Book Briefs: September 18, 1981

The Bones Cry Out

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 1980, 206 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Stanley Clark, pastor, Huntsville Bible Church, Huntsville, Texas.

Over the millennia, every night sky has declared the glories of God. Voyager’s spectacular photographs have recently enhanced our appreciation of God’s heavenly handiwork in his creation of such things as the rings of Saturn, down, even, to the twisting of some like a finely wrought golden chain. The psalmist says, however, that God’s work in the heavens do not compare to the wonders he has wrought in man. Now physician Paul Brand and writer Philip Yancey have collaborated to illustrate for us the truth that man, more than the stars, is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Eighteen years a missionary doctor in India, Brand pioneered in the treatment of leprosy. Presently he is chief of rehabilitation at the leprosy hospital in Carville, Louisiana.

Based on his intimate knowledge of cells, bones, and skin, Brand works with Yancey to draw applications to spiritual truth. The two share with us the discovery that “the human body expresses spiritual reality so authentically that soon the common stuff of matter … appear[s] more and more like a mere shadow.” From Brand the reader also learns that these illustrations of spiritual truth are readily available in the seeming humdrum of life for those willing to observe and meditate.

Occasionally Yancey’s chapters seem to wander and lose focus so that the reader has to backtrack to follow the thought. On the whole, however, this is a homiletician’s gold mine of insights and illustrations about things like the law, obedience, and spiritual gifts.

An effective use of this book would be to recommend individual chapters to people wrestling with issues such as stress, pain, or self-worth. However it is used, the reader comes away in awe of the fearful and wonderful construction of the body God has given to each of us, an appreciation for the spiritual realm it illustrates, and a reverence for the God in whom both find their source.

Bumper-Sticker Aesthetics

Addicted to Mediocrity, by Franky Schaeffer V (Cornerstone, 1981, 127 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by J. W. Whitehead, an attorney in Manassas, Virginia.

In Addicted to Mediocrity, filmmaker Franky Schaeffer brings to bear a good dose of satirical wit in analyzing what he believes to be the superficiality of much of modern Christendom. As writer and director of the controversial five-part film series, Whatever Happened to The Human Race?, Schaeffer attacked abortion on demand, infanticide, and euthanasia. In his new book he attacks what he identifies as the Christian community’s mediocre efforts in the arts (writing, television, recording, movies, etc.).

At the base of a Christian world that Schaeffer says is a sea of combs, toothbrushes, and assorted paraphernalia with Bible verses scribbled on them, is a body of Christian people who have been overspiritualized. It is a world that too often looks for answers in some sort of spiritual experience instead of applying God-given talents in all areas of life. To Schaeffer, modern Christendom has become lost within a spiritual never-never land where the real world is ignored. The color and richness that grew out of earlier periods have been forsaken for a world made up of commercial slogans, jingles, and bumper stickers.

Schaeffer’s solution to the lack of true creativity within Christendom is Christians coming to grips with the fact that God created man to create. As such, Schaeffer notes that art needs no justification; that is, a portrait does not have to have a Bible verse stapled to it in order to qualify as a Christian expression.

To drive his points home, Schaeffer includes in the book some 19 satirical drawings by Chicago artist Kurt Mitchell. Some of the illustrations come off as attacks on certain Christian precepts, but one gets the idea that Schaeffer’s book was written and illustrated with tongue in cheek.

This is a book to pick up and read, even if one is not interested in the arts. Franky Schaeffer has succeeded in writing a book that will stir thought while providing amusing reading.

The Earliest Evangelicals?

The Waldensians: The First Eight Hundred Years (1174–1974), by Giogio Tourn (Friendship Press, 1980, 286 pp., $8.95).

The Waldensians are known only by name to most American Protestants, and that is regrettable. Fortunately, it is now possible to fill in that gap with this readable history.

Tourn’s book shows us why some European church historians have started speaking about the early Waldensian movement as the “First Reformation” in Western Christianity. Three hundred years before Martin Luther, Waldensians were making the Bible available in local dialects, engaging in lay preaching, rejecting feudal oaths, refusing military service, and rediscovering evangelical life in poverty and equality “like the apostles.”

Although mostly clandestine, Waldo’s followers were spread across Europe from northern Spain to Poland, and from Flanders to Bohemia. They were severely persecuted by various popes and militant wings of monastic orders, who used both ecclesiastical and civil power in attempting to exterminate them.

