How is it possible to produce two new sermons week after week, year after year?

Thanks to a course given by Dr. Andrew W. Blackwood when I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, preaching has been a growing pleasure and challenge through the years. The course, called “A Year’s Preaching,” taught the value of planning ahead and gave suggestions and structures for organizing the preparation of sermons. This course, together with Dr. Blackwood’s practical concept of the “homiletical garden” in which one plants sermonic seeds and allows them to grow without interference but with proper nourishment, liberated me from a fearful question that beset me in seminary—namely, how is it possible to produce two new sermons every week year after year together with Bible studies for mid-week services and occasional special talks? Actually, it has turned out as Dr. Blackwood predicted; the problem is not having something to preach but having opportunity enough to preach the messages that demand expression.

I divide the year into two periods, nine months and three months, for purposes of planning not only my preaching but also the entire program of the church. The period of nine months is divided into three quarters—October through December, January through March, April through June. Planning begins with an overall theme for the year for the whole life of the church. This theme may be expressed as an apparent need, such as “Consolidation,” ‘Implementation,” or “Evaluation.” It may come in the form of a challenge: “Every Member an Evangelist,” “Total Involvement,” “Mature Christianity,” “Our Worldwide Mission,” “The Witnessing Church.” Or it may come in the words of Scripture or in a familiar slogan, such as “To Know Christ and to Make Him Known,” “Christ Preeminent,” “Abiding in Christ,” “To Live Is Christ.”

My plan for a year’s preaching loosely follows the church year for Sunday morning: the anticipation of Christ’s advent in the fall quarter (October to Christmas): the life of Christ in the winter quarter (January to Easter); and the Church in the spring quarter (Easter through June). The summer quarter, except for vacation, is reserved for special series or topical messages, which are needed to create a balanced spiritual diet for the congregation. I make a deliberate effort not to overemphasize certain portions of Scripture to the neglect of others, and to preach from every book in the Bible at some time during a period of three to five years. Sunday evening messages are generally book-by-book or verse-by-verse studies. Most of my messages are expository, with the theme, content, outline, and topic coming from the Scripture passage under consideration.

All this means that I am generally preaching from the Old Testament in the fall quarter, the Gospels in the winter quarter, and the Acts or the Epistles in the spring quarter. Old Testament sermons may be biographical, like the series on “The Patriarchs and the Prophets,” in which whole sermons were devoted to major Old Testament characters. Another series was entitled “Christ in the Old Testament,” and another. “Famous Psalms.” One year I preached through Luke in the winter quarter; another year I gave a series on “Great Events in the Life of Our Lord.” Still another series was “The Person and Work of Christ.” One year, with some difficulty, I labored through a semblance of “A Harmony of the Gospels.” There were also sermons on “The Disciples of Jesus” and on “People Jesus Helped.” Occasionally I have used the spring quarter to preach on “Outline of Reformed Doctrine,” “The Apostles’ Creed,” or “The Westminster Confession of Faith.”

A Sunday evening series was devoted to the minor prophets, taking one book each week. On Sunday evenings in the past six years I have gone through Mark, James, First Peter, Ephesians, First John, and some of Revelation. One of the most interesting evening series was entitled “Exploits of Faith”; I took one by one the men and women whose faith is commended in Hebrews 11, relating the incident mentioned in that chapter to its full record in the Old Testament. Another very fruitful series dealt with “The Ethics of the Apostles.” One of the surprising and satisfying facts in my experience through the years has been the way sermons, though not planned to apply to current situations, have almost miraculously fit the week. It has been my custom, based on the example of my own pastor and others I have admired and on the careful instruction of Dr. Blackwood, to draw my sermons from the Scriptures rather than to attempt to contrive relevance by addressing myself to current issues. In the providence of God, rarely does a message, planned months before, fail to meet the people at the point of present need.

Generally by September I have a pretty clear idea of sermon themes, if not topics, together with Scripture sources, for every Sunday, morning and evening, October through June. By the end of May, the preaching schedule for the three summer months is usually settled. A common daily record book, one page per day, is reserved for sermonic data and related materials. Sermon themes or topics, with Scriptures, are entered under the proper Sunday, leaving six pages in the day book for related ideas, illustrations, hymns, cross-references, and the like. This is my “homiletical garden.” It is surprising how the garden grows. Often the sermons seem almost to prepare themselves.

If possible. I begin sermon preparation on Monday. Sometimes I may get a week or two ahead, though, and at other times the beginning of preparation must wait until Thursday. My first step is to read the Scripture source through as often as necessary, until I sense its general intent. Usually the passage outlines itself after a number of readings, and the topic crystallizes. I do not like to use sermon topics that are sensational, or misleading, or designed principally as attention-getters. Most of my topics are lifted verbatim from the Scripture being studied, or the theme is abbreviated. I was taught to strive to put my sermon into one topical sentence (college courses in journalism helped here). I try to compress the main theme into the topic. A little squib taken from the house organ of a large corporation many years ago has helped me realize the importance of getting one point across rather than leaving several up in the air. It went like this: “It’s better to bring one man home than to leave three men on bases.”

The next step in preparation is verse-by-verse analysis. Using legal-size lined paper. I write the verse number in the margin, copy the verse in the body of the paper, and enter my own commentary below it. This I follow, to the extent that I am capable of doing so, with exegetical study. My main reference work is W. Robertson Nicoll’s The Expositor’s Greek Testament. Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament, Archbishop Trench’s New Testament Synonyms, and A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament are all very helpful. With my limited facility in Hebrew and Greek, I find Strongs Concordance with its large Hebrew and Greek lexicons most helpful.

Usually I take rather extensive notes into the pulpit (four to seven sheets of 8½ by 5½ paper) for a twenty-live minute message. These notes are put in their final form Saturday afternoon or evening, sometimes early Sunday morning. I am most proficient in their use when they are as fresh as possible. Generally I type in full the introduction and the conclusion. Sensitive passages and key sentences are also typed verbatim and used that way. For many years I have taken special care in the choice of words. To this end I make constant use of Roget’s Thesaurus and continually try to improve expression for the sake of communication. There is no use having something important to say if you fail to transmit it so that the hearer understands. I am not bound by the notes and enjoy liberty to alter the message while preaching. In fact, believing as I do that the presence of the people of God makes a difference however thoroughly one has prepared in his study, I expect to be ministered to by the congregation and feel that often the message I deliver has come, in part at least, from them on the spot. This introduces an immediacy and spontaneity into the sermon that indicates a dynamic rather than sterile situation and real “dialogue,” though the people remain silent.

Thanks to a faithful pastor, a dedicated homiletics professor, several brilliant colleagues who have challenged me to abhor mediocrity and reach for excellence by the Spirit of God, gentle and committed elders, and a congregation filled with love, preaching continues to be for me the most exciting and satisfying privilege in life.—

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C.

Here is a list of the religious books to be published between now and next September—organized in 20 subject categories

Modern existentialist theologians insist that revelation can occur only in a moment of personal encounter, and they therefore have trouble maintaining the value of the Book. Since the value of books depends ultimately on the character of the Book, the existentialist position carries a devaluation of books. For if books convey only impersonal ideas so that in reading minds meet only in an abstract encounter, the value of books is accordingly depreciated. If indeed God cannot in any real sense meet man in the Book, neither can men meet men in books. Books, in such a view, lose their essential human character and interest.

For our part, we will retain our evaluation of the Book, cling to our belief that a book is a window on a person, and proceed to inform our readers of the religious books to be published between now and next September that will reveal what is going on in the thought and life of the Church.

The following titles are selected from the materials kindly provided by many publishers. The categories will aid the reader in his attempt to keep abreast of a particular field of need and interest.

APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE: Abingdon will publish Readings in Christian Thought by H. T. Kerr; Eerdmans, The Church and Learning by Q. Breen and Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology by P. Hughes; Fortress, God and Man: In the Thought of Hamann by W. Leibrecht; Helicon, The Religious Self and Philosophy by L. Dupre and The Meaning of History by H. Marrou; Lippincott, God Beyond Doubt by G. MacGregor; McGraw-Hill, Summa Theologiae, Volumes 18. 42, 46, and 60, by St. Thomas Aquinas; David McKay, The Road to Believing by P. L. DuNouy; Moody, The Bible, Science and Creation by S. Maxwell and What the Cults Believe by I. Robertson; Prentice-Hall, Issues in Science and Religion by I. G. Barbour; Revell, Creation Revealed by F. A. Filby; Scribners, Christianity in World History by A. T. van Leeuwen; Sheed and Ward, God in Creation and Evolution by A. Hulsbosch and A Jew in Christian America by Rabbi A. Gilbert; and University of Notre Dame, Jacques Maritain: Challenges and Renewals by Ward and Evans.

ARCHAEOLOGY: Doubleday will print The Worship of Ancient Israel by W. Harrelson; Prentice-Hall, An Introduction to American Archaeology, Volume I: North and Middle America by G. R. Willey; and Zondervan, Archaeology and Our Old Testament Contemporaries by J. Kelso.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE: From World will come Structures of the Modern World by N. Ponente, The Treasures of Spain by A. Cirici-Pellicer, and Foundations of a New Humanism by G. Duby.

BIBLE COMMENTARIES AND DICTIONARIES: Baker will issue The Minor Prophets by J. Lewis; Beacon Hill. Beacon Bible Commentary, Volumes V and IX; Eerdmans, Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume VI. and Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume III. by G. Kittel; Light and Life Press, Arnold’s Commentary for 1967 edited by L. E. Williams; Moody, Unger’s Bible Handbook by M. F. Unger; and Nelson, Commentary on the Prophets, Volumes I and II, by E. Kraeling.

BIBLICAL STUDIES: Baker will present Praying with Paul by R. L. Brandt, The Land and the Book by W. Thompson, and Studies in the Life and Teachings of Our Lord by R. A. Torrey; Beacon Hill, ABC’s of the Parables by G. K. Bowers; Broad-man. This Way to the Cross by C. A. Roberts and These Ten Words by R. L. Honeycutt; Concordia, Children in the Bible by A. DeVries; Harvard University, Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations edited by A. Altmann; Helicon, The Witness of John the Baptist by J. Daniélou and The Last Discourse of Jesus by G.-M. Behler; Judson, You Can Understand the Bible by J. R. Link; John Knox, Time and History: A Study on the Revelation by M. Rissi; McGraw-Hill, The Bible Story by S. Andres; Moody, The Revelation of Jesus Christ by J. F. Walvoord and Gleanings from Paul by A. W. Pink; Oxford, The History and Religion of Israel by G. W. Anderson; and Revell, Cities of the New Testament by E. M. Blaiklock.

BIOGRAPHY: Abingdon will produce John Wesley: His Puritan Heritage by R. C. Monk; Broadman, Ten Who Overcame by P. L. Dishman; Concordia, In the Footsteps of Martin Luther by M. A. Kleeberg and G. Leema and Hugo Distler and His Church Music by L. Palmer; Herald, There Have To Be Six by A. Mueller; Lippincott, Four Champions by R. Hitt; McGraw-Hill, Billy Graham: Man of Decision by J. C. Pollock; David McKay, View from the Sixties by G. Oppenheimer; Moody, Aflame for God: Biography of Fredrik Franson by D. B. Woodward and Charles Haddon Spurgeon by W. Y. Fullerton; Scribners, On the Boundary by P. Tillich and Dag Hammarskjold: A Spiritual Portrait by Stolpe; and Zondervan, Portraits of Christ in Genesis by M. R. DeHaan.

