesimus.” Paul, reflecting on the meaning of the name, might be saying that he has begotten the slave as a useful person, as a true Onesimus. In verse 11 Paul plays on the meaning of the name “Onesimus.” He whose name means “useless,” but now to both Paul and Philemon he is “useful.” Paul (v. 12) sends Onesimus back to Philemon (cf. Knox, op. cit., p. 25), to be received “as himself”—a “new Onesimus—Onesimus really himself” (idem). The affection of Paul for the converted slave is expressed in the warmest terms: he refers to Onesimus as his heart, “mine own bowels” (AV), my very heart” (ERV).

Paul’s inclination was to keep Onesimus with him in order that Onesimus in behalf of Philemon or in Philemon’s place might minister to him in the bonds of the Gospel (v. 13). But he determined not to do anything without Philemon’s consent in order that the latter’s goodness (or benefit or favor) might not be of necessity or compulsion (v. 14).

Perhaps Onesimus had departed (v. 15) for a short time that Philemon might receive him in full (or “permanently,” see Moule ad loc). But Paul has in mind (v. 16) Onesimus’ being received not as a slave but as more than a slave, a brother beloved, a fellow Christian, dear to Paul but even more to Philemon. If Philemon holds Paul as a close friend, Paul would have him receive Onesimus as he would himself (v. 17).

Paul gives his bond that if Onesimus has wronged Philemon or has caused him loss, if he owes him anything—Paul himself affirms it in his own handwriting—he will make restitution. This is not to mention the fact that Philemon owes Paul his own self (vv. 18–19)! Then addressing Onesimus as brother (v. 20), the apostle employs a verbal form resembling the name “Onesimus,” indeed a form of the verb from which “Onesimus” is descended: Let me have profit or joy from you in the Lord. He would have Philemon refresh his heart (his bowels) in the Lord (cf. vv. 7 and 12). Paul expresses confidence (v. 21) in Philemon’s obedience and says that he knows that Philemon will do more than he says. The “more” could very well be the manumission of Onesimus that he might freely serve in the cause of the Gospel and refresh Paul’s heart (as Philemon had refreshed the hearts of the saints). Paul would have Philemon prepare a room for him. His hope is to be released from imprisonment and to be granted to Philemon and the others addressed through their prayers (v. 22).

Conclusion. As is Paul’s custom, he sends greetings. Epaphras, Paul’s fellow-prisoner, and Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke his fellow-workers are mentioned. The apostle concludes with a benediction (v. 25).

JOHN H. SKILTON

Professor of New Testament

Westminster Theological Seminary

A BASIC LIBRARY LIST FOR THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTIONS AND MINISTERS

In addition to representing evangelical traditions, a minister’s library should also include encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, lexicons, Bible texts and versions, and works in the area of patristics; and representative works from Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, humanist, liberal and dialectical viewpoints.

The list is not a catalogue of the only works desirable in a ministerial study, but aims rather to guarantee representation for literature from an evangelical point of view. Its special concentration is on biblical and doctrinal disciplines. This perhaps accounts for the fact that the Reformed tradition predominates in the choices, although other traditions are not excluded. The list is limited to works in English.

The arrangement under respective headings is not alphabetical by authors except where convenient. In the section on commentaries, for example, the order, after the complete sets, follows that of the books of the Bible. Although a minimal list of subject headings is employed, convenient categories are inserted within these headings. For example, under Systematic Theology the list repeats the usual order of introduction (doctrine of Scripture); complete theologies; the doctrines of God, man, Christ, salvation, the Church, and the last things.

Some additional bibliographical helps may be useful for further research. Among these are: A Bibliography of Bible Study; A Bibliography of Systematic Theology; A Bibliography of Practical Theology (Princeton, N.J.: Theological Seminary Library, 1948 and 1949). This series gives ample recognition to evangelical productions. Essential Books for a Pastor’s Library (Richmond, Va.: Union Theological Seminary, 1960, Third edition) gives fair recognition for evangelical literature. The Seminary Review, II/4 Summer 1956 (Cincinnati Bible Seminary publication, 45 pages) is a very evangelical list. A Bibliography for Pastors and Theological Students (Fort Worth: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1951) and Wilbur M. Smith’s A Treasury of Books for Bible Study (Wilde, 1960, 289 pages) fit this category also.

REFERENCE WORKS

ANDERSON, J. N. D., The World’s Religions (Second edition). London: The Tyndale Press, 1951. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 208 pages, $3.

HARRISON, EVERETT F., editor-in-chief, Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960, 566 pages, $8.95.

M’CLINTOCK, JOHN, 1814–1870, and STRONG, JAMES, 1822–1894, editors, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. New York: Harper, 1867–1891, 12 volumes.

MAYER, FREDERICK EMANUEL, 1892–1954, The Religious Bodies of America (Third revised edition). St. Louis: Concordia, 1958, xiii, 591 pages, $8.50.

NEVE, JUERGEN LUDWIG, 1865–1943, Churches and Sects of Christendom. Blair (Neb.): Lutheran Publishing House, 1940, 634 pages, $5.

VAN BAALEN, J. K., The Chaos of Cults (Third revised and enlarged edition). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960, 409 pages, $3.95.

COLLECTED WRITINGS

LUTHER, MARTIN, 1483–1546, Works (selections only) to be published in 56 volumes; 13 volumes had appeared by Jan. 1, 1960. General editor, Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. St. Louis: Concordia (and Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press), 1955—, approximately $4 to $6 per volume. The definitive Weimar edition of Luthers Werke has reached 83 volumes in 97 parts, with more to appear.

LUTHER, MARTIN, What Luther Says. An indexed anthology. Editor, Ewald M. Plass. St. Louis: Concordia, 1959, 3 volumes, $25.

SIMONS, MENNO, 1492–1559, The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, Edited by J. C. Wenger. Scottdale (Pa.): Herald Press, 1956, 1104 pages, $8.75.

CALVIN, JOHN, 1509–1564, Collected writings: The Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 volumes, $7.50); Commentaries (45 volumes, $150); Tracts (3 volumes, $15); Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949–59. The definitive edition is Opera quae supersunt omnia, editors, Baum, Cunitz and Reuss. Brunswick, 1863–1900, 59 volumes.

SMITH, HENRY, 1550–1591, The Works of Henry Smith. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1866–67.

ARMINIUS, JACOBUS, 1560–1609, The Works of James Arminius. 3 volumes. The first and second translated from the Latin by James Nichol; the third with sketch of life of the author, by the Rev. W. R. Bagnall. Auburn and Buffalo: Derby, Muller & Orton, 1853, (also complete works published in London, 1825, 1828, 1875, rare).

SIBBES, RICHARD, 1577–1635, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, D.D. Edited with memoir by Alexander Balloch Grosart. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1862–1864, 7 volumes. Out of print.

GOODWIN, THOMAS, 1600–1680, The Works of Thomas Goodwin. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1861–66, 12 volumes.

BROOKS, THOMAS, 1608–1680, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1866–67, 6 volumes.

ADAMS, THOMAS, 1612–1653, The Works of Thomas Adams. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1861–62, 3 volumes.

OWEN, JOHN, 1616–1683, The Works of John Owen. Edited by William H. Good. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark (and Johnstone & Hunter), 1850–62, 24 volumes. Out of print. The American edition of only 17 volumes, also out of print, is incomplete. It is greatly to be desired that the works of Owen, greatest of the Puritans, be reprinted from the carefully edited Edinburgh set.

CLARKSON, DAVID, 1622–1687, The Practical Works of David Clarkson. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1864–65, 3 volumes.

SWINNOCK, GEORGE, 1627–1673, The Works of George Swinnock. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1868, 5 volumes.

CHARNOCK, STEPHEN, 1628–1680, The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock, B.D., Edited by Thomas Smith. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1864–1866, 5 volumes.

EDWARDS, JONATHAN, 1703–1758, Works (Eighth edition). New York: Robert Carter, 1881, 4 volumes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–59, 2 volumes.

WESLEY, JOHN, 1703–1791, The Works of John Wesley. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959, 14 volumes, $59.50.

WARFIELD, BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE, 1851–1921, Writings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1927–32, 10 volumes. Out of print. The Warfield Collection. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1948–56, 5 volumes, $20.

Parker Society for the publication of the works of the fathers and early writers of the reformed English Church. Cambridge, England: University Press, 1841–55, 55 volumes: Vol. 19–20, Works of Thomas Cranmer, 1844–46; Vol. 29–32, Works of John Jewel, 1845–50; Vol. 42, Works of Nicholas Ridley, 1841; Vol. 45, William Tyndale, “An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue,” 1850; Vol. 46, William Tyndale, “Doctrinal treatises,” 1848; Vol. 47, William Tyndale, “Exposition and notes on sundry portions of the Holy Scriptures,” 1849.

Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster Press: Vol. 10, Fairweather, Eugene R., editor and translator, A Scholastic Miscellany—Anselm to Ockham, 1956, 457 pages; Vol. 14, Spinka, Matthew, editor, Advocates of Reform—from Wyclif to Erasmus, 1953, 399 pages; Vol. 18, Luther, Martin, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, edited and translated by Theodore G. Tappen, 1955, 367 pages; Vol. 23, Calvin, Jean, Commentaries-Writings, translated and edited by Joseph Haroutunian in collaboration with Louise Pettibone Smith, 1958, 414 pages; Vol. 24, Zwingli, Ulrich, 1484–1531, Zwingli and Bullinger, selected translations with introduction and notes by G. W. Bromiley, 1953, 364 pages; Vol. 25, Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, edited by George H. Williams and Angel M. Mergal, 1957, 421 pages.

GENERAL BIBLICAL STUDIES

BERKHOF, LOUIS, 1873–1957, Principles of Biblical Interpretation; Sacred Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1950, 169 pages, $2.95.

Bible Commentary. St. Louis: Concordia, 1952—. A new series in process by scholars of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, of which there have appeared Jeremiah and Minor Prophets (Theodore Laetsch) and Luke (William F. Arndt), $6.50 per volume.

DAVIDSON, FRANCIS, editor, The New Bible Commentary (Second revised edition). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 1199 pages, $6.95.

DAVIS, JOHN D., 1854–1926, A Dictionary of the Bible (Fourth revised edition). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1954, 840 pages, $5.95.

FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, 1805–1874, Hermeneutical Manual. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1858, xii, 480 pages. Out of print.

FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, editor, The Imperial Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957–58, 6 volumes, $19.95.

FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, The Typology of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2 volumes in one, $6.95.

HENRY, CARL F. H., editor, The Biblical Expositor. Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Co., 1960, 3 volumes, $6.95 each.

MORGAN, G. CAMPBELL, 1863–1945, The Analyzed Bible. New York: Revell, 1907–08, 3 volumes. Out of print.

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908–1914. 13 volumes. Reprint by Baker Book House with two additional volumes, also called Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (editor, Lefferts A. Loetscher), 1955.

ORR, JAMES, 1844–1913, general editor, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Melvin Grove Kyle, revising editor. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939. 5 volumes. $35.

SAUER, ERICH, The Dawn of World Redemption and The Triumph of the Crucified. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, 208 pages each, $3 each.

TERRY, MILTON S., 1840–1914, Biblical Hermeneutics. New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1893, new edition, 511 pages.

TURNER, GEORGE A., editor, The Evangelical Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956 ff., Mark by Ralph Earle, 320 pages, $3.95; Acts by C. Carter and R. Earle, 1959, 435 pages, $6.95.

Vos, GEERHARDUS, 1862–1949, Biblical Theology, Old and New Testaments (edited by Johannes G. Vos). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 453 pages, $5.

OLD TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION AND THEOLOGY

KEIL, JOHANN FRIEDRICH KARL, 1807–1888, Manual of Historico-Critical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament (Translated by G. C. M. Douglas). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 2 volumes, $7.

OEHLER, GUSTAV FRIEDRICH, 1812–1872, Theology of the Old Testament. (Fourth edition), revised by George E. Day. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1892. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, xix, 593 pages, $5.

UNGER, MERRILL F., Introductory Guide to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1951, 420 pages, $4.95.

YOUNG, EDWARD J., An Introduction to the Old Testament (Seventh edition). Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1958, 456 pages, $5.

YOUNG, EDWARD J., The Study of Old Testament Theology Today. (London: James Clarke). New York: Revell, 1959, 112 pages, $2.

OLD TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES

KEIL, JOHANN FRIEDRICH KARL, 1807–1888, and Delitzsch, Franz, 1813–1890, Commentaries on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949–50, 25 volumes, $82.50.

HENGSTENBERG, ERNST WILHELM, 1802–1869, Christology of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1956, 4 volumes, $25.

GIRDLESTONE, R. B., 1836–1923, Synonyms of the Old Testament. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, xiv, 346 pages, $3.50.

ALLIS, OSWALD T., The Five Books of Moses; a Re-examination of the Modern Theory that the Pentateuch is a Late Compilation … (Second edition). Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1949, xii, 355 pages, $4.25.

FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, 1805–1874, The Revelation of Law in Scripture. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957, xii, 484 pages, $2.50.

GREEN, WILLIAM H., 1825–1900, The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch. New York: Scribner’s, 1895, xiv, 184 pages.

GREEN, WILLIAM H., The Unity of the Book of Genesis. New York: Scribner’s, 1895, xviii, 583 pages.

CANDLISH, ROBERT SMITH, 1806–1873, Commentary on Genesis. Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1868. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2 volumes, $10.95.

LEUPOLD, HERBERT C., Exposition of Genesis. Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1942, 1220 pages, $7.

KELLOGG, S. H., 1839–1899, The Book of Leviticus (Expositor’s Bible). New York: Armstrong, 1891, 566 pages. Available in Eerdmans reprint.

THIELE, EDWIN R., The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings; a Reconstruction of the Chronology of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951, xxi, 298 pages, $6.

ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON, 1809–1860, The Psalms, Translated and Explained. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1955, 564 pages, $6.95.

HENGSTENBERG, ERNST WILHELM, Commentary on the Psalms (Second edition, revised, translated by John Thomson and Patrick Fairbairn). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1864, 3 volumes. Out of print.

LEUPOLD, HERBERT C., Exposition of the Psalms. Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1959, 1010 pages, $8.75.

SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON, 1837–1892, The Treasury of David (unabridged). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 6 volumes, $29.75.

LEUPOLD, HERBERT C., Exposition of Ecclesiastes. Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1953, 304 pages, $4.50.

YOUNG, EDWARD J., My Servants the Prophets. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 231 pages, $3.

ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON, Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953, 2 volumes in one, $8.95.

YOUNG, EDWARD J., Studies in Isaiah. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1954, 206 pages, $2.50.

FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, Ezekiel and the Book of His Prophec; an Exposition (Fourth edition). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1876, vii, 504 pages. Out of print.

HENGSTENBERG, ERNST WILHELM, The Prophecies of the Prophet Ezekiel (Translated by A. C. and J. G. Murphy). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1869, vi, 538 pages. Out of print.

LEUPOLD, HERBERT C., Exposition of Daniel. Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1946, 549 pages, $5.

PUSEY, EDWARD B., 1800–1882, Daniel, the Prophet. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1885, 519 pages.

WILSON, ROBERT DICK, 1856–1930, Studies in the Book of Daniel (First and second series). New York: Revell, 1917–1938, 2 volumes. Out of print.

YOUNG, EDWARD J., The Prophecy of Daniel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 330 pages, $4.50.

PUSEY, EDWARD B.The Minor Prophets. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1885, 2 volumes.

MARTIN, HUGH, 1821–1885, The Prophet Jonah; his Character and Mission to Nineveh (Third edition). Edinburgh: James Gemmell, 1889, vii, 307 pages (Fort Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature Crusade, $3.25).

MAIER, WALTER ARTHUR, 1893–1950, The Book of Nahum; a Commentary. St. Louis: Concordia, 1959, 386 pages, $5.75.

LEUPOLD, HERBERT C., Exposition of Zechariah. Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1956, 280 pages, $4.50.

NEW TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION AND THEOLOGY

PURVES, GEORGE TYBOUT, 1852–1901, Christianity in the Apostolic Age. New York: Scribner’s, 1901; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1955, xx, 343 pages, $3.

TENNEY, MERRILL C., The New Testament; an Historical and Analytic Survey (Second edition). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 474 pages, $5.

THIESSEN, HENRY CLARENCE, 1885–1947, Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, xx, 347 pages, $3.50.

WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS, bp., 1825–1901, AMIntroduction to the Study of the Gospels (Sixth edition). London: Macmillan, 1881, xxvii, 492 pages. Out of print.

WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament. London: Macmillan, 1896, xxvi, 554 pages. Out of print.

ZAHN, THEODOR VON, 1838–1933, Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1953, 3 volumes, $17.50.

NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES

ALFORD, HENRY, 1810–1871, The Greek Testament, with a Critically Revised Text … and a Critical and Exegetical Commentary (with revision by Everett F. Harrison). Chicago: Moody Press, 1958, 4 volumes in two, $20.

HENDRIKSEN, WILLIAM, New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953—, 4 volumes have appeared; the series is planned with 14 volumes.

