Page 6243 – Christianity Today (2024)

‘CUIUS REGIO CUIUS RELIGIO’

The man with me was a psychologist, and I sometimes think he did it on purpose. We were waiting for a football game to begin. The band marched out on the field with all the majorettes prancing out in front, and he said, “There come the fillies to the post.” Ever since that day I have had a hard time construing majorettes.

A girl and her mother were on a train headed for the West Coast, and I was put at their table in the dining car. What with one thing or another, we fell into conversation, and it turned out that the girl was a student at one of our great big universities in California. “How are things going?” I asked. Her mother answered, “Oh, Wilma Sue had the most exciting thing happen to her. Her sorority picked her to hold one of the color cards in the stadium.”

Some people have all kinds of things to say about what they call the American Way of Life, and this will no doubt become more evident in election year. My own private definition is that the American Way is to take a good thing and run it into the ground. And we are just likely to take a good thing like this beloved land and run it into the ground by running into the ground things like majorettes and color cards.

These sobering thoughts have just afflicted me as I came from watching Texas beat the Navy. That in itself was a sad experience, but mostly I was saddened by all those girls from some junior college in Texas making like the Rockettes for a half-time show. Every once in a while we were given a close-up of a beautiful and vacuous face. They all wore sombreros, a kind of a hat invented to keep the sun off; and then because they had run out of ideas they put on part of their act with parasols. A girl in boots, shorts, and a sombrero is something to contemplate, but a girl wearing a sombrero and carrying a parasol tells us just about where we are as we set out in 64.

“So why do we spend money for that which is not bread?”

EUTYCHUS II

LIFE AND THE TEST TUBE

May I commend your magazine for printing and John R. Holum for writing the article “If Scientists Create Life” (Jan. 3 issue). I can imagine the consternation that this article will produce in some of your readers, but to me this was a breath of fresh air blowing into the public domain on a very ticklish subject.

One thing that bothers many people, both Christians and non-Christians, in the debate between science and religion is that they forget that science is basically the finding out of truths and knowledge about God’s creation. If we remember that this is God’s creation, then we can accept the fact that any truth found out concerning it will not contradict God, but rather will tend to affirm God even though it may contradict some of our cherished beliefs. If we can accept truth when it is discovered, then our faith, rather than being destroyed, will become strengthened and more mature. Then also we will see the futility of the struggle between science and religion. We will also be able to accept the fact that man may be the agent of God’s creation of a living substance in a test tube just as we now accept the fact that man is often the agent of God in mediating His forgiving grace to other men.

GEORGE M. SHELDON

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Salt Lake City, Utah

I am a lay preacher without academic theological training and a chemist by profession.…

Serious students of the Bible know that the Lord Jesus Christ who inhabits eternity (Isa. 57:15) is the only Creator of Life (Gen. 1:1; John 1:3), the only Redeemer of Life (John 14:6, John 20:31), and the only Sustainer of Life (Acts 17:28; Heb. 1:3). To entertain the possibility of man creating life in a test tube one would either have to be woefully ignorant of the Scriptures or to deny the infallibility of God’s eternal Word.

Taylors, S. C.

W. H. SQUIER

The lead article in your current issue elicited keen interest which, however, turned soon to an equal disappointment. Professor Holum has not at all answered the question implicit in his title, “If Scientists Create Life.” Instead he seems to have studiously avoided it. The minister’s son he mentions is still left with his perplexity, “If … [so], who needs God?”

Holum did make a contribution in showing the uncertain line between life and non-life at its lowest levels. But then he merely fell back, for his affirmations, on New Testament passages that were entirely irrelevant to the scientific issue. His Christian faith serves him—and the rest of us—very poorly when it precludes his carrying over into his religious thinking the same rigorous, critical methods without which his scientific work would not merit a moment’s attention. Surely religion is of such supreme worth that it deserves the best intellectual resources we can bring to it!