CHURCH HISTORY: In this field Baker announces Creeds of Christendom, Volume III, by P. Schaff; Doubleday, The Congregational Way by M. L. Starkey; Eerdmans, The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of John Calvin edited and translated by P. Hughes and Studies in John Calvin (“Courtney Reformation Series”) edited by G. E. Duffield; Fortress, A History of Christian Thought, Volume II, by O. W. Heick, The Quest Through the Centuries by H. K. McArthur, and Israelite Religion by H. Ringgren; Harvard University, The Russian Religious Mind, Volume II: The Middle Ages edited by John Meyendorff; Helicon, Change and the Catholic Church by J. Newman; Herder and Herder, The Teachings of the Church Fathers by J. R. Willis; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Forerunners of the Reformation (a major source book for late medieval thought) edited by H. A. Oberman; Macmillan, The Historian and the Believer by V. A. Harvey and Names and Titles of Jesus Christ by L. Sabouria; Nelson, Apostolic Fathers, Volume IV, by R. Grant; Princeton University, John Hus’ Conceptof the Church by M. Spinka; Oxford. The Victorian Church, Part I: 1829–1860 by O. Chadwick and Essays in Modern English Church History: In Memory of Norman Sykes edited by G. V. Bennett and J. D. Walsh; Scribners, Christians in the U.S.S.R. by Struve; Sheed and Ward, Mary, a History of Doctrine and Devotion, Volume II, by H. Graef and Monastic Spirituality by C. Peifer; University of Notre Dame, The Press and Vatican II by E. Heston; and Westminster, Protestantism in America by J. C. Brauer and Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century by A. C. Cochrane.

DEVOTIONAL: Eerdmans will be coming out with Prayers by H. E. Kohn and A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by W. Law; John Knox, On Bended Knee by N. W. Thomas; and Upper Room, The Serviceman at Prayer by L. P. Fitzgerald.

DRAMA. POETRY, FICTION: Augsburg will be publishing Call Back the Years by M. E. Shank; Doubleday. Happiness Can Be a Habit by J. D. Freeman; Eerdmans, They Were There by W. Hager and The Mark of Cain by S. Babbage; Norton, Josie Con Amore by M. Logan. The Janus Lovers by M. Pomeroy, and A Private Mythology by M. Sarton; and World, Bring My Sons from Far by R. L. Lowenstein, Gods’ Man by L. Ward, and Rulers of Darkness by F. J. Lipp.

ECUMENICS: Bethany Press promises The Breaking of the Bread by K. Watkins; Doubleday, Church Cooperation: Dead-End Street or Highway to Unity by F. L. Knapp; Fortress, Foundations of Ecumenical Social Thought edited by J. H. Oldham; Judson, Baptism and Christian Unity by A. Gilmore; McGraw-Hill, American Bishop at the Vatican Council by R. E. Tracy; United Church Press. Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II by D. Horton; and Westminster, Rome: Opponent or Partner by R. J. Ehrlich.

ETHICAL AND SOCIAL STUDIES: Abingdon will offer The Ghetto of Indifference by T. J. Mullen; Beacon Hill, This Adventure Called Marriage by M. L. Arnold, More Like the Master by P. T. Culbertson, and Get Up and Go by P. Martin; Broadman, Why God Gave Children Parents by D. and V. Edens. Through Discipline to Joy by L. J. Thompson, The Great Sex Swindle by J. W. Drakeford, and Alcohol—In and Out of the Church by W. E. Oates; Doubleday, The Man-Made Order by W. H. Marnell; Eerdmans, Personal Religious Disciplines by J. Gardner, Convictions to Live By by L. N. Bell, and Christian Perspectivesby F. E. Gaebelein; Fortress, S.R.O.: Overpopulation and You by M. L. Bracher and Religions of Mankind: Yesterday and Today by H. Ringgren and A. V. Strom; Harvard, Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution by A. Heimert; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Dissenter in a Great Society by W. Stringfellow; Macmillan, The Ways of Friendship by I. Lepp, Theological Ethics by J. Sellers, A Short History of Ethics by A. MacIntyre, and Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy by I. Ramsey; McGraw-Hill, That They May Overcome (the story of American Protestantism’s awakening to the race problem) by J. M. Pratt; David McKay, This Kind of Peace by T. R. Fehrenbacb; Moody, Pattern for Maturity by J. D. Pentecost; Oxford, The Social Gospel in America: Gladden, Ely, and Rauschenbusch edited by R. T. Handy; Scribners, Man’s Quest for God by A. J. Heschel; Sheed and Ward, God in Education (the first book-length study of the “teaching about religion” clauses of the recent Supreme Court decisions on religion in the schools) by N. C. Nielson. Jr.; Westminster, Toward A Theology of Involvement by B. J. Reist, The Quest for an Authentic Piety by E. Farley, and More than a Man Can Take by W. Baker; World, All to the Good: A Layman’s Guide to Christian Ethics by R. B. McLaren and H. D. McLaren, Biblical Ethics by T. B. Maston, Sex and the Person Today by P. A. Bcrtocci, and Beyond Civil Rights by J. Selby; and Zondervan, Magic in Marriage by J. Jauncey, Works Count Too by C. N. Pickell, Communicating Love through Prayer by R. Rinker, and How to Make a Habit of Succeeding by M. R. Douglas.

LITURGY: Abingdon will be putting out Arise and Go in Peace by F. F. Moore; Augsburg, Oremus: Collects, Devotions, Litanies from Ancient and Modern Sources edited by P. Z. Strodach; Fortress, Divine Service: Liturgy in Perspective by O. Herrlin; Herder and Herder, Our Pastoral Ministry: The Easter Mystery in Parish Life by H. Oster; Macmillan, A Calendar of the Faith by A. M. Roguet; Sliced and Ward, The Religion of Israel by H. Renckens; United Church Press, Worship in the Reformed Tradition by F. W. Schroeder; and Westminster, The Lord’s Supper by S. McCormick, Jr.

MISSIONS (EVANGELISM): Among Abingdon’s titles will be Circles of Faith by D. G. Bradley, The Message and Us Messengers by D. T. Niles, and A Ringing Call to Missions by A. Walker; Broadman, By Love Compelled by J. B. Underwood; Concordia, The Children’s Bridge by H. Lorch, Mission in the American Outdoors by E. W. Mueller and G. C. Ekola, and Faces of Poverty by A. R. Simon; Eerdmans, The World of Mission by B. Sundkler, The Light of the Nations by J. E. Orr, Pioneers in Mission by R. P. Beaver, and History of Evangelism by P. Scharpll; Inter-Varsity, So You Want to Witness by P. E. Little; McGraw-Hill, Joy to My Heart by G. Gleason; Moody, The Missionary Wife and Her Work by J. T. Tuggy; and Zondervan, Congo Crisis by J. Bayly, I Was a Communist Prisoner by H. Popoff, and Realities by M. B. Schlink.

NEW TESTAMENT: Abingdon will print Luke and the Gnostics by C. H. Talbert and Studies in Luke-Acts by L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn; Eerdmans, The Work of Christ by G. C. Berkouwer and The New Testament and Criticism by G. E. Ladd; Helicon, Follow Me: Be Human by G. H. Sallaway; Herder and Herder, Parables and Instructions in the Gospels by H. Kahlefekl; Scribners, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus by J. Jeremias; Westminster, Eschatology of Paul in the Light of Modern Scholarship by H. M. Shires, Interpreting the Beatitudes by I. W. Batdorf, New Testament Apocrypha edited by E. Hennecke, W. Schneemaelcher, and R. M. Wilson, The Rule of Qumran and Its Meaning by A. R. C. Leaney, How to Interpret the New Testament by F. L. Fisher, and The Three Gospels by W. Barclay; and Zondervan, Plain Talk on Acts and Plain Talk on Matthew by M. G. Gutzke and The Gospel of John by R. L. Laurin.

OLD TESTAMENT: In this category Baker will offer Outline Studies of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon by R. C. Maddux and Israel and Judah by C. F. Pfeiffer; Broadman, Plumb Lines and Fruit Baskets by R. L. Murray and Studying the Book of Amos by D. W. Watts; Doubleday, Invitation to the Old Testament by J. M. Myers; Eerdmans, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings by E. R. Thiele; Fortress, The Old Testament World by M. Noth; Loizeaux Brothers, Living Patiently by J. A. Blair; McGraw-Hill, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays by G. von Rad; and Zondervan, The Book of Psalms by J. J. S. Perowne.

PASTORAL THEOLOGY (PREACHING, PSYCHOLOGY): Abingdon will be issuing God, Pain, and Evil by G. A. Buttrick and A Hard Rain and a Cross by H. DeWolf; Augsburg, The Dynamics of Sanctification by W. E. Hulme; Baker, A System of Biblical Psychology by F. Delitzsch; Beacon Hill, Dynamic Evangels by R. E. Price and How to Build Expository Sermons by T. M. Anderson and J. H. Greenlee; Doubleday, Your Pastor’s Problems by W. E. Hulme; Fortress, Preaching from the Gospels, Trinity: 1–9 by A. Voobus and H. G. Davis; Helicon, The Priest: Celibate or Married by P. Hermand and The Focus of Freedom by R. Guardini; John Knox, Healing for You by B. Martin and Preaching and Community by R. Bohren; Lippincott, The New Creation by A. Sanford; Sheed and Ward, Pastoral Counseling by R. Hostie; University of Notre Dame, Realization: The Anthropology of Pastoral Care by J. Goldbrunner; Westminster, Psychological and Theological Relationships in the Multiple Staff Ministry by K. Mitchel, The Forgiving Community by W. Klassen, The Meaning of the Body by J. Sarano, Kerygma and Counseling by T. C. Oden, and Religious Pathology and Christian Faith by J. E. Loder; and Zondervan, The Spirit of a Sound Mind by J. R. Cobb.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: Abingdon will publish An Introduction to Christian Education by M. J. Taylor; Augsburg, Those Most Important Years: Christian Training in Early Childhood by O. Ottersen and Puppets Can Teach Too: Using Puppetry in Religious Education by G. J. Myers; Beacon Hill, When You Need a Bible Story by E. B. Jones; Broadman, Leading Children’s Choirs by M. W. Sample and Your Christian Wedding by E. Swadley; Concordia, The Shared Time Strategy by A. F. Friedlander; Helicon, Catholics, Marriage and Contraception by J. Marshall; Herder and Herder, Themes in Catechetics by M. van Caster; and Judson, Songs in Our Bible by J. E. Moore.