LENSKI, RICHARD C., 1864–1936, Commentary on the New Testament. Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 12 volumes, $58.25.

STONEHOUSE, NED B., General editor, The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950—, to be completed in 17 volumes, of which eight had appeared by Jan. 1, 1960.

TASKER, R. V. G., editor, The Tyndale Bible Commentaries. New Testament series. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957—, 9 volumes had appeared by May 1, 1960.

TRENCH, RICHARD C., 1807–1886, Synonyms of the New Testament (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948, 405 pages, $3.50.

BROADUS, JOHN ALBERT, 1827–1895, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 51 & 610 pages, $3.50.

PLUMMER, ALFRED, 1841–1926, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew. New York: Scribner’s, 1909, 451 pages, Eerdmans reprint, $5.

LLOYD-JONES, D. MARTYN, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1959—. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959—, Volume I, 1959, $4.50.

ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON, Commentary on the Gospel of Mark. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956, xxiii, 444 pages, $5.95.

SWETE, HENRY B., 1835–1927, The Gospel According to St. Mark. London: Macmillan, 1902, cxx, 434 pages. Reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, $6.

GODET, FREDERIC, 1812–1900, A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Translated from the French. Reprint). Grand Rapids: Zondervan. n.d., 2 volumes, $9.95.

PLUMMER, ALFRED, ACritical and Exegetical Commentary on … Luke (I.C.C.) (Fourth edition). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906, lxxxviii, 592 pages, $6.

GODET, FREDERICK, Commentary on the Gospel of John(Reprint). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1955, 3 volumes in two, $11.95.

WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS, 1825–1901, The Gospel According to St. John; the Greek Text, with Introduction and Notes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 2 volumes in one, $10.

ANDREWS, SAMUEL J., 1817–1906, The Life of Our Lord upon the Earth. (Many editions). New York: Scribner’s, 1893, 651 pages.

EDERSHEIM, ALFRED, 1825–1889, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1957, 2 volumes, $12.50.

GOOD, JOHN WALTER, The Jesus of Our Fathers. New York: Macmillan, 1923, xv, 842 pages.

MACHEN, J. GRESHAM, 1881–1937, The Virgin Birth of Christ. New York: Harper, 1930, 425 pages, $5.

RAMSAY, WILLIAM M., 1851–1939, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? New York: Putnam, 1898, xii, 280 pages.

SMITH, WILBUR M., The Supernaturalness of Christ. Boston: Wilde, 1941, xviii, 235 pages, $2.50.

MARTIN, HUGH, 1821–1885, The Shadow of Calvary: Gethsemane, the Arrest, the Trial. Glasgow: Publications Committee of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 1954, 298 pages, 17/.

SCHILDER, KLASS, 1890–1952, Christ on Trial; Christ in His Suffering; Christ Crucified. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1938–40, 3 volumes, $10.

STONEHOUSE, NED B., The Witness of Matthew and Mark (and of Luke) to Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958, 2 volumes, $6.

TRENCH, RICHARD C., archbp., Notes on the Parables of Our Lord (and Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord). (London: Macmillan) New York: Revell, 2 volumes, $6.50.

Vos, GEERHARDUS, 1862–1949, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus; the Modern Debate about the Messianic Consciousness. Edited by Johannes G. Vos. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 311 pages, $4.

Vos, GEERHARDUS, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom and the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, 103 pages, $2.

ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956, 2 volumes in one, $12.95.

BRUCE, F. F., The Acts of the Apostles; the Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary. London: The Tyndale Press, 1951. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, viii, 491 pages, $6.

RACKHAM, RICHARD, The Acts of the Apostles. London: Methuen, 1906, cxvi, 524 pages.

CONEYBEARE, WILLLIAM JOHN, 1815–1857, and HOWSON, JOHN SAUL, 1816–1885, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul (many editions). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949, 2 volumes in one, $5.

ELLIS, E. EARLE, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, xii, 204 pages, $3.

MACHEN, J. GRESHAM, The Origin of Paul’s Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1923 (now Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 329 pages, $3.

RAMSAY, WILLIAM M., The Cities of St. Paul. New York: Armstrong, 1908, xv, 452 pages. St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen. New York: Putnam, 1896, xviii, 394 pages. The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913, 450 pages.

GODET, FREDERIC, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956, 545 pages, $6.95.

HALDANE, ROBERT, 1764–1842, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (various editions). Grand Rapids: Kregel, 660 pages, $5.95.

HODGE, CHARLES, 1797–1878, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, 716 pages, $5.

LIDDON, HENRY PARRY, 1829–1890, Explanatory Analysis of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Third edition). London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1897, vi, 306 pages. Out of print.

SHEDD, W. G. T., 1820–1894, A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary upon … Romans. New York: Scribner’s, 1879, x, 439 pages.

GODET, FREDERIC, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957, 2 volumes, $9.90.

HODGE, CHARLES, An Exposition of the First (and of the Second) Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, 2 volumes, $7.50.

EADIE, JOHN, 1810–1876, A Commentary upon the Greek Text of the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (and Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians reprinted. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, $4.95 to $6.95 per volume.

LIGHTFOOT, JOSEPH BARBER, bp, 1828–1889, Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 3 volumes, published separately at $4.50 each.

LUTHER, MARTIN, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (A revised and completed translation). London: James Clarke & Co., 1953, 569 pages, Westwood (N. J.): Revell, $5.

HODGE, CHARLES, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, 398 pages, $4.

WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. London: Macmillan, 1906, lxviii, 212 pages. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, $5.

FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956, ix, 451 pages, $5.95.

SIMPSON, E. K., The Pastoral Epistles. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 173 pages, $4.

GOUGH, WILLIAM, 1575–1643, A Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews. Edinburgh: James Nisbet, 1866, 3 volumes.

OWEN, JOHN, 1616–1683, Hebrews: The Epistle of Warning. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1862, 7 volumes.

WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS, The Epistle to the Hebrews; the Greek Text, with Notes and Essays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, lxxxiv, 506 pages, $6.

MANTON, THOMAS, 1620–1677, Exposition of The Epistle of James. Evansville (Ind.): Sovereign Grace Book Club, viii, 454 pages, $5.95.

MAYOR, JOSEPH BICKERSTETH, 1828–1916, The Epistle of St. James; the Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Comments (Third edition, revised). London: Macmillan, 1913. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954, 291 and 264 and 41 pages, $6.95.

BIGG, CHARLES, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude. New York: Scribner’s, 1901 (I.C.C.), xv, 353 pages, $5.

MANTON, THOMAS, Exposition of the Epistle of Jude. Evansville, Ind.: Sovereign Grace Book Club, 386 pages, $3.95.

MAYOR, JOSEPH B., The Epistle of Jude and the Second Epistle of St. Peter. London: Macmillan, 1907, ccii, 239 pages. Out of print and very rare.

CANDLISH, ROBERT S., 1806–1873, The First Epistle of John. Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, third edition, 1877. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, xx, 577 pages, $5.95.

WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS, The Epistles of St. John; the Greek Text, with Notes and Essays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, lvi, 360 pages, $5.

SWETE, HENRY B., The Apocalypse of St. John. London: Macmillan, 1911, ccxx, 338 pages. Reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, $6.

TENNEY, MERRILL C., Interpreting Revelation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 220 pages, $3.50.

RAMSAY, WILLIAM M., The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia. New York: Armstrong, 1905, xx, 446 pages.

TRENCH, RICHARD C., Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia. London: Kegan Paul, 1886, 249 pages.

CHURCH HISTORY

BRANDT, GERARD, A History of the Reformation in the Low Countries. London: c. 1720 (written from Remonstrant point of view), 4 volumes.

BRUCE, F. F., The Spreading Flame; the Rise and Progress of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 3 volumes in one, $5.

CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM, 1805–1861, Historical Theology. To be reprinted in 1960 by The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 2 volumes, $4.50.

CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM, The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1862, viii, 616 pages.

FROOM, LEROY E., The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers. Washington: Review and Herald, 1946–54 (Seventh-day Adventist), 4 volumes.

HEPPE, HEINRICH, 1820–1879, Reformed Dogmatics. London: Allen & Unwin, 1950, xiv, 721 pages, $8.50.

LAWTON, JOHN S., Conflict in Christology. London: S.P.C.K., 1947, x, 331 pages, $3.75. (Slightly sub-evangelical in a few places.)

MACLEOD, JOHN, 1872–1948, Scottish Theology in Relation to Church History Since the Reformation (Second edition). Edinburgh: Publications Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, 1946, viii, 336 pages.

NEVE, JUERGEN LUDWIG, 1865–1943, A History of Christian Thought. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1934–36, 2 volumes, $8. Out of print.

SCHAFF, PHILIP, 1819–1893, The Creeds of Christendom (Revised edition, 1931). New York: Harper, 1952, 3 volumes, $25.

SCHAFF, PHILIP, History of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950, 8 volumes, $45.

BROMILEY, GEOFFREY W., Unity and Disunity of the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958, 104 pages.

ELLIOTT-BINNS, L. E., The Early Evangelicals. A Religious and social study. London: Lutterworth Press, 1953, 464 pages.

BALLEINE, G. R., A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (New edition). London; New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1933, xi, 346 pages. (Also, Church Book Room Press.)

SCHMID, HEINRICH, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1876, 696 pages. Parallels for the Lutherans the work of Heppe for the Reformed.

TAPPERT, THEODORE G., translator and editor, The Book of Concord; The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959, 717 pages, $7.50. Out of print.

BRANDT, CASPAR, The Life of J. Arminius. Published in England and America in the 1850’s.

DARBY, HAROLD S., Hugh Latimer. London: Epworth Press, 1953, 262 pages.

MOULE, H. C. G., 1841–1920, Charles Simeon. The Evangelical School in the Church of England: its men and its work in the nineteenth century. London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1948, xiv, 191 pages.

MOZLEY, JAMES FREDERIC, William Tyndale. New York: Macmillan, 1937, ix, 364 pages.

SCHWIEBERT, Luther and His Times. St. Louis: Concordia, 1950, xxiii, 892 pages and 65 plates, $7.50.

STONEHOUSE, NED B., J. Gresham Machen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 520 pages, $4.95.

VAN HALSEMA, THEA, This was John Calvin. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1950, 180 pages, $2.95. Perhaps the best recent and simple biography of Calvin.

WATT, HUGH, The Published Writings of Dr. Thomas Chalmers. Edinburgh: Privately printed, R. & R. Clark, Ltd., 1943, 86 pages.

Heroes of the Reformation, edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson. New York & London: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1898 ff.: Volume 2: Richards, J. W., Philip Melancthon, 1898; Volume 3: Emerton, E., Desederius Erasmus, 1899; Volume 4: Baird, H. M., Theodore Beza, 1899; Volume 5: Jackson, S. M., Huldreich Zwingli, 1901; Volume 6: Pollard, A. F., Thomas Cranmer and English Reformation, 1927; Volume 7: Cowan, H., John Knox, 1905; Volume 8; Vedder, H. C., Baltasar Hubmaier, 1905; Walker, W., John Calvin, 1906.

APOLOGETICS AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

BAVINCK, HERMAN, 1854–1921, The Philosophy of Revelation; the Stone Lectures for 1908–1909.… Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, x, 349 pages, $3.50.

BEATTIE, FRANCIS, 1848–1906, Apologetics. I. Fundamental Apologetics (all published). Richmond (Va.): Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1903, 605 pages.

BERKOUWER, G. C., The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956, 414 pages, $4.95.

CARNELL, EDWARD JOHN, Introduction to Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948, 379 pages, $3.50.

CARNELL, EDWARD JOHN, Philosophy of the Christian Religion. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 523 pages, $5.

CARNELL, EDWARD JOHN, The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, 250 pages, $3.50.

CLARK, GORDON HADDON, A Christian View of Men and Things. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 325 pages, $4.

CLARK, GORDON HADDON, Thales to Dewey; a History of Philosophy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1957, xii, 548 pages, $5.

DOOYEWEERD, HERMAN, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (translated by David H. Freeman and William Young). Amsterdam: H. J. Paris; Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1953–58, 4 volumes, $36.

FLINT, ROBERT, 1834–1910. Theism (Seventh edition). New York: Scribner’s, 1899, x, 447 pages.

FLINT, ROBERT, Antitheistic Theories. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1879, x, 555 pages.

FLINT, ROBERT, Agnosticism. New York: Scribner’s, 1903, xviii, 664 pages. GERSTNER, JOHN H., Reasons for Faith. New York: Harper, 1960, x, 255 pages, $4.

GRAEBNER, THEODORE, 1876–1950, God and the Cosmos. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1932, 453 pages, $3.50. Out of print.

HENRY, CARL F. H., editor, Contemporary Evangelical Thought (10 contributors). A Channel Press Book. New York: Harper, 1957, 320 pages, $5.

HENRY, CARL F. H., The Protestant Dilemma. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949, 248 pages, $3. Out of print.

HENRY, CARL F. H., Remaking the Modern Mind. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1946, 309 pages.

KUYPER, ABRAHAM, 1837–1920, Lectures on Calvinism (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931, 275 pages, $2.50.

KUYPER, ABRAHAM, Principles of Sacred Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, xxv, 683 pages, $6.95.

LEWIS, C. S., Miracles. London: Bles, 1947, 220 pages.

LEWIS, C. S., The Screwtape Letters. London: Bles, 1942, 160 pages.

MACHEN, J. GRESHAM, Christianity and Liberalism. New York: Macmillan, 1923 (now Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 189 pages, $2.50.

ORR, JAMES, The Christian View of God and the World (Third edition). Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1897. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947, 480 pages, $3.50.

RAMM, BERNARD, A Pattern of Authority. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 117 pages, $1.50.

SMITH, WILBUR M., Therefore Stand. Boston: Wilde, 1945, xxiv, 614 pages, $3.95.

SPIER, J. M., An Introduction to Christian Philosophy (translated by David Hugh Freeman), Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1954, vii, 261 pages, $3.75.

VAN TIL, CORNELIUS, The Defense of the Faith. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1955, xii, 436 pages, $4.95.

VAN TIL, CORNELIUS, The New Modernism; an Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner (Second edition). Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1947, xx, 392 pages. Out of print.

WARFIELD, BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE, 1851–1921, Miracles, Yesterday and Today. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 327 pages, $3.50. (Originally published in New York, Scribner’s, 1918, under title, Counterfeit Miracles.)

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION, Modern Science and Christian Faith; Eleven Essays on the Relationship of the Bible to Modern Science (Revised edition), 1950. Obtainable at 214 Halsey Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana, xii, 316 pages, $4.

HEIDEL, ALEXANDER, 1907–1955, The Babylonian Genesis; the Story of the Creation (Second edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951, xi, 153 pages, $3.50. Out of print.

HEIDEL, ALEXANDER, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Second edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949, ix, 269 pages, $5.75.

MIXTER, RUSSELL L., editor, Evolution and Christian Thought Today (a symposium by 13 Christian scientists and theologians). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 224 pages, $4.50.

RAMM, BERNARD, The Christian View of Science and Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 368 pages, $4.

ALBRIGHT, WILLIAM F., The Archaeology of Palestine. Harmondsworth-Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1959, 256 pages, 2/6.

ALBRIGHT, WILLIAM F., From the Stone Age to Christianity. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1940, xi, 363 pages, $2.50.

FREE, JOSEPH, Archaeology and Bible History (Fifth revised edition). Wheaton: Scripture Press, 1956, 398 pages, $5.

UNGER, MERRILL F., Archaeology and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954, vii, 339 pages, $4.95.

BLAIKLOCK, E. M., Out of the Earth; The Witness of Archaeology to the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (Pathway series), 1958, 80 pages, $1.50.

WISEMAN, DONALD J., Illustrations from Biblical Archaeology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958, 112 pages (7 pages of excellent bibliography), $3.50.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

ENGELDER, THEODORE, 1865–1949, Scripture Cannot Be Broken. St. Louis: Concordia, 1944, 498 pages, $3. Out of print.

GAUSSEN, S. R. L., 1790–1863, Theopneustia, or The Plenary Inspiration of Holy Scriptures (many editions).

HARRIS, R. LAIRD, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1947, 304 pages, $4.50.

HENRY, CARL F. H., editor, Revelation and the Bible: Contemporary Evangelical Thought (24 contributors). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1958, 413 pages, $6.

LECERF, AUGUSTE, 1872–1943, Introduction to Reformed Dogmatics. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949, 448 pages, $5.

PACKER, JAMES I., “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God; Some Evangelical Principles. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958, 191 pages, $3. (Paper back, $1.25.)

PREUS, ROBERT, The Inspiration of Scripture. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1955, xx, 216 pages.

WALVOORD, JOHN F., editor, Inspiration and Interpretation (a Symposium by 10 contributors). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 280 pages, $4.50.

WARFIELD, BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE, 1851–1921, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (edited by Samuel G. Craig; with an introduction by Cornelius Van Til on Barth’s view of Scripture, 68 pages). Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1948, 442 pages, $4.95.

WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Faculty of, The Infallible Word (edited by Ned B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 300 pages, $3.

YOUNG, EDWARD J., Thy Word is Truth; Some Thoughts on the Biblical Doctrine of Inspiration. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 287 pages, $3.50.

BAVINCK, HERMAN, 1854–1921, Our Reasonable Faith (translated from the Dutch Magnalia Die by Henry Zylstra). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956, 568 pages, $6.95.

BERKHOF, LOUIS, 1873–1957, Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d., 200 pages, $3.

BERKHOF, LOUIS, Systematic Theology (Third revision and enlarged edition). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1946, 784 pages, $7.50.

BERKOUWER, G. C., Studies in Dogmatics (a series to be completed in 20 volumes or more, of which seven had appeared by January, 1960). Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1952—, $3 to $4.50 per volume.

BOETTNER, LORAINE, Studies in Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947, 351 pages, $3.50.

CHAFER, LEWIS SPERRY, 1871–1952, Systematic Theology. Wheaton, Ill.: Van Kampen, 1947, 8 volumes, $29.95.

DABNEY, R. L., Systematic and Polemic Theology (Sixth edition). Richmond (Va.): Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1927, 903 pages. Out of print.

GILL, JOHN, 1697–1771, A Body of Divinity (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1951, 1023 pages, $10.

HALL, FRANCIS J., Dogmatic Theology. New York: Longmans, Green, 1907–1922. 10 volumes. Out of print. (This author is a high-church Episcopalian.)

HAMMOND, T. C., In Understanding Be Men. London: Inter-Varsity, 1936, 255 pages.

HODGE, A. A., 1823–1886, Outlines of Theology (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949, 678 pages.

HODGE, CHARLES, 1797–1878, Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 3 volumes, $15.

MILEY, JOHN, 1813–1895, Systematic Theology. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1892, 2 volumes. Out of print.

MOULE, H. C. G., 1841–1920, Outlines of Christian Doctrine. New York: Whittaker, 1889, xvi, 267 pages.

MUELLER, JOHN THEODORE, Christian Dogmatics; a Handbook of Doctrinal Theology for Pastors, Teachers, and Laymen. St. Louis: Concordia, 1934, xxiii, 665 pages, $6.50.

MULLINS, EDGAR YOUNG, 1860–1928, The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression. Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1946, xxiv, 514 pages, $4.25.

PIEPER, FRANZ AUGUST OTTO, 1852–1931, Christian Dogmatics. St. Louis: Concordia, 1950–57. 4 volumes, $20.00.

RALSTON, THOMAS, 1806–1891, Elements of Divinity. Nashville: Redford, 1872, 1023 pages.

SHEDD, WILLIAM GREENOUGH THAYER, 1820–1894, Dogmatic Theology. New York: Scribner, 1882–94. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 3 volumes, $14.85.

STRONG, A. H., 1836–1921, Systematic Theology (Eighth edition). Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1907, xxviii, 1166 pages, $5.

SUMMERS, T. O., 1812–1882, Systematic Theology. Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Church, 1888, 2 volumes. Out of print.

THOMAS, W. H. GRIFFITH, 1861–1924, The Principles of Theology. A Study of the 39 Articles of the Church of New England. New York: Longmans, Green, 1930, lx, 540 pages.

URSINUS, ZACHARIAS, 1534–1583, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (edited by David Pareus; translated by G. W. Williard). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, xxxvi, 659 pages, $6.95.

WATSON, RICHARD, 1781–1833, Theological Institutes; or a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity (many editions). 2 volumes. Out of print.

WATSON, THOMAS, d. 1689, A Body of Practical Divinity … (many editions). London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1958–59, 2 volumes.

WENGER, JOHN C., Introduction to Theology. Scottdale (Pa.): Herald Press, Revised 1956, 418 pages, $4.

WILEY, HENRY O., Christian Theology. Kansas City (Mo.): Beacon Hill Press, 1940, 3 volumes, $6.

BAVINCK, HERMAN, The Doctrine of God (translated by William Hendriksen). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, 407 pages, $5.

CANDLISH, R. S., 1806–1873, The Fatherhood of God (Fifth edition). Edinburgh: Black, 1869, 2 volumes.

CHARNOCK, STEPHEN, 1628–1680, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God. 2 volumes, various editions. Grand Rapids: Kregel, incomplete. 804 pages, $8.95.

CRAWFORD, T. J., 1812–1875, The Fatherhood of God (Third edition). Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1868, xvi, 392 pages.

WOOD, NATHAN R., The Secret of the Universe (Tenth edition). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 220 pages, $2.50.

KUYPER, ABRAHAM, 1837–1920, The Work of the Holy Spirit (Introduction by B. B. Warfield). New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, xxxix, 664 pages, $5.

SMEATON, GEORGE, 1814–1889, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Second edition). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1889, xi, 418 pages. Out of print.

SWETE, HENRY B., The Holy Spirit in the New Testament. London: Macmillan, 1910, viii, 417 pages.

SWETE, HENRY B., The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church. London: Macmillan, 1912, viii, 429 pages.

THOMAS, W. H. GRIFFITH, The Holy Spirit of God. London: Longmans, 1913, 303 pages.

WALVOORD, JOHN F., The Holy Spirit. Wheaton (Ill.): Van Kampen, 1954, 275 pages, $3.50.

BOETTNER, LORAINE, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Seventh edition). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, 432 pages, $4.50.

BOSTON, THOMAS, 1676–1732, Human Nature in its Fourfold State: of Primitive Integrity, Entire Depravity, Begun Recovery, and Consummate Happiness or Misery (many editions). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, $4.95. Out of print.

FLETCHER, JOHN, 1729–1785, Checks to Antinomianism. New York: Phillips & Hunt, n.d., 2 volumes.

GIRARDEAU, JOHN L., 1825–1898, The Will in its Theological Relations. Columbia (S. C.): Duffie, 1891, 497 pages. Out of print and rare.

LAIDLAW, JOHN, 1832–1906, The Bible Doctrine of Man, or the Anthropology and Psychology of Scripture (New edition, revised and rearranged). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905, 363 pages. Out of print.

LUTHER, MARTIN, On the Bondage of the Will. A new translation of De Servo Arbitrio (1525), Martin Luther & Reply to Erasmus of Rotterdam, translated and edited with historical introduction by James I. Packer and O. R. Johnston. London: James Clarke & Co., 1957; Westwood (N. J.): Revell, 1957, 322 pages, $3.50.

ORR, JAMES, God’s Image in Man (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948, 325 pages, $3.

What, Then, Is Man? (a Symposium, Concordia Theological Seminary, School for Graduate Studies; Graduate Study No. 3). St. Louis: Concordia, 1958, 356 pages, $3.50.

LIDDON, HENRY PARRY, 1829–1890, The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ … (Sixteenth edition). London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892, 41 and 585 pages. Out of print.

WARFIELD, BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE, The Lord of Glory; a Study of the Designations of Our Lord in the New Testament with Especial Reference to His Deity. New York: American Tract Society, 1907, xi, 332 pages (and other editions). Out of print.

EDWARDS, DOUGLAS A., The Virgin Birth in History and Faith. London: Faber & Faber, n.d. (1943), 240 pages.

ORR, JAMES, The Virgin Birth of Christ. New York: Scribner’s, 1907, xvi, 301 pages.

SWEET, LOUIS M., The Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1906, xiv, 365 pages. Out of print.

ORR, JAMES, The Resurrection of Jesus. Cincinnati: Jenning & Bryan, n.d. (1909), 292 pages. Out of print.

SIMPSON, W. J. SPARROW, 1859–1952, The Resurrection and Modern Thought. London: Longmans & Co., 1911, x, 464 pages.

CRAWFORD, THOMAS JACKSON, 1812–1875, The Doctrine of Holy Scripture Respecting the Atonement (Fourth edition). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1954, 538 pages, $4.95.

DENNEY, JAMES, 1856–1917, The Death of Christ (edited by R. V. G. Tasker. London: Inter-Varsity, 1951, 272 pages.

HODGE, A. A., The Atonement; Its Nature, Design, and Application. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 440 pages, $4.50.

MARTIN, HUGH, 1821–1885, The Atonement, in its Relations to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of Our Lord. Edinburgh: James Gemmell, 1882, 288 pages. Out of print.

MORRIS, LEON, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. London: The Tyndale Press, 1955, 296 pages, 15/. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956, $3.50.

MURRAY, JOHN, Redemption—Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 236 pages, $3.

SMEATON, GEORGE, The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by Christ Himself (and, as Taught by the Apostles). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953–57, 2 volumes, $11.90.

BUCHANAN, JAMES, 1804–1870, The Doctrine of Justification; its History in the Church and its Exposition from Scripture. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1955, 514 pages, $4.95.

WALTHER, C. F., 1811–1887, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel. St. Louis: Concordia, 1929, ix, 426 pages, $3.50.

WARFIELD, B. B., The Plan of Salvation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1942, 112 pages, $1.50.

FRASER, JAMES, 1700–1769, A Treatise on Sanctification (New and revised edition by John MacPherson). London: Sands & Co., 1897, xxxii, 493 pages. Out of print.

MARSHALL, WALTER, 1628–1680, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification … (many editions). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954, viii, 264 pages, $1.50. Out of print.

RYLE, JOHN CHARLES, bp, 1816–1900, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (Foreword by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones). London: James Clarke & Co., 1952; Grand Rapids: Kregel, xviii, 333 pages, $3.95.

BANNERMAN, JAMES, 1807–1868, The Church of Christ. To be reprinted in 1960 by The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 2 volumes, $4.50.

DEXTER, HENRY MARTYN, 1821–1890, The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years as Seen in its Literature … with a Bibliographical Appendix. New York: Harper, 1880, 38 & 716 & 326 pages. Out of print.

KUIPER, R. B., The Glorious Body of Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958, 383 pages, $4.95.

RYLE, JOHN CHARLES, Principles for Churchmen … London: Chas. J. Thynne, 1900, xxvii, 460 pages. Out of print.

BOOTH, ABRAHAM, 1734–1806, Paedobaptism Examined.… London: Ebenezer Palmer, 1829, 3 volumes. Out of print.

INGHAM, R., 1810–1873, A Handbook of Christian Baptism. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and E. Stock, 1865, 1871, 2 volumes.

MARCEL, PIERRE CH., The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism: Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace (translated from the French by Philip E. Hughes). London: James Clarke & Co., 1953, 256 pages, 15/.

MURRAY, JOHN, Christian Baptism. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1952, 93 pages, $2.50.

MACDONALD, A. J., editor, The Evangelical Doctrine of Holy Communion. London: S.P.C.K., 1936, viii, 330 pages.

SASSE, HERMANN, This is My Body. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959, 420 pages, $7.

ALLIS, OSWAED T., Prophecy and the Church.… Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1945, ix, 339 pages, $3.75.

BROWN, DAVID, 1803–1897, Christ’s Second Coming: Will it be Premillennial? (Seventh edition). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1882, xvi, 468 pages. Out of print.

KROMMINGA, DIEDRICH HINRICH, 1879–1947, The Millennium: Its Nature, Function, and Relation to the Consummation of the World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948, 121 pages, $1.50.

LADD, GEORGE ELDON, The Blessed Hope. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956, 167 pages, $3.

MCCLAIN, ALVA J., The Greatness of the Kingdom. Zondervan, 1959, xviii, 556 pages, $6.95.

PENTECOST, J. DWIGHT, Things to Come. Findlay (Ohio): Dunham, 1958, xxx, 633 pages, $7.95.

REESE, ALEXANDER, The Approaching Advent of Christ.… London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1937, 328 pages. Out of print.

Vos, GEERHARDUS, The Pauline Eschatology (with appendix: The Eschatology of the Psalter). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 365 pages, $5.

WALVOORD, JOHN F., The Millennial Kingdom. Findlay, (Ohio): Dunham, 1959, xxiv, 373 pages, $4.95.

FYFE, JAMES, The Hereafter. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1890, xxiv, 407 pages.

LEWIS, ERIC, Life and Immortality. London: E. Stock, 1924, 227 pages. (A conditionalist work.)

SHEDD, W. G. T., The Doctrine of Endless Punishment. New York: Scribner’s, 1886, 163 pages.

BERKOUWER, G. C., The Conflict with Rome. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1958, 319 pages, $5.95.

CHRISTIAN ETHICS

HAMMOND, T. C., Perfect Freedom. London: Inter-Varsity, n.d., 430 pages.

HENRY, CARL F. H., Christian Personal Ethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 615 pages, $6.95.

MURRAY, JOHN, Principles of Conduct; Aspects of Biblical Ethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 272 pages, $4.

WALLACE, RONALD S., Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 349 pages.

PRACTICAL THEOLOGY

BAVINCK, J. H., The Impact of Christianity on the Non-Christian World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948, 183 pages, $2.50.

BENSON, CLARENCE H., A Popular History of Christian Education. Chicago: Moody Press, 1943, 355 pages.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., The Preparation of Sermons. Nashville: Abingdon, 1948, 272 pages, $3.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., Expository Preaching for Today. Nashville: Abingdon, 1953, 224 pages, $3.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., Doctrinal Preaching for Today. Nashville: Abingdon, 1956, 224 pages, $3.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., The Fine Art of Public Worship. Nashville: Abingdon, 1939, 247 pages, $3.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., Pastoral Work. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1945, 252 pages, $2.50.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., Pastoral Leadership. Nashville: Abingdon, 1949, 272 pages, $3.50.

BLACKWOOD, ANDREW W., Leading in Public Prayer. Nashville: Abingdon, 1958, 207 pages, $3.

BROADUS, JOHN A., 1827–1895, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (New and revised edition by Jesse B. Weatherspoon). New York: Harper, 1944, xviii, 410 pp., $3.50.

CLARK, GORDON HADDON, Christian Philosophy of Education. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1946, 217 pages, $3. Out of print.

DARGAN, EDWIN C., 1852–1930, A History of Preaching. (Reprint). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1954, 2 volumes in one, 1178 pages, $7.95.

DE BOER, CECIL, 1898–1955, Responsible Protestantism; Essays on the Christian’s Role in a Secular Society (edited by Henry Zylstra). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, 247 pages, $3.50.

FORSYTH, P. T., 1848–1921, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (Reprint). London: Independent Press, 1949, 248 pages, $3.

GAEBELEIN, FRANK E., Christian Education in a Democracy.… New York: Oxford University Press, 1951, ix, 305 pages, $4.50.

GOULOOZE, WILLIAM, 1903–1955, Pastoral Psychology; Applied Psychology in Pastoral Theology in America. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1954, 266 pages, $3.50.

JAARSMA, CORNELIUS, editor, Fundamentals in Christian Education; Theory and Practice (a Symposium). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953, 482 pages, $5.

LOVELESS, WENDELL P., Manual of Gospel Broadcasting. Chicago: Moody Press, 1946, 352 pages, $3.50.

Reformed Evangelism; a Manual on Principles and Methods of Evangelization. Compiled by the Grand Rapids Board of Evangelism of the Christian Reformed Churches. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1948, 447 pages. Out of print.

REU, JOHANN MICHAEL, 1869–1943, Homiletics; a Manual of the Theory and Practice of Preaching (translated by Albert Steinhaeuser). Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1950, viii, 639 pages, $4.50.

SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON, Collected Sermons. Among such collections, all incomplete, are: Memorial Library, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 20 volumes, $59; Expository Encyclopedia, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1951–52, 15 volumes, out of print; New Spurgeon Sermon Library, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, being published in 20 volumes, $49 if ordered before Dec. 31, 1962.

SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON, Lectures to my Students. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1954, 443 pages, 18/6.

VAN TIL, HENRY R., The Calvinistic Concept of Culture. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1959, 245 pages.

VINET, ALEXANDRE, Pastoral Theology. New York: Ivison, 1853, 387 pages.

WEBBER, FREDERICK ROTH, A History of Preaching in Britain and America, including the Biographies of Many Princes of the Pulpit and the Men who Influenced Them. Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1952–59, 3 volumes, $21.

ALLEN, ROLAND, 1868–1947, Missionary Methods, St. Paul’s or Ours? (Reprint). Chicago: Moody Press, 1956, 230 pages, $2.50.

ALLEN, ROLAND, Spontaneous Expansion of the Church. London: World Dominion, 1956, 212 pages, 6/-.

COOK, HAROLD R., Missionary Life and Work. Chicago: Moody Press, 1959, 382 pages, $5.

EDMAN, V. RAYMOND, Light in Dark Ages. Wheaton (Ill.): Van Kampen, 1949, 435 pages, $4.

ELLIOT, ELISABETH, Through Gates of Splendor. New York: Harper, 1957, 256 pages, $3.75.

GLOVER, ROBERT H., The Progress of World-Wide Missions. New York: Harper, 1960, 572 pages, $5.50.

