Book Briefs: May 11, 1959

Education And Character Building

Public Schools and Moral Education, by Neil Gerard McCluskey (Columbia, 1958, 315 pp., $6), is reviewed by James DeForest Murch, author of Christian Education and the Local Church.

One of the most crucial problems in American public education lies in the field of the philosophy of values. There has been much debate among educators as to what values should govern the school in its efforts to form character and inculcate value judgments. The problem has been complicated because of the shifting and highly dynamic religious pluralism of American society.

In the absence of any clear cut philosophy and policy and because of the growing secularism and scientism in American thought, morality and religion are at an all-time low in the public system.

Dr. McCluskey, although a Roman Catholic, traces with eminent fairness the trend from early commitment to the Judeo-Christian code of morality as basic to character formation to the present-day amoral and secular concept of education. His treatment of the theme centers about three prominent educators whose lives span the history of the American public school: Horace Mann (1796–1859), William Torrey Harris (1835–1908), and John Dewey (1859–1952).

Mann, often called “the father of the American public school,” was a member of the Christian Church and deeply religious, although often characterized by his enemies as a supernaturalist-rationalist. He believed that God and God’s law were normative and that they are found in two books, the book of nature and the Holy Bible. There was never any question in Mann’s mind that religion belonged in the school as the fundamental basis for the formation of character and that moral instruction is indispensable to an effective curriculum. Mann felt that all religious elements in American life could agree upon a synthesis of essential doctrine as foundational to moral instruction with the understanding that the home and the church were primarily responsible for education in the distinctives of religion. Despite the bitter attacks made upon him by hyper-Calvinists and Arminians, he was able to enlist popular support for the public school idea from all sectors of the religious community, and establish it firmly as an effective American institution.

Harris won his educational spurs in the Saint Louis public school system. He was a disciple of Hegel and maintained that Hegelian idealism was the foundation of faith in God, freedom, and immortality and the strong wall to preserve the public schools from the inroads of agnosticism and determinism. He opposed religion per se in the Saint Louis schools, even to the reading of the Bible. In many masterful essays and addresses Harris defended Hegel’s institutional morality and ridiculed Mann’s concept of a morality firmly based on religion. Strangely enough Harris clung to surface symbolic Christianity which he was wont to state in Hegelian terms. His influence proved to be decidedly on the side of a complete separation of religion from public school education, both on primary and secondary levels.

Dewey, a close friend of Harris, and in his earlier years a member with him of “The Saint Louis Movement” in the field of philosophy, completed the trend toward godlessness in the public schools and the disappearance of Judeo-Christian morality as basic in character building. Dewey developed an instrumentalist philosophy upon which modern “progressive education” was built. Dr. McCluskey characterizes Dewey’s religious philosophy as an utter rejection of a super-natural world with a transcendent deity and personal immortality. He says “it wrests its values and ideals from concrete social experience. Its hope lies in the unlimited individual and social perfectability of the race through the medium of science, and its charity is found in the bonds uniting it to the fecund nature from which mankind is constantly evolving” (p. 219). Dewey recognized no fixed set of moral values but believed that they arise out of experience and flow naturally in meaningful directions. Ultimate moral motives and forces, he says in The Challenge of Democracy to Education, are to be found in social intelligence at work in the service of social interests and aims. Faith in these capacities of human nature is Dewey’s foundation of social integrity. His tremendous impact on modern public education has resulted in an increasing secularism and an amorality that borders closely on immorality.

This book is “must” background for all who would deal intelligently with the question of morality and religion in the public schools. Some Protestants would evaluate it as a subtle plea for Roman Catholic parochial education. It may be that, but a great host of evangelicals who see the Judeo-Christian way of life as irresplaceably central in any valid educational theory and practice would agree with the author that the present American public school does not reflect American society as it is and that unless there is serious effort to give adequate consideration to religion and morality as important in education “the American public school will of necessity become increasingly secular.” The time has come for us to face this problem.

JAMES DEFOREST MURCH

Objective Reality

Risen Indeed, by G. D. Yarnold (Oxford University Press, New York, 1959, 134 pp., $2.25), is reviewed by W. Boyd Hunt, Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This is a book written more for the careful exegete than for the theologian. The subtitle, “Studies in the Lord’s Resurrection,” indicates the nature of the volume. In addition to six chapters interpreting the narratives of the principal resurrection appearances, there are chapters on introductory matters, the empty tomb, the ascension, and the risen life of the Christian community as the body of Christ. The volume concludes with 12 pages of helpful appendices (on such subjects as “Communication of the Miraculous” and “The Ending of St. Mark’s Gospel”) and an index. The author is identified as “Warden of St. Deiniol’s Library, Hawarden.” The volume was originally published in Great Britain.