SERMONS: Titles from Abingdon will be Sermons to Men of Other Faiths and Traditions by G. H. Anderson, How God Helps by G. Foote, Bible Sermon Outlines by I. Macpherson, Patterns for the Pilgrimage by D. H. Morgan, and Even So … Believe by C. A. Pennington; Augsburg, Looking God’s Way by R. K. Youngdahl; Baker, Revival Crusade Sermons by J. S. Trent, Chapel Messages by H. C. Brown and C. P. Johnson, and In Many Pulpits by C. I. Scofield; Beacon Hill, The Roads of God by J. W. May; Bethany Press, The Roads We Travel by F. Johnson Pippin; Broadman, Getting on Top of Your Troubles by C. A. Trentham; Concordia, Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets by M. H. Franzmann; Helicon, The Priest by Pope Paul VI; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Selected Sermons of St. Augustine edited by Q. Howe, Jr.; Revell, Good Morning Forever by W. H. Littleton; and Zondervan, The Holy Spirit for Today’s World by W. A. Criswell.

THEOLOGY: Abingdon will put out Prophetic Voices in Contemporary Theology by A. C. Portcous and Contemporary Continental Theologians by S. Paul Schilling; Baker, Reasons for Faith by J. Gerstner, Plain Papers on the Doctrines of the Holy Spirit by C. I. Scofield, and Mind and Heart: Studies in Christian Faith and Experience by R. A. Ward; Bethany Fellowship, If Ye Continue (a study of the conditional aspects of salvation) by G. Duty; Concordia, The Theology of the Resurrection by W. Runneth, The Lively Function of the Gospel edited by R. Bertram, and The Word That Can Never Die by O. Valen-Sendstad; Eerdmans. Theology in Reconstruction by T. F. Torrance, The Soul of the Symbols by J. R. Shultz, What About Tongue-Speaking? by A. Hoekema, and Jesus of Nazareth by C. F. H. Henry; Helicon, Theological investigations, Volume V, by K. Rahner and The Mystery of the Redemption by L. Richard; Herder and Herder, Jesus Christ by Y. Congar, Theology of Revelation by G. Moran, and Hearers of the Word by K. Rahner; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, The Secularization of Christianity (an analysis of the “new morality” as exemplified by John Robinson’s Honest to God and Paul van Buren’s The Secular Meaning of the Gospel) by E. L. Mascall; Macmillan, They Call Us Dead Men by D. Berrigan, Christian Faith in Our Time by F. Buri, A Theology Reader by R. W. Gleason, and Tradition and Traditions: An Historical Essay by Y. Congar; Moody. Hope Triumphant by W. K. Harrison; Oxford, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition by H. Chadwick; Revell, Winds of Doctrine by A. H. Leitch; Sheed and Ward, Theology of Saint John by J. Crehan, Mary in Protestant and Catholic Theology by T. O’Meara, The Theology of Karl Rahner by D. L. Gelpi, Jewish and Catholic Theology, a symposium, and Freedom Today by H. Rung; University of Notre Dame, Toward a Christian Moral Theology by B. Haring; United Church Press, God, Man, and Time by R. E. Gibson; Westminster, The Satanward View by J. Rallas, The Meaning of Salvation by E. M. B. Green, and The Shape of Christology by J. McIntyre; World, Christian Faith and the Space Age by J. G. Williams, Faith, Peace, and Purpose by R. L. Evans, and The Shaping of Modern Christian Thought by W. F. Groff and D. E. Miller; and Zondervan, The Theology of Evangelism by A. S. Wood.

PAPERBACRS: Abingdon lists Come As You Are by O. H. Austin, Feminine Faces by C. G. Chappell, New Light from Old Lamps by R. L. Smith, and A Listener’s Guide to Preaching by W. D. Thompson; Augsburg, Exodus into the World by L. Halvorson, His Only Son Our Lord: Ideas About the Christ by R. S. Rnutson, and Pastor to Pastor: Conversations with Parish Ministers by R. A. Daehlin; Baker, Sir William Ramsay: Archaeologist and New Testament Scholar by W. Gasque, If You Talk to Teens: A Source Book for Youth Leaders by L. Caldwell, Why Scientists Accept Evolution by R. T. Clark and J. Bales, The Art of Christian Living by R. Heynen, Hitchcock’s Topical Bible by R. D. Hitchcock, 26 Story Sermons for Children by L. Cross, Preaching Poems by C. M. Pentz, Baccalaureate Messages by H. Reed, Malachi by P. Kelly, and Titus and Philemon by P. Johnson; Beacon Hill, Better Kindergarten Teaching by M. S. Edwards, Jungle Call by M. Epp, What I Will Tell My Children about God? by R. Vaughn, and A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by J. Wesley; Bethany Fellowship, The New Life by A. Murray; Bethany Press, The Breaking of Bread by K. Watkins; Broadman, Gift Wrap, Please (play) by E. W. Watson, The Slave Girl (play) by M. U. Glazener, and The Drama of Redemption by W. E. Ward; Concordia, To Mend the Broken by K. Lutze; Doubleday, The Prophetic Voice in Modern Fiction by W. R. Mueller, Buddhism or Communism: Which Holds the Future of Asia? by E. Benz, and The First Amendment by W. H. Marnell; Eerdmans, The Other Side of the Coin by J. Isaias, The Theology of Romantic Love by M. Schideler, Sermon Suggestions in Outline, Volume II, by R. E. O. White, The Church Between the Temple and the Mosque by J. H. Bavinck, Son of Tears by H. Coray, A Consistent World View by D. Dye, Revolt Against Heaven by K. Hamilton, Essays Presented to Charles Williams by C. S. Lewis, German Bibles Before Luther by R. Strand, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria by R. Crimley, Christianity and African Education by R. P, Beaver, The Wrath of Heaven by C. R. Schoonhoven, Wildfire: Church Growth in Korea by R. Shearer, Minister’s Handbook of Contemporary Theology by B. Ramm, and The Grace of God by S. J. Mikolaski; Fortress, Unchanging Mission by D. Webster, O Sing Unto the Lord by H. E. Horn, The Old Testament in Modern Research by H. Hahn, Preaching on Pentecost and Christian Unity edited by A. M. Motter, Popular Christianity and the Early Theologians by H. J. Carpenter, Were Ancient Heresies Disguised Social Movements! by A. H. M. Jones, The Road to Peace by Bennett, Johnstone, et at., The Idea of a Natural Order by V. A. Demant, Kerygma, Eschatology and Social Ethics by A. N. Wilder, and The Divine Command by P. Althaus; Friendship. Need Is Our Neighborby B. L. Johnson, Wealth and Want in One World edited by M. S. Webb, Dignity of Their Own by W. H. Koch, Jr., Cooperation in Compassion by H. E. Fey, This Is the Puzzle of Poverty by J. Struchen, Next Move for the Migrants by W. E. Scholes, and Can’t We All Be Rich? by D. M. Graybeal; Herald, My Comforters by H. G. Brenneman, Alcohol and the Bible by H. Charles, and Middle Age: A Test of Time by C. A. Raber; Herder and Herder, The Meaning of Tradition by J. R. Geiselmann, Hominisation: The Evolutionary Origins of Man as a Theological Problem by K. Rahner, Towards a Theology of Religions by H. R. Schlette, and On Marriage, Sex and Virginity by L. M. Weber; Inter-Varsity, Nature of God by P. Steeves; Judson, Fractured Questions by W. Mild and Assurances of Life Eternal by M. E. Burton; John Knox, The Bible in Christian Teaching by H. Rolston, Forgiveness and Hope by R. Henderlite, If God Does Not Die by B. Martin, Paul Tillich by J. H. Thomas, Rudolf Bultmann by I. Henderson, How To Be a Christian by W. Pfendsack, Brief Outline on the Study of Theology by F. Schleiermacher, The ‘We Knows’ of the Apostle Paul by H. Rolston, and No Strings Attached: Insights into the Means of Grace by C. Culverhouse; Lippincott, The Restless Church by W. Kilboum; Macmillan, The Prison Meditations of Father Delp by the late Father A. Delp, The Secular City Debate by D. Callahan, Four Prophets by J. B. Phillips, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages by E. Synan, and The Secular Meaning of the Gospel by P. van Buren; Moody, The Wondrous Cross by E. M. Clarkson, Frontiers in Modern Theology by C. F. H. Henry, Jeremiah, Prophet of Judgment by I. L. Jensen, Christian’s Guide to Church Membership by D. Winter, Patterns for Christian Youth by C. C. Ryrie, Christian’s Guide to the New Testament by A. Cole, Daily Assignment by J. Lockerbie, Joshua: Restland Won by I. L. Jensen, Jonah, Reluctant Prophet by W. L. Banks, and Christian’s Guide to the Old Testament by J. B. Taylor; Nelson, Youth Considers Life Goals by R. Snyder, Youth Considers Marriage by D. Mace, and Youth Considers Personal Moods by R. H. Howe; Oxford, Thomas Cranmer by J. Ridley; Prentice-Hall, Readings in Science and Spirit by C. D. Talafous; Regnery, The Living God by R. Guardini, The Theology of Work by Chenu, Thinking about Genesis by Monro, Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy by Schmemann, and Priest and Worker by Perrin; Revell, That Girl in Your Mirror by V. K. Van Dyke; Scribners, Foreign Policy in Christian Perspective by J. C. Bennett and Principles of Christian Theology by J. Macquarrie; University of Notre Dame, The Last Things by R. Guardini and Dimensions of Authority in the Religious Life by Schlitzer; United Church Press, Reform and Renewal by D. Horton et al. and Church Plays and How to Stage Them by A. Johnson; Upper Room, When a Man Prays by H. Rogers; Westminster, After Death by J. A. Motyer, The Church Inside Out by J. C. Hoekendijk and I. C. Rottenberg, Faith, Fact, and Fantasy by C. F. D. Moule, God and Mammon by K. F. W. Prior, God Speaks to Man by J. I. Packer, Guide to the Debate about God by D. Jenkins, Situaation Ethics by J. Fletcher, and God’s Chosen People by R. Morton and M. Gibbs; World, Natural Law and Modern Society by J. Cogley; Yale University, Freedom of the Will by J. Edwards, edited by P. Ramsey, and The Mormon Conflict, 1850–1859 by N. F. Furniss; and Zondervan, What Jesus Had to Say about Money by F. C. Laubach, Apostle to the Illiterates by D. Mason, The Gospel Blimp by J. Bayly, These My People by L. Dickson, Science Returns to God by J. H. Jauncey, Man to Man by R. Halverson, Say ‘Yes’ to Life by A. B. Mow, and Let My Heart Be Broken by R. Gehman.

The best of the year in the realm of evangelical literature

BARKMAN, PAUL F.: Man in Conflict (Zondervan, 189 pp., $3.95). An examination of man’s psychological conflicts and problems in the light of biblical teaching.

BECKER, RUSSELL J.: Family Pastoral Care (Prentice-Hall, 144 pp., $2.95). One of those rare books that take seriously the need for pastoral care of the family.

BENDER, URIE A.: The Witness: Message, Method, Motivation (Herald, 159 pp., $3). A perceptive probing of the nature, method, and resources of witness to the Gospel, and of matters that hinder such witness.

BERKOUWER, G. C.: The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism (Eerdmans, 320 pp., $5.95). A brilliant analysis of the religious spirit of our times by a charitable but confirmed Protestant.

BERKOUWER, G. C.: The Work of Christ (Eerdmans, 358 pp., $7.50). A solid biblical discussion of the meaning of Christ’s redemptive work. A companion volume to Berkouwer’s The Person of Christ.