The past half century, and especially the past 20 years, has produced a spate of new “translations” of the Bible. We are told that Elizabethan English is no longer intelligible to the majority of younger Christians, and especially the unchurched multitude; also, that newer manuscript evidence requires elimination of hundreds (if not thousands) of presumed errors in the Authorized Version. There is some truth in these allegations, but not nearly so much as advertisements for the new volumes suggest. Moreover, it is doubtful if all the new translations provide the correctives they profess. Not infrequently they simply substitute their own confusion for that which they claim to have dispelled. This is especially true in their claim to the title “Translation.” Few recent works have any right whatever to that title. And this is the very core of the problem: What is a translation?

TRANSLATION OR PARAPHRASE?

The liberties taken by many so-called translators is seen in their violation of the limits of true translation in distinction from paraphrase. Any technical definition of “translation” must emphasize the meticulous accuracy with which such limits must be observed, especially by scholars who profess to believe in scriptural revelation.

A brief dictionary definition of “translate” is “carry over into one’s own or another language.” This is sufficiently broad to admit of almost any license, and might even be thought to justify loose practices among present-day “translators.” Therefore, allow me to substitute a definition learned by experience in translating Babylonian and Sumerian documents, in which I valued highly the training received from one of America’s outstanding scholars in the field of Assyriology. The discipline taught me the inviolable principles embodied in my concept of a legitimate translation. This is it: A translation should convey as much of the original text in as few words as possible, yet preserve the original atmosphere and emphasis. The translator should strive for the nearest approximation in words, concepts, and cadence. He should scrupulously avoid adding words or ideas not demanded by the text. His job is not to expand or to explain, but to translate and preserve the spirit and force of the original—even, if need be, at the expense of modern colloquialisms—so long as the resultant translation is intelligible.

Some linguists may object that the above definition is unduly rigid, and may seek greater latitude in the interest of more literary or colloquial translation. They might point to liberties necessarily taken in the translation of a Chinese or Sanscrit poem into English. However, there is a vast difference between translating a Sanscrit poem and the Bible into English. In the former case we are dealing primarily with ideas, cast in an alien mold, which may best be conveyed in English by a rather free translation. In the latter case we are dealing with a document whose language and vocabulary were specially chosen by the Holy Spirit for the communication of particular truths. No translator—least of all an evangelical Christian who holds to the inspiration of the Scriptures—dare ignore that fact. Not just ideas, but words are important; so also is the emphasis indicated by word order in the sentence.

It should be noted first that when translating the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text into English, we are not faced with serious problems of cultural extremes. The physical and social background of the ancient Near East is much closer to our general European society and economy than to either a tropical culture of Central Africa or the arctic culture of the Esquimeaux. This eliminates many knotty problems of cultural transference in translation. By and large, the pastoral or urban society of Bible times can be transferred directly and in its own terms into intelligible English. Moreover, the past four centuries of acquaintance with the Bible have introduced into our common speech many words and ideas originating in the society of Bible lands (such as “crucifixion,” animal sacrifices, and so on) which, though initially strange to the European scene, are now quite familiar. This makes the task of translating the Bible into English simpler than into the language of a people with an opposite or primitive culture. It is therefore easier to achieve a nearly word for word transfer which the nature of the inspired text deserves.

If the ultimate Author, the Holy Spirit, employed a certain language as the medium of communication of divine truth, we must assume that He also deliberately employed the particular words of that language in a particular manner to achieve his purpose. Anyone familiar with word studies in the original languages can testify to the amazing consistency of employment of particular terms throughout the Bible and also the wealth of truth conveyed by deliberate use of similar or contrasting terms in particular circumstances. When a certain word is used several times in one passage, or even in different books, to convey a particular idea, a good translator will follow this pattern wherever possible. In this respect many helpful corrections have been applied to the Authorized Version by recent translations. But men violate a basic principle of translation when they choose to substitute for individual words or short phrases long “homiletic” passages of private interpretation.

Look at a few illustrative examples. To translate the simple Greek sentence “does this cause you to stumble?” (John 6:61, three words in Greek) as “does this cause you to disapprove of me and hinder you from acknowledging my authority?” is inexcusable on any grounds. Even the RSV rendering “does this cause you to take offense?” is debatable, since it unnecessarily changes the tone of the question and adds a personal element absent in the original. Note the liberties taken by Weymouth (“does this seem incredible to you?”) and Lloyd (“doth this lead you astray?”). The question in the original Greek is terse and laconic, “does this cause you to stumble?” There is nothing profound or difficult about this and the concept is one which is quite familiar to English-speaking people. There is no hint of any personal animus or disloyalty on the part of the disciples; suggestions of this nature are speculations by the translators. Adding the ideas of “incredible,” “misleading,” “authority,” and “disapproval” is unjustified in a translation though, perhaps, admissible in a commentary.

Even to alter the emphasis from negative to positive while stating the same basic idea is unjustified. For example, for the KJV “Let love be without dissimulation” (Rom. 12:19), the RSV has “Let love be genuine.” Both are essentially the same, to be sure, but oriented differently. The Greek word anupokritos means literally “unfeigned” (cf. 1 Pet. 1:22, where KJV has “unfeigned” but RSV has “sincere”). If the Author had intended either “genuine” or “sincere,” he could have said so. There are perfectly good Greek words for these ideas. Can it be that the word “unfeigned” is unknown to literate Americans?

Frequently the full weight of meaning conveyed by repetition of the same Greek root word is lost in translation, since different English words are used where one word consistently used could have preserved the original force intact. For example, in speaking of qualifications for the Christian ministry in the light of its grave responsibility, Paul writes “who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16) and adds “not that we are sufficient of ourselves … but our sufficiency is of God who has also made us sufficient ministers” (2 Cor. 3:5, 6). For the last of these four words (all forms of hikanos in Greek), KJV has “made us able,” and RSV has “qualified us.” Both obscure a deliberate and significant pattern. But Phillips reworks the passage so that it is well-nigh impossible to establish any equivalence between the Greek words and his rendering. “Who could think himself adequate for a responsibility like this?… We dare to say such things because of the confidence we have in God through Christ, and not because we are confident of our own powers. It is God Who makes us competent.…” For four similar words in Greek derived from one root, he uses three different words (adequate, confidence, confident, and competent) and adds several words for which there is no textual evidence. This is certainly not a translation. It is almost a homily; useful in its place but misleading to one who seeks the words of the Author.

THE LIMITS OF TRANSLATION

I realize that it is impossible to make a perfect transfer from one language to another in any translation. I realize also that the translator must make choice of those words in the second language which he thinks best convey the thought of the original. But frequently the translator appears to forget that the original words were chosen purposefully, and tends deliberately to cast the sentences into new molds which convey the idea in a significantly different spirit or emphasis. He thus unnecessarily robs the text of at least some of its original import. This practice may be justified in some fields of literature, but it is inadmissible when one is dealing with the inspired Word of God.

Certainly many words and even passages in an acceptable translation of the Bible will benefit from a more extended treatment. But such treatment belongs in a commentary, not in a translation. We expect in a translation the closest approximation to the original text of the Word of God that linguistic and philological science can produce. We want to know what God said—not what Doctor So-and-so thinks God meant by what he said. There is a great difference between the two, and we intrude on holy ground when we ignore the distinction.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

The writer is an unrepentant, unregenerate liberal, a liberal without prefix, hyphen, or quotation marks. He belongs to what a distinguished professor in one of our eastern conservative seminaries recently described as a “dying genus.” He suffers from the unfortunate illusion or delusion that the demise of liberalism has been unduly anticipated by wishful thinkers and (as Mark Twain observed long ago in another connection) “greatly exaggerated.” He looks back with nostalgic affection on the good old days when a liberal was a liberal and a conservative was a conservative and each knew where the other stood. In the twenties he studied under such liberals as William Adams Brown, Henry Sloane Coffin, Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Julius August Bewer, Ernest Findlay Scott, Shirley Jackson Case, Adolf von Harnack, and Adolf Deissmann, and cannot for the life of him recognize the liberalism he knew in the current caricatures by neo-orthodox, neo-evangelical, neo-fundamentalist, and neo-modernist polemicists. As a matter of fact, he is sick and tired of neo-isms of all varieties, which make him think of Sixth Avenue (“The Avenue of the Americas”) rather than of well-defined theological systems.

He is also a liberal who holds the memory of J. Gresham Machen in high respect and with a certain amount of affection, for Machen (in his judgment) was the ablest of an able corps of Pauline scholars in those far-off days, a scholar who wrote what is still the best book on Paul to come from the pen of an American interpreter and who was a conservative without hyphenation and without apology.

Why, then, should such a liberal, according both to neo-fundamentalists and neo-modernists a fossilized theologian, an epigonous of nineteenth century theological romanticism, submit an article to CHRISTIANITY TODAY? For several reasons. CHRISTIANITY TODAY is well-printed, well-edited, and widely circulated. Probably as many neo-modernists read it with some regularity as they read any other undenominational periodical, though they may do so surreptitiously by some library shelf or on the table in the seminary readingroom. And what should inhibit a liberal theologian from submitting an article to an undenominational journal that is recognized as representative of conservative theological scholarship and conservative churchmanship?

The writer of this article likes conservatives. As a friend recently remarked to him, “They come clean!” He believes they are capable of seeing the best in him and in his theological and critical position, as he hopes he can see the best in them and in theirs. And so he entrusts a study of a problem that has bothered him to the pages of a journal that is ready to give a hearing to points of view with which it may not necessarily or entirely agree.

The writer is a minister of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., and is glad and proud that his denomination has been a member from the beginning of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America, has given it support even in such petty crises as that stirred up by a recent statement in an Air Force Manual that had a brief but heady notoriety, and has contributed some able and intelligent individuals to its leadership. He would use what little influence he has in Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly to strengthen and extend Presbyterian enthusiasm for, and assistance to, the National Council’s Division of Christian Education. Nevertheless, he believes that the Council has made a serious mistake in permitting the Division of Christian Education to promote the Revised Standard Version (the very word “Standard” anticipates and begs a question) as a new “Holy Version,” a new English textus receptus, and he is frankly amazed and disturbed that the only vocal criticism of any consequence of this policy has come heretofore from fundamentalist, neo-fundamentalist, evangelical, and neo-evangelical circles.

The writer agrees with many such “conservative” churchmen that this apparent policy of the National Council is reprehensible, but his reasons for so believing are not (in part, at least) those advanced by scholars and theologians on “the other side of the tracks.” The RSV editors were right in translating Isaiah 7:14 “Behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son.…” That decision was purely a matter of applied honesty in the English rendering of a Hebrew substantive. The RSV editors were wrong in translating 1 Corinthians 13:1 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong.…” The result is rhythmically disastrous; “tongues” remains as meaningless to the average reader in Luther Weigle’s Connecticut as it was to readers in William Tyndale’s Gloucestershire; and it is a real question whether the substitution of “love” for “charity” clarifies or befogs the apostle’s meaning. Which is easier for the minister, to explain to the people in the pew (if any explanation is necessary) that “charity” in the sixteenth century meant “Christian love,” or to explain to his Greekless parishioners that “love” in the RSV means Anders Nygren’s agape?

PROPAGANDIZING GREATNESS

The National Council’s Division of Christian Education boasts that the RSV is rapidly becoming the Bible of the church, and all its propaganda (so far as a Scripture version is concerned) is directed towards effecting that consummation so devoutly hoped. Not long ago its executive secretary marshalled the following statistics, which no doubt could be made even more formidable and impressive in A.D. 1960.

There are … sixteen major denominations which use the Revised Standard Version almost exclusively in their church school literature. These include the Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, Presbyterian U.S.A., United Lutheran, Disciples of Christ, American Baptist, and Congregational-Christian. These are among the larger denominations in the States [the recipient of this letter was employed at the time in Canada], and I am informed that the United Church of Canada uses the Revised Standard Version in most of its literature. I understand that the church membership of the denominations now using the RSV in the program of Christian education is something like 26,000,000, and that churches with an additional membership of 2,250,000 are now using the RSV in parallel columns with the KJV. It seems to me that this use will rapidly acquaint the rising generation with this translation.

The Revised Standard Version is already the English Bible in colleges and seminaries [sic], and most of the young ministers of my acquaintance use nothing else [sic]. In a small Ohio town recently, I found that in three out of the four churches, the RSV is used exclusively in the pulpit.

I have recently [October, 1955] seen a copy of the hymnbook just published by five Presbyterian churches. I discover that the unison and responsive readings are almost exclusively from the RSV. The two exceptions are Psalms 1 and 23, which appear in the King James Version.

The writer submits that the RSV has not, should not, and hopefully will not become the Bible of the English-speaking world, and that the National Council, in tolerating the promotion propaganda of its Division of Christian Education and of the publishers of the RSV without qualification or restraint, has displayed a carelessness with respect to our literary and religious heritage and an ignorance of facts of which every scholar is cognizant that should amaze and dismay all who believe in its mission.

SEVEN OBJECTIONS

Let me itemize seven objections to the claim that the RSV is (or ought to be) the English Bible of Protestant Christians. There are others as cogent, but they would only serve to strengthen a case that does not depend on them for its demonstration.

1. Past revisions of the Bible have required a very considerable stretch of time in which to displace their predecessors: witness the prevalence of the Old Latin versions in parts of the medieval church long after the appearance of the Vulgate; the influence of the Great Bible (see the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in our own time) after the appearance of the Bishops’ Bible; and the hold on the affections of the common folk in England of the Geneva Bible for a generation or more after the appearance of the King James Version.

2. The RSV is admittedly a provisional version. The RSV committee of the National Council’s Division of Christian Education has already made many changes in its text since the first edition of the New Testament in 1946 and the first edition of the whole Bible in 1952, and no doubt will continue to do so. The publication of a really definitive translation (or revision) awaits the preparation of a really adequate Greek text of the New Testament (to say nothing of the even more difficult task of reconstructing a really adequate Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Old Testament with the help of the embarrassing abundance of new material available since the first accidental discoveries in Cave I at Wadi Qumran in 1947). The editors of the RSV were compelled to improvise an eclectic Greek text, and the acceptance of a new “Westcott and Hort” awaits the emergence of a new Hort or Tischendorf, or the completion after some decades of the arduous labors of such unsung heroes of biblical scholarship as contribute to the sporadic publications of the American New Testament Textual Seminar.

3. With all their weaknesses, the RV and the ASV, at the time they were issued, drew upon the pooled skills, learning, and resources of English-speaking scholarship, both British and American. Only North American scholars, or scholars resident in North America, had anything to do with the RSV. The translation project underway in the United Kingdom, a project, by the way, that proposes to issue a new translation from the original tongues rather than a revision of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Cranmer and that is now on the verge of publishing its New Testament, is a project of Free Church as well as Anglican scholars and may (when it is completed) prevent the general endorsement of the RSV by the churches in Great Britain and in other countries of the British Commonwealth, including Canada.

4. While the RSV has been more successful than the ASV in retaining a measure of the literary beauty of the KJV (it might be more proper to say, “of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Cranmer”), it is possible to demonstrate that it has frequently sacrificed the cadence and charm of its great predecessor without achieving a compensating precision and clarity in the use of contemporary idiomatic English. And, with all the wealth of learning represented on the National Council’s RSV committee of editors, the committee had no Lancelot Andrewes!

5. Publicists of the RSV and some recent graduates of our seminaries occasionally underestimate the role that the KJV played in determining what would be literary “English” and in creating and inspiring English literature, a role even greater than that played by Luther’s Bibel in Germany. They seem occasionally to be largely unaware of its contribution to the familiar idiom of even American English. At times they even appear to overlook its hold upon the unreflective affections of many who worship in our churches, whether they worship in Portland, Maine, or Portland, Oregon, or Lynchburg, Virginia. There are overtones in the very hearing of the KJV from the pulpit or the lectern that have greater value in creating an atmosphere of worship than is sometimes realized by directors of publishers’ publicity or young men who have just entered the Christian ministry.

6. Statistics of the circulation of the RSV can only be interpreted in proper perspective when viewed in the light of statistics concerning the past and present circulation of the KJV (to say nothing of Moffatt, Goodspeed, Phillips, et al) as published by the university presses in the United Kingdom, by the British and Foreign Bible Society, by the American Bible Society, and by many others. Despite its phenomenal sale, it is probable that the RSV still trails its predecessor in 1960 and that countless homes have a copy of the KJV that never heard of the RSV. And when one recalls that the KJV is not only a current best seller but has been in continuous publication since 1611, that innumerable families treasure copies of it as a “family” Bible, that some families even consider it a sin to burn or discard a “St. James” Bible, and that many laymen and some scholars still prefer it to any other version as a vehicle of the Word of God in public worship and private devotions, it is apparent that any count of KJV Bibles and Testaments still in existence and in use in our time, in a society that is not as biblically illiterate as some rhetoricians suggest when they are inebriated with the exuberance of their verbosity, could only be undertaken by some electronic robot still awaiting invention at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

7. The adoption of the RSV text by various church departments of Christian education will have a long-range influence on the reading practice of their constituencies, but to assume that, because churches with a membership of 30,000,000 or more have officially recognized their preference for the RSV over the KJV, the former is therefore the Bible, the version of Holy Scripture, for half the Protestant population of the United States and Canada, is to perpetrate an egregious non sequitur.

