Book Briefs: September 29, 1972

Reconstructing Jesus

A Future For the Historical Jesus: The Place of Jesus in Preaching and Theology, by Leander E. Keck (Abingdon, 1971, 271 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Glenn A. Koch, associate professor of New Testament studies, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

Keck, professor of New Testament at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, writes for the clergyman and for the professional scholar. He works from within the realm of contemporary literary criticism and interprets the results in ways that should cause rejoicing in Christendom.

Because of its interdisciplinary argument, Keck’s book is not easy reading. He uses the language of biblical criticism, that of contemporary theological “schools,” sociology, religious thought, and language analysis, and on a few occasions lapses into scholarly jargon (such as “repristinate,” used several times, and “ingressive trust”). However, the book is a very significant work that will more than repay the reader for his time and effort.

Keck’s thesis is that Jesus needs to be “recovered and reconstructed by rigorous historical method.” To do this one needs to maintain a skeptical attitude toward the sources (this is not hostility); he needs to answer historical questions with historical considerations rather than logical ones; and he is obligated to account for the sources as they are, not merely sift them for hard-core facts. If one pursues the historical study of Jesus, Keck is sure that some results, even though limited, can emerge.

Keck reviews briefly the history of the debate over the relation of historical fact to faith. In view of the problems surrounding the use of “faith” as a term that conveys meaning, he proposes “trust” as an alternative. Trust is basic to human existence; it is an act of the self as a self in response to a self; it has social dimensions. The real issue is the relation of the historical Jesus and the act of trust, or what it means to trust Jesus. Keck shows that trust in God has both “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions which, theologically, can be termed “salvation.”

In chapter three, perhaps the chapter most useful to the pastor, Keck distinguishes between gospel and propaganda, theology and ideology. Propaganda is the skillful use of facts to promote a corporation, for instance, or a political party, or a social ideology. “The gospel is debased into propaganda,” says Keck, “whenever the church’s message uses the plight of man, wittingly or otherwise, to enhance the status of the institution, and looks to Jesus as its warrant.”

Ideology is the “theoretical underpinning for propaganda.” When the Church begins to propagandize, “its theology hardens into an ideology without a sense of mystery,” and “the possibility that the church has been wrong appears as an intolerable threat and the call for revision as insurrection.”

Early Christian preaching cannot be classified as propaganda because the apostles were not absorbed in promoting current Messianic expectations or Gnostic systems. This line of thought allows Keck to charge Bultmann, Fuchs, and Ebeling with propagandizing when they make the historical Jesus serve their own modern concerns for security. He also criticizes those identified with the “new quest for the historical Jesus” for making the Kerygma an alternate route to historiography, i.e., ascertaining Jesus by historical methodology.

According to Keck the historical Jesus is to be used in preaching as the catalytic question that “does not provide the congregation with the self-evident answer but exposes a question which invites a response.” By placing the historical Jesus as central to the message one produces a better “grace-laden occasion” than by presenting the Christ of Christian dogma, because “the Christology of the Church is not the door to faith.” The “centrality of Jesus is constitutive of historical Christianity.”

While he recognizes that the trustworthiness of Jesus cannot be proved by historiography, Keck explores the potential of working with the historical “(the historian’s)” Jesus in the area of salvation (“To trust Jesus is to appropriate him as the index of God”) and in the area of the character of God (“… through the cross, understanding of God and trusting God coalesce, so that it is this God who is trusted or repudiated. In this way, the classical theological point is grounded in the historic Jesus: at the cross, revelation, reconciliation, and faith occur together, or they do not occur at all.”

Keck has put together a historical and theological treatment of Jesus that merits serious attention.

But Well Adjusted

Speaking in Tongues, by Felicitas D. Goodman (University of Chicago, 1972, 175 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Sandor Kovacs, retired professor of sociology, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This small book carries the subtitle “A Cross-Cultural Study of Glossolalia.” It is a description of glossolalists’ behavior and manner of speaking. The author considers glossolalia a form of dissociation, similar to vision, hallucination, trance, and spirit possession.

Dr. Goodman set out to test the hypothesis that the glossolalist “speaks the way he does because his speech behavior is modified by the way the body acts in the particular mental state, often termed trance, into which he places himself.” She continues: “In my terms then, when a person has removed himself from awareness of the ordinary reality surrounding him he is in an altered mental state.”

The persons she observed she describes as “lower-class whites” in Columbus, Ohio, “mostly lower middle class” persons in Mexico City, and “peasants” on Yucatán Peninsula. She notes, “Women go into glossolalia much more easily than men.” For the glossolalists she has an assuring word: practicing glossolalists are well adjusted people who, aside from speaking in tongues, behave normally in their communities.

The two major conclusions in this study are: (1) Like other forms of communication, glossolalia is learned or acquired from the social and cultural environment; (2) there are recognizable configuration patterns, such as phonetic characteristics, across the various cultural settings studied. No attempt was made to evaluate the possible influences on the tongues-speakers of the presence of a researcher who took her tape recorder, notebook, and microphone from one person to another during the trance.

Speaking in Tongues is a good illustration of the difficulty of studying that form of human behavior called glossolalia.

Long Overdue

Personal Living: An Introduction to Paul Tournier, by Monroe Peaston (Harper & Row, 1972, 107 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Glenn Wittig, reference librarian, Speer Library, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.

Paul Tournier became well known in the States after the publication, in 1957, of The Meaning of Persons. Before long, all his other major works as well as some shorter ones were translated into English, and more than a million copies of the English translations have been published. (His writings have also been translated into Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.) Guilt and Grace, The Strong and the Weak, The Seasons of Life, The Meaning of Gifts, and The Adventure of Living are some of the titles.