CARNELL, EDWARD JOHN: The Burden of Sören Kierkegaard (Eerdmans, 174 pp., $3.50). The most lucid and critical presentation of the thought and intent of Kierkegaard extant.

DAVIES, J. G.: The Early Christian Church (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 314 pp., $8.50). Fine scholarship combined with high readability produces an illuminating picture of the first five centuries of Christianity.

Ex Auditu Verbi: Theologische Opstellen Aangeboden Ann Prof. Dr. G. C. Berkouwer, a symposium (J. H. Kok, 342 pp., $000). Essays in Dutch, German, and English comment on theologian G. C. Berkouwer. A Festschrift.

FULLER, DANIEL P.: Easter Faith and History (Eerdmans, 279 pp., $4.95). A study that looks to the Bible to discover the relation of faith and history. Both scholarly and readable.

GRAHAM, BILLY: World Aflame (Doubleday, 267 pp., $3.95). A prophetic voice that judges the world in the name of the Gospel.

GUTHRIE, DONALD: New Testament Introduction: The Gospels and Acts (Inter-Varsity, 380 pp., $5.95). A scholarly treatment of critical problems that bids fair to become a standard work.

HITT, RUSSELL T.: Sensei: The Life Story of Irene Webster-Smith (Harper and Row, 240 pp., $3.95). An inspiring story of the first missionary invited by General MacArthur to return to Japan.

JARMAN, W. MAXEY: A Businessman Looks at the Bible (Revell, 159 pp., $2.95). A prominent businessman speaks his convictions about his faith and his Bible.

JEREMIAS, JOACHIM: The Central Message of the New Testament (Scribners, 95 pp., $2.95). A renowned scholar presents a frontal challenge to the Bultmann school.

LLOYD-JONES, D. MARTYN: Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure (Eerdmans, 300 pp., $3.95). Sermons that accent Christian joy as being of the essence of Christianity and as the answer to spiritual depression.

LYALL, LESLIE T.: A Passion for the Impossible: The China Inland Mission, 1865–1965 (Moody, 208 pp., $3.50). The inspiring saga of a faith that brought the message of Christianity into the interior of China.

MARTIN, WALTER R.:The Kingdom of the Cults (Zondervan, 443 pp., $5.95). About the best there is on the cults; written with an eye on Christian missions.

MCGAVRAN, DONALD, editor: Church Growth and Christian Mission (Harper and Row, 252 pp., $5). An impressive study of the growth of the Church from the perspective of theology, sociology, methodology, and administration.

MORRIS, LEON: The Cross in the New Testament (Eerdmans, 454 pp., $6.95). An impressive exposition of the many faces of the Atonement in the New Testament, which for all its variety has substantial unity.

PAUL, ROBERT S.: Ministry (Eerdmans, 252 pp., $5). An astute portrayal of the meaning of the Church’s ministry as grounded in the person of Jesus Christ.

Philosophy and Christianity: Philosophical Essays Dedicated to Professor Dr. Herman Dooyeweerd, a symposium (J. H. Kok and North-Holland, 462 pp., $12). A Festschrift in honor of a distinguished Christian philosophical thinker.

PIPER, OTTO A.: Protestantism in an Ecumenical Age: Its Root—Its Right—Its Task (Fortress, 254 pp., $4.50). A sane, balanced assessment of the Protestant Reformation and of its future.

RYRIE, CHARLES CALDWELL: Dispensationalism Today (Moody, 221 pp., $3.95). A lucid plea for dispensationalism against the distinctives of convenantal theology.

TENNEY, MERRILL C.: New Testament Times (Eerdmans, 396 pp., $5.95). A reconstruction of the cultural milieu in which Christianity arose and developed.

TOURNIER, PAUL: The Adventure of Living (Harper and Row, 250 pp., $3.75). A penetrating analysis’ of man’s innate instinct for adventure as countered by his other innate instinct for repose.

Early in 1965 the second volume of G. W. Bromiley’s English translation of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament appeared (Eerdmans). This volume covers the letters Delta to Eta, and with its publication the enterprise is about one-fourth completed. From the house of Brockhaus in Wuppertal, Germany, comes the first installment of a lexicon of New Testament concepts rather than words: Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament, edited by L. Coenen and others. This is not designed on such a massive scale as Kittel, and greater concessions are made to the non-specialist student; for example, Greek words are given in transliteration as well as in Greek type, and Hebrew words are given in transliteration only. But it is a work of first-class scholarship and promises to be a further valuable aid to New Testament study.

At the lower end of the Greek scale we welcome J. W. Wenham’s Elements of New Testament Greek and Key to the Elements of New Testament Greek (Cambridge University). Many generations of theological students in the English-speaking world (especially on the eastern side of the Atlantic) will recognize these titles, but hitherto they have associated them with the name of H. P. V. Nunn. In revising Nunn’s work for a new edition, Wenham found himself making so many radical changes that it was judged better that the two handbooks appear under his own name. Another elementary introduction to the same subject that has stood the test of thirty-five years has been reissued as a paperback: W. E. Vine’s New Testament Greek Grammar: A Course of Self-Help (Oliphants).

With the appearance of Gospels and Acts, Donald Guthrie has completed his trilogy on New Testament Introduction (Inter-Varsity; Tyndale). Teachers of New Testament, from university to Bible college level, will find this trilogy the right work to recommend to students who desire a survey of the main trends of contemporary research. While Dr. Guthrie’s own conclusions are uniformly conservative, his account of other men’s work is admirably objective. Guthrie is one of the contributors to a symposium on The Authorship and Integrity of the New Testament (SPCK “Theological Collections”); his essay deals with the development of the idea of canonical pseudepigrapha in the New Testament. Among other contributions is one defending the unity of Second Corinthians, by A. M. G. Stephenson, and one viewing the same document as a collection of several letters, by G. Bornkamm. The New Testament in Historical and Contemporary Perspective (Blackwell, Oxford), a volume in memory of G. H. C. Macgregor, contains eleven essays by his former pupils and colleagues and was edited by H. Anderson and W. Barclay.

To Hutchinson’s “University Library” R. M. Grant has contributed a readable little book on The Formation of the New Testament (also published by Harper and Row), which deals, not (like the Old Testament volume in the same series) with special introduction, but with the growth of the canon. The same scholar has given us a new edition of his Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (Macmillan; A. and C. Black). A. T. Hanson’s Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (SPCK) is a study of the New Testament writers’ interpretation of the Old Testament, in which he argues that their normative approach is not that of typology but of what he calls “real presence”—the view that Jesus was personally active in the great events of Old Testament history. God in the New Testament, by A. W. Argyle (Lippincott; Hodder and Stoughton), a volume in the “Knowing Christianity” series, is an introduction to New Testament theology for the layman. Jesus, Paul and Judaism, by L. Goppelt (Nelson), subtitled “An Introduction to New Testament Theology,” approaches the subject from a historical point of view, and in particular examines the rise and progress of Christianity in the light of its relation to Judaism. But the finest contribution to New Testament theology in 1965 has, in my opinion, been Leon Morris’s The Cross in the New Testament (Eerdmans; Paternoster), which goes far towards doing for the present day what James Denney’s The Death of Christ did two generations ago. Mission in the New Testament, by F. Hahn (Allenson; SCM), the latest addition to “Studies in Biblical Theology,” deals with the New Testament understanding of the Church’s mission to the world. The Central Message of the New Testament, by J. Jeremias (Scribners; SCM), deals with four crucial themes: “Abba,” the sacrificial death, justification by faith, and the revealing Word. For Hodder and Stoughton’s “Christian’s Guide” paperbacks, Alan Cole has written A Christian’s Guide to the New Testament. Miss O. J. Lace has edited Understanding the New Testament, an introductory volume to the “Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible”; in addition to contributions by Miss Lace, it includes chapters on the New Testament canon and text by C. F. D. Moule and J. N. Birdsall respectively.

New Testament Times, by M. C. Tenney (Eerdmans), is a well-written and well-illustrated history of the three centuries between the Maccabaean and Bar-kokhba revolts within which the rise of Christianity took place. An even more detailed account (unillustrated) is F. V. Filson’s New Testament History (Westminster; SCM); in his introduction the writer raises the important question of how far the committed Christian can approach the history of Christian origins with scholarly objectivity. One phase of New Testament history is dealt with by E. M. Blaiklock in Cities of the New Testament (Pickering and Inglis).

William Neil, editor of the “Knowing Christianity” series, has himself contributed to it The Life and Teaching of Jesus (Lippincott; Hodder and Stoughton). J. F. Peter’s Finding the Historical Jesus (Collins) criticizes the extreme skepticism with which the quest is widely approached today and helps to restore the true balance between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. The English translation of H. E. Tödt’s The Son of Man in the Synoptic Tradition (Westminster; SCM) takes account of work done in this field after the publication of the German original, particularly A. J. B. Higgins’s work, reviewed in last year’s survey. Ernst Lohmeyer’s The Lord’s Prayer, which was first published in Germany in 1952, six years after the author’s presumed death in Russia, has now appeared in an English translation, with a foreword by R. Gregor Smith (Collins).

The veteran Augustin Cardinal Bea has written a short work on The Study of the Synoptic Gospels (Harper and Row; Chapman) that shows how much a thing of the past is the tension between Catholic exegesis and biblical scholarship. Much of what he says about “new approaches and outlooks” will find a responsive echo in the minds of conservative Protestants who read his book.

An important full-length study of The Gospel of Mark from a new point of view has been given us by J. Bowman; it is published in Brill’s “Studia Post-Biblica” and interprets the Gospel as a “new Christian Jewish Passover Haggadah.” For the new “Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible,” the volume on The Gospel According to Mark has been written by C. F. D. Moule; though this series is intended to be elementary, the more advanced student will read this volume with profit. The Temptation and the Passion, by E. Best (Cambridge University), is a study in Mark’s soteriology published in the new monograph series of the Society for New Testament Studies. E. J. Tinsley has written on The Gospel According to Luke for the “Cambridge Bible Commentary,” and A. M. Hunter on The Gospel According to John. Professor Tinsley sees the rejection of Christ as the theme of Luke’s Gospel; Professor Hunter takes account of the increased respect for historical tradition in John’s Gospel and of the implications of the Qumran discoveries for its study. The World of St. John, by E. Earle Ellis (Abingdon), introduces the Johannine Gospel and Epistles to readers of “Bible Guides.”

The latest volume in the new translation of Calvin’s New Testament commentaries is The Acts of the Apostles, 1–13, finely turned into English by J. W. Fraser and W. J. G. McDonald (Oliver and Boyd). A welcome reprint is that missionary classic in its own right, The Acts of the Apostles, by Thomas Walker (of Tinnevelly), with a new introduction by Wilbur M. Smith (Moody). A major contribution to the criticism of Acts is The Semitisms of Acts, by M. Wilcox (Oxford), a book which carries this important aspect of the study of Acts well beyond the point to which other scholars had previously brought it.

