Books on Church History and Theology, 1970

The past year has produced some good books on church history and theology, though more from the standpoint of solid learning than of theological originality. One serious problem is inflation. Rising prices make it very hard for pastors and students to purchase the many books they should. Perhaps church boards or wealthier persons might help here. Another problem, one less easily solved, is finding time to do the reading.

Out of the wide range of 1970 titles, the following twenty are offered as works deserving special notice. Some others that might equally well have been included in the selection are mentioned in a few paragraphs at the end.

1. and 2. Pride of place must surely go to the last two volumes in “Library of Christian Classics.” Volume IX, ably edited by W. Pauck (Westminster), has interesting extracts from Melanchthon and Bucer., while Volume XVII, edited by E. G. Rupp with assistance from N. Marlow, P. Watson, and B. Drewery (Westminster), is devoted to the debate between Erasmus and Luther. These books, important in their own right, form a fitting conclusion to a combined American and British series that over the past twenty years has made available either new texts or translations from the early fathers to the reformers. Ignorance of theological history can have no valid excuse in the face of this series.

3. and 4. Mention of a great series reminds us that the Luther translation is now moving into its later stages. Two additions have been made this past year, Volumes 39 and 47. The former is in the section on Church and Ministry, the latter in that on The Christian in Society. Both of these are published by Fortress, which is responsible for Volumes 31 onward (the earlier volumes were published by Concordia). The English-speaking world has had a long wait for a comprehensive edition of Luther, and the set hardly stands in need of external commendation.

5. In relation to Luther, an important secondary aid has also been added with the translation of the fine study by G. E. Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought (Fortress). Ebeling is a scholar of distinction and writes on a subject of stature. If the work is called an introduction, it is so at a deep level at which Ebeling explores the problems in such critical areas as law and gospel or wrath and mercy.

6. In the field of general church history. R. M. Grant has put us in his debt with a very good book on the early Church, Augustus to Constantine (Harper & Row). It is not easy to capture or retain interest on this well-trodden path, but by offering a freshness of style and approach and occasional new insights and information, the author has succeeded admirably.

7. At the other end of the chronological scale is the second volume of Owen Chadwick’s The Victorian Church (Oxford). While this will be of special interest for British readers, American and British church history during this period cannot be insulated from each other, and the phrase “the Victorian age” has more than parochial reference. To this authoritative study Dr. Chadwick brings not only the solid core of information but also a ready pen and perspicacious eye.

8. Biography is an important branch of church history, and the year has brought two biographies of interest. The first deals with the great evangelist George Whitefield and is by A. A. Dallimore (Volume I, Banner of Truth). It is the first installment of a full-scale account of one of the greatest figures in modern evangelism, one who made a decisive impact on the American colonies as well as his native England. The continuation will be awaited with eager anticipation.

9. The second biography bids fair to be the definitive account of that great figure of our own century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and is a product of the one best equipped to write it, E. Bethge (Harper & Row). This large book incorporates unpublished materials (secret papers, diaries, and letters) brought to light by many years of research. The Bonhoeffer presented here is a balanced one, not exploited to serve other interests. He is all the more impressive for that very reason.

10. In the field of historical theology, R. Preus has written a significant book on The Theology of Post-ReformationLutheranism (Concordia). What he gives us here is a detailed account of the so-called Protestant Scholasticism on its Lutheran side. Since much of the basic material is hard to get at, this secondary but very knowledgeable account is doubly useful. It makes possible an intelligent appraisal of the qualities as well as the defects of an attempt at serious dogmatics.

11. Another work of historical theology that deals with a matter of common concern today is Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge), by R. A. Markus. Augustine is, of course, a many-sided figure, and particularly in his thinking on church and world he exercised a practical as well as a theoretical influence. This is a book to be read not merely for information but also for insight.

12. A more strictly dogmatic enquiry is the Sacra Doctrina of Per Erik Perrson (Fortress), which, as the subtitle tells us, delves again into the relation between reason and revelation in Thomas Aquinas. With a certain ecumenical slant, Perrson takes the line that has become increasingly common in Aquinas studies, that revelation is really primary in Thomas and that his theology is basically biblical rather than philosophical. If this understanding is correct, then Thomism might finally turn out to be an ally of the Reformation! But one must not jump to conclusions too hastily.

13. Tackling some of the same questions in an independent study, R. J. Blaikie in “Secular Christianity” and God Who Acts (Eerdmans) has written a thoughtful book in which he rejects the modern split between subject and object and presents the personal God who acts in history, as the Bible records. The particular point of this work is to show that secular Christianity distorts the Gospel by putting it in terms of its own false presuppositions. In contrast the author sees opening before man a new world of thought “to which the concept of action seems to be the key.”

14. Also breaking new ground, this time in theological sociology, is the striking work by J. Ellul called in the English translation The Meaning of the City (Eerdmans). This is not a piece of sociology nor indeed of sociological theology. As stated, it is a work of theological sociology. Far from trying to refashion Christianity after an urban pattern, Ellul subjects the city itself to a devastating biblical analysis that is all the more crushing for its prophetic simplicity. Unfortunately it is perhaps too much to hope that our modern planners and secularizers and sociologizers will take note, though it seems plain enough that the facts are with the Bible.

15. Turning now to a different area we find a large and challenging book on Evangelism in the Early Church by Michael Green (Eerdmans) in which New Testament and patristic studies overlap. The author here takes up again the ancient question of how the early expansion of the Church was achieved. If he has unearthed little that is new, he has done a valuable job by bringing the materials into focus. He has also asked some searching questions when comparing early evangelism with many of its modern forms.

