Book in Review

Righteous Ethnics

Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America, by Martin E. Marty (Dial, 1970, 295 pp., $8.95, $2.95 pb), and The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: The New Political Force of the Seventies, by Michael Novak (Macmillan, 1972, 321 pp., $7.95), are reviewed by Harold O. J. Brown, associate editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY.

When the World Council of Churches leader Eugene Carson Blake says Righteous Empire “ought to be required reading for all American Christians,” the reason is not that Marty has given us a good history of “The Protestant Experience in America.” One looks in vain in his book for an account of revivalism, of the Unitarian Departure, of the variant movements all too characteristic of American spirituality such as Christian Science, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although he is very interested in “the overlooked Protestant,” i.e., the black American, Marty does not give us a cohesive picture of black Protestantism either. Such an important movement as his own Missouri Synod does not even rate mention in the index. And he denigrates fundamentalism.

Why then does Blake, among others, want to make Righteous Empire required reading, and why did it win a National Book Award for 1971? Marty’s book is an attempt to characterize the history of Protestantism in America—its evangelism, missions, education, and all its other aspects—as the self-righteous, self-serving spiritual propaganda machine of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, intended to subjugate the “ethnics,” especially blacks and southern and eastern Europeans. In order to do this, Marty must assimilate non-Anglo-Saxon Protestants—e.g., Dutch, Germans, and Scandinavians—to the WASPs, all of whom he lumps together for blanket condemnation.

One of the three judges on the National Book Award Committee was Michael Novak. A perusal of his Unmeltable Ethnics immediately reveals that while his scholarship is broader and deeper than Marty’s, he shares one major cause with him: the denigration of Protestantism, especially “White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism,” as the major force for repression and evil in American society.

Novak writes out of a self-consciously “Slovak” background. To this reviewer, who himself is as East European in ancestry as Novak’s children, namely 50 per cent, it seems that he grossly exaggerates the pathos of growing up Slav. Even his acronym PIGS (Poles-Italians-Greeks-Slavs) is more emotive than apt, since Poles too are Slavs.

Nevertheless, there are many extremely pertinent observations and a great deal of truth in Novak’s book. He does help the reader understand the “blue-collar” syndrome that pitted the American working class, largely made up of Novak’s “unmeltable ethnics,” against what he identifies as an alliance of left-wing intellectual snobs and militant black revolutionaries. He analyzes and excoriates some of the stultifying weaknesses of the American way of life (though perhaps he is wrong in attributing them primarily to WASPishness), such as extreme, anti-social individualism, the loss of family ties, and enchantment by depersonalizing television.

Like Marty, Novak turns all Protestants—Germans, Dutch, or whatever—and even the German Catholics, it seems, into WASPs; he does the same to any “ethnics,” such as Spiro Agnew and Edmund Muskie, whose successes would seem to disprove the theory about the inevitable breaking of an ethnic’s spirit by WASP repression.

Novak’s book is to a great extent a Catholic’s protest against Protestant spiritual domination in American life, which in his opinion has lead us to an unhealthy perfectionism and asceticism; thus he overlooks the very strong other-worldly aspects of Catholicism as well as the hedonism running through America’s history. Of course Novak has few words for the Irish, who will no doubt be surprised to find themselves, except for Robert F. Kennedy, the allies of the WASPs. In short, Novak mars many of his valuable insights by his attempts to force his observations into a predetermined scheme.

Novak goes beyond Marty’s mere condemnation of WASP arrogance and supremacy to concrete proposals for the future. Although he explains how his ethnics have been the hardest hit by liberal projects intended to enforce integration in society and help the black minority, he illogically concludes that the ethnics should align themselves with their “natural allies” the blacks to deal the coup de grace to the domination of the WASPs and their (nonethnic?) allies and henchmen, the Irish.

Whatever merit this may have as a political strategy to win elections, it can only be considered deplorable from a human perspective. It is one thing to urge all ethnic minorities (even the WASPs?) to be proud of their backgrounds and to cultivate their own traditions and cultural distinctives. It is another to urge them to build pressure groups in order to overthrow and subjugate their presumed exploiters of half a century ago.

