Book Briefs: January 1, 1965

A Time for Christian Candor, by James A. Pike (Harper & Row, 1964, 160 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by David A. Redding, minister, First United Presbyterian Church, East Cleveland, Ohio.

Roasting Pike has become a popular sport. Let this review begin in appreciation. My first reaction is one of praise to God for giving us a rigorous house-cleaner in the very communion whose attic accumulation may require it most. Dr. Pike is no “red dean” but a red-blooded bishop. He is busy reconstructing theology for the sake of churched and unchurched alike who up to now couldn’t care less. Pike is at the opposite pole of those picturesque and hopelessly futile English rectors portrayed in For Heaven’s Sake, who feel on solid ground only when assisting the Church to die in quiet and inconsequential dignity. Here’s one bishop who will risk radical surgery before seeing the Church pass on in her sleep. Moreover, however heroic his measures may appear to his critics, his aim is high—to reinstate Christian thought to a position of pertinent eminence among those who now take the religion page to be vapid obituary.

However, Dr. Pike barges into theology a little presumptuously. As a compliment and a criticism let me say that he reminds me some of a bustling aunt who comes in to help while the housewife is hospitalized. Determined to do something where it will show, she proceeds to clear out the refrigerator, consulting no one. The refrigerator obviously demands attention, but all the banging as someone else’s favorite dishes go into the garbage can bothers me a bit. Creeds and Codes may be buckets, as Fosdick found out too, but that doesn’t excuse officious bouleversement. It’s true that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, but sound earthen vessels are rare. Earth itself is a vessel that I don’t want exploded (simply because it seems a bit obsolete) until I’m sure there’s plenty of room for us to establish the treasure on Mars.

And a new bucket will not necessarily be an improvement. The recent milk cartons have advantages; yet after chewing wax and having cardboard leak over my grey flannel suit, I don’t see why we have to go about breaking all the bottles in sight. Unquestionably Pike has a point, but now that he’s made it let’s not require a new model creed annually, like cars. We don’t want the Church to be a curiosity shop any more than a museum. Let’s talk more about the treasure and less about the bucket, lest we get distracted and divisive. It was good of Dr. Pike to put in that “often the idolatry of the ‘liberal’ churchman is the glorification of modern thought.”

Tossing out the Trinity, junking commandments, in effect reopening the Bible for fresh canonization, seems a little reckless and sophomoric. For the most part Pike’s bark is worse than his bite, but occasionally he becomes a bit violent and unnecessarily controversial. If the Trinity were as superannuated as he feels, which it most certainly is not, how much wiser he would be to wait for its demise than to saw it off at such expensive shock to all of us. Part of Dr. Pike’s extremism may stem from allergy to rigid colleagues who want to keep everything looking just as Queen Elizabeth the First left it, but we must not go into convulsions. The Unitarians tried paring theology down, too, and it is my understanding that their slender demonstration is dwindling rather than reaching out ever so relevantly. It may be difficult to improve on the great commandment; and if the Resurrection occurred today, could we put it down any better than we have it? The Bible in my opinion does not need updating at the present time.

I am surprised that Dr. Pike finds it so necessary to poke at Calvin’s presentation of predestination, as if to prove his association with other distinguished liberals who take a kind of unhealthy pride in identifying themselves in this way. There ought to be a time when we pick at that, perhaps along with the Trinity, particularly at the mistaken impressions it makes. Granted the difficult questions it raises, might this not also be a suitable time to begin appreciating what a mighty attempt it was for “finite mind to comprehend infinity”? Frankly, while I’ve taken my turn banging the bucket, I know of no alternative that can touch Calvin’s masterful thesis, nor begin to do justice to the facts of faith and life. Anyone can shoot at it, but it stands and will stand long after our paper-wads have done their worst.

The same holds true for Dr. Pike’s objecting, along with the Bishop of Woolwich, to graphic language. He insists that such terms as “came down from heaven,” “descended,” and “ascended” are “incredible to us” (p. 135). Again, one wonders how well his new dictionary will do. Those words were never meant to be taken geographically. Apostles were at a loss for words. How can we speak of the infinite except to impose on the language more freight than it will bear? When Frost says, “… demands of us a certain height,” he does not mean inches, nor altitude; but we don’t make fun of the poet for taking liberties with a word that means “up.” Theologians may squelch the words of poetic wonder, the words that mean so much more than they mean when we address them to divinity; but they will not come “up” with any other words that will wear half so well. God save us from a theology that can’t have “lilies,” or “sparrows,” or “height or depth or any other creature.”

