Book Briefs: August 11, 1972

Unity Of The Jesus Movement

It’s Happening With Youth, by Janice M. Corbett and C. E. Johnson (Harper & Row, 1972, 176 pp., $4.95), The Jesus People, by Ronald Enroth, Edward E. Ericson, and C. B. Peters (Eerdmans, 1972, 249 pp., $5.95, $2.95 pb), Berkeley Journal, by Clay Ford (Harper & Row, 1972, 109 pp., $4.95), Spaced Out and Gathered In, by Jerry Halliday (Revell, 1972, 126 pp., $.95 pb), The Jesus People Speak Out, compiled by Ruben Ortega (D. C. Cook and Pyramid, 1972, 128 pp., $.95 pb), The Far-Out Saints of the Jesus Communes, by Hiley W. Ward (Association, 1972, 190 pp., $5.95), and Call to the Streets, by Don Williams (Augsburg, 1972, 96 pp., $2.50 pb), are reviewed by Erling Jorstad, professor of history, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota.

The Jesus People is easily the most satisfactory interpretation now in print. From their base at Westmont College, the three authors spent much time and effort interviewing and observing a wide variety of young Jesus people. Their resulting book is careful, judicious, and clarifying in most details. The first half is a narrative account of the best known groups, to which is added fascinating detail on some hitherto little known bodies. The authors have also answered many of the questions about the internal wranglings of the Children of God. They add fresh information on Calvary Chapel, the Hollywood Free Paper, and other points.

The second half is an unusually close examination of the theological teachings of this the teen-age phase of today’s revival movement. The authors sharply criticize the participants for the lack of carefully thought out principles of biblical interpretation, especially in the areas of eschatology and ethics. They also fault their staunchly anti-social, anti-intellectual, anti-historical, and anti-cultural attitudes. The authors present only limited discussion of two other major parts of the Jesus revival, the socially minded collegiate evangelicals and the Catholic Pentecostals.

The book sorely needs a bibliography and footnotes but has a good index. For some reason, the historical background doesn’t appear until the twelfth of the thirteen chapters.

Those who want a more personal account are urged to read new autobiographical accounts by youth ministers, Don Williams’s Call to the Streets and Clay Ford’s Berkeley Journal. Williams tells his story by presenting sketches of five teen-agers with whom he worked. These are well written and thoughtful; the reader feels personal identification with Williams’s ministry. Ford spent the summer of 1970 in Berkeley and here offers his diary of the experimental ministry he led. It is fascinating throughout. The flexible format gives him freedom to explain the movement in several ways: as daily events, from personal observations, and from reflective analysis. Each category adds depth and variety. Both these books would make excellent reading for older teenagers.

Another autobiography, this from a former drug-user now converted to the revival, Jerry Halliday, is entitled Spaced Out and Gathered In. This is less successful; it tries too hard, it seems to me, to be cool and turned on. Jargon abounds, but careful analysis is missing.

Two other new books concentrate on the teen-age phase of the movement. Hiley Ward adds more information to the collective side with a study called The Far-Out Saints of the Jesus Communes. This is an accurate account of the successes and the failures of communal experiments. Another variation is a compilation of brief but forceful opinions by Jesus kids on a variety of subjects, edited by Ruben Ortega as The Jesus People Speak Out. With his staff from Collegiate Encounter for Christ, he interviewed dozens of teenagers across the country. They sound off, in three-or four-sentence statements, on conversion, drugs, sex, parents, tongues, and other topics. Their opinions are offered with no editorial evaluation.

The new question raised by all this information—where is the Jesus movement going?—is answered in part by It’s Happening With Youth, an absorbing report on new experimental youth ministries by Corbett and Johnson. After a general introduction on the need for bolder outreach, the authors present seventeen studies of imaginative church-based programs that offer help to young people who have gotten involved in drugs, crime, and other serious problems. The authors show why some programs succeeded and others failed, and offer concrete proposals to parish ministers.

