Book Briefs: December 19, 1969

Revival Of Hegelianism

Religion, Revolution and the Future, by Jürgen Moltmann (Scribner, 1969, 220 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by David P. Scaer, associate professor of systematic theology, Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois.

Two years ago I was among those who enthusiastically greeted Moltmann’s Theology of Hope in America. For years Continental theology had so bombarded our shores with existential theology that Moltmann’s “future” was refreshment and relief from the boredom of the “here and now” theologians, who had little use of a real past or a significant future. His Theology of Hope showed that the existential categories were too small for a God who was part of Israel’s past and who promised great things for the future. The exodus, the messianic hopes of Israel, the symbol of the resurrection, and the eschatological hopes for Christ’s return were the pivotal points for a theology whose real existence was anchored neither in the past nor in the present but in the future. The future was hailed as the key to understanding reality.

What at first seemed to be a firm biblical emphasis supported by elaborate exegesis in Theology of Hope turns out to be at second glance in these collected essays a revival of Hegelianism in unabashedly and, regretfully, deceptively biblical language. In the last century the Tübingen theology used the thesis-synthesis-antithesis syndrome of Hegel to discover the differences between Matthew, Paul, and Luke. Now Moltmann has revived Hegel’s totally optimistic faith in the future as the standard by which Christianity is to be understood and guided. For Moltmann, time directs a God and affects him. He does not stand outside time. In this system God is not fully God because he has a future that is filled with possibilities. Whatever has possibilities is not perfectly what it should be. Therefore God cannot fully be God. Even God is subjected to a Hegelian-like process of groping toward the future.

If God is limited by the future, man is given limitless possibilities by the future. Man does not passively wait for the final consummation of all things; by participating actively in society he can hurry the coming of the end. Christian theology is described as “historical initiative” and “performative language,” since the words spoken by the Church do not reflect the past as much as they change the future. The Church’s message is prophetic and its task messianic because its possibilities for the future demand that it change the present. There is in fact no present reality of God, since God is present only to the extent that his future grasps us.

Politics play a major role in the eschatological task of the Church. Here is an effective arena for making real changes for the future. All negative elements in society, such as hunger, poverty, and racism, provide the starting point for the Church’s activity. In correcting these maladjustments the Church surges ahead into the future. Revolution even with force is a legitimate means of correction and of plunging toward the eschaton. Reconciliation is provided by the freedom of Christ. No theological-philosophical radiologist is necessary to see Hegel’s three-headed skeleton lurking behind this ghost. The specimen is related more to Marxism regardless of the facial similarities to Christianity.

Moltmann’s theological program does provide a system for a restless generation for whom the state rather than the church provides a key to the future. However, belief in this program demands a naïve, unwarranted, and untested faith in man and his future that completely avoids the ideas of the fall and original sin. The older existential theology at least gave God the credit for breaking into history rather than instructing man to take history and destiny into his own hands to direct it. What first appears to be infectious, intoxicated, and hope-filled optimism is sheer pessimism. The traditional Christian hope with a definite plan for the future and for the final time was well mapped out by a God who controlled time for his purposes. Substituted for this is a future with incalculable possibilities and probabilities, none of which are absolutely certain, even from God’s point of view. Marcellus’s old heresy that after Christ had finished his work he would lose or surrender his divine prerogatives curiously appears on page 213. The last time this particular aberration was seen alive was in A.D. 381, when the Council of Constantinople condemned it with the words, “Whose kingdom shall have no end.” Even then they knew that both God and Christ were superior and not subject to time.

‘Minor’ Reformers Introduced

Patterns of Reformation, by Gordon Rupp (Fortress, 1969, 425 pp., $9.50), is reviewed by Geoffrey Bromiley, professor of church history and historical theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Gordon Rupp, now professor of ecclesiastical history at Cambridge University, has an established reputation as a Reformation scholar. This new and substantial volume is thus assured of a welcome from both specialists and general readers in the field.