The writer has made generous use of the RSV in his work as a commentator and instructor and is grateful to its editors, publishers, translators, and revisers. But he believes that its place, along with other revisions and modern-speech translations, is in the study and on the lectern in a classroom, not on the pulpit or lectern in the sanctuary.

He recalls with interest and wholehearted approval a remark made by James Moffatt after he had listened to a young minister read the Scripture lesson from “Moffatt’s Translation” at the morning diet of worship: “If I had ever suspected that this could happen, I should never have published a line of ‘Moffatt’s Bible’!” He recalls this reaction of a great scholar and great translator to the misuse of his work, a great scholar who also served for long as executive secretary of the RSV New Testament Committee, and commends it to the consideration of responsible officers in the National Council of Churches in the United States of America and to those ministers of its constituent denominations who (in his judgment) are making a similar misuse of the RSV.

We Quote:

EMOTION IN RELIGION: “A crudely emotional approach to religion is preferable to religious formalism which is purely aesthetic and orderly and lacking in dynamic power. One of our serious troubles in the church today is that it has become legitimate to be emotional in anything but religion. The need is for something that will summon one’s whole enthusiasm. The moment the church becomes completely programized and depersonalized, it becomes a monument to God’s memory and not an instrument of His loving power.”

—DR. JOHN A. MACKAY, former President of Princeton Theological Seminary in an address before the 1960 General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Why are so few significant novels produced within the evangelical tradition? Why is it increasingly difficult for the serious novelist to give expression to his view of life within the framework of this tradition? The answer is not simple.

Of course there are those who decry fiction as a whole, who either oppose it or neglect it, considering it unworthy of the concern of thoughtful men, particularly of Christian men. Such indifference or hostility may be justified when one considers the annual flood of works which have no purpose beyond mere entertainment, and this sometimes of the lowest order, and the increasing number of novels that are morally defiling.

However, fiction may be and often is a significant vehicle of thought, a means of carrying truth alive into the heart by way of the imagination, and no one seriously interested in knowing the best that has been thought and written can afford to neglect completely this powerful force in the shaping of life. For serious fiction has had an extensive influence upon multitudes of readers, affecting, often subtly, their views of life, their moral ideas and attitudes, and thus their conduct.

And this shaping power of fiction is not confined to those novels which aim directly at social reform, or which are openly concerned with customs and manners. There is a pervasive spirit emanating from the general portrait of life revealed in an author’s selection of his material, by what he includes or omits, by the slanting of his material toward a point of view.

Fiction and drama are closely related, and plays and cinemas are often drawn from works of fiction, and together they wield an influence beyond all calculation. Roman Catholics, realizing this, have made effective use of both media of communication, and they can list some of the great novelists, as well as many of the more popular. And the other liturgical branches of the Church, Anglican, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, have each produced their share of significant writers.

LIFE IN AN ARTLESS SETTING

Evangelical churches have not fared well in the area of the novel. It would seem that our form of the Christian faith has either been the object of cynical and satirical attack in fiction, or it has been handled sympathetically by pious but artistically limited writers. The latter give either a shoddy two-dimensional picture of life or a prim and proper portrait, so emasculated, so colorless, or so obviously faked that the books say nothing about life of any significance, and can be read only by the already convinced who believe that they are keeping themselves “pure,” “unspotted from the world,” by reading an adulterated rather than an adulterous version of life.

What are the reasons for this sad state of affairs? Why have no recent novelists of stature arisen within the evangelical tradition to handle life within a religious context with the same sort of power and beauty one sometimes finds within the liturgical traditions?

The reasons are many.

THE USE OF SYMBOLS

There is first in the evangelical form of Christianity a tendency to eliminate wholly or at least to minimize the use of symbols, and thereby to reduce religious experience to an ethereal, completely spiritual relationship with the divine that does not adequately, if at all, clothe itself in the visible and the tangible.

This decrying of the symbol is the product of a certain extreme reaction in the Protestant Reformation. So gross had become the dependence on the tangible in the medieval Church that it had often approached the idolatrous. In trying to sweep away this error, some of the more radical reformers actually fell into the opposite error, basically a denial of the meaning of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, which is at the heart of the Christian faith.

And this sweeping denial of the function of symbols, of the importance of symbols, cuts at the very roots of any genuinely artistic representation of the Faith in life, for art deals in symbols. The symbolic is its language, its means of communication.

One cannot properly study the Bible, the supreme Revelation, and at the same time the supreme achievement of literary art in the world’s literature, and not observe the dependence of the biblical writers upon symbols, upon the tangible, the concrete in the communication of spiritual truth. Even at Pentecost, the most spiritual of experiences surely, there is the wind and there is the fire. Jesus does not merely speak a word to a blind beggar. He makes clay with spittle and lays it upon his eyes. And at the last hour of greatest intimacy with his disciples, He took bread and poured out wine. The mightiest books of the Bible in literary power are the most symbolic: Genesis, Job, The Psalms, Isaiah, the Apocalypse.

It may well be that the evangelical branch of the Church must recover a sense of the meaning and function of symbols (as it veritably seems to be doing) if it is to produce writers who can communicate the experience of the Faith with power and beauty. The church building that cannot be distinguished from a lecture hall in appearance is not functioning as a spiritual instrument, though spiritual activity may be going on within it unaided by the setting. It may shelter the congregation adequately from the elements, but it does nothing in itself to lift the spirit Godward. And the ministry of the Word in such a building receives no assistance from the stones that should cry out in praise to God.

One cannot deny that there may be, that there have been, great outpourings of spiritual power without the assistance of instruments, but one must admit the difficulty of its representation for the artist. Too often the creative writer within the evangelical tradition is left with the most meager, and sometimes even pitifully shoddy instruments with which to shadow forth the most holy faith in graphic and pictorial terms.

THE WIDE PROVINCE OF ART

But this is only one of his problems. There is further the pressure upon him to select subjects which are in “good taste” in the Victorian sense. He is required to shun any realistic probing into the basic and most vital problems confronting the individual and society. And yet all life, high and low, sordid and noble, vile and pure, is the province of art.

Surely if the Bible is to be our standard, we must admit that nothing lay outside the province of the inspired writers. There are passages in the Bible concerned with the grossest and sometimes the most shocking forms of evil. There are stories of Sodom, of the Benjaminite war, of Amnon and Tamar. And there are the less startling but no less realistic stories of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, of David and Bathsheba, of Hosea and his faithless wife.

It certainly is not necessary for the Christian writer to dwell on the portrayal of evil in human experience. Indeed he cannot be a Christian writer if he prefers to wallow in human perversity and sin, to titillate the perverted taste and the defiled imagination of the carnally-minded reader.

But, on the other hand, he cannot be a true artist, he cannot be a significant writer, if his vision does not include the whole of human life, the depths of depravity as well as the heights of aspiration. If Christian readers, and Christian editors and publishers, insist on imposing unbiblical restrictions on contemporary authors, they will continue to produce men of little power and less vision, incapable of stabbing awake the conscience of the unregenerate.

Ibsen, whose dramas often shocked the prudish of his day, was once compared to the naturalist, Zola. This aroused him to anger. “Zola,” he said, “descends into the cesspool to take a bath; I, to cleanse it.” Ibsen was there suggesting a profound difference in the handling of evil in fiction and drama. The portrayal of evil per se does not make an evil book. If that were true it would be necessary to cut out great portions, not only of the Bible, but of the works of Shakespeare as well.

Unless there is a growing demand for Christian writers who will be free to write about the whole of life with compassionate honesty, the Christian faith cannot find any great expression in fiction.

“Let marriage be held in honor among all,” wrote the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “and let the marriage bed be undefiled.” But the Christian novelist seems almost as embarrassed in dealing with sex as is the non-Christian novelist in dealing with prayer. Surely there is an area between prudery and pruriency where the Christian view of sex may be handled honestly, forthrightly, and even beautifully, as in The Song of Songs.

So long as certain areas of life are handled only by the non-Christian writer, we will continue to advance a non-Christian view of life in its deepest recesses. We cannot combat the pagan view of sex in our time by ignoring its significance in human experience, or worse, by preserving in a realistic age the Victorian prudery and hypocrisy that made an ugliness of what God intended to be beautiful.

The sex relationship can be sacramental, an “outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.” But without the divine grace, without the spiritual aspiration infusing and inspiring the mutual love of two people, it tends to become merely the physical drive for personal gratification, which it is too often in fiction and in life. Surely the Christian novelist has a responsibility to reveal the distinction.

Of course, sex is only one area of life in which the realistic approach is needed in our time. Some of our great social problems cry out for a Christian treatment in fiction. Where is the great labor novel written from a Christian perspective? Where is the farm novel dealing honestly with that problem in our national life? Where is the missionary novel written with depth and power, recreating the whole milieu in which the transplanted Christian faith operates? Why does the popular denigration and disparagement of the missionary, as in Michener’s Hawaii, go unchallenged? Where is the novel dealing with the momentous ferment in Japan? Where is the Christian novel realistically and dramatically coming to grips with Communism?

THE PROPER AND THE PRUDISH

But not only is the Christian novelist limited in his selection of material; he is forced to handle even the properly selected material in a prudish and unrealistic manner. And yet we are living in a realistic age, an age that is as earthy and frank in its diction as was the age of Shakespeare. And that was the age also of the King James Version of the Bible, published in the same year (1611) as Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest. And the same earthy Anglo-Saxon words provide the translation from the earthy and realistic Hebrew text.

Here again, if the Bible is to be our standard, the modern Christian prophet should be able to call a spade a shovel as well as his ancient prototypes.

Why should “the prophetic voice in modern fiction” (as William R. Mueller suggests in his recent book under that title) be largely heard in writers that are non-Christian? It has not always been so. There have been great Christian voices in fiction: Dostoevski, Merezhkovski, and Sienkiewicz, to name a few.

Is the evangelical tradition then so artistically anemic that it can produce nothing full-blooded, full-bodied? Must the great writers of our time be intellectual rebels? Can the Great Acquiescence produce nothing worthy of our time, some mighty expression of our Faith’s triumphant and transforming power?

Most of the so-called “Christian” novels are artistically reprehensible, however proper their morality or their message. Often their characters are paper puppets, mere mouthpieces for the author’s pious propaganda. They have nothing of the vitality we seek in fiction of a genuine sort. They are cut to fit the moral, which is often as obvious as the message of Edgar Guest in verse. There is no subtlety in the handling, no sense of irony. The dialogue reads like written, not spoken English. There is little of idiom or idiosyncracy to identify one particular person from another. They all speak the speech of their author. There is no real understanding of all sorts and conditions of men. There is no all-embracing, Christlike compassion.

Is it any wonder that these artificial representations of life say nothing to those outside of the fold, and very little to those of education and intelligence within it?

And finally, all of this papier-maché world of romantic illusion, often so far removed from the real, or so pale a representation of it as to be unrecognizable, is too frequently conveyed in a style so shabby, so literal, and so careless as to disgrace the Faith they would proclaim.

Hemingway is said to have gone over the manuscript of The Old Man and the Sea 80 times. By comparison, stylistically, some of the religious novels of our time resemble the first draft of a college composition. There is no sense of the poetic, no attempt to create the rhythms of effective prose, to shape the imagery that lifts the mind from the dull commonplace, that rising from sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate.

One novelist at least in our time has done the thing beautifully, and he is an Anglican, within a liturgical tradition. Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country is not only a novel dealing realistically with one of the most serious problems of our time, but it is a thing of classic beauty, of poetic power and simple grandeur that lifts the spirit singing after the heart has been broken.

No sensitive spirit can come away from a reading of such a novel untouched, unchanged. Here are the evil, the sordidness, the irony, the tragedy, and the pathos of life. But here also are love and joy and peace that pass understanding. Here the Christian message is given wings. But here also it speaks in a voice with the sound of many waters, a voice that is prophetic, that speaks to our condition and to our need.

THAT THE MESSAGE GO FORTH

Only as Christian editors and publishers, Christian ministers and laymen rally to encourage the writing of works of such power and beauty will the Message go forth persuasively as it should in fiction to the troubled hearts and the confused minds of men in our time.

We will continue to neglect or to inhibit this potentially great vehicle of truth to our own loss and to the limitation of the artistic expression of the Faith. An alerted and aroused ministry might help to create an educated and intelligent laity that could in turn raise the standard of creative writing within the evangelical tradition.

Only as we see the necessity of the total penetration of our culture by the Gospel can we bring every thought into submission to the high and holy will of Christ.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Eschatology has been the center of theological attention for about a half century. It was at the turn of the century that theologians rediscovered the New Testament teaching about the Kingdom of God. Against the background of nineteenth century evolutionistic thought, it was realized that the New Testament said nothing about a Kingdom of God to be gradually realized by human effort, but that it said much about the Rule of God to be brought about by a radical and new act of God. Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer laid the groundwork for the so-called “thoroughgoing eschatology,” and their influence is felt on the eschatological thinking of our own day. It was Fritz Buri and Martin Werner in Switzerland who later worked out the implications of the conclusions of Weiss and Schweitzer. Their basic idea was that the New Testament teachers (Jesus and the apostles) had reckoned on the direct and immediate coming of the Kingdom, an expectation doomed to be unrealized. The Church was disappointed at the delay of the Parousia as the Lord did not reappear and as it became apparent that the Church still had a long way ahead of her in history. So said Buri and Werner.

Such a view aroused the opposition in our day of men like Oscar Cullmann. Cullmann insisted that the “thoroughgoing eschatology” had wholly misinterpreted the New Testament hope. The radical eschatology missed the central place that New Testament faith gave to the completely decisive event of the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, said Cullmann. The fact that the decisive events in saving history had already taken place kept the Church from suffering a severe crisis as a result of the delay in the reappearance of Christ.

The Lord’s coming was further off than the first believers thought, said Cullmann, but their faith realized that the great and radical event that changed the world had already happened at Calvary. What had yet to happen was only an outworking and an establishment of the salvation that had already been brought into the world.

Representatives of the school of “thoroughgoing eschatology” have argued against Cullmann that the expectation of the New Testament believers had been crushed by the Lord’s delay. They argue, indeed, that the delay of the Parousia had become an explicit matter dealt with in the New Testament itself, namely in II Peter. But we must note that in II Peter, it is the scoffers who intimidate the believers with the jibe, “Where is the promise of His coming?” Everything goes on the same as it has since the beginning of the world. Peter answers the scoffers by saying that they forget that everything has not gone on the same since the creation of the world. The flood has intervened. Scoffers in those days were saying that nothing could radically change things, that it was folly for Noah to expect judgment from heaven. Moreover, God delayed the flood which made it look for a while as though he had forgotten his promise. But God delayed only in order to grant time for men’s conversion; the delay was filled with God’s patience and long-suffering. The delay in his coming now does not make history meaningless; indeed, there is really no delay. God is fixing his own time wisely.

In the early days, the scoffers were not really concerned with the coming of Christ. They ridiculed the whole notion of God’s promise. Hence, when Peter says that a thousand years are like yesterday for God, he is not insisting that history has a long road ahead before the Lord would return. He only places before the Church the need for watchfulness: the day of the Lord shall come as thief in the night. Meantime, believers were to make their way through the world in a holy walk; filled with expectation, theirs it was to hasten on toward the coming of the Day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:11).

Representatives of the “thoroughgoing eschatology” obviously are not ignorant of II Peter. They are, however, not convinced of the above argument. They insist that Peter’s epistle is one that lets us see how the Church was confused by the delay in the Lord’s return. That is, II Peter is an early attempt to explain the delay to the Church. But such an interpretation does not have rapport with the contents. We read nothing to suggest that the Church as a whole was confused by the fact that the Lord had not yet returned. On the contrary, it was only some of the scoffers who made a point of it.

A controversy such as this, having gone on now for some 50 years, is not an academic point of theological debate. It touches on the vitals of believers’ lives. The Church still stands before the New Testament witness that the return of the Lord is near at hand. It is a witness that calls the Church of today to watchfulness. The surprising nature of the return (he comes as a thief) accents the need for watchfulness. We do not know the time of his coming.

Nonetheless we must remember that the history of man which marches on toward the end time is not a meaningless history. It is still a history full of God’s forbearance, for God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). This means that we can count on nothing certain for tomorrow, but that we must view history in faith as we walk in holiness and love. Every setting of the date of his return has failed; yet, every now and then someone tries to set the date. The Gospel teaches us two things: we are not to fall asleep but are to be ever watchful, as a sentinel at his post; and we are not to despair at the course of history. For now is the gracious time in which the call to conversion sounds over history. How closely the controversies of theology are related to the life of the Church! The word of II Peter concerning the scoffers at the delay in the Lord’s return is still of existential significance for the Church of the twentieth century. Our century is full of tension and catastrophy, but it is full too of the forbearance and mercy of God.

Evaluating Bultmann On The Gospel And Myth

Gospel and Myth in the Thought of Rudolph Bultmann, by Giovanni Miegge (John Knox Press, 1960, 152 pp., $4), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, Professor of Historical Theology, Columbia Theol. Sem.