Besides the spiritual activity among the Jesus people, two other areas of revival are now prominent. The Catholic “charismatic renewal” movement continues to grow, and impressive new life, strength, and social outreach are evident among groups of collegiate evangelicals such as Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ. Comparing these three movements with earlier revivals, we detect both continuity and change. As with older revivals, today’s is based on the verbally inspired, inerrant Bible. It accepts the efficacy of instant conversion, and holds to a firm pre-millennial eschatology.

But the three-headed revival of our day also shows important changes from the revivals of the past. It has not thrust forth a unifying figure, such as Whitefield or Finney. It includes Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. Its participants celebrate group interaction, communal sharing of property, and spontaneous expression rather than following the cultural patterns inherent in the older revivalism. And today’s converts seem less enthusiastic than those of the past for joining older church bodies.

Cohesion can be found in three themes or principles. First, the teen-age Jesus people, Catholic charismatics, and evangelical students are united in their dedication to the teachings, ministry, and redemptive life of Jesus. They find in him the authority, direction, and love they consider completely adequate for their lives. No other person, institution, set of doctrines, or body of wisdom so completely commands their loyalty.

Second, unity emerges out of willingness to give up former loyalties for the sake of a full social expression of the new birth. This leads the teen-ager to break his drug habit and turn to fulltime evangelism. This helps the collegiate evangelical break with his past tradition about social involvement and leads him into service in the ghetto or wherever else human need is found. It leads the Catholic charismatic to a new understanding of the Bible, a new love for warm, communal worship, and a new confidence that without ecclesiastical support he is experiencing God in himself through the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Third, the Jesus movement is united by the joyous enthusiasm of its participants for sharing, worshiping, and growing together. They are sharing the new birth in communes, group witnessing, and group Bible study. They submerge their individual preferences into the redemptive power of their chosen community.

The movement clearly is moving into a new phase, one that will mean closer association with established congregations. The Jesus people and those in the establishment bear the responsibility of sharing their resources with one another and with non-believers. There need not be any real line of demarcation between those inside and outside the movement so long as both strive honestly to learn what it means to let Jesus make all things new.

Neutrality Negated

Jesus, by Eduard Schweizer (John Knox, 1971, 200 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by F. F. Bruce, professor of biblical criticism and exegesis, University of Manchester, England.

This work, translated by David E. Green from the German Jesus Christus (1968), is not a life of Jesus along conventional lines, but rather a study of the various perspectives on Jesus that come to expression throughout the New Testament. Professor Schweizer wrote the work in 1966 during a visit to Japan, “when,” he says, “besides the text of the New Testament, I had at my disposal considerable leisure but not much literature.” In these circumstances especially one would expect to find ample evidence of Professor Schweizer’s distinctive approaches to the New Testament, and our expectation is fulfilled.

He does not believe, for example, that one can approach Jesus as a completely dispassionate historian. The historian who would give an accurate and adequate account of (say) an important battle must understand what it was all about, but he does not need to take sides; indeed, if he takes sides, he may unconsciously give an unbalanced report. But “towards Jesus one cannot remain neutral … for his summons is such that whoever seeks to remain neutral has already rejected him.” This is in line with the fact that our sources for the story of Jesus are witnesses, not simply informants:

A newsreel with sound from Jerusalem, depicting the crucifixion of Jesus, could have provided us with many historical details; but it could not have told us what actually happened there, whether we were witnessing the execution of a harmless fanatic or an ambitious nationalist, or whether God himself was giving us his final word. Only a witness, whom we can believe or not, can tell us this [p. 7].

Here, of course, Schweizer writes as a theologian, not as a historian. A historian might regard himself as competent to make a pronouncement on the significance of Jesus in world history without considering the question whether or not in him God was giving any word at all—indeed, he would probably hold that such a question lay right outside the historian’s province. And there might be substantial value in the assessment of such a historian, but it would not answer the questions about Jesus that are raised by the New Testament. These are the questions to which Schweizer draws our attention, and he does so as one who, having weighed them for himself, has made the same positive commitment as Mark and Paul and John. In other words, he too writes as a witness.