Since he has failed us, may I be tolerated if, devoid of his scientific specialization, I undertake an answer? Science has come so close to producing (not “creating”) life artificially (as indeed he admitted) that for purposes of religious significance we may consider it achieved. And this inescapably means that life on this planet began through operation of “natural” forces, presumably of physics and chemistry. It is a demonstration which Christian people should welcome with open arms. For, taken along with the great achievement of Charles Darwin a hundred years ago, it closes the last blank in the line of objective evidence for the soundness of the Christian faith. That inscrutable, mysterious “Something” which operated in flaming galaxies and systems, and brought to being habitable planets, also produced life and in course of time man himself, and man’s achievements, dreams, and vague apprehensions and longings. We live in a universe that is our home by right of heritage! The whole Christian episode and Christian faith are broad-based in the reality of things that are; that is, in the Mystery that in the aeons of its working had manifested purpose, intelligence, and good. One shrinks from the bald claim that science has brought us to a biblical faith; but the line of thought precipitated by the artificial production of life leads to conclusions not far removed.

Professor Holum’s half-apologetic hesitation reads too much like the opening salvo in a war of words such as disgraced both science and religion in the later nineteenth century. God forbid that we repeat that folly!

WILLIAM A. IRWIN

Emeritus Professor of Old Testament

University of Chicago

Southern Methodist University

Dallas, Tex.

If … “science may someday create life,” I would be amazed at the feat, but I would, in no wise, think that “it would be fun” to be part of that future team. I would think, instead, that the prophecy of Revelation 13:15 was about to be fulfilled, and that the source of the “miracle” was not God, but Satan.

The Christian who is a true scientist must, in reverence for God and his Word, draw a line beyond which only the godless may go; and beyond which, in becoming “like God” they attain the goal first set by Satan in the Garden; only to find that they have not become “godlike.”

WILLIAM G. LOWE

Berlin Bible Church

Narrowsburg, N. Y.

For many years, the scientists have been proving their solid ground of hard facts was unsteady. This is not to disparage what the scientist is doing. It does remind us that the best scientists have the most searching questions [about] the ultimate solidity of the ground on which they stand.

Dr. John R. Holum … has certainly earned the deserving applause of both the evangelical and scientific communities. He has ably demonstrated that the most solid ground upon which one can stand to view the world … is that of Christian faith.

TED MALLINCKRODT

Court Street Methodist Church

Fulton, Mo.

DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT

Your editorial comment, “Light Out of Darkness” (Dec. 20 issue), was probably inspired in intent, but it was also extremely shallow in facts. You have attempted to emulate the left-wing extremists by association of a tragedy with some sort of “national” sin.…

C. D. RIAL, JR.

Hayward, Calif.

The editorial “searches the heart and the mind” and says things that need to be said and heeded about repentance for our toleration of violence and extremism and our need to cleanse our hearts of hatred. Thank you for it.

CLYDE V. SPARLING

Cattaraugus, N. Y.

My husband and I had already read “Light Out of Darkness,” and this morning very early I read it aloud as part of Advent devotions. Congratulations …! I’m writing the editor of The Catholic World as well as our daughter, Sister Margaret Ann, S. N. D., about this special editorial and its perfect Christian message, its own shining in the darkness of these days.

MRS. JOHN A. HESS

Athens, Ohio

The various comments on the death of the President were quite interesting (Dec. 20 issue, p. 39). I was, however, quite disturbed by the comment of Eugene Carson Blake and Silas G. Kessler that “those who have been making irresponsible attacks upon [President Kennedy] and his policies are as responsible for his death as the one who pulled the trigger.”

Certainly, irresponsible attacks and statements are to be deprecated, but they do not cause the death of anyone. Former President Hoover was certainly the object of many irresponsible attacks, but they did not kill him. What caused the death of our late President was the bullet of the assassin, that, and that alone. Had that bullet not been fired, the President would have continued to live, no matter how many irresponsible attacks had been made. It has been a long time since I have read any statement as irresponsible as that of Blake and Kessler.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Professor of Old Testament

Westminster Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

I would like to disavow any guilt for the assassination of President Kennedy. It is the stated policy of the Marxist revolution of which Oswald was a part to “openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble …” (quote from the Communist Manifesto).

I oppose Communism and its left-leaning apologists both within and outside of our country. I am openly opposed to the ideas and methods of Communism in whatever form and in whatever way they may appear. If the left wing would like to assume part of the blame for the dastardly act they may, but as for me, I disavow it. Why should one who opposes the devil be responsible for the devil’s treacherous deeds?

H. FEISTNER

Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church

Oregon, Ill.

As long as language remains the most effective means of communication, many books will be published and many read. Even within the limits of the religious sector, a prodigious number of books are published each year; and even granting that people read less than they should, the aggregate of hours spent in reading religious publications must be staggering. To help the Christian minister, professor, and layman make their way through the abundance of religious publications, the book review section of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and this semi-annual forecast of books are dedicated.