In the introduction Dr. Yarnold positionizes himself with reference to some of the critical issues related to the interpretation of the resurrection narratives. We read that “the view is gradually gaining recognition in critical quarters that the tradition embodying the life and teaching of Christ, so far from being a product of the community, ever increasing both in volume and in supernatural content, was preserved by the early Church with scrupulous care,” and “is to be trusted” (pp. 1–2). Towards Bultmann’s demythologizing “our attitude will be cautious and conservative” (p. 3). Wherever the difficulty in harmonizing the resurrection narratives is insuperable, “critical analysis may properly give way to theological interpretation” (p. 8).

The biblical interpretation is reverent and suggestive, as the following references will indicate. The resurrection faith was born at the empty tomb, before the risen Jesus had been seen (p. 12). In fact, the disciples had begun to think of the Cross as a victory even before the Resurrection had taken place (p. 14). Mary Magdalene was not able to recognize the risen Christ because her mind was on herself (p. 27). The visible presence of the Lord was withdrawn after the Emmaus disciples had recognized Jesus in order to prepare them for the Lord’s final withdrawal of his visible presence in the ascension (p. 41). Since Thomas “uses to the Lord words which sum up the devotion of the whole Christian Church” he is unjustly labeled “the doubter” (p. 63). We are probably on safe ground if we do not attempt to distinguish the different Greek words “to love” which are employed in John 21 (p. 75). As Christians we are to “become in practice what we already are in principle” (p. 114).

As would be expected there are places where some readers will disagree with the author. He is skeptical for instance, of the appearance of angels: “Not all that the gospels appear to record as outwardly occurring fact is necessarily to be taken as such. An instance of symbolic presentation, which can hardly be disputed, occurs in the passages which refer to the visible manifestation of angels, and their communication with the women in the empty tomb” (p. 49). There also seems to be here and elsewhere a disparagement of the value of the women’s witness (pp. 21, 37). Prophecy is not history written several hundred years before it happens (p. 38). Each believer is said to be grafted into the Church to become a sharer of its life through sacramental experience.

On the whole, however, it is refreshing, in view of current tendencies to minimize the objective aspects of our Lord’s resurrection, to read that “at the central point of the Christian faith it must be possible to assert that objective events occurred, which carried absolute conviction for the eleven.… [The narratives we are considering] are totally devoid of significance unless they are records of an historic, objective, encounter with the Risen Christ” (p. 50).

W. BOYD HUNT

Expository Material

Luther’s Commentary on Genesis, by J. Theodore Mueller (Zondervan, 1958, 2 vols., 766 pp., $11.90), is reviewed by F. R. Webber, Author of The Small Church.

This is not a part of the 55 volume set of Luther’s writings, in the process of publication by Concordia and Muhlenberg. It is a separate undertaking and was prepared several years ago; but due to the schedule of the publishers, it was only released last year.

Editor J. Theodore Mueller is well qualified for the task of translating Luther’s famous Commentary on Genesis from the original Medieval Latin into English. In 1920 he became professor of systematic theology at Concordia Lutheran Seminary, St. Louis, and is still on the faculty of this institution as professor of Christian doctrine and New Testament exegesis. Among his writings are a Commentary on Romans (1954), The Lutheran Confessions (1954), and an unabridged translation of Luther’s Commentary on Genesis (1956).

These two volumes on Genesis are somewhat abridged in order that the average reader may get what is essential in Luther’s well-known lectures on Genesis which he delivered between June 1535 and January 1544.

Dr. Mueller’s translation places into the hands of clergymen a wealth of expository material. For those whose studies require the same material in greater detail, the superb Weimar edition of Luther’s writings, in 80 volumes, will provide them with the full Latin text plus copious critical notes.

Luther had the happy gift of combining careful exposition with homiletical, practical, devotional, and doctrinal material. His Commentary on Galatians has been available in English to many generations of clergymen in all denominations, and now we have a good English translation of his Genesis. Luther deals admirably with the prophecies of man’s salvation through Jesus Christ. He shows, for example, that the Hebrew original of Genesis 4:1 reads: “I have the Man, the Lord.” Eve believed the first Messianic prophecy, and when her first son was born, she actually thought that he was the Man, the promised One, sent to bruise the head of the serpent Satan, and she praised God.

This treatment particularly of the Messianic prophecy should suggest an excellent sermon.