Professor Miegge of the Waldensian Faculty in Rome earlier placed us in his debt with his able study on The Virgin Mary. Now he has again enriched us with this sympathetic and yet critical study of the work of Rudolph Bultmann on the Gospel, as well as on his presentation of the alleged mythological elements in the Bible. Bishop Stephen Neill of England has rendered the Italian into clear English, and John Knox Press together with the London Lutterworth Press have done excellently in their publishing of the work.

Miegge recognizes that Bultmann is an evangelical scholar who magnifies the revelation of God’s love and mercy in the Cross of Christ as well as an apologete who seeks to make the Gospel relevant by presenting it in terms of current thought. In Bultmann’s construction the Jesus of history is resolved into the Christ of faith as the only Christ we can reach by way of the kerygma of the Gospel, and the objective historical importance of Christ is understood only in terms of the conviction he was able to inspire. Christ is the revealer of God, and he is that in his coming and particularly in his Cross.

According to Professor Miegge, “It is necessary to affirm, much more strongly than Bultmann finds himself able to do, the truth and objective reality of the historical and supra-historical event which is summed up in the name of Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Risen One; Christian faith stands or falls with the objective truth of these events. But it is also necessary clearly to recognize that Christian Faith is far more than the mere repetition of already known truths—it is a reliving of the event of Christ in our own personal existence here and now.” While we differ with Bultmann “the champion of the elimination of the mythological,” we must not forget Bultmann the apostle of decision on the level of existence.

We rejoice in the author’s fine use of the article directed against the use of myth in TWNT by Professor G. Staehlin, as well as the line by which he shows that myth as used by Bultmann has reference to God’s own act in Christ and in present encounter. We are still of the opinion that Staehlin’s is the preferable position, and that we can recognize the use of symbol and of phenomenal language in the Bible without bringing in the term myth which often means fable.

The magnificent hand atop the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church of Port Gibson, Mississippi, is a symbol pointing heavenward and using the language of appearance to direct the thoughts to God. It does not imply that the cultured members of that fine congregation nor their scholarly pastor are unaware that the finger points to different places in the sky as the earth revolves on its axis and travels around the sun.

Then we commend Miegge for raising the question as to whether Gnostic thought so antedates John, Paul, and the pre-Pauline kerygma (Phil. 2:5–11) as to provide the categories to describe the eschatological event. Certainly “the testimony of Ignatius, as well as that of the Odes of Solomon” (Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes, s. 11–12) is from second century Christian documents. If such records show any borrowing they indicate that Gnosticism, at one stage, had taken over some Christian rags to cover its heathen nakedness. Professor Kleinknecht (TWNT. IV. 88–89) shows a fourfold difference between the Hellenistic logos speculation and the Prologue of John.

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON

Nature Of Preaching

The Essential Nature of New Testament Preaching, by Robert H. Mounce (Eerdmans, 1960, 159 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Cecil K. Thomas, Professor of Biblical Theology, The Graduate Seminary, Phillips University.

Mounce writes out of “a deep-seated conviction that the man in the pulpit occupies a position of unrivaled significance in the life and destiny of his fellow man” (p. 7). With this conviction he undertakes to discover the essential nature of the preaching of the New Testament Church. He deals with the Kerygma in the preaching of John, of Jesus, and of the preachers of the early church. The heart of this preaching he finds to be (1) a proclamation of the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus; (2) “The resultant evaluation of Jesus as both Lord and Christ”; and (3) “A summons to repent and receive forgiveness of sins” (p. 77). Mounce makes a careful evaluation of the position of C. H. Dodd, and examines the whole subject in the light of the New Testament and of contemporary scholarship. He arrives at the conclusion that such preaching is relevant today because in it men are confronted with the redemptive act of God in Christ and must make their fateful decision (pp. 153 ff.). The theology of Mounce is primarily conservative, but his treatment is sufficiently controversial to challenge both conservative and liberal into lively discussion with him. This is a book for every minister who takes seriously his role as preacher.

CECIL K. THOMAS

Bible Translation

God’s Word into English, by Dewey M. Beegle (Harper, 1960, $3.50), is reviewed by Samuel J. Schultz, Professor of Bible and Theology, Wheaton College (Illinois).

The author of God’s Word into English is to be commended for his interesting and vivid presentation of translation problems in the language of the laymen to whom this is addressed. The modern reader is made conscious of the difficulties confronting the translators by the use of biblical texts and their rendition in various versions. Archaisms and obscure translations need revision in the versions as languages change and more light from archaeological findings and philological studies clarify the original text of the Bible as transmitted to us.

Textual scholars would concur with the author that revisions are needed from time to time. Texts selected by him from the New Testament as well as the Old Testament clearly illustrate the need for revised translations. Changes in language, artistic styles for expressing the truth, new meanings of biblical words, alternate translations, and the matter of equivalence between the meaning of the Hebrew or Greek and the English translation—all these are vividly illustrated to make the modern reader conscious of the translation features which will enable him to understand God’s Word better.

Texts, used by the author to illustrate the problems, have been carefully selected, accurately presented and thoroughly treated by the author. Most textual scholars would concur with his observations regarding these passages. Based on the selected passages treated, the author makes some conclusions which are unfortunate for the layman who is not in a position to compare the various versions with the Greek or Hebrew. Beegle asserts that the RSV “usually alerts the reader by means of Cn footnotes. In such situations the reader is not forced to follow the text. He may always exercise his right to read the translation of the Masoretic text which is in the footnotes.” This may be true in the examples cited but not all scholars are of the opinion that the RSV “always” acquaints the reader with the Masoretic text in the Old Testament.

Neither is the layman informed about the references where the RSV emended or translated the text in such a way as to minimize or destroy the Messianic import. Messianic references are not included in the samples of passages used.

Today more than ever the layman needs a translation of the Bible which conveys to him as accurately as possible the text of the Hebrew and Greek for the Old and New Testaments, respectively. Footnotes should always indicate any textual departure. This represents the unfinished task of modern scholarship.

SAMUEL J. SCHULTZ

Pastor And Patient

Spiritual Therapy, by Young & Meiburg (Harper, 1960, 184 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Leslie R. Beach, Associate Professor of Psychology, Whitworth College.

Here is a book that helps bridge the rapidly narrowing gap between the healing ministries of the medical profession and the clergy. Written in very readable style by two pastors who carry on their ministry at the North Carolina Baptist Hospital, it provides information and guidelines of value to all ministers dealing with the sick, and especially to theological students in pastoral care training and to hospital chaplains new to that form of ministry.

Richard K. Young and Albert L. Meiburg believe that man is body, mind and soul. Therefore the physician, psychiatrist, and minister by working together in their specialties can contribute best as a team to the healing of the whole man. Spiritual Therapy is primarily concerned with the relationship between pastor and patient but the authors constantly stress the importance of the minister’s cooperation with doctors and psychiatrists.

From the case illustrations, one could conclude that the chaplain may use exhortation, directive advice, moralizing, probes and even sarcasm and ridicule, all with equal success. The patients always make a remarkable recovery. While such special techniques seem, for the most part, to be employed with good judgment, it does make this reviewer uncomfortable that more therapeutic and somewhat less directive techniques are not highlighted for the novice in pastoral care of the sick. The generous use of cases adds much to the strength of this book. The inclusion of seemingly authoritative medical information regarding various ailments is valuable.

All in all, the authors of Spiritual Therapy seem to have contributed significantly to the realization of their own expressed hope that minister-doctor cooperation will continue to improve and that their type of approach will serve “to push forward the effort to release more of religion’s creative and curative powers in the lives of distressed people.”

LESLIE R. BEACH

Data On Evolution

Why We Believe in Creation, Not in Evolution, by Fred John Meldau (Christian Victory Publishing Company, 1959, 348 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

There is a considerable library of scholarly books by scientists, professional and amateur, pointing to the improbabilities and fallacies of the theories of evolution. A handy compendium such as this, however, will serve to make relevant information readily available in a classified, documented, and indexed form, plus a useful bibliography.

The book is sprightly, packed with interesting facts, but devoted primarily to the biological aspects of the subject. One chapter is devoted to the earth, another is assigned to cosmic matters, but geology as a study is scarcely mentioned. One misses, too, a discussion of the radioactive elements and of carbon-14. The omissions are understandable, however, in view of the author’s expressed opinion, “The Bible clearly teaches that ‘in the beginning’ God created the universe (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1–3), and that far-off date may have been ‘five billion’ years I ago, more or less.” Thus the geologic eras per se, the “uranium time clock” and the radioactive carbon method of dating organic materials do not trouble him as they do some other creationists.

In spite of limitations, Meldau’s fascinating book will make a worthy and valuable addition to any pastor’s working library.

E. P. SCHULZE

Toward Clarification

Evolution and Christian Thought Today, edited by Russell L. Mixter (Eerdmans, 1959, 224 pp., plates, $4.50), is reviewed by Thomas H. Leith, Chairman, Division of Science and Mathematics, Gordon College.

“We believe that God has created life—why should we not be interested in how he created it?” (p. 70).

“It is not enough for one to raise objections to evolution, sound as they might be, but one must offer even more sound creationist possibilities to put in its place” (p. 32).

“Those who want to see no design and no Creator can easily do so, while those who look for design in nature can just as easily find it” (p. 122).

The above quotations express rather well the spirit behind this fine contribution to the Darwin centenary by 13 members of the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of Christian scientists. Too much literature on evolution has been either misinformed or unfair: it is refreshing to find a book both authoritative and reasonable. The first quote typifies the text, since specialists carefully scrutinize pertinent fields of biology and geology as areas of God’s natural revelation so as to find what current research and theory have to show us about how life originated and developed.

The second quote exemplifies a twofold problem. First, in some circles biological theory has been confused with theological, political, ethical, and social theses illogically connected to it in a century of human thought. Repelled by such theses, these persons have ignored or debased the quite legitimate function of theory construction in science so as to integrate what is known and suggest implications for future experimenting. Secondly, they forget that no theory is given up by scientists until a more adequate theory (for scientific purposes) comes along, and Christians have not readily presented such alternatives. In this volume attempts are made by different writers, stressing one or the other of these problems, to resolve the respective difficulties at least in part. Some are willing to accept evolution as does their non-Christian colleagues, but they see it not as implying such things as atheism, Marxism, or naturalism but as consistent with a theistic starting point. Others prefer to present alternative theories allowed by present data wherein God acts creatively in a unique manner at times.

The third quote reveals the crux of the decision necessary here. Christians must see the hand of God in nature. But the rub lies in that we should do this not on scholastic arguments from design as in natural theology but because God has first spoken. The belief in God is prior and axiomatic, not discovered a posteriori. If then we believe in God and seek to find his hand in nature, does Scripture, biology, geology, and anthropology best show it in His continued providence (some form of theistic evolution perhaps) or in special creative activities (some form of progressive creation) with some measure of evolution between these?

As one reads carefully the articles on Darwin’s influence in biology, on the origin of life, genetics, hybridization, speciation, ecology, fossils, physical anthropology, and theology and evolution, he sees what varied attitudes and perspectives are currently held by scientists and philosophers who are conservative in theology. Every Christian who desires to be informed in such an important and influential area of thought, as a century has proven it tobe, cannot afford to fail to read this book. Nor should anyone miss it who thinks science provides objections to Christian belief or that a Christian cannot be a reputable science scholar.

To my mind this book should go alongside Jan Lever’s Creation and Evolution (International Publications, 1958) as essential sources in the library of the educated Christian.

THOMAS H. LEITH

Church Administration

A Ministering Church, by Gaines S. Dobbins (Broadman, 1960, 231 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Sam A. High, Secretary, Training Union and Student Union Department, Maryland Baptist Union Assoc.

This is one of the best books on Church Administration that I have seen. It is really a guide to the meaning and dynamics of the Church Administrative Process. The age in which we live makes many demands upon the pastor. In addition to preaching and teaching, the present day pastor must also know how to be an administrator. Dr. Dobbins sees this as the heart of the pastor’s work.

The book begins with a chapter on what a church is for. The fact that a church needs many ministers is discussed. Then there is a helpful chapter which brings home to us what we already know, that ministers must be administrators. Most of the division in churches comes about because of lack of administration, and the problem cannot be solved by preaching.

The organizational life of the church is discussed. “The teaching church calls for elaborate organization of the congregation,” says Dr. Dobbins. The church is considered as a school, not just a “Sunday School.” Teaching, training, and worshipping all take place in the New Testament Church.

Qualifications of the church staff are well presented. Church-staff relationships involving matters such as the causes of tensions among staff members, when a staff member should resign, when he should not resign; and a parable for staff members are all discussed.

Music, stewardship, counseling, and evangelism are strongly emphasized.

The book is a first-class piece of work and worthy of study by every pastor. Ministers of education and music, as well as various age group workers, will also find much help in this book.

SAM A. HIGH

Christian Culture

Response in Worship—Music—the Arts, edited by Walter E. Buszin and a staff of 11 assistants. This is a new magazine, and it contains 46 pages, 8″ × 10½″ in size, the subscription is $1.75 per year, and sample copies are $1.

This number contains articles on Christian worship, liturgy, church literature, hymnody—and editorial comment. There are 12 illustrations, three of which are full-page plates. It is set in what appears to be one of the dozen versions of Times Roman, a most attractive face. The church buildings illustrated are decidedly modern. The essays are more conservative, and there is no evidence that the reader is to be given articles in praise of such musical idols as Hindemith, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Mihaud, and Ives. The circulation manager is Mr. Gerhard Cartford (2375 Como Avenue, St. Paul 8, Minnesota).

The mortality rate of such magazines is high. Even Mr. R. A. Cram’s rather lavish Magazine of Christian Art came to an end after 21 issues. Today a complete set brings as much as $400 at book auctions. Let us hope that Response may have length of life.

F. R. WEBBER

CHRISTIANITY TODAYcommissioned Adon Taft, religion editor of the Miami Herald, to visit Cuba to learn how the revolution has affected the religious life of the people. Taft toured the entire island, interviewing missionaries and national church leaders as well as the laity. Here is his report:

Faith is being put to the test on the tense, confused island of Cuba.

Fidel Castro’s revolution has split the church and more and more his government’s restrictions are tightening on the material life of God’s people.

Prophetic, perhaps, is a window display of the American Bible Society’s downtown headquarters in the capital city of Havana. The display, which stops hundreds of passersby a day, quotes 1 Peter 4:7–9:

“But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.”

Everyone who enters the store comments on how well the verses fit the situation in the nation, reports the pretty young clerk who is a Roman Catholic.

Just what that situation is has people both inside and outside Cuba confused. Many people outside the country think it is a pitched battle between a Communist-led government and a powerful Roman Catholic church.

There is little doubt left that the government is Red controlled. Fidel himself may be no more than a neurotic with a savior complex. He is in the power, however, of the avowed Communist, Che Guevara.

In addition to its thinness, the Roman Catholic church in Cuba is split over the revolution. Many of the brawls which have occured over denunciation of communism from the pulpits were between pro and anti-Castro forces within the congregations.

The famous pastoral letters against communism were not read in any of the Catholic churches in the interior provinces. This was partly because of fear of reprisals, but also because of the sympathy of many priests and others for the Castro regime.

There has been some effort, as in many Communist countries, to organize a national Catholic church. The appeal has been to the 200 Cubans among the 720 priests of the church. The other priests are foreigners, some 400 of them Spanish.

Cuban Catholics: How Strong?

Catholic strength in Cuba is questionable. Cuba is not a Catholic nation, as is commonly thought, if one takes it to mean that a majority of the 6,000,000 population are Catholics.

The predominant religion of Cuba is spiritism, a combination of animism and voodooism. Many nominal Catholics actually practice spiritism, adopting saints of the Roman church as the spirits of the inanimate objects they worship.

A good example of the thinness of the Catholic church on the island is Havana, with its population of nearly 1,000,000. There are only 30 fully established churches and 50 mission stations in the whole city. Six of the churches are Catholic. This compares with Miami, a city of comparable size and not in any sense a Catholic center, where there are a total of 450 churches, including 30 Catholic.

Havana is not an exception. In Mantanzas, for example, there are only 2,000 church members in all—Protestants and Catholics—in a population of 100,000.

The greatest strength of the Catholics is in Camaguey, where they have 22 of the 30 churches in the city area of 210,000 persons.

All of the hierarchy’s opposition to the government has not stemmed from anti-Communist feeling, either. Castro, although nominally a Catholic himself, has cut off all government subsidy for the Catholic church which has existed throughout the island’s 450-year history of European civilization.

The recognition traditionally given the Roman church by the Cuban government gives that church’s current pronouncements more prestige and force than is indicated by the statistics on active membership.

Protestant churches, meanwhile, have received a sort of left-handed blessing from Castro. For the first time Protestants are given recognition in public events.

Many Protestants—both clergymen and laymen—were active in the government when the revolution first was established and found general support for promises of much-needed reforms.

Several still are in the government although Faustino Perez, former minister of recuperation, and Enrique Ostalki, both Presbyterians, and Lopez Fresquet, a Methodist who was minister of finance, have quit their Castro-given posts.