I regret also that Dr. Pike has to allude condescendingly to fundamentalists for confusing vessels with the treasure without, so far as I can see, confessing any fetish or idolatry of his own. I don’t think he means for us to assume that he’s dispensing the only enlightened position of those who have arrived, but that is his impression.

Frankly, liberal though I’ve been, I have to agree with P. T. Forsythe that the shining witnesses, when they come, come preponderantly from the more conservative backgrounds. This is why I feel Dr. Pike’s objection of bibliolotry unnecessarily severe. Christianity has more to fear from footloose interpretation. Along with John P. Roche, “There are a lot of things that scare me to death—nuclear war, automobile accidents, lung cancer, to mention but three—but I have only a limited time to devote to fright. I have, therefore, a scale of priorities on which the menace from bibliolotry … ranks twenty-third—between the fear of being eaten by piranha and the fear of college presidents.”

I attended a divinity school that reputedly never got around to the Bible till about two weeks before commencement, which perhaps disqualifies my comment on the Book; but I am beginning to believe that the Bible should mean so much to a Christian he has trouble not believing it is the very words, as it is the Word, of God—wherever you open it, it hits you in the eye. As disturbing as a literal viewpoint is, the alternatives are more hazardous and hoodwinking. Something must be one’s ultimate criterion, his infallible guide; I personally feel much safer, and on much more sacred ground, if the Bible occupies this place. Otherwise our faith is at the mercy of whatever whim or passion happens to be sweeping the campus or whoever is “in” at the time, whether it be “reason” or a bishop’s fancy.

I think Dr. Pike’s attitude toward the Trinity, predestination, or any other classic stand of the Church ought to be this stand he has taken on confirmation:

For example though confirming is a large part of my work as a bishop, it is an open secret that we do not know exactly what confirmation is. Nevertheless, I do not hesitate to perform it, since I do trust that God is in it—effective for us owing to our intentions—trust that it is a means of grace. If that is the case, I do not need to know precisely, in the light of various historical fluctuations concerning the relationship of confirmation to baptism and to the Eucharist, what the answer is about this particular period of history and in my particular communion. And so with the other rites and ceremonies of the church. God is present in it all and is ever ready to be in relationship with those who seem to be open to Him [p. 57].

I would feel even more impressed with Dr. Pike’s contribution if he were a little less confident of bringing everything up to date and being capable of reducing the “antiquated complications” of our fathers to such crystal clarity. Frankly, I find both Augustine and Calvin more readable and more relevant. I say this only because this is supposed to be A Time for Christian Candor, not turgidity, and “to show that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

Nonetheless, I believe Bishop Pike to be a great Christian leader of our time. If we can remember that other reformers got carried away also—Luther left the Book of James in the appendix of his Bible—and not expect to be always in leaden agreement with our colleagues, we can appreciate his reveille to a dynamic and unified Church. And whatever others may say, he feels, “This book is at one with even the most conventional theologians in these essential things of the Catholic faith, ‘the faith once and for all delivered to the saints’ ” (p. 12).

In The Right Direction

Our Christian Hope, by Georgia Harkness (Abingdon, 1964, 176 pp., $3), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, professor of ecclesiastical history, church polity, and apologetics, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

Some years ago this distinguished Methodist scholar gave us A Return to Ideals, in which she decoded the articles of the Christian faith into Platonic ideals. Since then she recognizes a turn toward biblical theology and to the faith of the Reformation. Accordingly, this is less Platonic and more biblical than the earlier book. She describes this as a book on Christian hope grounded in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible. This does not mean, however, sola scriptura; rather, it means Scripture and philosophy, or perhaps a choice: either biblical resurrection or Platonic immortality—each is satisfactory. Thus Dr. Harkness writes:

Current theology leans toward resurrection rather than immortality to avoid Platonic overtones of a natural immortality of the soul and to stress that eternal life is bestowed by God rather than something for man to claim in his own right. It also seeks to avoid the dilemma of a dualism in the soul-body relation whereby the body dies and the soul lives on. However, it is a transfigured body—not the corpse that goes into the grave or the crematorium—that lives beyond death by God’s grace and power. This being the case, it has never seemed to me essential to draw the sharp line which some do between personal immortality and resurrection. Perhaps the term “eternal life” had best be used, for it covers both.