Five main New Testament perspectives on Jesus are discussed, beginning with “Jesus: The Man Who Fits No Formula”—the author would have earned our gratitude for this chapter heading alone if for nothing else. Many of his contemporaries found him disconcerting for this very reason: they could not fit him into any of their pigeon-holes. His self-designation “The Son of Man” is relevant here: it had no fixed meaning in the minds of his contemporaries, and we ourselves must determine what it meant on his lips not by establishing its antecedents but by studying his own usage. As for his teaching and his practice, “on behalf of all of us, he defended the position that even literal fulfillment of the commandments does not result in doing God’s will, that his will demands much more of us and for this very reason gives us a much larger area of freedom, in which we can breathe and live and rejoice.” To live in the enjoyment of such freedom is “to live by the principle of love,” and what this means is shown in one after another of the parables.

Passing from the Jesus of the Gospels, we are brought to “Jesus, who will soon return” (the advent hope, the “irruption of the eschaton,” meant that God had become immediate, no longer confined to the distant past of sacred history or the distant future of popular apocalypticism—the positive elements in Christian apocalyptic, with its “absolute focus” in the person of the living Christ, are well brought out.) In this context attention is also paid to the judicial force of “sentences of holy law” in the New Testament church. In these the authority of the Son of Man was still active, and their enforcement was left to the judgment of God.

The chapter entitled “The Heavenly Jesus” deals with the various aspects of the Lordship of Christ as they find progressive expression in the New Testament documents. Paul, it is pointed out, takes hymns that celebrate Jesus’ sovereignty over the cosmos and his receiving worship from principalities and powers and transfers their emphasis to his Lordship over the Church and the humble service its members ought to render one to another. If, in Colossians, Jesus is “the Lord who fills the world through the missionary work of the disciples,” this is a thought that is not foreign to the mind of the historical Jesus, although it is with Paul’s ministry that it makes its decisive breakthrough.

“Jesus, Crucified For the World” is the title of the chapter that considers, among other things, his death for us and our life in him. “The Earthly Jesus” traces the growth of the gospel tradition from the earliest days to the appearance of our written Gospels; part of this chapter is devoted to an interesting exercise in redaction criticism. The final chapter, headed “Innovations With the Dawn of Church History,” deals with the later parts of the New Testament and the dangers that had to be guarded against, such as the danger of an official church maintaining ancient traditions (which a one-sided insistence on Luke’s perspective might have encouraged) or that of a withdrawal from the world (which might have been the result of a one-sided emphasis on the Johannine approach). We are shown how these dangers were overcome and the various approaches of the apostolic age preserved in the post-Pauline and post-Johannine community.

In such an individual study as this there are bound to be many viewpoints and statements that readers will question or even reject. Some of these are minor and incidental: I cannot see, for example, how such passages as First Corinthians 16:15 ff. make the appointment of church elders impossible; my own understanding of those verses is almost the exact opposite of Dr. Schweizer’s. For all the weight of Wrede’s argument, I am not persuaded that the messianic secret in Mark is a “fiction”; it is much more likely to correspond to a real situation in the historical ministry. And it is disquieting at this time of day to read of “those who nailed him [Jesus] to the cross because they found blasphemy in his parables”; his theological opponents did indeed find blasphemy in the parables from time to time, but those who were responsible for his crucifixion were moved by other considerations than the meaning of the parables.

And so one might go on; but the main impression left at the end of a study of this work is one of grateful admiration. Here is a fresh and lively introduction to New Testament Christology by a Christian scholar whose approach is marked throughout by sympathetic insight into the New Testament message. No New Testament student could fail to derive a great deal of help from what he says.

Newly Published

Searchlight on Bible Words, compiled by James C. Hefley (Zondervan, 198 pp., $4.95). Besides showing the difficulties of translation work, the examples shed light on the meaning of some major Christian concepts and doctrines. For those interested in applied linguistics, or for those who want to deepen their understanding of Scripture, this is a book to read.