Tourn does not treat Waldensian theology separately, but enough of it shines through to show why the Waldensian church remains a vital element in Italy today, though their numbers are small. One contemporary theologian (Karl Barth) feels they came the nearest of any existing group to the New Testament model. Whether or not that is true is debatable, but the fact remains that the Waldensians are a powerful testimony to what Christians can be, and have been, under very trying circumstances.

Thinking It Through

Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective, by Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg (Baker, 1980, 447 pp., $9.95 hb), and With All Your Mind: A Christian Philosophy, by Yandall Woodfin (Abingdon, 1980, 272 pp., $8.95 pb), are reviewed by David Bruce Fletcher, recently appointed to the philosophy department of Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

While there has not always been an enthusiastic, receptive attitude toward philosophy among evangelicals, most Christian liberal arts colleges offer philosophy courses. In the first introductory philosophy textbook written for use in such colleges, Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg make the broad field of philosophy accessible to beginning students in Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. Firmly conservative, the authors are explicit about their evangelical convictions, which they allow to interact critically with philosophical ideas to the point of “refuting those views that are anti-Christian” (p. 6).

Standardly organized, the book introduces first the general subject of philosophy and asserts its place in Christian thought. Varied questions of epistemology, philosophical theology, and ethics are treated. The method is to present a philosophical issue and survey the major positions arrayed on various sides. The authors pay closest attention to positions they find disagreeable to orthodoxy and concisely refute the arguments, but avoid committing themselves to any view when orthodoxy is not at stake.

Geisler and Feinberg show themselves to be current in treating various philosophical topics. Offering a competent survey of major areas of philosophy, they generally steer clear of controversial or starkly original statements of their own. They guide the student through unfamiliar territory, with a friendly warning when wandering too near the precipice. The book will make a fine reference tool in its well-organized presentations of most of the significant philosophical positions and areas of interest.

Unfortunately, the book evidences the authors’ lack of interest in or regard for philosophizing except as it is useful for refuting attacks on the faith. While they grant with some reluctance that “philosophical debate has merit” apart from exposing unbelief (p. 5), missing is the vital sense of wonder giving rise to biblically directed philosophical inquiry as a Christian vocation. As Christians they react to and comment upon the philosophical tradition while giving little evidence of being within it.

Quite different is Yandall Woodfin’s With All Your Mind: A Christian Philosophy. In this introductory text, Woodfin presents a marvelously written treatment of major philosophical questions from a Christian philosophical perspective. He introduces major areas of philosophical interest by surveying and outlining alternative viewpoints and by entering into the dialogue personally as a lover of philosophy and of God and his Word. He leads us through questions of general and religious knowledge, theistic proofs, metaphysics, aesthetics, and philosophy of language. He faces problems posed for Christianity by the conflicting claims of other faiths, and reflects on the crucial relation between philosophy of science and the Christian faith. As all Christian philosophers must, he also wrestles with the problem of evil.

Woodfin evokes the childlike sense of wonder necessary for both faith and philosophy, bidding us follow him into increasingly sophisticated thought. For example, he introduces his discussion of metaphysics with a quotation from Margery Williams’s children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, about how toys become real through love. This quickly leads to his view that the incarnate Christ is the center of reality, “the objective ground and rational paradigm for … understanding … the meaningfulness of reality as a whole” (p. 95).

Woodfin not only describes philosophical debates, but he interprets their meaning for faith and life. He judges that theistic proofs are inconclusive, but they enjoy an enduring appeal due to “the religious quality of the insights and experiences that lie at their base” (p. 52). He recognizes the theoretical and personal problems that evil poses for the believer, but insists that it would be “unreasonable to expect anyone to give up his or her Christian faith in the face of evil and suffering until those who deny the faith can account satisfactorily for the presence of value—any value—in the universe!” (p. 212).

Apologetically useful as this may be, Woodfin’s primary task is constructively to interpret reality in light of a God-given reason. He quotes freely from Scripture (almost 200 references), not merely for illustration or prooftexting, but to gain a scriptural understanding of divine and human reality that should direct our thinking.

This book is highly recommended for use as a text, for background reading for philosophy teachers, and indeed for anyone who is tempted to think philosophically.

BRIEFLY NOTED

The church must never forget its God-given task of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Numerous books of value continue to appear to remind us of this responsibility.