It is our hope that Dr. Harkness will be spared enough additional years to proclaim as her own and man’s only hope the living God of the Bible who made earth as well as heaven, who became incarnate for us and our salvation, who rose again from the dead with the body with which he suffered, and who will come again in glory to resurrect his people from the dead and bring them into a new heaven and a new earth.

The book is, as mentioned above, a step toward a more biblical position. Perhaps the next best thing about it is that it struggles to find meaning in place of despair, purpose in place of frustration, assurance in place of anxiety. And the answer? The reviewer does not hesitate in saying that Christian assurance comes as one anchors in the promises of God, which are all yea in Christ Jesus.

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON

Jungle Tail-Twister?

Verdict on Schweitzer: The Man Behind the Legend of Lambaréné, by Gerald McKnight (John Day, 1964, 256 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

This is an unsympathetic evaluation of Albert Schweitzer, and it passes an almost wholly negative verdict on the man and his mission. Schweitzer emerges as an opportunist who went to the African jungles “out of his own conceit” and “twisted the world’s tail” periodically to advance his medical mission and image.

There is much about Schweitzer that many of us are indeed prone to question, despite the adulation of humanist and liberal enthusiasts. Schweitzer’s theological misunderstanding of Jesus, his philosophical enthronement of “reverence for life,” his autocratic spirit at Lambaréné, and his perpetuation of primitive hospital conditions that foredoom his African compound to dissolution at his death, are proper subjects of criticism. Doubtless the legend of Lambaréné has been overplayed and Schweitzer hardly merits the oft-heard tribute to “the most revered figure of our age.”

But more can be said for Schweitzer than this book says. To depict him essentially as “part overlord, part deity and part parent” of a subsidized mission project whose main service is to establish Schweitzer’s image as a great humanitarian, overlooks the fact that, at whatever cost, he made Africa his home and life. And some criticisms of mission procedure might well be erased if the critic himself spent a year rather than a vacation on the field.

If Gerald McKnight’s complaint is right, however, that Schweitzer to this day feels that African mentality cannot be trusted and that Africans are too immature to be treated as human, the legend of the man and his philosophy as well need radical revision. For, in that event, Schweitzer’s “reverence for life” seems also to embrace a touch of irreverence for the Africans to whom he ministers.

CARL F. H. HENRY

No Rebottled Import

Spiritual Counsels and Letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel, edited with an introductory essay by Douglas V. Steere (Darton, Longman and Todd [London], 1964, 186 pp., 22s. 6d.; also Harper & Row, $5), is reviewed by J. D. Douglas, British editorial director, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

In a little Gloucestershire churchyard can be seen the tombstone of Friedrich von Hügel (1852–1925) with its simple words: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” Baron of the Holy Roman Empire (an inherited title), master of seven languages, and one of the greatest religious thinkers of modern times, von Hügel never held an office in the Roman Catholic Church, consorted indeed with its stormy petrels such as Tyrrell and Loisy, and would have rejoiced over John XXIII’s Vatican Council.

In this volume an American Quaker gives selections from the baron’s letters (most of which have not been reproduced since 1933) and published works, skillfully arranged, and preceded by a brilliant thirty-four-page essay on von Hügel as a spiritual director. Mr. Steere contends that von Hügel’s theological writings recovered for the Anglo-Saxon world the dimension of transcendence in the Christian faith, thus saving Britain from the “long and debilitating hangover that would almost certainly have followed if British religion had been compelled to receive this corrective by means of a rebottled import of continental Barthianism.”

A superb chapter entitled “Man’s Plumb-Line and God’s Reality” shows how well von Hügel apprehended the vulnerability of an anti-intellectual religion to the charge that all religion is essentially a mere projection of the mind. One of his major preoccupations was with the relation of Christianity to history. A religious woman, he writes to his niece, is often not only tiresome, unbalanced and excessive, but “she bores everyone, she has no historical sense” (p. 176).

Like Samuel Rutherford, however, von Hügel is chiefly remembered as a guide and encourager of souls. Here was a Roman Catholic who did not believe in purgatory hereafter, a religious man who expressed horror when it was reported that the Anglo-Catholic Pusey read only religious books, and a mystic who walked through this world with open eyes.