Of Wise Men and Fools, by David Edman (Doubleday, 229 pp., $5.95). A fresh look at Gideon, Solomon, Jezebel, Judas, Barnabas, and five other Bible personalities. Can be helpful in making them seem more real. Also serves as a model for biographical preaching.

The Doctrine of the Word of God, by Thomas A. Thomas (Presbyterian and Reformed, 114 pp., $2.50 pb), The Bible: God’s Word, by Tenis Van Klooten (Baker, 231 pp., $2.95 pb), and The Authority of the Bible, by Donald G. Miller (Eerdmans, 139 pp., $2.25 pb). Thomas concisely presents the doctrine of the authority and infallibility of the Bible. From the same perspective, that of historic Protestant orthodoxy, Van Klooten examines the doctrine in some detail, attempting to make the meaning and implications of infallibility clear and to answer many of the objections of its detractors; his work is a valuable study guide. Miller, by contrast, surveys some of the problems he has encountered in defending biblical authority, and casts some valuable light on perplexing questions, but he deals more with the psychological than the theological side of authority and does not expressly defend infallibility.

Religion May Be Hazardous to Your Health, by Eli S. Chesen (Wyden [750 3rd Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017], 145 pp., $4.95). A psychiatrist who finds it “difficult to imagine a God who listens to me or an afterlife that waits for me,” thinks that a sane, comforting religion is fine but that orthodoxies are dangerous. Indeed, some are, but the author does not distinguish between human and revealed religion.

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Volume Eight, edited by Gerhard Friedrich (Eerdmans, 620 pp., $18.50). With forty-one articles on words and word groups beginning with tau and upsilon, this standard work is nearing completion.

Evangelism Alert: A Strategy For the Seventies, edited by Gilbert Kirby (World Wide [27 Camden Road, London NW1 9LN, England], 283 pp., £1.80). The messages and reports of the European Congress on Evangelism, Amsterdam, 1971. For all institutional theological libraries.

Discipling the Brother, by Marlin Jeschke (Herald Press [Scottdale, Pa. 15683], 200 pp., $2.95 pb). See editorial, page 25.

Lectures in Systematic Theology, by Robert L. Dabney (Zondervan, 903 pp., $12.95). The outstanding Southern Presbyterian theologian of the last century deserves to stand alongside the better-known giants of the Princeton school. This work offers a wealth of valuable homiletic material.

The Far-Out Saints of the Jesus Communes, by Hiley Ward (Association, 192 pp., $5.95). Responsible journalistic look at a variety of Jesus communes. Ward considers such topics as sex, the occult, doctrine, and money. Fascinating reading, but highlights the unusual.

How Dependable Is the Bible?, by Raymond Surburg (Lippincott, 204 pp., $5.95). An Old Testament professor at Concordia Seminary, Springfield, looks at various forms of literary criticism of both testaments, section by section. He does in compressed form what standard Old and New Testament introductions do with more depth.

Being a Disciple, by Temp Sparkman (Broadman, 94 pp., $1.75 pb). A good book to help teen-agers realize what it means to follow Christ.

The Love Command in the New Testament, by Victor Paul Furnish (Abingdon, 240 pp., $6.95). A careful and competent exegetical discussion of a central New Testament concept. Clears up many misunderstandings and remedies much harm caused by over-simplification and over-generalization. Critical questions are handled conservatively in this detailed but easy-to-read work.

Ecological Renewal, by Paul E. Lutz and H. Paul Santmire (Fortress, 153 pp., $3.95 pb). An open-faced sandwich: H. Paul Santmire’s theological reflections, compounded from Norman O. Brown, James H. Cone, and Teilhard de Chardin, slapped onto Paul E. Lutz’s straightforward but spiritually insensitive biologist’s wrap-up of the ecological crisis.

Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism, edited by John Donnelly (Fordham, 337 pp., $12.50). A major challenge by several philosophers who are also Christian theists to the attempt of logical analysts to discredit all religious language and doctrine. Also provides much helpful material on philosophical questions in religion from a generally Christian perspective.