Indeed, it is doubly welcome, for Dr. Rupp breaks what will be new ground for many. Under his general title he presents four of the less well-known characters who played important roles in the early days; the scholar reformer Oecolampadius of Basel, the Puritan reformer Karlstadt, the rebel reformer Müntzer, and the layman reformer Vadianus of St. Gall.

The first and last of the studies are not much more than sketches, though as such they still serve a useful introductory purpose. The other two have almost the stature of independent monographs, and in view of contemporary interest in the so-called radical reformation their importance is readily apparent.

As regards Karlstadt, Rupp is concerned to show that he was more than the ecclesiastical clown he might seem to be. He especially stresses his contribution to Anabaptism and his foreshadowing of aspects of Puritanism. Müntzer, of course, can never be dissociated from the Peasants’ War. Yet Rupp shows that he too was more than a windy demagogue. Rescuing him from Marxist clutches, he stresses his theological stature and brings to light his liturgical gifts. In the appendix there is a valuable bonus in the form of a translation of the sermon “On the Mystery of Baptism,” which, though written by Hans Huth, derives from the Müntzer circle, especially with its teaching on “the gospel of [not to] all creatures.” Although Rupp naturally appreciates the distinction between pacific and apocalyptic radicalism, he is not persuaded by the theory that there was little or no contact between Müntzer and later Anabaptism.

The book as a whole has many valuable features. Introducing the minor characters, it sets the greater ones in perspective. It also gives us the wider background in which Rupp’s investigations have made him so much at home. Here is the new, crowded, bustling, exciting, yet also difficult and contentious world of the break-up of the old order and the emerging of the modern ecclesiastical scene. It is the world of learning as well as preaching. The reformers are not innovators; they go back beyond the schoolmen to the Bible and the fathers—those fathers whom Oecolampadius was laboriously translating with Erasmus and others. It is the world of the university, yet also of the towns and the burdened peasantry. The very nature of the presentation adds variety and fullness to the picture.

Now are we merely left with impressions. Hard work lies behind the essays. Rupp himself apologizes for the extensive quotations, but these give the work substance and authority. It is the kind of authority that is content with provisional judgment where no more is possible, or with the suggestion that there is need of closer investigation and more definitive presentation. For all the scholarship, however, the book is still marked by the liveliness of style that has always made the author very readable. It does not always come off: “that rose-red city half as old as Europe”! Yet many times it does: Farel was an “interminable jumping cracker … in an aura of theological sparks and smoke”; Miintzer is thought of as a “Saxon Guy Fawkes”; Kessler “failed B.A.” yet is also described as a “sanctified Pepys.” Phrases like this carry the student along, enabling him to read with pleasure as well as profit.

Straight Talk To The Church

Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, by Paul S. Rees (Word, 1969, 130 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Don W. Hillis, associate director, The Evangelical Alliance Mission, Wheaton, Illinois.

The editors of this book have made a valiant attempt to give continuity to a selection of Dr. Paul S. Rees’s editorials in World Vision magazine. Despite the rather artificial outline into which the chapters are forced, the message comes through strong.

As a veteran of much foreign travel and much contact with church leaders around the world, Rees is in an enviable position to observe the missionary program. This book reflects his sincere desire to evaluate the successes and failures of the Church in world evangelism.

In my copy of Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, almost every chapter has underlined statements. Here is a sampling:

If you are centrally sound in your message and motive, you can afford to be unorthodox in your methodology.

[Obedience] is open-eyed commitment to that matchless person, Jesus Christ, who rescues history from fate and subdues it to the purpose of God and the people of God.

The church is not a settlement, but a pilgrimage, not an estate, but an embassy, not a mansion, but a mission.

If we believe in an incarnational theology, then let us practice an incarnational psychology: going where people are, getting next to them, identifying with them, giving them confidence at some level or other of their legitimate interest.

Although the author’s pen is sharp, he does not use it to stab the reader in the back. An underlying compassion for God’s people pulsates through all he writes. Even his pointed comments on the failures of missionaries, of nationals, and of the Church in general seem to be accompanied by a prayer for improvement.

All who have a serious interest in carrying out the Great Commission (and who shouldn’t?) will do themselves a favor by reading this book. Perhaps mission executives should be the first to take it in hand.