Thus as a special counselor of Evelyn Underhill, and concerned at how badly her sophisticated religion needed “de-intellectualizing,” he strongly advised her to spend two afternoons a week “visiting the poor” (praying for them was no substitute), in order “to thaw out the cerebral accent in her religion and to break open her heart to the needs of all” (p. 16, quoting the editor’s paraphrase). He does it all in language that is winsome and compassionate but never cloying. Those who tend to restrict their souls to an insubstantial diet prescribed by their own religious tradition are offered in this book a welcome tonic as von Hügel guides his niece Gwendolyn along “many a flinty furlong.” For the man who reminded her that “a great foot, a pierced foot, prevents that door closing there,” adoration was the essence of religion. Adeste Fidelis!

J. D. DOUGLAS

Primer On Marxism

Communism: Why It Is and How It Works, by Thomas P. Neill and James Collins (Sheed & Ward, 1964, 216 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Lester DeKoster, director of libraries, Calvin College and Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The St. Louis Institute on Freedom and Communism, established in 1961 so that “every citizen of the United States today should possess some sound knowledge and basic understanding of the issues which have arisen in the confrontation of freedom and totalitarianism in the modern world,” produced over station KMOX-TV a series of talks that form the substance of this book. There are twenty-six lectures, ranging from the background out of which Marxism arose to “Your Part in the Struggle.”

The early chapters are an admirably clear sketch of the course of the Industrial Revolution, especially in England, and of the economic views of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo. The authors describe the evils of unrestricted competition, the rise of the British labor movement, the schemes of the Utopian Socialists, and the progress of legislative correction of the worst abuses. That so radical a solution to the problems of exploitation and injustice as that proposed by Marx should arise out of the tragedies imposed upon workmen and their families by unrestrained greed becomes understandable. And that legislation in fact mitigated evils which Marxism only multiplied becomes the authors’ first significant criticism of the effect of Marx upon history.

As the authors move to the philosophy of Marxism, with its roots in that of Hegel, their efforts at simplification are less successful. They seem sometimes to be talking-down to their TV and reading audience; and while they pass over the familiar phenomenology of the dialectic, philosophy of history, and doctrine of man, the logical involvement of these in the Hegelian system and their influence upon Marxism is hardly adequately explained. There is, however, a useful discussion of Marxist humanism, in terms of the injustice Marx hoped to ameliorate, the share in production Marx wanted all men to have, and the central role assigned to man in Marxism’s theory of economic life.

Lenin emerges as the dynamic, dedicated, tireless revolutionary that he was, though some specific reference to his works for the ideas the authors assign to him would have been helpful.

“Your part” is, the authors say well, to study, trust your government, strengthen democracy at home and abroad, expose Communism for its falsity, emphasize the Judaeo-Christian heritage we enjoy, and support efforts to bolster democracy around the world through foreign aid.

Occasionally there is some liberty with fact, and simplification verges upon falsification; but these qualifications accepted, the reader may learn much about the worldwide struggle in which we play a part. Another edition would profit by the inclusion of a reading list and index.

LESTER DEKOSTER

With An Occasional Nod

The End Is Not Yet, by Ulrich E. Simon (James Nisbet, 1964, 221 pp., 25s.), is reviewed by Geoffrey S. R. Cox, vicar of Gorsley with Clifford’s Mesne, Gloucestershire, England.

“Who is this who darkens counsel by words …,” said the Lord to Job, “by words without knowledge?” Although Professor Simon shows great erudition, the absence of knowledge and wisdom in the scriptural sense is more than made up for by the multiplicity of words.

The “Library of Constructive Theology,” of which this is a volume, suffers from its terms of reference, namely “the desire [of the writers] to lay stress on the value and validity of religious experience, and to develop their theology on the basis of the religious consciousness.” This work is therefore largely a “natural theology,” with only an occasional nod in the direction of the Bible, and it derives its authority from no higher source than human religious consciousness and experience.

Subtitled “A Study in Christian Eschatology,” the book is divided into four parts. Part I opens with some of the pagan background in “The Quest for Life Eternal.” and continues with a summary of present-day scholars’ views on the Old and New Testament ideas concerning the End. Simon flits about rather erratically, picking and choosing as he wishes in the history of the doctrine, before concluding this part with an exposition (under the completely misleading title “The Doctrine of the Last Things”) of the relevant Quaestiones LXIX–XCIX of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.