The Sensitive Woman, by Sandra S. Chandler (Compass Press [Box 173-C, Pasadena, Ca. 91104], 1972, 116 pp., $1.25 pb). Structurally parallel to The Sensuous Woman by “J.” The wife of the former news editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY combines the secular and spiritual in a refreshing approach to developing sensitivity. She gives guidelines to increase awareness of the needs, drives, and desires in oneself and hence toward others. Hopefully it will have as big an impact in the Church as The Sensuous Woman did in the world.

Anahaptism: A Social History, 1525–1618, by Claus-Peter Clasen (Cornell University, 523 pp., $17.50). An excellent, painstaking study of the surviving documents that focuses on the Anabaptists’ complex relations to the larger society rather than their faith. (The Netherlands, where Menno Simons predominated, and north Germany, including the short-lived kingdom of Münster, are outside the regional bounds of the study.)

Grace Grows Best in Winter: Help For Those Who Must Suffer, by Margaret Clarkson (Zondervan, 205 pp., $3.95). Those who read this will find themselves richer for it.

Priests in the United States: Reflections on a Survey, by Andrew M. Greeley (Doubleday, 213 pp., $5.95). A clear-headed sociological analysis of the situation of Roman Catholic priests in the country, banishing the stereotype of the priest as unhappy and frustrated, and making it appear that the current decline in candidates reflects in part something other than a deep-seated malaise.

Evangelism Now, edited by Ralph Turnbull (Baker, 112 pp., $1.95 pb). Essays by ten leaders on various aspects and formats of evangelism, such as theology, essence, biblical basis, radio, crusades, congregations, and literature. Helpful.

Things to Come: Thinking About the 70’s and 80’s, by Herman Kahn and B. Bruce-Briggs (Macmillan, 262 pp., $6.95). A sober projection that, though entirely lacking in an evangelical dimension, is a valuable antidote to some of the utopian fancies currently being peddled as “theology of the future.” Not flattering to the integrity of the theological radicals of our day.

Northern Ireland: A Report on the Conflict, by the London Sunday Times Insight Team (Random House, 316 pp., $7.95). Journalistic look at the problems; a good addition to the other volumes on the subject.

Hope For Your Church, by Harold Fickett, Jr. (Regal, 159 pp., $3.95). Another in the recent surge of books on huge congregations (this one is First Baptist of Van Nuys, a part of Los Angeles). Includes principles by which any Bible-believing congregation can grow.

Your Half of the Apple: God and the Single Girl, by Gini Andrews (Zondervan, 159 pp., $3.95), How to Spark a Marriage When the Kids Leave Home, by Frank A. Kostyu (Pilgrim Press, 128 pp., $4.95), and Risk and Chance in Marriage, by Bernard Harnik (Word, 179 pp., $4.95). Three fine books. The first, on single life, is the best treatment yet on the subject. Kostyu takes a light-hearted but serious look at a problem faced by our older readers. And Harnik’s book should be read by young and older adults, married and single alike.

Samuel Seabury, 1729–1796: A Study in the High Church Tradition, by Bruce E. Steiner (Ohio University, 508 pp., $13.50). A carefully documented study of one of the principal shapers of American Episcopalianism.

Strangers at the Door, by Marcus Bach (Abingdon, 189 pp., $3.95), The New Religions, by Jacob Needleman (Pocket Books, 240 pp., $1.25 pb), and Strange Sects and Cults, by Egon Larsen (Hart [719 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10003], 245 pp., $5.95). Bach gives a sanguine view of resurging variations in America of Hinduism, Buddhism, and lesser Asian faiths, wishing that Christianity would give more of a welcome to them. Needleman, in an inexpensive revision of his 1970 book, covers the same ground with even less concern for relating the newcomers to Christianity. Larson takes us on a round-the-world tour of what he depicts as a religious zoo, taking special delight in the bizarre. Included in his itinerary are Amish, Rosicrucians, Soka Gakkai, Dukhobors, Thugs, and numerous others. None of these books is definitive, but they do illustrate how religious many supposedly “secular” contemporary men are.