One can agree with Novak that each of America’s ethnic minorities—including WASPs—can and should make a unique contribution to the richness of her national life, without subscribing to his appeal for a new kind of power politics based on ethnic loyalties and antagonisms. The recent mass murders in Bangladesh and Burundi have shown us all too clearly where that leads.

Varying Perspectives On Paul

Paul: Messenger and Exile, by John J. Gunther (Judson, 1972, 190 pp., $6.95), The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul, by David L. Dungan (Fortress, 1971, 180 pp., $6.95), and Perspectives on Paul, by Ernst Käsemann (Fortress, 1971, 173 pp., $6.95), are reviewed by George E. Cannon, associate professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

The major challenge in understanding the letters of Paul is learning enough about the historical and religious background to attempt to recreate the situation of his readers to which Paul addressed himself. Here are three books to help us in this task.

Dr. Gunther’s approach in Paul: Messenger and Exile is primarily chronological and biographical. I was impressed with his knowledge of Roman history, textual criticism, and the major issues related to the authorship and unity of the Pauline letters. However, I was surprised at his uncritical use of Acts as a primary source for Paul’s life and chronology without any explanation. Surely he must know that many New Testament scholars would consider this illegitimate. Although it is refreshing to see Acts taken seriously, Gunther owes his readers a substantial chapter defending his use of Acts and the Pastoral Epistles.

There are a number of surprises to be found in a work that so uncritically follows Acts. Gunther believes Galations was written to the churches in South Galatia that Paul founded on his first missionary journey. He thinks Galatians 2:1–10 refers not to the Acts 15 council visit but to the “famine visit” described in Acts 11:27–30. One would expect him, therefore, to date Galatians before the Acts 15 council (and thus account for why Paul does not quote the decision of the council), which would have been so pertinent to the issue of circumcision in Galatians. But Gunther dates Galatians five years after the council. He also feels that Paul compromised himself over the issue of circumcision, and that he even permitted Titus to be circumcised in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:3 ff. interpreted in the light of a textual difference)!

Gunther regards Second Corinthians, Philippians, and Romans as composite documents. He thinks the Pastoral Epistles contain some genuine Pauline fragments taken from letters Paul wrote while imprisoned in Caesarea and Rome. He also believes that the captivity letters (Philemon, Colossians, and Philippians 1–3) were written during Paul’s Caesarean imprisonment. Ephesians, he guesses, was written by Timothy and was not intended to be a circular letter. Hebrews was written by Apollos from Corinth to the church at Ephesus.

The hypothesis that Paul was released from prison at Rome and was later imprisoned there a second time is usually based on the Pastoral Epistles. Gunther rejects the Pastorals as the direct product of Paul or an amanuensis but posits an exile to Spain between two Roman imprisonments.

Gunther’s originality is impressive, but his methodology, vast amount of speculation, and inordinately long paragraphs are disappointing.

In The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul, Dr. Dungan takes a literary critical approach, skillfully using the tools of form and redaction criticism. The debate over the relation of Paul to Jesus has continued for many decades. The Bultmannian school asserts that the teachings of the historical Jesus were of practically no concern to Paul. Dungan raises the issue again and concludes that Paul knew well the traditional sayings of Jesus and took them seriously—even more seriously than the writers of the Synoptic Gospels.

Dungan’s method of studying the relation of Paul to the sayings of Jesus is impressive. He compares three sets of evidence: (1) Paul’s application of the sayings of the Lord to the situations in his churches, (2) the early Church’s use of the various sayings of Jesus to guide its own life (these are reconstructed form-critically out of the Synoptic Gospels), and (3) the use to which the Synoptic writers themselves put the sayings (derived through redaction criticism).

He chose two legal sayings for study: the Lord’s command about support for apostles (1 Cor. 9:4 ff.) and his prohibition of divorce (1 Cor. 7:10 ff.). To the former he compares the mission instructions in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt. 10:1–16; Marie 6:7–11; Luke 9:1–5; Luke 10:1–12), and to the latter he compares the sayings on divorce in Matthew 19:9 ff. and Mark 10:11 ff. In both cases Dungan points out how a remarkable similarity between the ways in which Paul and the Synoptic writers cite and apply the commands of the Lord. They all know the traditional sayings of the Lord; they treat them seriously and with respect; but they exercise freedom in applying the sayings to situations in the churches.