He then tries in Part II to express the whole range of views in the form of a discussion among a Protestant sectarian (American), a Catholic dogmatist (French), a Marxist (Russian), and a psychologist (Swiss), with himself—liberal Protestant (English)—as chairman, but he failed to bring the subject to life for your reviewer. Indeed this section is the most tedious ninety pages of the whole book.

Chapter 13, “The Symbolism of the End,” makes up Part III, and is a stimulating and comprehensive survey of its subject. Indeed, this chapter deserves close study and a full review of its own—and is almost worth the price of the whole book!

In Part IV, “Formulations,” the author claims that “the traditional doctrine is taken for granted [sic] and an attempt is made to test it, interpret it, and offer it to the judgment of the contemporary reader.” These ninety-five wordy but staccato theses defy comment or quotation. The shorthand style does nothing to encourage clarity … or concentration … or comprehension.

To sum up, the book lacks focus and definition since it has no other source or authority than “religious consciousness and religious experience.” Professor Simon does not seem to have a clear aim in mind, and the effect is therefore generally unsatisfying. This volume is redeemed from verbose mediocrity only by rare flashes of (biblical) insight, especially in the chapter on symbolism. If, as has been said, the marks of good theology are clarity and simplicity, then this is very bad theology indeed.

GEOFFREY S. R. COX

Babble Your Troubles Away?

Tongue Speaking: An Experiment in Spiritual Experience, by Morton T. Kelsey (Doubleday, 1964, 252 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Spiros Zodhiates, general secretary, American Mission to Greeks, Ridgefield, New Jersey.

The author of this highly interesting book, an Episcopal clergyman with extensive training in Jungian psychology, has made a unique attempt to find in the charismatic movement some empirical substantiation for the theory of the “great archetypes” (the inherited and unconscious ideas of experiences of the human race—Carl Jung’s chief contribution to psychology). Kelsey says (p. 16), “If there is any reality to glossolalia, there can be no doubt that something beyond the man himself takes hold of him,” by which he means the Holy Spirit, whom he then refers to as “it” (p. 15) and seems to identify with either the self or the “collective unconscious” (pp. 195, 205).

The subtitle of the book is incorrect, since Mr. Kelsey did not conduct a controlled experiment in tongue-speaking but has merely written up the results of a little research and much speculation. There are a number of glaring errors. He says that the Patriarch of Constantinople discussed glossolalia “during a recent visit to this country” (p. 7), whereas Athenagoras has not been in the United States since 1948; he claims that speaking in tongues was “central to the apostolic narrative” (p. 31), whereas it is mentioned in only six chapters in the New Testament, one of which is doubtful (Mark 16:17); he implies that the saintly James H. McConkey taught “tongues theology” (p. 73); and most incredible of all, he states that “virtually all conservative Protestant theology … follows the track of the basic rationalism of Aristotle and Aquinas, and so has little place for any direct experience of the spiritual, tongues included” (p. 186, italics added).

Finding Jung in some ways superior to both Jesus and Paul, he sniffs a little disdainfully at the notion of demons and puts all cases of glossolalia, pagan and Christian, into the same metaphysical pot. Further, accepting no criteria from the New Testament by which to evaluate the experience, he accepts the only criterion remaining: the pragmatic one. It makes people feel “happy and carefree.” So do narcotics. We are cautioned against disorder and spiritual pride, of course, but there is no mention of the New Birth as a spiritual prerequisite. The book is, in short, an exhibit of a learned natural man’s half-hearted attempt at the interpretation of spiritual experience.

SPIROS ZODHIATES

Book Briefs

Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship, by Alan Watts (Pantheon, 1964, 236 pp., $4.95). A sophisticated critique of Christianity that is more fascinated by evil than by good. On the matter of sex the author asserts that the Church believes the Word became flesh but only down to the neckline.

William Carey: Missionary Pioneer and Statesman, by F. Deaville Walker (Moody, 1964, 256 pp., $3.95). One of the “Tyndale Series of Great Biographies.”

Two Biblical Faiths: Protestant and Catholic, by Franz J. Leenhardt, translated by Harold Knight (Westminster, 1964, 128 pp., $2.75). Author shows that Protestants and Roman Catholics, who hold a common Holy Scripture, always reach an impasse in theological dialogue because the two read the Scriptures in different ways. He urges that this difference must be recognized and cannot be papered over with frail reconciliations.