Paul and James, by W. Schmithals (Allenson; SCM), argues that Paul’s chief opponents were not Judaizers as commonly understood but Jews and Jewish Christians of Gnostic outlook. The central message of Romans and Galatians is expounded by B. S. Mackay in The Freedom of the Christian (Abingdon, “Bible Guides” series). The latest title in “Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers” is A Commentary on Romans 12–13, by C. E. B. Cranfield (Oliver and Boyd); in the preface to this study we are told that Cranfield has undertaken to write a full-scale commentary on Romans (to replace Sanday and Headlam’s) for the new series of the “International Critical Commentary.” That a new series of the ICC is on its way is exciting news. In the present study, Romans 12 and 13 are expounded in greater detail and with greater attention to the work of previous commentators from patristic times to our own day than will be possible in the ICC volume.

Two major works of introduction to First Corinthians are The Origin of I Corinthians, by John C. Hurd, Jr. (Seabury; SPCK), and A Companion to I Corinthians, by G. Deluz (Darton, Longman and Todd). Hurd’s volume (which shows the influence of his teacher, C. H. Buck, Jr.) is of quite exceptional importance; would that we had something comparable on the even more complicated question of the origin of Second Corinthians! The commentary on I and II Corinthians in the “Cambridge Bible Commentary” has been written by Margaret E. Thrall and is marked throughout by her accurate but unobtrusive scholarship. Readers of an earlier work by Dr. Thrall will recognize the development of her thinking on the exegesis of the opening verses of Second Corinthians 5.

The volume on Galatians in the “Tyndale New Testament Commentaries,” which was to have been written by the late N. B. Stonehouse, has now been written by A. Cole (Tyndale Press). Dr. Cole describes this epistle as spiritual dynamite that cannot be handled without risk of explosions; he shows its relevance to present-day controversies, not only in regard to the way of salvation, but also as a passionate appeal for intercommunion and mutual recognition of ministries.

The Epistles to Timothy and Titus were given a fresh look in the Manson Memorial Lecture for 1964, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles: A Reappraisal, by C. F. D. Moule (Rylands Library, Manchester). Professor Moule finds himself driven to a theory of free composition (in the case of First Timothy, very free composition) during the Apostle’s lifetime by his amanuensis, identified as Luke, who wrote the three epistles “at Paul’s behest, and, in part (but only in part), at Paul’s dictation.”

To the “Bible Guides” series W. Barclay has contributed Epistle to the Hebrews (Abingdon). He quotes his late chief and predecessor G. H. C. Macgregor as saying that either you found this epistle “one of the supreme books of the New Testament, or you found that it had little to say to you at all.” While Macgregor belonged to the latter category, Dr. Barclay belongs to the former: “for me,” he says, “the Letter to the Hebrews was always one of the great products of the Christian faith, and the longer I studied it the more I loved it, and the greater it seemed to me.” He therefore expounds it con amore. The General Epistles in the same series are treated by G. R. Beasley-Murray; his exposition of the message of James is particularly helpful. In the “Cambridge Bible Commentary,” R. R. Williams, Bishop of Leicester, writes on The Letters of John and James. While John’s first epistle is chiefly concerned to refute Gnostic teaching, in the course of his refutation the writer “throws out many terse summaries of important Christian truths”; it is for these, rather than for a refutation of Gnosticism, that Christians have read this letter for nineteen centuries and continue to read it. But that First John is valuable today for more than just its “terse summaries” is shown by R. E. O. White, who has given us a devotional and homiletical commentary on the epistle under the up-to-date title, An Open Letter to Evangelicals (Eerdmans; Paternoster). The commentary proper is followed by a series of “contemporary reflections” in which the message of the epistle is applied to such areas of evangelical concern as authority, spiritual experience, ethics, ecumenicity, and the Cross.

The editors of the “Cambridge Bible Commentary” wisely entrusted the volume on The Revelation of John to T. F. Glasson, who has for long made a special study of New Testament apocalyptic. While this book cannot be understood apart from the situation that called it forth, yet, when it has been understood in the light of that situation, the permanent validity of its essential message can be better appreciated. Dr. Glasson suggests that John in the Revelation follows a framework too similar to Ezekiel’s for us to put down the similarity to coincidence; he has, in addition, been greatly influenced by Ezekiel’s language. A fresh and independent study of Revelation is The Lamb and the Book, by G. R. Crow (Gospel Literature Service, Bombay); it is generally futurist (thus “the things which must be hereafter” are “things that come to pass after the professing church has reached its full development”), but does not follow too closely any one futurist school of interpretation. An important French study, Le Christ dans l’Apocalypse, by J. Comblin (Desclée, Paris), examines against their appropriate backgrounds the various figures under which Christ is portrayed in the Revelation.

‘OF MAN’s FIRST DISOBEDIENCE AND THE FRUIT …’

Firm-winged, the gulls, this shining afternoon

Glide past my window. Glide alone, in threes.

Glide without effort. Curve and turn and rise.

Enthralled, I watch. No strain, no struggle in

Firm-sinewed wings; no crashes in mid-air.

No suicidal anguish pulls apart

The rhythm of their wing-beats. For such flight

Gull wings were made. Gull wing-bones.

Feathers, too.

So ought the soul to be; it, too, was made

To soar in upper regions undismayed,

Yet hobbles, hobbles, hobbles over stones,

Wing-broken, feathers draggled. Thing of groans.

ELVA McALLASTER

From the standpoint of conservative scholarship, the new volumes appearing during 1965 have perhaps been sparser than in the preceding year; the great majority have emanated from liberal scholarship and reflect for the most part the attitudes and methods that have prevailed in such circles for the last several decades. Perhaps the most noteworthy development of the year has been the production of further volumes in the “Anchor Bible” series, under the general editorship of W. F. Albright of Johns Hopkins and David Noel Freedman of San Francisco Seminary.

The following works reflect a consistently conservative viewpoint:

1. The first unit of the Old Testament series in Eerdmans’s “New International Commentary” has appeared as a product of the scholarship of the general editor of the series, Edward J. Young of Westminster Seminary. In this first volume of his Commentary on the Book of Isaiah, which covers chapters 1–18, Young has produced a masterful analysis and discussion of these chapters and defended their authenticity against negative higher criticism. Combining a learned but lucid explanation of the prophet’s message with earnest homiletical application, he makes the impact of Isaiah con temporary for the reader. Young’s amillennial perspective is not especially noticeable in these chapters. His treatment of “Immanuel” in chapter 7 does not allow any typical relationship for the son born to Isaiah in chapter 8.

2. In The Ark of the Covenant from Conquest to Kingship (Presbyterian and Reformed), Marten H. Woudstra traces the history of the interpretation of the meaning of the Ark from the Middle Ages to the present century and describes the conflicting views now current in liberal circles. Then after discussing the various Hebrew terms for the Ark, he shows—by careful analysis and by rebuttal of scholarly efforts to show changing concepts of the sacred chest in the Old Testament period—that its basic character as a symbol of God’s presence and redeeming grace, containing the tables of the Law as a testimony to the Covenant, never substantially varied. Woudstra shows a thorough acquaintance with the relevant literature; his defect is a too matter-of-fact style.

3. Ezekiel: Prophecy of Hope (Baker), by Andrew W. Blackwood, Jr., is a running exposition of the entire text of Ezekiel. In an eminently readable style, the author discusses all the elements necessary to an understanding of the prophet’s message: explanation, allusion to other parallel passages, illustration, the suggestions of modern critics, and brief homiletical application. The difficult later chapters of Ezekiel (38–48) the author tends to interpret as broad, general symbolism, with a vaguely futuristic reference, rather than as a literal description of the millennial state of affairs. Always he maintains a reverent and appreciative attitude towards the text, even when he deplores the too-vivid phraseology that seems a bit “nauseating” to Occidental sensibilities. Too many concessions to higher criticism are made here and there, and the treatment of the last eleven chapters may not be altogether adequate for pre-millennial readers; but on the whole this is an exemplary piece of work, showing what can be achieved by a well-read, scholarly pastor.

4. Harry N. Huxhold, university pastor at the University of Minnesota, gives us a series of textual sermons in Messages of Hope from the Old Testament, Advent to Pentecost (Concordia). The messages, strongly Christological, draw widely upon literature, drama, history, liturgy, and, of course, the writings of Luther.

The following works represent a mediating viewpoint; their authors take the Bible seriously as revelation but tend to accept the results of rationalistic higher criticism regarding authorship and date of composition:

1. The Old Testament—C.C.D. Version (Guild Press), edited by Joseph A. Grispino, S. M. This text is all from the C.C.D. except for Kings through Esther and First and Second Maccabees, which are from the Douay. But the C.C.D. cross-references have been omitted in order to make more room for notes. The introductions and notes are all written by Grispino, with the avowed purpose of incorporating the “latest findings in literary criticism, history and archeology.” In introducing Genesis he briefly explains the documentary hypothesis and also discusses some difficulties in science and history that appear to contradict the Bible. Defense of the Scriptures is especially noticeable in his commentary on the Pentateuch. Not all his explanations are convincing (e.g., in connection with Genesis 12: “At that time lying and adultery were justified to save the life of a husband, since God had not yet revealed that these were wrong”), and there are occasionally awkward or infelicitous turns of expression. His notes on Psalms are perhaps the best part of his commentary.

2. Prophecy and Covenant (Number 43 of Allenson’s “Studies in Biblical Theology”), by Ronald E. Clements. Dr. Clements, of New College, Edinburgh, offers a very stimulating study of the role of the writing prophets of the Old Testament as interpreters of a pre-existing Law of Moses, and as enforcers of its authority upon the consciences of their countrymen. Clements accepts many of the higher critical verdicts—on dates of composition of “Deutero-Isaiah” and Daniel, for example—but he insists, contrary to Wellhausenian doctrine, that the prophets in no sense created the Pentateuch but were rather the faithful custodians of a tradition going authentically back to Moses. They criticized the cultic practices as a reliance on mere formalism and a basic departure from the true imperative of the national covenant with Jehovah.

3. The City of the Gods: A Study in Myth and Mortality (Macmillan), by John S. Dunne, C. S. C. The author surveys the varying answers to the mystery of death furnished by successive cultures and schools of thought, from Sumerian times to the twentieth century: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Archaic and Classical Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. He draws an interesting analogy between the Egyptian ideal of “becoming Osiris” and the late Hellenistic or Gnostic effort to “become Eon.” Analyzing their treatment of the problems of life and death in mythic and cultural representations (earlier theories of eternal return or rejuvenation or perpetual growth giving way to later concepts of immortality and finally to the present-day notion of “the death of God”), the author exposes the intrinsic inadequacy of men’s solutions and thus implies the indispensability of the biblical answer given by divine revelation. Yet he does not actually discuss the Bible as such, except in connection with the Genesis account of the tree of life.

4. Irony in the Old Testament (Westminster), by Edwin M. Good. In distinguishing irony from satire and sarcasm, Good says that irony implies understatement, taking its stance on a clear view of the truth from which it perceives the incongruity in the deviation involved. Finding irony in such books as Jonah, Genesis, Isaiah, Job, and Ecclesiastes, he construes all of these ironic passages as dealing with the surprise experienced by man when confronted with the stern demands of his relation with God, or with God’s constant love and loyalty towards those who scarcely deserve his favor. Irony in Ecclesiastes points to the misconception of those who try to make their own way through life apart from God’s saving message. In vain they attempt to derive from life the values they think it should have. Job presents a man who expects the Almighty to conform to finite human views of what is right and proper in God’s dealings with man. The discussion is well conducted and throws open new possibilities of interpretation for some of the difficult passages.