A Place to Belong, by Robert A. Williams (Zondervan, 175 pp., $3.95). Won’t replace Paul Tournier’s A Place for You, but is a good beginner for laymen who are unacquainted with the more sophisticated volume.

Successful Ministry to the Retarded, by Elmer L. Towns and Roberta L. Groff (Moody, 144 pp., $2.25 pb). An introduction to a subject that Christian educators often ignore.

Search For Silence, by Elizabeth O’Connor (Word, 186 pp., $4.95). Practical exercises to help people accept themselves as God does and then learn what God wants them to do. Somewhat in the mystical-meditative tradition of Christianity.

The Blessed Hope in the Thessalonian Epistles, by William Thomas (Sundby Publications [1609 Barrington Ave., Los Angeles, Cal. 90025], 47 pp., $.50 pb). Those who believe Christ’s return will be in one stage rather than two will welcome this irenic, exegetical study.

Youth: The Hope of the Harvest, by Edmund J. Elbert (Sheed and Ward, 244 pp., $6.95). Although he writes from a hollow humanist perspective (“The meaning of our existence as persons, then, is ultimately a call to an active participation in the great enterprise of human life which is the work of world construction”), the author, a priest, does provide a good overview of this generation. It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t see that a commitment to Christ as Lord isn’t opposed to humanism.

Tomorrow’s Child, by Rubem Alves (Harper & Row, 210 pp., $6.95). A strangely confused testimony against the present and in favor of the future. Combines Marxist sociology with a religiously tinged hope, warranted more by its own rhetoric than by any evidence presented.

Power to Dissolve: Lawyers and Marriages in the Courts of the Roman Curia, by John T. Noonan, Jr. (Harvard, 489 pp., $15). An amazingly interesting study of a highly technical question, the history of papal annulment of marriages. Beginning in 1653, the author omits the cause célèbre of Henry VIII, but he makes up for it with amusing descriptions and historical anecdotes.

Theological Dynamics, by Seward Hiltner (Abingdon, 224 pp., $5.75). Essays on relating important theological concepts such as grace, sin, and church, to life and experience understood psychologically. Stronger on psychological insights than on theology.

The Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment, by Bruce R. Reichenbach (Charles C. Thomas [301 E. Lawrence Ave., Springfield, Ill. 62703], 150 pp., $8.75). A cautiously positive reevaluation of one of the strongest traditional arguments for the existence of God and an attempt to rescue it from Immanuel Kant’s attacks. The author hopes that through elimination of some of the attacks of reason on faith, “the ground has been prepared for the planting of reasoned belief.”

Hebrew Union College Annual, Volume XLII, edited by Samuel Sandmel (Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, 301 pp., $10). A well-known annual publication of articles on biblical and Judaic studies. Of special interest to CHRISTIANITY TODAY readers is a ninety-six-page bibliography of everything published on any archaeological site in the Holy Land.

Coming to a Theology of Beauty, by William D. Dean (Westminster, 207 pp., $3.50). Nicely written speculations by a former assistant of Paul Tillich’s, written without any more authoritative foundation than the antecedent broodings of Whitehead, Cox, Todrank, et al.

You and Yours, by Ellen McKay Trimmer (Moody, 224 pp., $3.95). Sensitively discusses the problems of maturation as well as the need for Christians to be aware of and involved in contemporary culture.

Gibeon and Israel: The Role of Gibeon and the Gibeonites in the Political and Religious History of Early Israel, by Joseph Blenkinsopp (Cambridge, 152 pp., $11.50). All that is known on the subject, in a technical monograph originally written for a Ph.D. at Oxford.