Book titles not only indicate the contents that lie between the covers; they also indicate the intellectual problems, the agonizing anxieties, and the vexing questions that disturb the hearts and minds of the Church, and of the world no less. Social problems, particularly the “simple” problem of how to get along with one another, seem to be the chief concern of the day. As can be seen below from the titles of volumes that will come from the publishing houses this spring, social and ethical problems, problems of race and prejudice, of war and peace, and of ecumenical relations within Protestantism and among Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox—these loom large in the Christian mind and conscience.

Not every title can be listed. It is hoped, however, that even if some we mention are not among the most important, all taken together represent something more than a mere cross section.

THEOLOGY: Meredith will publish Christian Faith and Modern Theology (twenty essays by as many men) edited by C. F. H. Henry; Westminster, The Christian Belief in God by Daniel Jenkins, Beyond Belief by Edward W. Bauman, History, Sacred and Profane by Alan Richardson, and No Other Name by World Council Secretary Visser t Hooft; and Harper & Row, God Here and Now by Karl Barth and The New Hermeneutic by J. M. Robinson and J. B. Cobb, Jr. John Knox Press will publish Beyond Fundamentalism by D. B. Stevick and Revolutionary Theology in the Making: Barth-Thurneysen Correspondence, 1914–1925, translated by J. D. Smart; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Varieties of Unbelief by M. E. Marty; Helicon, Man in the Church (Vol. II of Theological Investigations) by K. Rahner, S. J., and The Church by Pope Paul VI; Eerdmans, The Hope of Glory by D. Moody; Putnam’s, Luther and the Reformation by V. H. H. Green; Fortress, New Meanings for New Beings by R. Luecke; and Abingdon, The Doctrine of the Church by D. Kirkpatrick and The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ by C. E. Braaten and R. A. Harrisville. Sheed & Ward will issue One and Apostolic by A. Hastings and Nature and Grace: Dilemmas of the Modern Church by K. Rahner, S. J.; and Herder and Herder, Israel’s Concept of the Beginning: The Theology of Genesis 1–3 by H. Renckens, S. J.

NEW TESTAMENT: Eerdmans will publish Introduction to the New Testament by E. Harrison and Count It All Joy: Themes from the Book of James by W. Stringfellow; Herder and Herder, The Sources of Acts by J. Dupont, O. S. B.; McGraw-Hill, The Pioneer of Our Faith: A New Life of Jesus by S. V. McCasland; Beacon, Jesus, Son of Joseph by D. F. Robinson; Judson, Theology in the New Testament by R. E. Knudsen; and Westminster, Prayer in the New Testament by F. L. Fisher.

Harper & Row will publish The Language of the Gospel by A. N. Wilder, Law and Wrath (Vol. IV of Bible Key Words) by G. Kittel, and The Humor of Christ by E. Trueblood; and Oxford, Jesus and Christian Origins: A Commentary on Recent Viewpoints by H. Anderson, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1961 by S. Neill, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration by B. M. Metzger, and The Greek New Testament: Being the Text Translated in the New English Bible by R. V. G. Tasker.

OLD TESTAMENT: From Prentice-Hall, Living Story of the Testament by W. R. Bowie and Old Testament Light: A Scriptural Commentary Based on the Aramaic of the Ancient Peshitta Text by G. M. Lamsa; Hawthorn, Old Testament Apocrypha (Vol. 71 of the 20th Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism) by C. Dimier; Moody, Survey of Old Testament Introduction by G. L. Archer and Gleanings in Joshua by A. W. Pink; and Baker, Egypt and Exodus by C. F. Pfeiffer.

ARCHAEOLOGY: McGraw-Hill will print W. F. Albright’s History, Archaeology and Christian Humanism (Vol. I of Collected Studies); and Putnam’s, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics: The Story of Egyptology by B. Mertz.

APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE: In this broad field much is offered. From Yale, Thomas Aquinas and John Gerhard by R. P. Ascharlemann, The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today by J. C. Murray, S. J., and Thomas Stapleton and the Counter Reformation by M. R. O’Connell; Fortress, The Abolition of God by H. G. Koch; Macmillan, Christian Faith in Our Time by F. Buri; Nelson, Hitler and the Pope by E. Alexander; Eerdmans, Faith and Philosophy by A. Plantinga and The Christian World of C. S. Lewis by C. S. Kilby; and Westminster, Truth as Encounter by E. Brunner (a new and much enlarged edition of his The Divine-Human Encounter) and Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, a book in which O. Cullmann levels sharp criticism against R. Bultmann. Regnery will issue Toward Understanding St. Thomas by M. D. Ceni; Cambridge, Why So, Socrates? by I. A. Richards and The Discarded Image by the late C. S. Lewis; another by C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, is to be published by Harcourt, Brace & World. Scribner’s will issue Moral Philosophy: Historical and Critical Survey of the Great Systems by J. Maritain; Princeton, Meaning and Truth in Religion by W. A. Christian; Harper & Row, The Basis of Christian Faith by F. E. Hamilton; Doubleday, Tongue Speaking by M. T. Kelsey; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The RevolutionaryBreakthrough in 19th Century Thought by K. Lowith, translated by David Green, and Philosophical Interrogations (120 philosophers and theologians interrogate Buber, Weiss, Wild, Wohl, Brand, Blanshard, Hartshorne, Tillich); and Oxford, Apologia pro Vita Sua: Being the History of His Religious Opinions, “his” referring to John Henry Newman.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE: Hawthorn will print The Building of Churches and The Art of the Church (Vols. X and XI of the “New Library of Catholic knowledge”), both by P. F. Anson; and Putnam’s, The Architecture of England by D. Yarwood.

BIBLICAL STUDIES: Revell will give us (loosely speaking) The Analyzed Bible by G. C. Morgan; Baker, An Introduction to the Apocryphal Books of the Old and New Testaments by H. T. Andrews and C. F. Pfeiffer; Bethany, The Heritage of Biblical Faith by J. P. Hyatt; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Conversation with the Bible by M. Barth; Helicon, Primitive Christian Symbols by J. Daniélou, S. J.; Eerdmans, The Nature of the Resurrection Body by J. A. Schep and Volume I of the monumental Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by G. Kittel, translated by G. W. Bromiley; Princeton, Handbook of Biblical Chronology by Jack Finegan; Harper & Row, Living Personalities of the Old Testament by H. Staack; Zondervan, The Church in Prophecy by J. F. Walvoord; Cambridge, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount by W. D. Davis; Regnery, God’s Kingdom in the Old Testament by M. Hopkins, O. P.; and Westminster, Turning to God: A Study of Conversion in the Book of Acts and Today by W. Barclay.

BIBLE COMMENTARIES AND DICTIONARIES: Nelson will publish Commentary on the Apostolic Fathers (Vol. I) by R. Grand; Sheed & Ward, The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Text and Commentary for Students by A. Jones; and Eerdmans, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews by F. F. Bruce, The Book of Isaiah (Vol. I) by E. J. Young, and The Wesleyan Bible Commentary by R. Earle and H. Blaney.

CHURCH HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY: Oxford will print The Oxford Movement edited by E. R. Fairweather and John Wesley edited by A. C. Outler; Yale, The Quakers in Puritan England by H. Barbour; Abingdon, The History of American Methodism by forty-four writers; Eerdmans, The Church in an Age of Reason (1648–1789) by G. R. Cragg and The Church in an Age of Revolution (1789 to the Present Day) by A. R. Vidler, and The Reformers and Their Step-Children by L. Verduin; Sheed & Ward, The Theology of Marriage: The Historical Development of Christian Attitudes Toward Sex and Sanctity in Marriage by J. Kerns; Scribner’s, Henry Sloane Coffin: The Man and His Ministry by M. P. Noyes; Christian Publications, 20th Century Prophet (a biography of the late A. W. Tozer) by D. J. Fant and Beyond All Waters (a story of the Christian and Missionary Alliance after seventy-five years) by J. Hunter; Herder and Herder, How the Reformation Came by J. Lortz; Princeton, The Two Kingdoms: Ecclesiology in Carolingian Political Thought by K. F. Morrison; McGraw-Hill, The First Six Hundred Years (Vol. I of The Christian Centuries: A New History of the Catholic Church) by J. Daniélou, S. J., and H. I. Marrou; Harper & Row, The Russian Religious Renaissance of the 20th Century by N. Zernov and The Elect Nation by W. Haller; Beacon, Christian Unity and Religion in New England (Vol. III of Collected Papers in Church History) by R. H. Bainton; Helicon, Blessed John Neumann: Bishop of Philadelphia by J. Galvin, C. S. S. R.; Hawthorn, Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor Mellifluous by H. Daniel-Rops, Christianity and Other Religions (Vol. 145 of the 20th Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism) by R. C. Zaehner, Christianity and Colonialism (Vol. 97) by R. Delavignette, and Primitive and Prehistoric Religions (Vol. 140) by Bergounioux and Goetz; and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Priest and Worker: The Autobiography of Henri Perrin translated by Bernard Wall. A Way Home: The Baptists Tell Their Story edited by J. S. Childers; and In the Service of the Lord: The Autobiography of Bishop Dibelius.