Significantly, most of Christians left in the government are Presbyterians. Heading the list is Dr. Raul Fernandez Ceballos, secretary of the Cuban Council of Churches who heads up the literacy program under the minister of education.

Castro met with Dr. Fernandez, Dr. Rafael Cepeda (a professor at the Evangelical Seminary and director of education in Latin America for the Presbyterian Church, USA) and others, mostly Presbyterians, to propose a national Protestant church with a minister of religion in the cabinet.

Only intervention by the Presbyterian mission board in the United States with a threat to cut off funds aborted the plans.

Many Protestant leaders—both American missionaries and native Cubans—opposed the attempt at a new union of church and state.

The historic union of the state with the Catholic church had prevented any significant Protestant work in Cuba until after the Spanish-American War when missionaries from the United States followed Yankee troops in to liberate the people from more than Spanish rule.

The Bible was banned from the latently wealthy island until 1871. But since the days of independence, Bible-believing Christians have been making some headway.

Methodists and Baptists have been the pace-setting Protestant churches. The former have about 10,000 full members and have an elaborate educational system which includes the nation’s only Protestant university.

Baptists have divided the island, with Southern Baptists working in the western four provinces and American Baptists serving the two eastern provinces. Together their strength is about the same as that of the Methodists and their work across the island seems to be similar.

Presbyterians, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals (the name given in Cuba to the work of the Assemblies of God), Episcopalians, and Churches of God, also have strong works in Cuba.

Free-Will Baptists, the West Indies Mission (which began in Cuba), Nazarenes, the Four-Square Gospel churches, the Church of Christ, the United World Mission, the Berean Mission and Conservative Baptists also are active.

All of these churches are split over the revolution because all of the people of Cuba are divided on the issue. At first, nearly all the people and most of the church leaders supported Castro. Many ministers thought the millennium had come with Fidel’s promises. Some thought he was a Christian.

But as civil liberties have vanished and private enterprise of every kind has been placed under restriction, the people and the church leaders have begun to place the Red label on the government. Probably 70 per cent of the people now are against the Castro regime.

“Our days are numbered,” remarked Jose Colmenero, 38-year-old, Cuban-born, American missionary for the Conservative Baptist Convention.

Working among business and professional people of Havana, Colmenero finds that many of those he has won to the Lord in the last two years now are fleeing the country because the government has taken their property and frozen their bank accounts.

“Few Christians are on fire. They’d rather talk politics than Christ,” he said. He told of one Baptist youth meeting breaking up with Christian Cubans telling American Christians, “Why don’t you Americans go home?”

The anti-Americanism stirred up by Castro is a definite stumbling block to missionaries. John Tiezen and Jerry Sandal], of the Berean Mission in the farming town of Auros, in Oriente Province, report they are unable to talk to some people just because they are Americans.

Nonetheless, the mission carries on at 13 preaching points which reach 1,000 of the poverty-stricken natives who live in the squalor of thatched-roof huts.

The mission’s two radio programs are limited in effectiveness since batteries for radios no longer are available for their listening audiences.

The biggest hope of the mission is the 11 students in the Bible school who will go out well-grounded in the faith to work among their compatriots.

Bible school is not enough, though, in the opinion of Roy Ackerle, of United World Mission. That mission’s Bible school in Cabanas, Pinar del Rio, has been closed down after 12 years to make way for a seminary-type school providing classes for about 15 students a year.

Protestant Panorama

• The Rev. James M. Lawson, Negro sit-in leader whose dismissal from the student body of Vanderbilt University Divinity School caused a faculty controversy last spring, is being assigned as pastor of Scott Memorial Methodist Church in Shelbyville, Tennessee. The 33-year-old minister earned a bachelor of divinity degree at Boston University School of Theology this summer.

• A clerical exchange program is under way between the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States and the Church of England (Anglican). The plan provides for pairs of qualified priests—one English and one American—to exchange their parishes for a year.

• Southern Baptists have started 10,252 missions and churches since the beginning of the “30,000 Movement” on June 1, 1956, according to program director C. C. Warren. The movement seeks to establish 20,000 missions and 10,000 churches by 1964.

• Nearly 500 high school and college athletes assembled at an Estes Park, Colorado, camp last month for the annual summer conference of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Among sports greats who participated in the program were St. Louis Hawks basketball star Paul Pettit, All-America center Doon Moomaw of UCLA, and Dave (Boo) Ferris, former Boston Red Sox pitcher.

• A week-long evangelistic campaign in Quito, Ecuador, drew capacity crowds to the 3,000-seat Capital Theater this summer. Some 415 persons responded to nightly invitations following sermons by evangelist Fernando Vangioni of Argentina.

• American pianist Van Cliburn, at the close of a summer concert tour of the Soviet Union, gave 80,000 rubles ($8,000) from his receipts to the First Baptist Church of Moscow.

• A leading Navy researcher told the American Scientific Affiliation last month that world peace is contingent upon mankind’s voluntary surrender to God. “Until human nature is changed we’ll have war,” said Dr. Robert M. Page, director of research for the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory. Page addressed the 15th annual convention of ASA, a fellowship of Christian scientists, held in Seattle, Washington.

• Twin brothers Frank and Charles Richard observed their 80th birthday by serving as guest pastors at Park Place Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Hutchinson, Kansas, last month. The two retired ministers each delivered a brief sermon.

• Delegates to the annual summer national conference of the Methodist Youth Fellowship passed resolutions which supported non-violent sit-in demonstrations, took a stand for racial and social equality, urged abolition of the Methodist Central Jurisdiction, and called for a study of communism by Methodist youth to enable them to more effectively oppose it. The meeting was held in Lincoln, Nebraska.

• The Young Life movement plans to erect a $92,000 national headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

• Protestant church members in Taiwan now number 136,250, according to the newly-published Taiwan Christian Yearbook. The figure represents a gain of 39 per cent since 1957. Overseas Protestant missionaries on the island are said to have increased from 444 to 534 during the three-year period.

• The Kresge Foundation is making a $25,000 grant to the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico to be applied to construction of a new men’s dormitory.

• A minority faction in the First Baptist Church of Wichita, Kansas, is pressing a law suit which seeks to retain the church’s property and enjoin the majority from interfering with the congregation’s buildings, funds, or affairs. The minority faction charges that custom, tradition and doctrine were violated when the congregation withdrew from the American Baptist Convention to protest the convention’s membership in the National Council of Churches.

The 15 American missionaries with UWM find that many Cubans shun them because of their nationality, Ackerle said. But their work continues among about 1,000 persons at 15 churches and preaching stations in the province.

A UWM daily radio program from Havana’s revolutionary station still finds response.

Faced with the possibility of losing a farm used to support its work, the UWM has sold it. The move followed government seizure of Methodist and Nazarene camp sites on the Isle of Pines.

The growing prejudice against Americans also may force out men like the Rev. Victor Rankin, district superintendent of the Methodist Church in Camaguey where an Episcopal missionary already has been attacked by the government and has left the country, at least temporarily.

Rankin is glad that so many Cubans have been given leadership in the Methodist Church because they could carry on if necessary. But, like most of the Americans on the field, he is a little apprehensive about the preparedness of the majority of the Cuban churchmen.

“After all,” he points out, “the church is only 50 years old here.”

Besides the prejudice against American missionaries, the pinch of the general economic conditions of the island, and the isolated seizure of church property, Protestants and Catholics alike are faced with government antagonism in their vast educational undertakings. The churches operated 1,300 schools with 300,000 students and 10,000 teachers.

Some 300 of these schools will be unable to open this month because they are unable to meet the high salary requirements of the new law. Many of the teachers were practically volunteers.

The government is making it uneconomic to run many other schools in such ways as in the case of the school which has three buses. One is broken and the school doesn’t have the money to replace it and there are no buses for sale anyway. The school asked the government for permission to lay off the bus driver, but the request was denied.

In another instance a school had 170 boarding students, 150 of which were orphans or needy students whose tuition was paid by the government. The government is taking the 150 students out of the school but the school can’t fire the cooks and housekeepers used to care for those students.

Catholic schools must pay into teacher pension funds, maintained by the government, even though the teaching nuns can’t draw a pension.

A Methodist school has discovered that one of its teachers is a Communist. The director cannot fire the teacher because of present laws forbidding employers to fire anybody. Classes cannot be taken away from the teacher for fear the teacher would complain to the government.

Despite all this, not even all the American missionaries are disturbed at Castro’s policies. Mrs. Herbert Caudill, a Southern Baptist who has been transplanted from Mississippi for 30 years, notes:

“Government recognition of Protestants by using them in government has given evangelicals prestige for the first time and makes our work easier.” She terms Che a genius who has saved the Cuban economy.

And many Cuban church leaders still feel Castro is in sympathy with their work. Some point out that Fidel’s son has joined the Methodist Church, that his sister sings in a Baptist choir, that he often quotes the Bible, and that Che Guevara’s wife—Aleida March—is a Presbyterian (she also is a known Communist).

Among those are such evangelical leaders as the Rev. B. G. Lavastida, a founder of the West Indies Mission and just-retired director of Los Pinos Nuevos School near Santa Clara.

He sees no danger of communism in the government and hails the promised reforms as Christianity in action. The fact that his 32-year-old school for training nationals to evangelize Cuba is closing next year to channel money to build churches, is because many fanners who supported the work have moved to the city and lost contact, he said. The number active in the work has dwindled from 7,000 to 5,000.

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Walter Lowrie Whallon, 81, retired Presbyterian minister and one-time president of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States; in Newark, New Jersey … the Rev. Domingo Marrero, 51, a dean at the University of Puerto Rico and well-known Methodist leader; in San Juan … Dr. Garfield Williams, 78, former dean of the Church of England cathedral at Manchester; while travelling by train from his home in Devon to Exeter, England … Lieutenant Colonel John Stobart, 56, territorial commander of the Salvation Army in Ceylon; in Colombo … Miss Ellen Nielsen, 89, veteran Danish missionary to China who refused to be repatriated; in Takushan, Manchuria … Dr. Norman B. Harrison, noted Presbyterian minister.

Elections: As president of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Rev. Anders E. Farstrup … as Methodist Bishop of Lima, Peru, Dr. B. Foster Stockwell.

Appointments: As president of Tougaloo Southern Christian College, Dr. Adam Daniel Beittel … as professor of systematic theology at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Dr. Gerrit T. Vander Lugt … as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Masasi, Tanganyika, Father Trevor Huddleston … as chaplain at American University, the Rev. LeRoy Steney Graham.

Citation: To Dr. Paul W. Brand, British Baptist medical missionary, the 1960 Albert Lasker Award for Distinguished Service to the Physically Handicapped (Brand has been director of orthopedics at Vellore Christian Medical College in India since 1946. He was cited for work among lepers.)

So the picture remains confused. A Communist youth movement in Oriente uses the name of an American Baptist minister who helped launch Castro’s revolution; a Methodist layman and a Methodist clergyman in the interior are active leaders in the underground counter-revolutionary movement. Protestants, some of whom at first welcomed the Castro attacks on the Romans, and Catholics are working together in schools and other areas for the first time.

But the biggest area of agreement in even the Catholic church is that this is the Cuban church’s greatest opportunity. The church still is free to preach Christ in all his glory and power.

And the greatest need of Cuba, in the opinion of most evangelical leaders, is more American missionaries to give guidance and initiative to the faithful, young Christians in the churches of the island.

It’s a pressing need underscored by the theme hymn used by a Methodist clergyman specializing in work among laborers in the interior—“Work for the Night Is Coming.”

‘Kneel-in’ Arrests

The first “kneel-in” arrests were made in Memphis August 25 after would-be demonstrators appeared at Bellevue Baptist Church, second largest in the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Ramsay Pollard, SBC president, is pastor.

A white youth and his Negro companion were fined $51 each on disorderly conduct charges and ordered held for grand jury action on a state charge of interfering with public worship. They had been offered seats in the balcony, but declined and protested.

A passing policeman noted the disturbance and intervened. The church itself did not press charges.

Aide for Kennedy

Senator John F. Kennedy has enlisted the services of a high-ranking National Council of Churches official in his presidential campaign.

James W. Wine resigned as Associate General Secretary for Interpretation for the NCC last month to join the Kennedy staff as “special assistant for community relations.” The new job will entail dealing with questions raised by the Democratic candidate’s membership in the Roman Catholic Church, his statements on Church-State matters, and similar issues.

Wine, a 42-year-old Presbyterian elder who has long been active in Democratic circles, is known chiefly for his key role in the Air Force manual controversy. It was he who first called the Defense Department’s attention to a reservist security manual which accused prominent Protestant clergymen of pro-Communist activities. He pressed the issue even after being assured that the manual was being withdrawn.

Wine, a lawyer, spent a year and a half with the NCC. He came to New York after having served as vice president of Park College, in Parkville, Missouri, for two years. Before that he had served in his native Kentucky as a U. S. Commissioner under appointment by President Truman.

After 38 Years

Radio station WABC in New York is cancelling seven paid religious programs totalling four hours weekly.

Among those being eliminated is a Sunday morning broadcast from Calvary Baptist Church, a program which has been aired regularly for 38 years.

The station plans to replace the four paid hours with 90 minutes of free time to be shared by the area’s “four largest organized religious groups—Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Evangelicals.” A spokesman said the station would continue to relay the ABC radio network’s full religious schedule (which itself is being curtailed).

Crusade in Europe

Evangelist Billy Graham was scheduled to begin meetings in Germany this week following a series of crusades in Berne, Zurich, Basel, and Lausanne.

Meetings were slated in Essen from September 10 through 16. To accommodate the campaign, the largest tent ever erected in Germany was raised in the big West German industrial center. The tent was made to seat 20,000.

Following the Essen meetings, Graham planned to go to Hamburg and Berlin.

Buddhist Control

The government of Ceylon plans to take over all state-assisted Christian schools. Education Minister Badiudin Mahmud says the move will be made before the end of the year.

For some years there has been a growing Buddhist campaign for the nationalization of all schools and social welfare agencies in the country.

Bookshop Ban

Ecumenical Press Service says missionary bookshops in the Sudan province of Equatoria are being closed down by order of the governor.

All business-connected missionary enterprises must be eliminated, the report states, under the latest of a series of measures imposed by the government in a campaign for “complete Islamisation of the Sudan.”

Malta Observes Landing Of Paul

The diminutive island of Malta this year is celebrating the 1900th anniversary of the landing of the Apostle Paul.

Among Maltese it is a matter of intense pride that about A.D. 60 the apostle found refuge on the island when a Rome-bound ship in which he was travelling as prisoner wrecked in fierce winter storms (see Acts 28).

Paul remained three months, ministering to the sick and preaching Christian conversion. He left an indelible imprint on the island.

Even today, half of Malta’s men and boys seemingly are named Paul, the National Geographic Society says. Church after church bears his name. So does a nearby islet said to be the actual place where the Roman ship, with Paul aboard, ran aground.

The main island of Malta, which has been a British Crown colony since 1814, covers about 95 square miles. Most of Malta’s 319,000 residents are Roman Catholics.

The island’s religious identification stems chiefly from the Knights of Malta, a militant order which dates back to the first Crusade. The order was formed in Jerusalem, but was driven out and pursued successively through Acre, Cyprus, and Rhodes. The Knights of Malta finally established a permanent headquarters on Malta in 1530.

Korea’s Second Republic

In most respects Korea’s Second Republic is radically different from the First Republic of Syngman Rhee. Power will be centered in a prime minister instead of the president. But one thing which the April revolution did not change is Korea’s continuing dependence upon Christian leadership in the government.

In the new republic as in the old, Korea’s future rests in the hands of two Christian statesmen, a Protestant president, Posun Yun, and a Catholic prime minister, John Chang.

Succeeding Rhee as president of the republic is an aristocratic, austerity-minded Presbyterian elder whose family is famous in the history of Korean Protestantism. President Posun Yun neither smokes or drinks. Scottish-educated, he majored in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. His wife is theologically trained at a women’s theological seminary in Japan and is actively interested in Christian education.

The whole Yun family faithfully attends the Andong Presbyterian Church near their old ancestral home in Seoul.

The prime minister is a Roman Catholic, and an intense political rival of President Yun. Both belong to the Democratic party which was swept to power in the July 29 elections, but the Democrats are one party in name only. For all practical purposes, the party is split into two almost equal factions which function as rival political parties: the Old Faction Democrats and the New Faction Democrats.

President Yun heads the Old Faction and Prime Minister Chang the New.

Convention Circuit

Here are reports of summer church conventions:

At Edinburgh, Scotland—The Sixth quinquennial assembly of the World Convention of Churches of Christ (Disciples) drew more than 4,000 delegates from many points on the globe. Some 2,500 of the delegates were Americans. The six-day meeting was held in Edinburgh’s historic Usher Hall.