I disagree with Dungan’s belief that Paul’s primary opponents in Corinth were Peter and the brothers of the Lord and that Paul viewed marriage as “a necessary evil due to the weakness of the flesh.” But these matters have little to do with the purpose of the book. Also interesting but not essential to his point is Dungan’s analysis of the Synoptic materials, which offers grounds for questioning the established two-document hypothesis and the priority of Mark.

For a book dealing with such technical matters, Sayings is extremely lucid and well written. Dungan has made a major contribution to Pauline research.

Dr. Käsemann’s book, Perspectives on Paul, is a collection of lectures and articles on aspects of Paul’s theology, prepared between 1964 and 1967. His approach, like Bultmann’s, is anthropological and existential, though he differs sharply with his former teacher on many points.

This divergence readily can be seen in his first chapter, “On Paul’s Anthropology.” Käsemann agrees with Bultmann that Paul stresses the importance of the individual. But he perceptively disagrees with Bultmann’s conviction that the anthropological and soteriological orientation of Paul’s theology can best be treated in a doctrine of man. Such a view makes man fundamentally separable from the rest of the world. On the contrary, says Käsemann, man is himself only in his particular world and is always set in a structure of solidarity. But the world is always a sphere of sovereignty, and man is the creature who “radically and representatively for all others submits to his Lord, becoming the instrument by which he manifests his power and his universal claim.”

All the chapters show insight and impressive exegesis. I found “The Motif of the Body of Christ” and “The Spirit and the Letter” especially helpful. To those with the patience to work through Käsemann’s labored thought I promise that, while they may not always agree with him, they will find the book a fertile source of exciting ideas.

Newly Published

Moses, the Servant of Yahweh, by Dewey Beegle (Eerdmans, 368 pp., $7.95). A major biography of one of the most important men in world history. Beegle works within the framework of the prevailing critical views, but constructively. He supplies considerable information of value to advanced students and preachers of varying persuasions.

Toward a Discipline of Social Ethics: Essays in Honor of Walter George Muelder, edited by Paul Deats, Jr. (Boston University, 328 pp., $10). Notable in this collection is candidate George S. McGovern’s essay in which he gives his own Christian view of participation, saying: “The true believer is always a greater threat in politics than either the cynical realist or the naïve idealist.” The essays are short on biblical content; essays 5–8 deal with power, coercion, social strategy, and economic justice.

Religious Liberty in the United States: The Development of Church-State Thought Since the Revolutionary Era, by Elwyn Smith (Fortress, 386 pp., $10.95). A major study, examining the separatist, Catholic, and constitutional traditions as they have evolved over the centuries. Especially important as background to the continuing debates.

Somebody Please Love Me: A Message to Parents About Your Teenager and Drugs, by Al Palmquist and Frank Reynolds (Bethany Fellowship, 102 pp., $.75 pb). Today’s parents can’t read too much on this regrettably vital topic. The authors have had plenty of experience with drug users.

The Arab Israeli Struggle, by Charles Pfeiffer (Baker, 112 pp., $.95 pb). A fairly even-handed account of the Palestinian conflict of this century by a noted evangelical Bible scholar. The author defends the right of Israel to exist, but tries to show why Arabs feel otherwise.

Live With Yourself—and Like It, by Colette Hovasse (Orbis Books, 162 pp., $1.50 pb). Amusing and often insightful case studies by a Catholic psychologist to support her conviction that it is dangerous to think too highly of oneself.

Women and the Liberator, by William P. Barker (Revell, 128 pp., $3.95). The author is trying to cash in on women’s liberation. His additions to the Bible stories are poorly imagined and written.

Patterns of Christian Acceptance: Individual Response to the Missionary Impact 1550–1950, by Martin Jarrett-Kerr (Oxford, 342 pp., $16.25). An outstanding book. Until recently almost all writing on missions focused on the senders, not the receivers. This book ranges the globe to bring together in a scholarly yet inviting way the best available accounts of what it meant to dozens of individual non-Westerners to become Christians. The writer is a Catholic priest but includes many Protestants in his account.