Contemporary Critiques of Religion, by Kai Nielsen (Herder and Herder, 163 pp., $6.95), Oppositions of Religious Doctrines, by William A. Christian (Herder and Herder, 129 pp., $6.95), Problems of Religious Knowledge, by Terence Penelhum (Herder and Herder, 186 pp., $7.95), and Philosophy of Religion: The Historic Approaches, by M. J. Charlesworth (Herder and Herder, 216 pp., $8.95). Under the editorship of a fallen-away evangelical, John Hick, the once stalwartly Roman Catholic house of Herder and Herder has begun an ambitious series of handbooks in the philosophy of religion. Charlesworth gives an informative and useful treatment from an historical perspective, offering much valuable information in readable form, and reaching conclusions that are basically favorable to revealed, biblical religion. Penelhum examines attempts to offer evidence for faith, and comes to the conclusion that when one starts from nontheistic premises, compelling evidence is unavailable. Christian offers an extremely technical study of the mechanics involved in doctrinal disagreement. Nielsen, an atheistic philosopher, sharply and maliciously attacks religious faith as neither reasonable nor justified.

The Unfolding of the Person, by David G. Cernic (Christopher, 169 pp., $6.95). A detailed, technical study of an important American philosopher of interest chiefly to the specialist in philosophy.

The Stones and the Scriptures, by Edwin Yamauchi (Lippincott, 207 pp., $5.95). Excellent overview of archaeological discoveries and their relationship to ancient Israel and the early Church. Suitable for both the beginner and, because of the notes, the advanced student. Five indexes make it a useful reference tool.

Commentary on Romans, by William Plumer (Kregel, 646 pp., $8.95), and Commentary on First Peter, by Robert Leighton (Kregel, 511 pp., $8.95). Reprints of works by a nineteenth-century American Presbyterian and seventeenth-century Scottish Episcopalian.

Body Life, by Ray Stedman (Regal, 149 pp., $.95 pb). Emphasizes the need for each Christian to use cooperatively the spiritual gifts entrusted to him in the context of genuine fellowship. The author’s congregation in Palo Alto is mentioned at the end as a place where “body life” has actually worked.

Makers of Modern Thought: Freud, by Michael Hare Duke, Gandhi, by H. J. N. Horsburgh, and Bertrand Russell, by David R. Bell (Judson, approx. 60 pp. each, $1.50 each). Laudatory biographical studies issued by a Christian press of noted opponents of Christianity. Bishop Duke’s study of Freud is not lacking in critical insight, but Horsburgh’s effusive Gandhi does not deal with his pantheism and specifically anti-Christian polemics, while Bell presents Bertrand Russell so uncritically that the reader will hardly detect in the portrait one of the most arrogant and inveterate foes of Christian faith in our century. The series as a whole is sadly lacking in discernment and Christian perspective; one must wonder at the publisher’s purpose in producing it.

Power Ideas For a Happy Family, by Robert Schuller (Revell, 128 pp., $3.95). Simply presented with plenty of slogans and jokes, but the ideas have potential to provoke profound reflection that could improve some families’ lives.

Morality For Moderns, by Marc Oraison (Doubleday, 117 pp., $4.95). Random observations by a Catholic psychiatrist. The Christian substance in them is meager.

Ellen G. White: Prophet of Destiny, by Rene Noorbergen (Keats [212 Elm St., New Canaan, Conn. 06840], 241 pp., $6.95). Mrs. White (1827–1915) was a remarkable woman who came to be recognized as the principal figure in Seventh-day Adventism. This is a popularly written, admiring biography by the man who collaborated with Jeane Dixon in her auto-biography.

Two Ways

Sayings of Mao, of Jesus, edited by Dick Hillis (Regal, 1972, 127 pp., $1.25 pb), is reviewed by Norman Cook, Asia area director, Overseas Crusades, Palo Alto, California.

Dick Hillis is aware of the growing Mao cult and the spread of the Jesus movement, and also of the fact that hundreds of idealistic students have no real knowledge of the teachings of either Mao or Jesus. In this book he invites the thoughtful reader to consider and compare these teachings. The reader will discover that he cannot embrace simultaneously the doctrines of these two revolutionaries. The quotations, standing on opposite pages in sharp contrast, reveal that both leaders call for uncompromising allegiance. The reader must choose between the most deified man in modern times and the One who spoke with quiet authority nearly two thousand years ago.

The young person standing at the crossroads should examine these Sayings. And the adult who may pride himself on his knowledge of Jesus should take this opportunity to learn what Mao is teaching our youth.

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