A Practical Church Dictionary, compiled by James M. Malloch, edited by Kay Smallzried (Morehouse-Barlow, 1964, 520 pp., $13.95). If you want a definition of yoga, zuffolo, or zucchette, this book can help—but its definitions of religious concepts are so loaded with personal judgments about history and theology as to make the dictionary a kind of liberal confession of faith.

Revell’s Guide to Christian Colleges 1965–1966, edited by Marden L. Perry (Revell, 1964, 160 pp., $4.95). For the first time, a directory of Christian (loosely used) Protestant colleges, universities (not seminaries), and Bible schools, with all the necessary detail for an overall picture of the religious and educational posture of the school.

Recent American Philosophy, by Andrew J. Reck (Pantheon, 1964, 344 pp., $5.95). A concentrated study of ten American philosophers.

The Life and Times of Martin Luther, by J. H. Merle D’Aubigne (Moody, 1964, 559 pp., $4.95). One of the “Tyndale Series of Great Biographies.”

Spilled Milk: Litanies for Living, by Kay Smallzried (Oxford, 1964, 85 pp., $2.95). Sensitive and perceptive litanies that bring everything from spilled milk under the light of the Eternal.

Kept for the Master’s Use, by Frances Ridley Havergal (Revell, 1964, 64 pp., $1). Devotional essays—warm, vibrant, and biblical.

Newman’s Apologia: A Classic Reconsidered, edited by Vincent Ferrer Blehl, S. J., and Francis X. Connolly (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964, 182 pp., $4.50). Eight Roman Catholic scholars re-examine Newman’s famous Apologia, in which he relates why he returned to Rome.

Church and Metropolis, by Perry L. Norton (Seabury, 1964, 128 pp., $2.95). A city planner’s viewpoint of the slow-changing church in the fast-changing metropolis.

Paperbacks

Sermons on Genesis, by Harold A. Bosley (Abingdon, 1964, 224 pp., $1.75). After beginning with the judgment that Billy Graham’s campaigns are only a superficial manifestation of religious revival, Bosley declares, “I treat Genesis as a rich repository of religious experience, and the legends as parables which throw light on our life today.” He then makes the reader wonder why he bothers at all, since “any attempt to use Genesis as normative in determining the value of later insights is suspect at once.” Since all “later insights” come later than Genesis, Genesis becomes normative for nothing, and all sermons on Genesis of less than superficial relevance.

Psychiatric Aspects of the Prevention of Nuclear War (Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, 1964, 104 pp., $1.50). Formulated by the Group’s committee on social issues.

The Personal Evangelist, by Joe Ellis (Standard, 1964, 128 pp., $1.25). Extended, practical, “how to do it” advice for the personal evangelist.

The Church of the Catacombs, by Walter Oetting (Concordia, 1964, 131 pp., $1.95). An introduction to the surging life of the early church, from the apostles to A.D. 250. Based on firsthand accounts.

Vatican Diary 1962: A Protestant Observes the First Session of Vatican II and Vatican Diary 1963: A Protestant Observes the Second Session of Vatican II, by Douglas Horton (United Church Press, 1964, 206 and 203 pp., $3 each).

Understanding the Learner, by George E. Riday (Judson, 1964, 125 pp., $1.50). A book to teach the teacher about the learner so that the learner will learn more from the teacher. Fills a need.

Liturgy Coming to Life, by John A. T. Robinson (Westminster, 1964, 109 pp., $1.45). The bishop who has become famous more for what he overlooks than for what he looks over now oversees the place of liturgy in a “religionless Christianity.”

What Is Conservatism?, by Frank S. Meyer (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 242 pp., $2.75). A timely, important, and provocative examination of American conservatism by twelve leading conservative thinkers and spokesmen.

The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, by Louis Bouyer (World, 1964, 242 pp., $1.95). The theological story of a Protestant clergyman who returned to Rome.

Missionary Health Manual, by Paul E. Adolph (Moody, 1964, 188 pp., $2.50). What missionaries, especially foreign, should know—or have at their fingertips—about diseases, precautionary measures, immunization, and first aid. Revised edition; first published in 1954.

Reprints

The Holy War, by John Bunyan (Moody, 1964, 378 pp., $4.95).

Our Lord Prays for His Own: Thoughts on John 17, by Marcus Rainsford (Moody, 1964, 476 pp., $4.95). A great classic of devotional and expository literature, grounded in the great Christian truths contained in the seventeenth chapter of John.

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