Situation Ethics, a dialogue between Joseph Fletcher and John Warwick Montgomery (Bethany Fellowship, 90 pp., $2.95, $.95 pb). One of our truly roving contributing editors exposes the hollowness of Fletcher’s position in this useful transcript of a public debate.

What an Ugly, Beautiful World, edited by Harold Myra (Zondervan, 181 pp., $1.25 pb). The editor of Youth for Christ’s Campus Life magazine has compiled a number of valuable articles, many by youth, on the crucial issues of race, sex, music, drugs, and war.

The Nixon Theology, by Charles Henderson, Jr. (Harper & Row, 210 pp., $6.95). Conscious or unconscious theological beliefs influence, perhaps shape, the actions of all of us. Princeton’s chaplain traces the President’s career, citing many crucial statements, trying to infer his largely unconscious beliefs. He finds them defective, but does not carp.

The Denominational Society: A Sociological Approach to Religion in America, by Andrew M. Greeley (Scott, Foresman, 266 pp., $6.95). A Catholic priest-sociologist at the University of Chicago stresses, rightly we think, the importance of seeing the role of denominations in the United States as compared with countries where one religious body predominates.

The Inner War, by Paul A. Lacey (Fortress, 132 pp., $3.95 pb). Commentary on some modern poets. Though not specifically religious, most of these poets consider subjects that ought to interest every Christian.

Christians and Mental Health, by Samuel Southard (Broadman, 128 pp., $1.95). Of some value to those concerned about the relation of Christianity to the often humanistic mental-health movement.

Apocalyptic, by Leon Morris (Eerdmans, 87 pp., $1.95 pb). A helpful, brief discussion of late Jewish, largely pseudonymous apocalyptic literature of the intertestamental period. Draws a sharp distinction between the emphasis on forgiveness and restoration in the “apocalyptic” sections of the New Testament and the vengeful spirit of the non-canonical apocalyptic writings.

American Nonpublic Schools, by Otto Kraushaar (Johns Hopkins, 387 pp., $10). A carefully researched case for compelling all taxpayers to increase greatly their support of the overwhelmingly sectarian nonpublic schools. Does not suggest how schools can offer true alternatives to public education if they become dependent on the public treasury for survival.

A Tudor Tapestry: Men, Women and Society in Reformation England, by Derek Wilson (University of Pittsburgh, 287 pp., $9.95). Most accounts of the English Reformation focus on a few at the top. This book tries to show how the masses switched from almost all Catholic to predominantly Protestant between 1520 and 1570.

Frontiers in Missionary Strategy, by Peter Wagner (Moody, 223 pp., $4.95). A longtime missionary to Bolivia, now at Fuller’s School of World Mission, presents a biblically based strategy for reaching major cities abroad with the Gospel.

The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, by Robert Lerner (Univerity of California, 257 pp., $10). A balanced assessment of a wide variety of religious dissenters who were falsely represented in their own time and are often erroneously heralded by secular dissenters in our time.

The Forgiveness of Sins, by Morris Ashcraft (Broadman, 128 pp., $1.95). Excellent brief study of a central trait of God that is all too defectively practiced by his children.

Crisis in Watertown: The Polarization of an American Community, by Lynn Eden (University of Michigan, 218 pp., $6.95). About events leading up to the firing (by a 133 to 77 vote) of a social-activist pastor of a socially prominent United Church of Christ congregation in a small Wisconsin town. Based upon a college student’s summer research of interviewing participants in the controversy.

In His Image, But …: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910, by Shelton Smith (Duke University, 318 pp., $8.50). A thorough study of the primary sources that shows the pervasiveness of white supremacist views among almost all white Christian southerners. (A companion volume is needed on northern attitudes.) One trembles to wonder what scriptural teachings are being as flagrantly transgressed by professing believers today.