16. Another excellent work from a missionary perspective is Understanding Church Growth (Eerdmans), in which D. McGavran presents the case not merely for his own special work but also for new dedication to the missionary task in what he shows to be an age of considerable expansion and almost unparalleled opportunity. Supported by a host of detailed studies and also by A. Tippett’s Church Growth and the Word of God (Eerdmans), this is a book to be read and acted upon.

17. This has been a busy year in ethical discussion—practice is another matter—and once again it is perhaps J. Ellul who has spoken the most disturbing word in his book Violence (Seabury). In this work Ellul, a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War, cuts right across both the Christian refusal of force on the one side and the Christian justification of force (whether for order or revolution) on the other. Instead he offers what he takes to be both a more biblical and also a more realistic position, despite the logical difficulties that will undoubtedly be urged against it.

18. Liturgically the most important volume of the year is the new one by Horton Davies on Worship and Theology in England (Princeton), in which the area covered is that of the Reformation. This is a big, informative, and discerning book that embodies the results of many years of research and reflection. It will also command a wider audience than that of pure liturgists, for the author is naturally led by his subject into many significant questions of dogmatics and ecclesiastical history.

19. Ecumenically one of the most interesting works is The Ecumenical Advance (SPCK), edited by H. E. Fey, which is Volume II of the history of the ecumenical movement so ably begun by Rouse and Neill. It is perhaps unfortunate that the change in authorship or editorship has involved a certain disjunctiveness, but this is an important account of the further development of what is, for good or ill, a most significant movement.

20. Finally it might be noted that the sixth and last volume of Sacramentum Mundi, edited by Karl Rahner (Herder and Herder), has now been published. This is a comprehensive attempt to gather the fruits of Roman Catholic rethinking into a single series. Naturally the articles are uneven in quality, and one can find many discouraging things to balance the more encouraging. Nevertheless, this is a monumental encyclopedia, and it now finds a worthy companion in the shorter Sacramentum Verbi, an encyclopedia of biblical theology.

A few remarks might now be devoted to some of the other titles worth noting. Eighteenth-century thought is well represented by new editions of the Reimarus Fragments (Fortress) and Rousseau’s Religious Writings, edited by R. Grimsley (Oxford). There has also been a surge of Puritan publications largely under the inspiration of Peter Toon, who has just edited The Correspondence of John Owen (James Clarke) consisting of hitherto unknown letters. A symposium edited by the same scholar deals with Puritans and the Millennium and the Future of Israel (Clarke). From a later period, J. E. Meeter has given us a collection of the smaller pieces of a fine scholar in Selected Shorter Writings of B. B. Warfield (Presbyterian and Reformed).

Important historical studies include a good account of The Norman Achievement (University of California) by D. C. Douglas, assessments of The Anabaptists and Religious Liberty in the Sixteenth Century (Fortress) by H. S. Bender and Reform in Leopold’s Congo (John Knox) by S. Shaloff, and a new work on Constantine (Dial) by R. MacMullen. W. S. Hudson has edited a thought-provoking symposium on Nationalism and Religion in America (Harper & Row). Two noteworthy works on American evangelical history are E. Sandeen’s The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago) and G. Marsden’s The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience (Yale).

There has been a flurry of activity in the study of individual theologians. To the works on Augustine and Aquinas already listed we may add Peter Abelard by L. Grane (Harcourt, Brace and World), The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Martin Bucer by W. P. Stephens (Cambridge), and John Bunyan (Eerdmans), in which R. L. Greaves tries to piece together the famous author’s theology. Nor should one omit the small but penetrating book on Karl Barth by T. H. L. Parker (Eerdmans).

Theology offers a varied array. J. K. S. Reid has a brief survey of Christian Apologetics (Eerdmans), and T. F. Torrance’s new book, God and Rationality, a sequel to Theological Science, is almost if not quite ready. What promises to be a good series on “The Philosophy of Religion,” edited by J. Hick, has also made a good start with Arguments for the Existence of God by the editor and Concepts of Deity by H. P. Owen. Another good book now available in English is The Knowledge of God by H. Bouillard (Burns and Oates). Karl Rahner continues his Theological Investigations, Volume VI (Helicon). An attempt is made to keep the death-of-God theology alive in The Theology of Altizer, Critique and Response, edited by J. B. Cobb (Westminster); the prognosis, however, is not good. A far more constructive study is All Things Made New, by L. Smedes (Eerdmans).

Hermeneutics and ecumenics can always be relied on for a title or two. The former gives us a good work by H. M. Kuitert, Do You Understand What You Read? (Eerdmans); a challenging one by J. D. Smart, The Strange Silence of the Bible (Westminster); and a practical symposium Interpreting God’s Word Today, edited by S. Kistemaker (Baker). Ecumenics produces some strange phenomena. While Roman Catholics worry about Bishops and People (Westminster, by the Catholic Theological Faculty of Tubingen), Lutherans are asking about Episcopacy in the Lutheran Church? (Fortress), edited by I. Asheim and V. R. Gold, and John Kromminga raises the general question: All One Body We (Eerdmans).

Some varied items may be noted in conclusion. P. Tournier again produces a new book, A Place for You (Harper & Row), and J. Ellul, equally prolific, writes forcefully about Prayer and Modern Man (Seabury). Fletcher tells us about Moral Responsibility (Westminster), and J. A. T. Robinson asks about Christian Freedom in a Permissive Society (Westminster). A useful Dictionary of Comparative Religion, edited by S. G. F. Brandon (Scribner), will fill a gap for some; choirs and organists may learn from C. Dearnley about English Church Music 1650–1750 (Oxford).

Geoffrey W. Bromiley is professor of church history and historical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. He holds the M.A. from Cambridge University and the Ph.D. and D.Litt. from the University of Edinburgh.

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