5. The Theology of the Samaritans (Westminster’s “New Testament Library”), by John MacDonald. This professor at the University of Leeds maintains that Samaritans are not properly regarded as a Jewish sect, but were rather a distinct development of the Israelite religious tradition going back to the time of Zerubbabel and Ezra. Greek philosophy exerted an important influence on this development, as did also some elements of Christian teaching in the early centuries of the Christian era. The Samaritans exalted Moses to the status of the Servant of God, the Son of His House, the Saviour, the Word of God, the Star, and the Restorer (Taheb). Eschatologically they looked forward to the eventual restoration of the people of God, the Day of Resurrection, and the Day of Recompense and Vengeance. MacDonald’s work may be recommended as a very competent study of this little-known offshoot of Old Testament Judaism.

6. Prophets and Wise Men (Number 44 of Allenson’s “Studies in Biblical Theology”), by William McKane. Professor McKane, of the University of Glasgow, has produced an interesting treatment of the dialectical clash between the empirical, worldly, international wisdom of the educated statesmen in Israel (analogous to the educated counselors and secretaries of state in Egypt and Mesopotamia)—called hakamim or “wise men”—and the newer Covenant-centered viewpoint of the prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, who charismatically possessed the debar Yahweh, “the word of the Lord,” and who insisted that the ultimate power governing the affairs of men and nations was the sovereign counsel of Jehovah. This interpretation unsettles the conclusions of most of the liberal scholars who have analyzed the rise and orientation of the class of “wise men” and the function of hokmah, or Wisdom-Literature. Moderately liberal in viewpoint, McKane accepts the usual higher critical dates for the composition of the books of the Old Testament and yet takes the biblical records seriously as history (e.g., the cultivation of the older Wisdom dates back to Solomon’s age).

The books listed below contain largely objective information and factual reports of archaeological or documentary data, in which the theological standpoint of the author plays a minor role.

1. Introduction to Hebrew (Prentice-Hall), by Moshe Greenberg. In line with many of the most recent elementary biblical language texts, this introduction emphasizes the acquiring of a mere reading knowledge, without the precision gained through exercises in Hebrew composition. All the reading exercises are followed by questions in Hebrew that are meant to be answered in Hebrew; but this falls short of the standard attainable through the discipline of written composition. Greenberg starts with the most frequent grammatical features and progresses to the less common, covering all the weak verbs except the double-’ayin class. For vocabulary, the book introduces the student to at least one-third of the words fifty times or more.

2. Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts (Johns Hopkins), by Herbert B. Huffmon. An Old Testament professor at Chicago Theological Seminary has here furnished a thorough and satisfying treatment of the large body of non-Akkadian, non-Hurrian names mentioned in the Mari Tablets, which because of their peculiar vocalization show themselves to be closely related to Canaanite or Arabic. Insofar as these names contain verbal and nominal inflections, they throw light upon the vocalization of the early Canaanite (or Proto-Hebrew) spoken by the patriarchs at the time of the Egyptian Sojourn. These names also furnish additional data on which to evaluate and interpret many of the names in the Old Testament whose etymology has been disputed. The names (about 900) are divided into systematic categories and listed in full. A complete glossary of all the verbs and nouns contained in the compound names is furnished, with cognates from other Semitic languages. This will be a useful reference work for many years to come.

3. Catalogue of Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, Volumes I–III (British Museum Press), by G. Gargoliouth. These are valuable reprints of the original editions, which came out in 1899, 1905, and 1915 respectively. They contain a very detailed description of all the Hebrew manuscripts owned by the museum down to 1915. (No Samaritan manuscripts are included.) They are arranged in the following order: (1) biblical texts and commentaries; (2) midrashim and midrashic discourses, Talmuds, and liturgies; (3) Kabbala, and works on ethics, philosophy, poetry, philology, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

4. The Apocrypha of the Old Testament, Revised Standard Version (Oxford University Press), by Bruce M. Metzger. This very useful edition has brief but helpful introductions to each of the books. The various commentators appear to assume that the writings of the Apocrypha do not essentially differ in character or authority from the canonical books of the Old Testament, for they do not comment on passages that historically or doctrinally deviate from the Hebrew Scriptures.

5. Ancient Jewish Coins (Rubin Mass), by A. Reifenberg. Apparently a reprint of the 1947 second edition, this fourth edition therefore does not include the additional data emanating from Israeli numismatic researches of the last fifteen years. Nevertheless it is a most useful compendium of information, including 219 excellent photographs of coins that are fully described, with inscriptions given in Greek and Hebrew characters. There is also an adequate discussion of the successive periods of Jewish coinage from the Persian period to the Second Revolt. This will be a very useful reference work for the rapidly increasing number of collectors of biblical coins and will also be important for students of Intertestamental history.

6. Shechem: The Biography of a Biblical City (McGraw-Hill), by Ernest Wright. This is one of the finest archaeological reports intended for the general public to appear within the last decade. The distinguished Old Testament professor of Harvard Divinity School masterfully combines all the known historical data, biblical and extra-biblical, with the archaeological findings of the Drew-McCormick Expedition between 1956 and 1964. The treatment is well-balanced and satisfying, technical without being abstruse or uninteresting. A good case is made for the location of the temple of El-Berith (Judges 9:46) by the oak near which Abraham first offered sacrifices in Genesis 12:6—a site uncovered and examined by the expedition with painstaking care.

Now follows a list of the most significant products of liberal Old Testament scholarship that have appeared in the year just passed.

1. The Old Testament, An Introduction (Harper and Row), by Otto Eissfeldt. This translation of a long-accepted classic of higher criticism was made from the third German edition, which appeared last year. Eissfeldt, easily the most eminent liberal scholar in this field on the Continent, is a faithful adherent of the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, the three-Isaiah theory, and the Maccabean date for Daniel (although he concedes the possibility of third-century portions in chapters 2–6). In deference to form criticism he discusses at length the various literary types (Gattungen) that underlay the various Wellhausenian “documents” as well as Eissfeldt’s own “L” (which he dates ca. 900 B.C.); nevertheless, he tends to ignore the basic charge of the form critics and the Scandinavian school that the documentary hypothesis is an artificial Occidental “book-view” that does no justice to ancient Semitic psychology. He is aware of the existence of conservative scholars like Young and Aalders but does not seem to have studied their arguments, for he offers no relevant rebuttal to them. His discussions of the Qumran material are detailed enough to be very helpful. The bibliography is (thanks to Ackroyd’s supplements) very full and adequate, but unfortunately many of the excellent works cited (like Manley’s treatment of Deuteronomy) are not discussed in the text. Yet the fact remains that now that Eissfeldt has been translated into English, his Introduction will take a commanding position in liberal circles in the English-speaking world, doubtless displacing Pfeiffer and Driver altogether.

2. The Anchor Bible: II Chronicles (Doubleday), translation, introduction, and notes by Jacob M. Myers. Several more volumes of the “Anchor Bible” series have come out this year, continuing the same basically liberal approach as Speiser’s “Genesis” (which appeared last year). An effort is generally made to take stock of the findings of archaeology and the newer data emanating from Ugarit and Qumran, but the presuppositions that prevailed in the late nineteenth century are generally adhered to, despite the newer approaches of form criticism, the Scandinavian history-of-tradition school, and the followers of W. F. Albright.

This commentary shows an entirely different attitude towards the reliability and historical accuracy of Chronicles than that which prevailed a few decades ago in liberal circles. Instead of dismissing as garbled or fictitious whatever elements were lacking in the parallel section of Kings, or appeared to vary in any way, the commentator shows a new attitude of respect in his judicious weighing of all the factors of probability before condemning the Chronicles version as unhistorical. Frequent reference is made to relevant Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Ugaritic parallels. The translation itself is vigorously modern and idiomatic and highly readable. A very helpful series of genealogical charts in the appendix clarifies the relationships detailed in the text. This is followed by a complete roster of all the place names and personal names mentioned in First and Second Chronicles, with citations of their appearances in other books of the Old Testament as well as Chronicles.

3. The Anchor Bible: Job (Doubleday), translation, introduction, and notes by M. H. Pope. Pope regards the dialogue between Job and his comforters as coming from the seventh century B.C., although its basic theme goes back to the second millennium (judging from Sumerian and Akkadian parallels). It is uncertain whether the author was an Israelite. Many of his expressions trace back to Ugaritic parallels, which furnish a basis for interpreting the “umpire” or “redeemer” figure in the light of the ancient Near Eastern concept of personal guardian deities. Pope sees no real movement in the argument; Job trusts that somehow justice must triumph in the end, leading to his own vindication. His comforters serve only to show how “wrongheaded traditional piety can be.” Faith alone can accept innocent suffering as something meaningful: “no extreme of suffering gives mere man license to question God’s wisdom or justice as Job had done” (p. lxxv). As for the prologue and epilogue, Pope understands them to be earlier than the dialogue itself. The speeches of Elihu are later still, and the Wisdom chapter (28) is an extraneous addition. The theories of an Aramaic or Arabic original are unconvincing; it was probably composed in Hebrew. Interesting analogies to Job are seen in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and even Greek sources.

4. The Anchor Bible: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (Doubleday), translation, introduction, and notes by R. B. Y. Scott. The Old Testament professor at Princeton University has made a careful study of the evolution of the concept of hokmah (“wisdom”) from its earliest appearance in pre-Solomonic literature of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Canaan itself. Without attempting to specify very definitely what portions of Proverbs actually go back to Solomon’s reign, he indicates that Solomon’s close connection with Egyptian culture makes his interest in this literary type highly probable, even though the final editing of the canonical book may have taken place in the fourth century (p. xxxviii). The translation of the text is vigorously modern and indulges in occasional emendations to do away with difficulties or unknowns like King Lemuel (31:1). As for Ecclesiastes, Scott interprets Qoheleth as “Teacher” rather than “Preacher” and insists that Solomon could no more have written this work in the tenth century than Henry VIII of England could have composed a book on Marxism in modern English (p. 196). Yet he elsewhere acknowledges that a critical, skeptical type of hokmah appeared in Mesopotamian literature of the second millennium, and also concedes that there is no linguistic resemblance to Ooheleth in any other book in the Hebrew Scriptures. His date of composition in the early Hellenistic period is therefore largely based on evolutionary theory rather than objective data. Scott interprets the author’s stance as completely rationalistic and skeptical of divine revelation. This he does by ignoring the qualifying force of the frequent phrase “under the sun” and excising as interpolations all those passages that do recognize the authority of God’s revealed commands.

5. I and II Samuel: A Commentary (Westminster), by Hans W. Hertzberg. This is a translation of the second revised German edition (1960) of a commentary first produced by the professor of Old Testament at the University of Kiel. It therefore reflects the mood and approach of the 1920s rather than the more recent trends influenced by modern archaeological discovery. A thoroughgoing skepticism is evident in Hertzberg’s treatment of the literary sources of First Samuel, and he shows little interest in philological problems. Much attention is devoted to the earliest oral forms of traditions underlying these books, accompanied by an analysis of their adaptation and arrangement by the “Deuteronomist.” The commentator’s main stress falls upon the sovereign power of God in establishing the Davidic dynasty. There is perhaps a tendency to oversimplify the personalities portrayed in the Hebrew narrative and not to do justice to their complex motivation.