Method in Theology, by Bernard Lonergan (Herder and Herder, 405 pp., $10). With a masterly command of a broad spectrum of religious philosophy, Catholicism’s most substantial thinker of our day proposes a method for theological inquiry intended to weave all the strands of Western man’s cultural and spiritual heritage into an attractive carpet on which present-day, mildly progressive Catholicism can stand. Curiously—or characteristically—neither the inspiration nor the authority of the Bible is considered.

Youth Ministry: Its Renewal in the Local Church, by Lawrence Richards (Zondervan, 366 pp., $6.95). A practical book, well written, that every church youth leader should want to read and reread.

The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom, Volume 5: Types of Religious Culture, by Werner Stark (Fordham University, 453 pp., $12). Final volume of a mammoth work totaling 1,900 pages and begun over nine years ago. The scope is the whole of church history rather than the present. The focus in this volume is on the contrast between Catholic and Calvinist culture.

Lord, Could You Make It a Little Better?, by Robert A. Raines (Word, 147 pp., $4.95). Prayers and poetry attempting to touch the center of living the Christian life in the latter half of this century.

Preaching and Preachers, by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones (Zondervan, 325 pp., $5.95). Sixteen lectures on his craft given at Westminster Seminary by one of the best-known preachers in the English-speaking world. Admittedly opinionative, but the opinions are well worth pondering.

Signs and Wonders, edited by Roger El-wood (Revell, 157 pp., $3.95). These “what if” stories don’t come anywhere close to the standard of Christian science fiction set by such writers as C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams.

Manipulating The Future

Christian Biopolitics, by Kenneth Cauthen (Abingdon, 1971, 159 pp., $4), A New World in the Morning, by David P. Young (Westminster, 1972, 217 pp., $3.25 pb), and The New Genetics and the Future of Man, edited by Michael P. Hamilton (Eerdmans, 1972, 242 pp., $6.95 and $3.95 pb), are reviewed by B. G. Carter, doctoral candidate in political science, University of Maryland, College Park.

These books give no respite from the clamor over the shape—and shaping—of the future. Cauthen offers an integrating perspective. Young focuses upon drugs, electrical stimulation of the brain, and novel methods of procreation. The contributors to Hamilton’s volume elaborate upon these methods and also upon pollution and health.

Cauthen indicates that perhaps only fifteen years remain for making the choices that will avert catastrophe. The material gaps widen—between groups within societies and between entire societies. Population threatens, as does the increase in knowledge.

To avoid chaos men must decrease their numbers. They must reduce armaments and redistribute the material larder. The chief consumers must use less.

Cauthen views life as the central category. Mankind is the unit of loyalty and action. The Holy Spirit yields the joyful and hopeful, futuristic concern.

Some of his projected audience of restless, mainline Protestants will reject his portrayal of Christ as a Son of God and of the Bible as an especially rich treasury of symbols about God.

Others may conclude that his emphasis on the Spirit effaces, rather than corrects, Trinitarian doctrine. He treats immortality as Socrates supposedly did—maybe yes; maybe no; at death we’ll decide. A third theological matter is his contention that the persistence of sin is due to the persistence of human egoism and anxiety.

Young’s three accounts—of drugs, electrical stimulation of the brain, and novel methods of procreation—are admirably succinct. He delivers a factual introduction and then a statement for discussion. He appends pertinent questions and fairly states arguments for or against use.

Along with sensational drugs, Young includes tobacco and notes the coincidence of crime and alcohol. He often illustrates his opinion that knowledge acquires morality only when used. Drugs can be employed therapeutically or to escape from reality. Electrical stimulation of the brain can reduce violent rages or extend political control.

Both Cauthen and Young advocate a correlation of science and religion. Both anticipate that a fuller man or a new man will arise as old prejudices are cast aside and as men experiment.

In Hamilton’s book we hear from able supporters and opponents of Young and Cauthen’s hopeful attitude toward the future.

Canon Hamilton and Joseph Fletcher dismiss any intrinsic objection to laboratory fertilization and maturation of a human fetus. They consistently adhere to a relativistic view in arguing that no moral principle precludes the creation of semi-humans or the asexual procreation of humans, as in the technique of cloning.

Fletcher says that human need alone renders an act morally good or bad. It, in turn, is shown by “common consent and verifiable reasoning.”