Delegates unanimously adopted resolutions which (1) recognized responsibility “for the tensions and distress around us” and accepted the challenge of the age to seek new insight as to how moral power can be made an effective element of “national strength and international action”; (2) declared delegates’ readiness to make full use of whatever organizations or machinery might be seen to be working to achieve international disarmament and world peace; (3) pledged the convention to work for abolition of racial discrimination; and (4) promised efforts to provide homes for refugees and to help increase the world’s food supply.

Florentino Santana of Puerto Rico was elected convention president.

At Memphis, Tennessee—The General Assembly of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) drew some 7,000 lay delegates to Memphis.

Just prior to the biennial session, the Council of Ordained Ministers of the Church of God adopted a resolution which questions the fitness of a Roman Catholic as President.

“We honestly doubt that a Roman Catholic President could or would fully resist the pressures of ecclesiastical hierarchy,” the ministers said.

Formed in 1886, the denomination, a Pentecostal group, is the largest body using the name “Church of God” in this country, reporting a U. S. membership of more than 163,000.

At Waterloo, Iowa—In a nearly unanimous vote, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church endorsed merger with three other Lutheran churches at its 83rd annual convention. The proposed union with the Suomi, Augustana, and United Lutheran churches will produce a three-million-member denomination to be known as the Lutheran Church in America. The merger timetable calls for final consummation in 1962.

After merger, the AELC plans a special interest conference to continue fellowship among Danish congregations.

Saint Andrews, Scotland Facing a changing world order which challenges the Church to show the relevance of Christianity to man’s needs and to the tremendous ideological warfare engaging all the nations, the World Council of Churches held one of its most significant meetings last month in Saint Andrews, Scotland.

In the shadow of historic monuments to the faith and courage of the leaders of the Scottish Reformation (this year celebrating its 400th anniversary), WCC leaders saw their best hope and greatest resource in a strengthened Basis of membership which exalts Christ and emphasizes the authority of Holy Scripture and the validity of the Trinitarian faith.

Some 200 ecumenical leaders, representing more than three-fourths of all non-Roman Christendom, had come to Saint Andrews for the last annual meeting of the Central Committee and its multifarious subcommittees before the great Assembly in New Delhi, India, next year. The 90-member Central Committee of the World Council is often said to be the World Council, so great is its constitutional authority and practical importance in the ecumenical structure. What it decided at Saint Andrews is almost certain to be approved at New Delhi.

For evangelicals the Central Committee’s action on the new Basis was more heartening than anything else that transpired August 16–21. Its importance calls for a bit of historical background.

When the Council came into being at Amsterdam in 1948, it adopted a bare formula acceptable to almost any shade of theology:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches who accept Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.

Evangelicals contended that there should be a “basis for the Basis.” They held that any form of ecumenicity which bypasses the Holy Scripture as the ground of authority must be futile. While the WCC’s basis was stronger in its evangelical spirit than that adopted by the National Council of Churches in the USA, it still left much to be desired.

In 1954, prior to the WCC Assembly in Evanston, the Church of Norway became the spokesman for a very considerable evangelical element in the Council and proposed an amendment to the Basis which would cause it to read:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches who, according to Holy Scriptures, confess Jesus as God and Saviour.

Doughty Bishop Eivind Berggrav, of honored memory, assumed the responsibility of presenting the proposal and came from Norway bravely contending that “What the WCC needs is a flying standard under which we will march. This standard without the Bible is incomplete.” He was greatly shocked when this proposal was sidetracked by a parliamentary and constitutional technicality and did not come before the Assembly for consideration. The complete story of that maneuver would make interesting reading. Competent observers are divided as to its entire justification. Some indication of the fears of those in authority at Evanston is reflected in a statement by Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert in a press conference in Cann Hall to the effect that if Norway’s proposal Should come to the Assembly for discussion, it would pave the way for proposals to include in the Basis the Trinity, Holy Tradition, and the dogmas of the historic creeds. That, said Dr. Cavert, would wreck the ecumenical movement. Finally the proposal was referred to the Central Committee.

It was with some reluctance that the Central Committee eventually appointed a subcommittee to study the matter and report. Dr. Earnest A. Payne, respected British Baptist leader and a vice-president of the WCC, headed the group. One of its first moves was to poll some 70 theologians for their advice. The almost unanimous response was in favor of retaining the original Basis. For two years the future of revision looked dark.

But Dr. Payne and his colleagues persisted in their assigned task and explored every area of WCC influence. Unexpected reinforcement of the Church of Norway’s inflexible position then came from Eastern Orthodox theologians. They urged even further strengthening by reference to the Trinity and Holy Tradition. The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches asked a change in wording that would make clear the humanity of Jesus, implicit in the Trinitarian formula. About this time it became evident to Council leaders that theological thought in continental Europe was becoming more favorable to a biblical frame of reference in dealing with all matters ecumenical. Suzanne de Dietrich’s The Biblical Renewal (Le Renouveau Biblique) indicated that there was in progress a world-wide “Back to the Bible” movement not only in Protestantism but in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. With this encouragement the Central Committee was constrained to consider seriously an entirely new proposal going beyond Norway’s initial suggestion. Subcommittee reports at New Haven in 1957 and at Rhodes in 1959 were well received.

All along the Central Committee maintained that the Basis adopted at Evanston was primarily a formula of agreement which is purely functional and has as its purpose “to say what holds us together in the World Council, what is the starting point of our conversation and the foundation of our collaboration.” The Committee’s reluctance to alter the Basis stemmed from a fear that if it were to be thought of as a creed, or as offering a full statement of the Christian faith, the WCC might be accused of seeking to set up a super-church. In the changed climate of Saint Andrews there was almost unanimous consent that something was needed to guard against misunderstanding.

Four changes from the original Basis were proposed and accepted: (1) the word “confess” was substituted for “accept” as being more decisive; (2) the definite and exclusive article “the” replaced the vague “our” before “Lord Jesus Christ”; (3) the authority of the Bible was recognized as “the basis for the Basis” by the addition of the phrase “according to the Scriptures”; and (4) the Trinitarian character of the Basis was clarified by introduction of the formula “the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

The Central Committee will now submit the following altered form of the Basis for confirmation at New Delhi:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, according to the Scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfill their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

While confirmed evangelicals rejoiced at this trend toward a more explicit commitment to the cardinal doctrines of the historic Christian faith, and while others breathed a sigh of relief over a succesful ecumenical maneuver which left WCC unity substantially intact, there are fears and unresolved problems in many quarters. Will the proposal open the gate to an overt development in creed-making? Will there be emergence of a super-church with the Basis as statement of faith? Is the proposed revision adequate to exclude Unitarian theists who may hold modal Trinitarian views? Does it completely satisfy those who contend not only for the Scriptures as supplying normative Christian witness but as divinely inspired and authoritative? American liberal theologians particularly see this move as a step backward which may delay ecumenical achievement by 50 years. Swiss liberals (who are greatly influenced by the theological speculations of Rudolph Bultmann) fear the expansion as a stumbling block to wholehearted cooperation in the Council. There is, however, little unanimity among protestors and effective negative action at New Delhi is quite unlikely.

It may be relevant here to view the status of Faith and Order which was under discussion at Saint Andrews. From August 3 to 8 this important Commission met to deal with the theological concerns of the Council. Important papers on the Church, Baptism, Tradition, Institutionalism, Worship, and other themes were presented, and progress was reported in several areas of study and ecumenical action. The biblical frame of reference was frequently evident in the papers and discussions.

In the meetings of the Central Committee much was made of the “growing significance” of theology in ecumenical encounter, and of a more practical role of Faith and Order in every phase of the Council’s program. In the background, however, there seemed to lurk a deep concern for the future of the Commission. The long-time clash between Life and Work on the one hand and Faith and Order on the other is still very real.

Faith and Order traces its beginning beyond the history of the WCC itself. It was originally known as the Conference on Faith and Order and Missionary Cooperation. Its first meting at Edinburgh in 1910 has been considered the birthplace of the ecumenical movement. Liberals became restive under its strong theological emphasis—its belief that effective unity must be grounded in a common Christian faith—and agitated for a conference which would stress the social concerns of Christendom. They held that “doctrine divides, but service unites.” Accordingly the Universal Christian Council of Life and Work held its initial meeting in Stockholm in 1925. When these agencies along with others combined to form the world Council of Churches in 1948, Faith and Order was given preferential status and retained much of its original freedom of action.

Since Amsterdam, Life and Work has steadily moved toward primacy, and Faith and Order is now considered by many objective observers to be a “third-rate” Commission. At Evanston (1954) it was forced to surrender its right to convene inter-church conferences on faith and order, its separate London office was ordered closed, and its functions were integrated with those of the WCC secretariat.

The present Constitution which was adopted at Evanston, states that the Commission is (1) to proclaim the essential oneness of the Church, (2) to study questions of faith, order, and worship with the relevant social, cultural, political, racial, and other factors in their bearing on the unity of the Church, (3) to study the theological implications of the existence of the ecumenical movement, (4) to study matters in church relations which need theological clarification, and (5) to provide information concerning actual steps taken by the churches toward reunion.

Still further integration with “the total work of the WCC” was proposed at Saint Andrews. It is being made clear that the Commission now works under “changed circumstances.” Going beyond Evanston, the Central Committee called for a fuller statement of the Commission’s purpose; a review of memberships, the requirements therefor and methods of appointment; and a re-examination of the means by which Faith and Order should realize its goals. No radical changes are to be made until after New Delhi, but there are fears that the Commission’s new role may destroy its remaining evangelical strength and usefulness.

Integration of the International Missionary Council with the WCC moved a step further toward final realization at New Delhi. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, IMC general secretary, said, “We have reason to believe that it is virtually certain that the plan will go through.” It was reported that 24 IMC councils had approved the integration proposals, six were considering the matter and five had not responded. Little was said of the withdrawal of the Congo council and the warnings of the Norwegian boards. It would take five negative IMC votes to block confirmation at New Delhi, but even in case of such an unexpected development, the merger is certain to come at some future time. Eighty-three WCC member churches have approved the plan; only five oppose it. Evangelical elements in both the IMC and the WCC are fearful that the proposed new Division of World Mission and Evangelism will cool the ardor of the churches in winning the world to Christ. Already other WCC concerns are pressing in to claim the attention of mission boards—Christian Home and Family Life, Inter-Church Aid, Ecumenical Action and the Division of Studies. But the doubting Thomases put great faith in Newbigin’s oft-repeated plea “that if ecumenicity is not to mean Christianity without its cutting edge, one of our needs is to identify and promote the specific foreign missionary task” within the ecumenical complex. Observers believe the “proof of the pudding will be in the eating.”

Major attention was given to reports and pronouncements of the Council’s Commission of Churches on International Affairs. The secular press gave most of its headlines to this phase of the meetings. Left-wing humanitarian Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the Commission, bulks large over modest moderate Sir Kenneth Grubb, its nominal head. Admittance of Red China to the United Nations was endorsed though in somewhat ambiguous terms. The Council urged its members to help “create the conditions” which would permit the 650,000,000 citizens of “the People’s” China to have a voice in world affairs.

Professor Georges Florevsky of Harvard Divinity School cast the only vote against the proposal. Another member abstained. Nolde said the Commission hoped that “other governments” would establish diplomatic relations with Red China. His panacea for the solution of world problems takes the form of “seven steps”:

—Peaceful competition and larger cooperation with the Reds, avoiding risks involved in the Soviet conception of coexistence and the dangers in the view that coexistence is impossible and morally undesirable.

—Creation of an intergovernmental committee to study the basic differences between East and West with a view to bridging the gap between the Communist and the non-Communist nations.

—Acceptance by all governments of essential rules of behavior in all negotiations.

—Reduction and regulation of armaments under international control.

—Agreement on the cessation of nuclear testing with provisions for international control.

—United Nations aid to keep the great powers from open clashes and from suspension of negotiations for better understanding.

—Promotion of calm consideration of international problems on their merit without “blusterings, threatenings and name callings.”

When asked in a news conference whether there was any theological basis for the Commission’s program, Nolde said “No,” but insisted that its members had tried to look at world issues from “a Christian viewpoint.”

It may be noted here that the WCC is continuing to urge Council membership for the Russian Orthodox Church. The report of the Central Committee indicated progress. His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow sent a message of greeting to Saint Andrews. He was represented by two observers of the proceedings, Professor Protopriest Vitaly Borovoy and Mr. Victor Alexeev. Communist members of the Central Committee Bishop Jan Chabada and Professor J. L. Hromadka of Czechoslovakia and substitutes Bishops Tibor Bartha and Zoltan Kaldy of Hungary actively participated.

One of the finest examples of the values of ecumenical cooperation came in the reports of the special Commission on Christian Witness, Proselytism and Religious Liberty. The Right Reverend Angus Dunn had guided the extensive preliminary studies and negotiations which have done much to create a more cordial ecumenical atmosphere. The report on the nature of religious liberty recognizes the right of the individual to be free from coercion in religious matters and free for the “proclamation of his faith and its implications among his fellowman.” Whenever state or society uses force in the matter of religion it denies its true nature under God. The report strongly asserted that respect of the churches for the convictions of other churches and for the individual’s right to choose or to change his church allegiance are inherent in the Christian way of life. Principles were adopted which should enable the Council to deal effectively with problems of religious liberty.

When Youth spoke up at Saint Andrews there was a considerable stir. The European Youth Assembly at Lausanne had challenged the denominational separateness of the churches and most of its delegates had shattered precedent by holding an unauthorized union Communion service. The ecumenical portent of this revolutionary action warmed the hearts of many, but was frowned upon by ecclesiastical leaders. The Central Committee sternly warned that church tradition should be respected and communion is best received in the churches. It failed to speak any word of caution respecting the shocking leftist social and political views expressed at Lausanne.

“Population explosion” and “family planning” came in for their share of ecumenical discussion. Bishop Stephen L. Bayne, Jr., executive officer of the Anglican Church, startled many by his major address calling for a study of the moral and social aspects of birth control. Professor Egbert de Vries, director of the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague, called attention to the political and economic aspects of the population problem. The WCC now has an important Commission on Christian Home and Family Life (strangely enough now being “tacked on” to the Division of World Mission and Evangelism) which will be giving a great deal of attention to this and other kindred problems.

Many other important issues were considered. But the eventual unity of Christendom was the all-pervading concern of the Saint Andrews meetings.

One of the high points was Faith and Order Commission report which dealt with ecumenical action. Vice Chairman Henri d’Espine presented a statement which broadly defined the theological nature and organizational form of eventual unity. It should be primarily a local unity said the document or “one which brings all in each place who confess Christ as Lord into a fully committed fellowship with one another.” Their union would be based on the same baptism and express itself by the preaching of the same Gospel and by participation in the one Bread. The statement indicated that “there would no longer be in each locality several churches but one church comprising all” Christians. “The local community would be linked to the Christian community at all times and in all places by the fact that its ministry and members would be acknowledged by all.” The very nature of such a unity would be “visible” but it would “not imply a single centralized ecclesiastical institution.…” The plan was admittedly a long-range proposition which would “involve nothing less than death and rebirth for many forms of church life.” It is proposed that the Report be sent to the churches for study and action.

Plans for merger and integration within the Council itself are concentrating greater and greater authority in the Central Committee and the Secretariat. Three groups of Divisions and Commissions may well come to dominate the whole Council. Fearful that these moves might indicate a departure from the Toronto (1950) assurances that WCC would never become a “super-church,” leaders sought to make clear that the Council is only an instrument to encourage organic unity—an achievement which must eventually come by action of the churches themselves. The Church of South India was frequently cited as a pattern for such action. Progress toward unification in Madagascar is following a similar course.

Ecumenists at Saint Andrews even discussed seriously eventual union with Rome. They saw hope in the new secretariat for the unity of Christians set up by Pope John XXIII. It is to perform a double function: (1) to enable non-Catholics to follow the work of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and (2) to help the churches not in communion with Rome to arrive at unity with the Roman Catholic Church. Here appears to be a medium through which effective dialogue may take place and it is quite likely the WCC will move to initiate such conversations at an early date. Two Roman Catholic observers were present at Saint Andrews: the Reverend Bernard Leeming, S.J., of Heythrop College, Oxford, and Dr. J. G. M. Willebrands, secretary of the new Vatican bureau, Warmond, Netherlands. WCC observers will quite likely attend the Second Vatican Council.

Eight new churches were received into WCC membership. Protestant churches: The Evangelical Church of Madagascar, the London Missionary Society Synod in Madagascar, the Evangelical Church of Togo, the Sudanese Christian Church of West Java, the Methodist Church of Ghana (subject to approval of the WCC basis and receiving full autonomy next summer), and the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (subject to formal confirmation of the basis). Others: the newly autonomous Church of the Province of East Africa (Anglican) and The Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East.

One cannot fail to be impressed, indeed, awed somewhat at the growing evidences of competence and power in this great complex of churches intent on acting together to achieve common ends. By means of constant communication and intercourse, which we can clearly observe, there is evident a very widespread and increasingly uniform development of a new form of Christianity somewhat removed from the pattern of the apostolic church depicted in the New Testament. By virtue of its extraordinary importance, the World Council of Churches demands our serious consideration and should have a large place in our prayers, that “God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.”