6. The Book of Genesis: A Jewish Interpretation (Schocken), by Julian Morgenstern. In this work, which was first published in 1919 and now reappears with a few minor changes, the author counteracts the fragmentary impression of Genesis produced by contemporary higher criticism and stresses its overall religious message. His frequent references to midrashic comments have a homiletical thrust; these are supplemented by numerous philological and exegetical notes of real value. He strongly implies that the prophetic movement of the eighth century had a profound influence upon the formation of Genesis.

7. Leviticus: A Commentary (SCM Press), by Martin Noth. As might be expected, this author devotes his principal attention to higher critical theory and engages in a reconstruction of the development and transmission of the text. Chapter 9 in its final written form he regards as the oldest “piece of original P” in Leviticus (p. 76), but most of the material dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 587 to the age of Haggai and Zechariah, ca. 519 B.C.

8. Archeology in Biblical Research (Abingdon), by Walter G. Williams. This is not a detailed or exhaustive survey but a general discussion of the terminology and methodology of present-day archaeologists in the Holy Land. Williams lists the major discoveries of recent times and assesses their importance in relation to biblical studies. Much of the material is treated from the standpoint of general topics of interest, such as “Accidental Discoveries, Established Traditions and Objective Evaluation” and “New Knowledge of Ancient Languages.” He earnestly censures the misuse of archaeology to support a particular point of view, such as “the verbal inspiration and literal accuracy of the Bible” (p. 44), but he says nothing about the misuse of archaeology to prove the inaccuracy of the Bible. Nor does he mention conservative works on archaeology such as those by Dr. Free of Wheaton or Dr. Unger of Dallas. He includes several helpful maps and drawings; the photographs are mostly of average quality.

9. The Creative Era: Between the Testaments (John Knox), by Carl G. Howie. This is a rather doctrinaire liberal treatment of the Intertestamental period, marked by confident date-setting (Ecclesiastes was composed in about 200 B.C.; Isaiah 26 around 250 B.C.; Daniel 168–165 B.C.). The concept of hell-fire was borrowed from Zoroastrianism; demon-possession was a passing superstition that enjoyed a kind of vogue. The Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical writings are interpreted quite precisely in the light of contemporary political and cultural trends and foreign influences in Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Herodian times.

10. Life and Death (Adam and Black’s “Bible Key Words” series from Kittel’s Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament; also published by Harper and Row in the volume Hope, Life and Death), by Rudolf Bultmann and others. For those who are unable to afford the new Bromiley translation of the entire Kittel, this little volume gives a very useful rendition by Professor Ackroyd of the long, scholarly articles by Bultmann, Gerhard von Rad, and G. Bertram on the entries zoe (“life”) and thanatos (“death”) appearing in the German edition of Kittel. The interpretation of the biblical treatment of these themes is, however, profoundly colored by the naturalistic presuppositions of the contributors, who view the Old Testament as the product of mutually conflicting and contradictory human authors uninfluenced by divine revelation and reflecting largely the cultural milieu of their own age. Thus the spiritual overtones of the scriptural pronouncements on life and death are quite generally overlooked. Nevertheless, the secular usage of these two terms in the perspective of the ancient Near Eastern world-view is helpfully indicated and serves as a corrective to the fallacy of interpreting them solely according to modern, Occidental usage.

BOOK REVIEW

A smutty book, he said

Too calmly

He has never lived among the wheat fields

Has never seen heads of grain

Puffed, bloated, deformed,

Macabre, vile

All their wheatness gone

Grime on the hands

Filthy black spores to stifle the lungs

Profit gone, too

(No matter how grim the mortgage)

Ugly, stinking, foul

No flour from this

Parasitic

Contagious; spreading

To other fields and grain

Smut

ELVA McALLASTER

Another avalanche of literature has descended. May it be that this age will be buried under too much print, or is most of it unread? Certainly, no man can read it all, and this means that a selection must be made of what seems to be (temporarily at least) interesting and significant. Not all the works mentioned below would, of course, go on the choice list of recommended reading. And selection, like method, tends to be arbitrary.

A good place to start is with additions to established series. New Luther volumes (Fortress and Concordia) include the Liturgy and Hymns and Lectures on Genesis. The “Oxford Library of Protestant Thought” has made great strides with volumes on Melanchthon, God and Incarnation in Mid-Nineteenth Century German Theology, Horace Bushnell, and Reformed Theology (all Oxford). (Incidentally, why did the last volume have to have a title so like the great Heppe’s title, and then claim to be breaking new ground?) Notable additions have also been made to the “Pelican Church History” with Stephen Neill’s History of Christian Missions (Eerdmans) and O. Chadwick’s The Reformation, and to the “Advance of Christianity Series,” also published by Eerdmans, G. W. H. Parker has contributed The Morning Star. A series of dogmatic studies that evangelicals should not miss is that of G. C. Berkouwer, the latest addition being The Work of Christ (Eerdmans). Roman Catholicism also has its new series in Concilium: Theology in an Age of Renewal (Paulist Press); the first seven titles list such well-known “progressive” names as Congar, Rahner, Küng, and Baum.

In reprints, the important “Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics” has now published its first two volumes, Tyndale and Cranmer, in an American edition (Fortress). Eerdmans has taken the initiative of republishing the works of the prophetic P. T. Forsyth, who is more contemporary today than in his own time; among the new titles is The Cruciality of the Cross. (By the way, J. H. Rodgers has a new study of The Theology of P. T. Forsyth (Alec R. Allenson and Independent). Also available again are Brunner’s The Mediator (Westminster, paper) and O. Heick’s History of Christian Thought, Volume I (Fortress). From an earlier age comes the readable though solid classic, Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity (Banner of Truth Trust).

In dogmatics, the year brought some interesting developments. Two voices are heard from Edinburgh, that of T. F. Torrance in the essays Theology in Reconstruction (SCM) and that of J. McIntyre, The Shape of Christology (SCM). A final demolition of that flimsy structure, Honest to God, is ruthlessly accomplished by E. L. Mascall in The Secularisation of Christianity (Darton, Longman and Todd); but was it worth this much effort? Creeds have claimed attention from two writers. J. N. D. Kelly, already an expert in the field, discusses The Athanasian Creed (Harper and Row), while G. W. Forell writes on Understanding the Nicene Creed (Fortress). Both works are very timely in an age of creed-breaking and creed-making. Kierkegaard still commands discussion, and note should be taken both of the thoughtful study by E. J. Carnell, The Burden of Sören Kierkegaard (Eerdmans), and of the final journals, The Last Years (Harper and Row). Roman Catholics continue to make forceful contributions. One might mention especially Luther and Aquinas on Salvation, by S. Pfürtner (Sheed and Ward), Christ in Christian Tradition, by A. Grillmeier (Sheed and Ward), and especially Word and Redemption, Essays in Theology, Volume II, by H. U. von Balthasar (Herder and Herder). The interrelation of faith and reason finds interesting historical treatment in R. A. Norris, God and World in Early Christian Theology (Seabury), and provocative (and typical) Unitarian handling in L. A. Garrard, Athens or Jerusalem? (Allen and Unwin). Also to the fore is the theme of faith and history, which has deep dogmatic implications though it is usually oriented to biblical theology. D. H. Fuller argues persuasively for the historical credibility of the New Testament record in Easter Faith and History (Eerdmans), while Oscar Cullmann in his Heil als Geschichte (soon to be available in English) insists that revelation consists of interpretation as well as deeds, and sharply criticizes Bultmann. Talking of Bultmann is a reminder that someone was bound to undertake a rescue operation for Schleiermacher, and this has been duly done by R. R. Niebuhr, Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion (Scribners), to the expected applause of the subjectivist world (including, one suspects, not a few naïve evangelicals).

Before leaving this field we might note some interesting collections of essays. From the prolific H. Thielicke come The Trouble with the Church and Between Heaven and Earth, both by Harper and Row. Thielicke always stimulates, but will he wear well, and has he really anything to offer on the doctrine of Scripture? The Danish theologian R. Prenter has a group of writings under the heading Word and Spirit (Augsburg), a fine title that immediately prompts us to ask: What word and what spirit? Some odds and ends of Bonhoeffer have been assembled as Rusty Swords (Harper and Row). Bonhoeffer was a man of fine mind and courage, but is there not a danger in attaching significance to everything he penned?

Theological crutches are increasingly available. The most ambitious aid is A Handbook of Christian Theologians, edited by M. Marty (World). Also dealing with persons is Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology, edited by P. E. Hughes (Eerdmans). For those who find the modern jargon and concepts hard, B. Rannn has prepared A Minister’s Handbook of Contemporary Theology (Eerdmans). Like the other works, this is eminently useful, though one may hope it does not create the need for a layman’s handbook! Finally, one can learn all about saints now in the Penguin Dictionary of Saints.

Space does not permit mention of the many substantial volumes in church history. Many of these, of course, are of value chiefly to students and specialists. Of more general interest, perhaps, is The Early Christian Church, by J. G. Davies (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). So, too, is R. H. Bainton’s History of Christianity (Nelson). Missouri Synod Lutherans will appreciate the story of their development in Moving Frontiers, by C. S. Meyer (Concordia), and, since American church and state are intermingled for all the separation, all American Christians should take note of the Oxford History of the American People, by S. E. Morison (Oxford). Whether or not perusal of this volume will lead to the conclusions of C. G. Singer in his Theological Interpretation of American History (Craig) is another matter.

The year has been rich in biography. Luther is again a victim, though handled with new sympathy in the Roman Catholic reassessment by R. M. Todd, Martin Luther (Newman). Lesser-known reforming figures, both important in their own lands, are treated by C. Bergendorff in Olavus Petri (Fortress) and F. G. Heymann in George of Bohemia, King of Heretics (Princeton University). Pope John still attracts attention through his autobiographical Journey of a Soul (McGraw-Hill), and Teilhard de Chardin is on a rising wave that has brought many new studies, among them one by H. de Terra (Harper and Row) and one by C. Cuenot (Helicon). The Wesleys have much the same fascination as Luther, and Charles, lifelong Anglican, is ironically, if not inaccurately, presented by F. C. Gill as Charles Wesley, the First Methodist (Abingdon). John, who is handled in the Nelson series by V. H. H. Green, finds an odd bedfellow in John William Colenso (by H. D. Hinchcliff, Nelson), whose Pentateuchal mathematics and subsequent Natal schism did at least help to give us “the church’s one foundation.” Wesley’s contemporary, Whitefield, is enabled to speak again through his interesting Journal (Banner of Truth Trust). From other centuries we have a civil servant bishop, Thomas Thirlby (by T. F. Shirly, SPCK), who at least survived under four Tudors; a modern martyr, There was a Man … Paul Carlson (by C. P. Anderson, Revell); and the great Pascal, whose authority is perhaps anachronistically invoked for a modern cause in Pascal’s Recovery of Man’s Wholeness (by A. N. Wells, John Knox). Missionary biography has produced a reprint of the autobiographical John G. Paton (Banner of Truth Trust) and a crop of Hudson Taylor studies (James Hudson Taylor, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, China Inland Mission and Moody; The Fire Burns On, by F. Houghton, China Inland Mission; and A Passion for the Impossible, by L. T. Lyall, Moody).