In opposition are Leon Kass, a biochemist, and Paul Ramsey. They contend that the procedures above are inherently immoral, for they entail a willingness to submit a potential person, the human fetus, to unknown risks.

In expanding upon his Fabricated Man (Yale, 1970), Ramsey examines the lack of moral warrants to alter human genes. He forcefully and persistently argues that one cannot choose to risk another without the other’s consent. He distinguishes between treatment of diseases and catering to wishes.

Charles Powers acknowledges Christians’ responsibility to control pollutants. Additionally, he warns us to not lose our peculiar witness to God.

Convictions that momentous decisions await us abound in these books. Nearly unbounded hope contrasts with pervasive despair. Christians must not refuse to examine the prospects, or be paralyzed by the number or unfamiliarity of the proposed solutions.

A Treasury Of Detail

The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary. by Ernst Haenchen (Westminster, 1971, 737 pp., $17.50), is reviewed by W. Ward Gasque, assistant professor of New Testament, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

Since its publication in 1956 as the tenth edition of the Commentary on Acts in the famous series founded by H. A. W. Meyer, this work by Professor Ernst Haenchen of Münster has taken its place as the major German commentary on Luke’s second volume. It has been the constant companion of all New Testament scholars working on Acts, and the appearance of the fourteenth German edition (1965) in English dress is a welcome event.

Haenchen builds on the work of Martin Dibelius (1883–1947), who, though he wrote no commentary on Acts, has had an immense influence on Acts criticism in Germany through a series of essays written between 1923 and 1947 (most of which are contained in his Studies in the Acts of the Apostles [E.T. 1956]). While not denying that the author of Luke-Acts was a historian, Dibelius emphasized Luke’s activity as a creative writer. The author, in Dibelius’s view, was not so much concerned to tell his readers exactly what happened in the past (i.e., how the Christian Church came into being and developed during the years A.D. 30–60) as to help them understand their present situation as members of the church in the midst of the Hellenistic world. Luke therefore takes great liberties with the historical data he possesses: he omits certain important details, reinterprets others in a manner congenial to his views and aims, and freely creates events and (especially) speeches. In much of Lucan research outside Germany Dibelius’s influence can be seen in the widespread acceptance of the view that the speeches of Acts are primarily the author’s theological creations rather than summaries of what the purported speakers said, or even patterns of early Christian preaching.

Haenchen’s commentary is an attempt to apply the conclusions of Dibelius in a detailed study of the Book of Acts. The result is a magnificently impressive piece of scholarship—a treasury of bibliographical, philological, and exegetical detail. A more thorough discussion of the narrative of Acts and its problems is hard to imagine, and certainly this is a work no serious student of the New Testament can afford to ignore. Yet, whether Haenchen’s views will find acceptance outside a limited circle of radical scholars in Germany and America is open to question. In fact, it seems quite probable that fifty years from now his commentary will be regarded more as a phenomenon of the history of exegesis than as a lasting contribution to exegesis.

To say this is not to dismiss the author’s work lightly. Rather, it is simply to note that his extreme position on the historical value of Acts (almost nil!) is unlikely to be convincing to those who walk in the tradition of J. B. Lightfoot, Sir William M. Ramsay, and F. F. Bruce, or to those who have studied the writings of A. Wikenhauser, E. Meyer, A. Harnack, and H. J. Cadbury. I myself have made a careful study of the history of modern criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Manchester University Ph.D. dissertation, 1969) and am convinced that Haenchen’s work, ingenious though it is, has been based on false critical and historical premises. I cannot support this statement with detailed evidence in a brief review, but I have argued this elsewhere and will continue to do so.

Nevertheless, despite this strong criticism, the advanced student will wish to make use of Haenchen’s commentary. The long introduction (132 pages) is probably the best available survey of twentieth-century research and is a mine of bibliographical information. Even when one disagrees with Haenchen, he will find himself forced to look at the text from angles he did not know even existed! Yet the student should never forget that the author’s presentation is extremely one-sided; he should always balance Haenchen’s views by those presented in the writings of H. J. Cadbury, F. F. Bruce, and (most recently) I. H. Marshall.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.