The Prophets As Living Men

The Prophets of Israel, By H. L. Ellison (Eerdmans, 1969, 176, pp., $4.50), is reviewed by J. Barton Payne, professor of Old Testament, Graduate School of Theology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

The Prophets of Israel concerns “Israel” in its most restricted sense, namely, Ephraim, as opposed to Judah. Ellison here expands portions of his earlier survey work on the prophets, Men Spake from God, but in an uneven sort of way. He intended originally to write only on Amos and Hosea—especially, one would gather, on Hosea: its paragraph-by-paragraph translation and commentary occupies two-fifths of the volume. Amos fills another fifth, but in narrative style, with italicized biblical phrases. Jonah rates only six pages; and the rest of the book studies Ephraim’s occasional prophets, following the division of the kingdom in 930 B.C., the careers of Elijah and Elisha, and the references made by southern prophets (such as Jeremiah) to Israel after its fall in 722.

The author’s goal is to help the modern student “appreciate the prophets as living men”; hence his numerous practical applications—on Amos 2:12, for example: “Even today we are sadly familiar with the preacher who preaches the whole Bible most faithfully but yet so that none of his hearers are ever shaken out of their sins.… “You mustn’t say that kind of thing here, or you will not be invited again”.… There are many ways of saying to the prophet Prophesy not.” Ellison touches on such subjects as pacifism and socialism and Winston Churchill’s pro-Russian speeches. Occasionally his phraseology lapses into banality (as in “how to guzzle and booze”) or irreverence (“to try and bamboozle God”).

As in his previous publications, Ellison is erratic both in biblical criticism and in theology. His defenses for Second Kings 1 and 2:22–25 and for Amos 5:25 are admirable, and his opposition to the idea of contradictions within progressive revelation is forceful. He maintains the historicity of Jonah and the biblical miracles; but he denies the validity of First Kings 20:35–43 and dismissed the prediction of Josiah in 13:2 as an ex post facto “editorial addition.” He tends to dogmatize on theories (e.g., on Ephraim vs. Judah), to read too much between the lines (e.g., on Rehoboam’s taxes), and to fall into far-fetched conclusions (e.g., associating Judah-Simeon’s departure from Israel in Judges 1 with the sin of Achan). Despite his cautions against theories of later textual interpolations, he finds a number of these himself, and too much of his commentary on Hosea involves critical emendations.

Ellison’s basic contention that we must study Hosea in the light of Elijah is sound, and the illustrations arising from his Jewish background are eyeopening. But as a reliable guide to the prophets of Israel—well, be careful!

Luther And ‘Sola Scriptura’

Captive to the Word, by A. Skevington Wood (Eerdmans, 1969, 192 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, emeritus professor of ecclesiastical history, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

This is the best exposition of what sola scriptura meant to Luther that we have found. It shows how completely the Reformer sought to be the pupil of God’s Word and Spirit, rather than to treat either as his pupil. For him the question was not what Luther did—rather, “the Word did it all”.

All knowledge of God is dependent upon his own gracious self-disclosure and so is determined by the divine sovereignty. Thus the Church cannot achieve a kind of mastery over God by manipulating the means of revelation. Antichrist may exalt himself “above all that is God as preached and worshiped,” but above God in his own majesty and nature nothing can be exalted.

Luther accepted the Bible as the Word of God, and taught plenary and verbal inspiration, Yet “he did not equate the Word of God with the Bible.” The Word of God is not static but active. “The Word is God speaking. It is God confronting man in personal encounter.” “The Word” is used by Luther sometimes of the Bible, at other times of Christ, who is the core of Scripture, and sometimes with reference to the content or act of preaching. Ultimately, then, there is only one Word of God, which comes in different forms. Christ is the treasure found in Scripture, the central point of the circle.

For Luther, justification by faith did not occur in a vacuum. It had its source and center in Christ, who is the believer’s righteousness. “For God does not want to save us by our own but by an extraneous righteousness which does not originate in ourselves but comes to us from beyond ourselves, which does not arise on earth but comes from heaven.” Thus the center of gravity in Luther’s thought was transferred from subject to object, from man to God, so that Soli Deo Gloria was his motto before it was Calvin’s. And the whole relation between God and man rests on a divine basis, not a human one.