Dr. Mueller has translated Luther in good, lively English, and has used the familiar Authorized Version for quoting texts.

F. R. WEBBER

Significance Of Suffering

From Tragedy to Triumph, Studies in the Book of Job, by H. L. Ellison (Paternoster Press, 127 pp., 10s. 6d.), is reviewed by J. A. Motyer, Vice-Principal at Clifton Theological College, England.

Readers of earlier books written by H. L. Ellison will find in these studies all those elements of shrewd and perceptive comment which they have learned to expect and appreciate. These studies in Job are like the earlier studies in Ezekiel—they are far too short to satisfy the appetite they have created.

Originating as contributions to the Hebrew Christian Quarterly, this book still manifests the same form, containing the full Revised Version text of Job in sections and interspersed with comments. Seeing that the reprinted text takes up about 40 of the total of 127 pages, it may be seen how justifiable is a lament over the brevity of the commentary.

None can fail to be benefited by reading this, however. Even those familiar with the book of Job will gain many illuminating insights into its meaning and relevance. Those who are new to it will gain even more. This is exactly the book to stimulate interest in a part of the Bible that presents an exterior of forbidding obscurity to the new convert.

Ellison accepts the historicity of the story of Job. He holds that the book as we have it is not “a verbatim report” but “a poetic transformation of the original prose narrative … not that ‘Job’ is a mere invention … or that the author has so transformed his hero that he would not have recognized himself”, but that just as David in the Psalms told his individual experience in a way that could express the experience of the godly man of all ages, so “the sufferings and strivings of Job … have been touched with a gold that makes them speak to all generations.” It will be apparent, therefore, that he has no time for attempts to sunder the poetical from the prose parts of the book, such as W. B. Stevenson has suggested. However, smaller dislocations of the text are wisely admitted, as in chapters 25–27, even where no solution can be offered. Contrary to the practice of many, the speeches of Elihu are regarded as integral. The crux of chapter 19:25–27 is frankly faced and the author finds these verses to teach the blessed hope of life after death. This is a topic which is further subtly introduced later in the book in that, while Job’s earthly possessions are doubled, “by giving him only ten new children God assured him that he would yet meet those he had lost beyond the grave.”

This is a fine and beautiful study of Job. Would that the book were twice as long!

J. A. MOTYER

Warmly Devotional

Thine Is My Heart, Devotional readings from the writings of John Calvin, by John H. Kromminga (Eerdmans, 1958, 360 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by G. Aiken Taylor, Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, Louisiana.

Here are 366 selections from John Calvin, arranged for daily devotional reading. The material is taken from the entire field of the Reformer’s writings.

Calvin is not here being cast in the role of a second Catherine of Sienna, and these are not hitherto undiscovered treasures, exhibiting a new Calvin. Dr. Kromminga, president of Calvin College, has sought to show how warmly devotional are the writings we already know.

This reviewer can remember how pleasantly surprised he was when he first discovered how readable the Institutes were. This book will convey similar pleasure to all who read it.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

For Our Day

Jerome’s Commentary On Daniel, by Gleason L. Archer, Jr. (Baker Book House, 1958, 189 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Edward J. Young, Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary.

A genuine service has been performed by Dr. Archer in this excellent translation of Jerome’s commentary on Daniel. Anyone who has had experience in translating Jerome will realize and appreciate what a difficult task it is for a translator and will also agree that here is a translation well done.

Jerome has much to say that is of use for our own day. We feel satisfaction when we read his comments on Daniel 10:4: “Therefore those critics should leave off their foolish objections who raise questions about the presence of shadows and symbols in a matter of historical truth and attempt to destroy the truth itself by imagining that they should employ allegorical methods to destroy the historicity of rivers and trees and of Paradise” (p. 112).

Refreshing indeed is Jerome’s attitude toward Porphyry. He did not regard Porphyry as a man who was making “contributions” and having “insights.” Nor did he think that in the light of Porphyry’s novel approach he as an “evangelical” should rethink the Christian faith. Rather, with an earnestness that reminds one of Luther, Machen, and other heroes of the faith, he roundly condemned Porphyry and his Scripture-destroying views.

There is a most interesting discussion of the seventy sevens of Daniel in which Jerome makes clear one point, namely, that he does not believe in a millennium. We could wish that he himself had had more of a positive nature to say on the interpretation of this passage. But he does permit us to see what the Fathers said.

Among evangelicals there is a tendency to neglect older works. A serious student of Daniel, however, should derive much profit from Jerome’s comments. And this work will also serve for devotional reading.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

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