Mission Theory. Collections of essays from various points of view are: Mission Focus: Current Issues (Herald), edited by W. R. Shenk, a very useful book; Your Kingdom Come: Mission Perspectives (WCC) by Jacques Matthey, et al., more to the left, but containing informed essays; and Mission Trends No. 5 (Paulist/Eerdmans), edited by G. H. Anderson and T. F. Stransky, dealing primarily with interfaith relations and conflicts.

Theological strategies include Mission-Church Dynamics (William Carey), by W. H. Fuller, on biocultural tensions; The Foundation for Missions (Broadman), by M. T. Starkes, which sees the Bible as a “mirror for missions”; Planning Strategies for World Evangelization (Eerdmans), by E. R. Dayton and D. A. Fraser, the best such book I have seen so far; and Witness to the World (John Knox) by D. J. Bosch, a history/theology of missions.

Specific topics are treated in Today’s Tent-makers (Tyndale), by J. C. Wilson, Jr., on self-support; Educating for Christian Missions (Broadman), edited by A. L. Walker, Jr., on support for mission through education; Communicating the Gospel God’s Way (William Carey) by C. H. Kraft, on the “incarnational model” of communication; and A World of Difference (InterVarsity) by Thom Hopler, with perceptive comments on following Christ beyond our cultural walls.

The Work Abroad.The United States and World Development (Praeger), edited by J. W. Sewell, provides valuable factual information as a background for missions. The standard Mission Handbook (MARC), edited by Samuel Wilson, is now in its twelfth edition. Everyone in missions will welcome this. The three-volume From the Files of MCC (Herald), edited by C. J. Dyck, ably covers Mennonite mission work at home and overseas. Unreached Peoples ’81 (David C. Cook), edited by C. Peter Wagner and Edward R. Dayton, is now updated to this year and as helpful as ever.

Specific areas of interest are reflected in the following: Dream Your Way to Success (Logos), by Nell L. Kennedy, the biography of Korea’s Paul Cho; Let the Earth Hear (Nelson), by Paul E. Freed, the marvelous story of Trans World Radio; Love in the Mortar Joints (Association Press/Follett), by Millard Fuller, about housing in Zaïre; Alaska (Radiant/GPH), by Paul Bills, about the regions north of the Yukon; and Unstilled Voices (Christian Herald), by James and Marti Hefley, a follow-up on the Auca massacre of 1956.

Biography. Two pioneers are treated in Henry Martyn (Moody), by Constance E. Padwick, and William Carey (Moody), by F. D. Walker. Wartime testimonies are: Under the Guns in Beirut (Radiant/GPH), by Terry Raburn; Faith Despite the KGB (Christian Herald), by Hermann Hartfeld; Run for the West (David C. Cook), by Bernard Palmer; and Days of Terror (Herald), by B. C. Smucker.

Stories of martyrdom are: Even Unto Death (David C. Cook), by Margaret Ford, about Uganda’s Janani Luwum; A Martyr’s Message of Hope (Celebration), six homilies by Archbishop Oscar Romero; and All for Christ (Oxford Univ.), by Diana Dewar, about 10 modern Christian martyrs.

Born to Lose, Born to Win (Harvest House), by Lorry Lutz, is the life story of Mother Eliza George; God’s Calling (Broadman) is the missionary autobiography of Japan’s Robert H. Culpepper; The Surgeon’s Family (Tyndale), by Carole Page, is about Mexico’s Dr. David Hernandez; Apostle of Sight (Christian Herald), by D. C. Wilson, is Victor Rambo of India’s story; Damien, the Leper Priest (Morrow), by A. E. Niemark, concerns Father Damien de Venster of Hawaii; and Come Up to This Mountain (Tyndale), by Lois Neely, tells of Clarence Jones and HCJB. All of these stories are challenging and helpful.

Islam. With Afghanistan and Iran in the news, attention is shifting to this part of the world. The Unholy War (Nelson), by Marius Baar, argues that the end-time choice will be Christ or Mohammed. Islam (Baker), by C. G. Fry and J. R. King, is a helpful survey of the Muslim faith, suitable for lay people. New Paths in Muslim Evangelism (Baker), by Phil Parshall, is the best book to date on how to reach Muslim people. Blessing in Mosque and Mission (William Carey), by Larry G. Lenning, uses the idea of “blessing” to introduce Christ to Islam. A Christian Approach to Muslims (William Carey), by James P. Dretke, is a collection of reflections from West Africa. William M. Miller has written A Christian’s Response to Islam (Tyndale), a nice, brief introduction to the whole subject.

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