Max Warren has an authoritative account of British missions in The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History (SCM). On the sociological side, an acute and disturbing study comes from R. I. Rotberg in Christian Missionaries and the Creation of Northern Rhodesia (Princeton University), though the missionary contribution to Zambia (and Kenneth Kaunda) should also be remembered. Perhaps one of the healthiest signs in the missionary sphere is the revived interest in the theology of missions. This is expressed in the essays Church Growth and Christian Mission, edited by D. A. McGavran (Harper and Row); in the German contribution by G. F. Vicedom, The Mission of God (Concordia); and in the historical discussion in S. H. Rooy’s The Theology of Missions in the Puritan Tradition (Eerdmans).

The same note is sounded in preaching and worship. Regarding preaching, the most important work is that of H. Ott, Theology (Dogmatik) and Preaching (Westminster), which is right in principle if not always in detail. Less convincing is Speaking of God, by W. Hordern (Macmillan), who gives interesting answers to the wrong questions. J. T. Cleland deserves notice with his Preaching To Be Understood (Abingdon), though possibly the importance of good plain English is not sufficiently weighed in this business of understanding and “communication.” As for worship, Presbyterians in particular will be interested by D. Macleod’s Presbyterian Worship (John Knox) and Lutherans by F. Kalb’s The Theology of Worship in 17th Century Lutheranism (Concordia). Also to be noted is J. J. von Allmen’s Worship, Its Theology and Practice (Oxford). Those planning to build must not fail to consult Christ and Architecture, by D. J. Bruggink and C. H. Droppers (Eerdmans), which will give both architectural advice and a theological sense of what they are doing.

In conclusion, we must note a few works on human conduct. The essays edited by I. Ramsey, Contemporary Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy (SCM), will probably produce more gloom than light. H. Gollwitzer, of Berlin, has challenging things to say in The Demands of Freedom (Harper and Row). What is a just war? Help on this urgent modern question may be gleaned from J. Tooke’s The Just War in Aquinas and Grotius (SPCK). P. Tournier helps psychology hold its own with Secrets (John Knox) and The Adventure of Living (Harper and Row). But perhaps the new fad is going to be religious sociology, as in D. Moberg’s Inasmuch (Eerdmans) and O. R. Whitley’s Religious Behaviour (Prentice-Hall). Possibly many readers will not be attracted by this. If not, sociology has a more tempting alternative in its scientific study of Ministers’ Wives, by W. Douglas (Harper and Row); the interest will probably be more personal than scientific.

One approach lies in increased use of the printed word, through better church libraries, Christian book centers

The longer I live the more truly I am convinced that events are a commentary upon the Bible, even more than the Bible is a commentary upon events. It seems to me that in my lifetime I have seen many developments that make the words of the Bible come alive. For example, in the dread days just prior to the Second World War, the Book of Revelation came to mean much more to me when I knew something of what went on in concentration camps, in the strategy of terror, and in the consequent development of a secret underground movement. Nero suddenly seemed modern, because modern men were Neronic.

Now we are in a time different from that of the Second World War, yet in some ways equally disturbing. We are in a time that is especially hard for anyone who seeks to be a faithful Christian. Never in my life have I known a time when the attacks on the Gospel were as vicious as they are now. I see about me a far more militant atheism than I have ever known, and I see it pressed with evangelistic fervor. I recognize that some of the most damaging attacks on the validity of the Gospel are coming from those who claim some kind of marginal connection with Christianity. I see a widespread impersonalism that is frankly based on the idea that Christ was wrong in addressing the heavenly Father as “Thou.”

At the same time that I note these vicious onslaughts and hear them almost every day, I also am aware of an exceptional vitality in the Christian cause at certain specific points. I see a marked growth in the concept and practice of the lay ministry. I see a development in the direction of reality of membership, according to which, in a few congregations, it is beginning to be expected that every member should participate seriously in the Christian cause, engaging in witness, in financial sacrifice, in daily ministry, and in study. There are, indeed, a few churches in which a small number undertake to conduct a highly demanding experiment for a limited period of time, with the thought that it may become continuous after a trial period.

Another great thing I see is the acceptance, on the part of some, that the Christian faith cannot be genuine unless it includes both the inner life of devotion and the outer life of service. A good many now realize that inner devotion can be self-centered or even self-indulgent, while mere service can become sterile and superficial. It is good to know that some can see that social protest without a tender and moving spirit is essentially self-contradictory. In short, in the brightest spots in the Christian cause it is truly understood that the roots and fruits of the Christian faith must be held together in one context. Many of the far-out people reject prayer and engage only in what they call “action.” Others so emphasize prayer that they have no energy left for action. The hopeful spots are those in which people see that prayer and action are two sides of the same Christian coin.

When I think of the attacks upon Christianity and the small groups that represent great vitality, I have a better insight than ever before into the great biblical passage of First Corinthians 16:9, “The wide door for effective work has opened to me and there are many adversaries.” What this text says has always been true of the Christian cause, but the events of our bad time make the truth unusually evident.

It is well known that we usually need to see more than one thing in order to tell the truth, because the truth is essentially complex. This is especially the case when we talk about the prospects for the Christian faith. The coming year and years will be dark times and they will be bright times, and they will be both at once.

One of the most important things to say about the Christian movement in the time immediately before us is that Christianity is bound to be a minority movement. It is important that we should know this, because any failure to know our true situation will be bound to lead to weakness. As Lincoln taught us, we are more likely to know what to do if we know where we are and whither we are tending. Nothing makes for weakness more than does optimism or complacency when the conditions do not sustain it.

The superficial judgment of most of our people is to the effect that Christianity is strong in our country. This judgment is based upon the number of church buildings and the number of members on the church rolls. We do not need to have very much experience, however, to know that this strength is nothing like as great as it appears to be. Vast numbers who call themselves Christians are not participants in the ongoing work at all. Most are not regular in prayer or Bible reading, or do not think of themselves as called upon to minister for Christ and their fellow men. It is also important to see that the majority of men in any large city quite evidently think that what goes on in the churches is truly irrelevant to their lives. There is more open ridicule now than there has been for many years. The characteristic faculty members in characteristic universities are openly contemptuous of anyone who takes the Gospel seriously. The general idea is that those who do so are back numbers.

Some have supposed that the protest marches about the war in South Viet Nam were chiefly an evidence of Christian opposition to war. This, however, is a really erroneous judgment. A great many of those who are protesters against the war are openly atheistic, and some are frankly Communists. For example, the leadership of the protest at Berkeley, California, is now known to be admittedly Communist, with no reference to the Christian faith whatever.

If Christians can know that they are in a minority, they will be better prepared to take their right places in the struggles of the coming days. They can be helped by remembering that the most glorious periods of the Christian faith have often been those in which the faith has had a minority status. This is conspicuously true of the Christianity of the New Testament period, which has, in many ways, never been equaled. If we know that we are surrounded by many enemies, we are far more able to understand the words of Second Timothy 2:3, “Take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Our great call is a call not to popularity or to ease but to loyalty in the face of persecution. It is important to know that there can be real persecution, even without physical violence. There are many places, especially in the intellectual life of America, in which it takes real courage to stand up as a loyal follower of Jesus Christ.

I do not mean that Christians should get out and wave banners and draw attention to themselves by letting their beards grow. One makes his Christian witness not by drawing attention to himself or by censorious and self-righteous judgment of others, but by the humble and unostentatious firmness of one who tries to do a decent job in the ordinary world and to put as much as he can of the spirit of Christ in his daily conduct.

As we honestly face our minority status, we shall soon learn that we have to carry on Christian work in new ways, or at least in ways new to us. I believe we shall carry on for a long time the Sunday morning gathering of the Christian forces, and for this I am glad, since it is better than nothing; but my prediction is that other expressions of Christian life and thought will tend to be relatively more important. It may be helpful to try to state what these are.

One is the increased use of the printed word. Churches have long had libraries, but only a minority have had regular book tables presided over by informed persons who make the spread of good books a genuine ministry. I think we shall see in 1966 and in subsequent years a significant growth of this particular form of Christian ministry. The sad truth is that most people do not know how to buy books and very few ever order them. The only practical alternative, therefore, is to put books where people are almost forced to encounter them. They must be made to understand that ownership is important because it permits both marking and lending to others. The really vital congregations will be those in which the characteristic members build up excellent libraries. Only by such an operation will they be able to have answers to those who challenge them about the hope that is in them.

Important as book tables in church buildings may be, they will never be sufficient, because great numbers of those who need the ideas represented in the books will never darken the doors of the church buildings. Therefore, the Christian book service must be taken to the places where the people are. Perhaps these will be airports, perhaps shopping centers. A Christian book center in a busy airport in which people are often forced to spend unexpected hours may become a far more effective way of penetrating the world than is the conventional building on the corner with the pointed windows and the doors locked on weekdays. In any case, the Christianity that is effective in the coming time will be the Christianity that can leant imaginative ways of making its message understood.

An ideal setup, which we are already beginning to see in a few places, is that of combination lounge and bookstore. It is a combination of a Christian Science Reading Room and a commercial bookstore minus any denominational label or intent. Many will respond in a situation in which books can be purchased but need not be. Those who do not wish to buy anything may sit and read, wholly without embarrassment, while for those who want to buy there will be the possibility of frankly commercial transactions.

There will, of course, be a good many Christians who will try to proceed with business as usual, as though there were no cultural storm; but their effectiveness will be less and less. The effectiveness will be shown by those who, on the one hand, are firmly rooted in a living connection with the Living Christ, but who, on the other hand, are not willing to keep this experience to themselves. The novelty, which is important, will lie not in the field of theology but in the field of effective witness. There is enough of this already to make ours a time of greatness.

Twice a year—in spring and fall—CHRISTIANITY TODAY presents a special religious book number. Supervision of these issues has been the special task of Dr. James Daane, whose related duties include the book forecast, fortnightly assignments of reviews, and other issue-to-issue editorial work. Before Dr. Daane joined us in 1961, he had lectured at Fuller Theological Seminary, in addition to being pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church of Los Angeles. It is not wholly a surprise, therefore, that the seminary has now invited him to return next fall to direct a recently launched pastoral doctorate program.

Dr. Daane’s editorial duties with CHRISTIANITY TODAY will continue into the summer.

An Eerdmans paperback, The Anatomy of Anti-Semitism, reprints some of the essays Dr. Daane has contributed to these pages. Not modesty alone but a hard-and-fast ban on devoting our limited review space to paperbacks recently ruled out more than a bare listing of this book. Thus his own work fell victim to his stringent rule. Many well-wishers—we among them—are pleased that his writing is attracting wider interest. But before Dr. Daane turns west, he plans to travel east. This summer he will fulfill a long-postponed ambition by taking a trip to the Holy Land. Whether from east or west, we hope periodically to carry more penetrating writings of his, and we congratulate him on his new opportunity for service.