Despite the popularity of Tournier’s works, very little has been written about him. This introduction to the man and his writings fills a long-standing need. It is not a biography. Neither is it a definitive critical study; Tournier’s journal articles, in particular, have not been included. It is a succinct and appreciative introduction to the man and his views as expressed in his books.

Peaston, an associate professor of pastoral psychology at McGill University, has directed a number of thesis projects related to Tournier’s works. He tries to expound the salient ideas from Tournier’s books and to relate these ideas to Tournier’s own life and practice. And he succeeds admirably. The tone of the work is expositive; comment and criticism are reserved for a short final chapter.

The opening two chapters deal with major influences upon Tournier’s life, such as the early death of his parents, the friendship of his Greek teacher, his part in the formation and continuance of the Bossey Group, and the influence—both pro and con—of Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group (later known as Moral Rearmament). Tournier’s association with the Oxford Group is presented fairly and wholesomely.

Chapters three through seven summarize Tournier’s thinking on such themes as loneliness, fear, guilt, malaise and rebirth, vocation, and the meaning of persons. Analysis of each theme is restricted, for the most part, to its expression in a single major work, though many of the themes appear in almost all of Tournier’s writings. And herein lies the deficiency in Peaston’s approach. These middle chapters are little more than digests of book contents, though they are seasoned with illustrations and with excerpts from the writings of other well-known persons such as Carl Jung, William James, Carl Rogers, Karen Horney, and Eric Berne.

Yet the book is a joy to read. It is written in a simple style, without being simplistic. Tournier fans should welcome it as a handy synopsis; the uninitiated will find it a heartwarming introduction to some exciting new reading.

Newly Published

Jesus the Messiah, by Donald Guthrie (Zondervan, 386 pp., $6.95). A leading evangelical scholar offers a first-class, non-technical, chronological survey of the life and teachings of Christ. Well illustrated.

A Coffee House Manual, by Don and Ann Wilkerson (Bethany Fellowship, 96 pp., $2.25 pb). A very practical guide for those who want to engage in this effective kind of youth evangelism.

Power in Praise, by Merlin R. Carothers (Logos, 115 pp., $1.95 pb). A sequel to Prison to Praise, this volume contains ample testimony of what can happen when we obey God’s command to praise him in all things.

Putting It Together in the Parish, by James D. Glasse (Abingdon, 159 pp., $3.95). Loads of truly practical advice for pastors by the president of Lancaster Seminary (United Church of Christ). Outgrowth of lectures at Austin Presbyterian Seminary.

Theology of Play, by Jürgen Moltmann (Harper & Row, 113 pp., $4.95). Moltmann gives us some lively reflections on the meaning of rejoicing and liberation that seem to grow out of an orthodox biblical view of redemption in Christ; his American interlocutors respond with trivialities, blasphemous jokes, and good and bad etymology; Moltmann sums up with advice that makes his original contribution seem more flip and trivial than it previously had.

Christian Counseling and Occultism, by Kurt Koch (Kregel, 338 pp., $3.95 pb). The best of this German author’s many books is now available in paperback. It is, regrettably, more needed in English-speaking lands now than when it first appeared.

The Fortune Sellers: Occult Phenomenon of the Twentieth Century, by Gary Wilburn (Regal, 223 pp., $1.25 pb), Satan, Satanism, and Witchcraft, by Richard DeHaan (Zondervan, 125 pp., $3.50, $.95 pb), and The Return of Magic: A Probe Into the Psychological and Religious Roots of Magic and Witchcraft, by David Farren (Harper & Row, 118 pp. $4.95). The first two books are additional evangelical offerings on this resurgent religion. The last book is by an ex-Catholic seminarian turned skeptic who found he had married a hereditary witch. Advanced, mature students of this rival religion might be interested in his reflections.

Genesis in Space and Time, by Francis Schaeffer (Inter-Varsity, 167 pp., $2.25). The well-known apologete expounds on the first eleven chapters of the Bible, showing their foundational importance. (The same author and publisher have also just released The New Super Spirituality [30 pp., $.75 pb] and Back to Freedom and Dignity [48 pp., $.95 pb]).

Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, by Archibald Alexander (Arno, 308 pp., $15). Reprinting of the 1836 edition of a major work by the founder of the Princeton theology. The topic is as relevant as ever, and Alexander’s approach is worth reading.

I AMness: The Discovery of the Self Beyond the Ego, by Ian Kent and William Nicholls (Bobbs-Merrill, 258 pp., $5.95). A popularization of Hindu-inspired pantheism as a basis of psychotherapy and life adjustment by two unusually balanced and irenic authors; interesting, but incompatible with a biblical view of God and man.

Friendly Heritage: Letters From the Quaker Past (Silvermine Publishers [Comstock Hill, Norwalk, Conn. 06850], 342 pp., $9.95). The 240 “Letters from the Past”—really a series of columns—focus on the tradition of the Quakers and provide an interesting, well-written approach to their history.

Religion’s Influence in Contemporary Society, edited by Joseph E. Faulkner (Charles E. Merrill [1300 Alum Creek Dr., Columbus, Ohio 43216], 578 pp., $9.95). A well edited handbook providing examples of good work in the sociology of religion. Since most of them are written from a secularist or liberal religious perspective the book’s seeming objectivity is on balance illusory. Contains some non-statistical opinion pieces such as those by James H. Cone (black consciousness) and Huston Smith.

The Problem of Miracle in Primitive Christianity, by Anton Fridrichsen (Augsburg, 174 pp., $5.95). English translation of a 1925 work that influenced much of academic biblical study.

The Reform of Society, by Lyman Beecher (Arno, 211 pp., $11). Reprinting of nine sermons by one of the foremost early nineteenth-century American evangelicals. Six are on intemperance.

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