Luther recognized in man no justifiable self-regard. God’s Word causes us to see our sin. It is God’s free personal action—his grace—that saves us. The law says: “Pay what you owe”; the Gospel says, “Your sins be forgiven you.” Here the centrality of Christ becomes apparent. The law made its full demand on the Son of God as he endured the cross for us and thus opened the way to our forgiveness. Hence, in a blessed exchange, our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s; and Christ’s righteousness is no longer his but ours. Though greatly helped by Augustine, at the crucial point of justification Luther departed from the Latin father and remained strictly biblical. Thus he insists vigorously on imputation, which for him was just another name for forgiveness.

“The place of faith is recognized without jeopardizing the sovereignty of grace.” Faith is confidence in God, the unlimited willingness to give God all the glory of saving the sinner.

Book Briefs

Always a Winner, by Don Shinnick (Zondervan, 1969, 217 pp., $3.95). The story of the outstanding linebacker of the Baltimore Colts, a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ.

The Fourth R, by Claire Cox (Hawthorn, 1969, 179 pp., $4.95). Seeks to clarify the Supreme Court decision regarding religion in the public schools and shows how the Bible and religion can legitimately be taught in the light of these decisions.

The Case for Biblical Christianity, by E. J. Carnell (Eerdmans, 1969, 186 pp., paperback, $3.50). This stimulating collection of essays by one of evangelical Christianity’s leading apologists covers a wide variety of topics.

Facing the Issues, by William J. Krutza and Phillip Di Cicco (Baker, 1969, 119 pp., paperback, $1.25). Designed to lead Christians into serious discussion of a variety of issues confronting contemporary society.

Psychiatry, the Clergy and Pastoral Counseling, edited by Dana L. Farnsworth and Francis J. Braceland (Liturgical Press, 1969, 356 pp., $6.50). This book attempts to provide in a nontechnical way insights into problems clergymen are likely to meet in their counseling responsibilities. The chapters are adapted from lectures given at the annual seminar of the psychiatric-pastoral workshops conducted at the Institute for Mental Health at St. John’s Abbey.

Revivals in the Midst of the Years, by Benjamin Rice Lacy, Jr. (Royal, 1969, 193 pp., $3.95). Republication of an earlier work that surveys some of the more notable revivals through the history of the Church.

The Modern Schism, by Martin E. Marty (Harper & Row, 1969, 191 pp., $5.95). Explores the development of secularism in Europe, Britain, and America. Includes an extensive bibliographical essay.

No Man Ever Spoke as This Man, by Anthony M. Coniaris (Light and Life, 1969, 130 pp., paperback, $2.95). A devotional study of the “I Am’s” of Jesus.

Preaching to Modern Man, by Frank Pack and Prentice Meador, Jr. (Biblical Research, 1969, 173 pp., $3.95). Two Church of Christ scholars survey the problems and opportunities confronting today’s preacher.

To Build a Church, by John E. Morse (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969, 171 pp., $5.95). Helpful suggestions about what to do and what not to do in planning for a new church building.

The Question of God, by Heinz Zahrnt (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969, 398 pp., $8.75). A panoramic view of the twentieth-century Protestant theological scene, with emphasis upon several theologians such as Barth, Bultmann, Brunner, Bonhoeffer, Thielicke, and Tillich.

African Religions and Philosophy, by John S. Mbiti (Praeger, 1969, 290 pp., $8). This enlightening study of religion in Africa will be of particular interest to students of African history and culture.

Holy Places, by Christopher Hollis and Ronald Brownrigg (Praeger, 1969, 223 pp., $9.95). Describes in text, photographs, maps, and charts the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim monuments in the Holy Land.

The Bright Future of Sunday School, by Elmer L. Towns (Free Church, 1969, 171 pp., paperback, $2.50). Offers suggestions to help make the Sunday school an effective agent of Christian education and evangelism in the days ahead.

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