ECUMENICS: New books here show both continued and expansive interest. Westminster will publish The Problem of Catholicism by V. Subilia; and Herder and Herder, The Quest for Catholicity: The Development of High Church Anglicanism by G. A. Tavard. From Putnam’s will come The Latter-Day Saints in the Modern Day World by W. J. Whalen; from Scribner’s, The Prospects of Christianity Throughout the World edited by M. S. Bates and W. Pauck; from Eerdmans, Church Unity and Church Mission by M. E. Marty; and from Nelson, Justification and Structures of the Church, both by Hans Küng. Abingdon will print Parish Backtalk by B. Barr and The Doctrine of the Church by D. Kirkpatrick; Helicon, The Rise of Protestant Monasticism by F. Boit; John Knox, Unitive Protestantism: The Ecumenical Spirit and Its Persistent Expression by J. T. McNeill; and Sheed & Ward, Mind If I Differ: A Catholic-Unitarian Dialogue by J. Hasley.

ETHICS AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS: The offerings in this field reflect the many problems of church and society. Harper & Row will publish Church and State in the United States by A. P. Stokes and L. Pfeffer, Reshaping the Christian Life by R. A. Raines, and How the Church Can Minister to the World Without Losing Itself by L. Gilkey; Oxford, Religion and Social Conflict by R. Lee and M. E. Marty; Van Nostrand, Profile of the American Negro by T. Pettigrew; Seabury, Christians in a Technological Era edited by H. White; Putnam’s, The Cured Alcoholic by A. H. Cain; Eerdmans, Slavery, Segregation, and Scripture by J. O. Buswell and Christian Social Ethics: Some Basic Questions by C. F. H. Henry; Beacon, Black Religion: The Negro and Christianity in the United States by J. R. Washington, Jr., and Intermarriage: Interfaith, Interracial, Interethnic by A. I. Gordon; Abingdon, Religion and Leisure in America by R. Lee and In This Free Land: A Case for Responsible Conservatism by C. M. Crowe; and Doubleday, The First Amendment by W. H. Marnell and The Christian Fright Peddlers by B. R. Walker.

Sheed & Ward will issue Black, White and Gray: 25 Points of View on the Race Question edited by B. Daniel and Peace and Arms: Reports from ‘The Nation’ edited by H. M. Christman; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism by J. Isaac; Herder and Herder, Mutations of Western Christianity by A. Mirgeler, This Nation Under God: Church, State and Schools in America by J. Costanzo, S. J., and Peace on Earth, a commentary on Pope John’s encyclical, by P. Riga; Westminster, The Christian Understanding of Human Nature by W. N. Pittenger and Radical Obedience: The Ethics of Rudolf Bultmann by T. C. Oden; Hawthorn, Religious Orders of Women (Vol. 85 of the 20th Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism) by S. Cita-Mallard; William Morrow, The Face on the Cutting Room Floor: The Story of Movie and Television Censorship by M. Schumach; and Beacon, The John Birch Society: Anatomy of a Protest by J. A. Broyles.

MISSIONS: Revell will offer The Unpopular Missionary by R. E. Dodge; Bethany, The Layman Views World Missions by L. A. Davis; Prentice-Hall, Missionary, Go Home by J. A. Scherer; Herald, Evangelism, An Invitation to Discipleship by M. S. Augsburger; and Westminster, The Christian Witness in an Industrial Society by H. Symanowski.

PASTORAL THEOLOGY: Judson will publish The Campus Ministry by G. L. Earnshaw; Lippincott, Careers of Service in the Church by B. Y. Landis; Moody, The Pastor’s Wife and the Church by D. H. Pentecost; Baker, Preaching Values from the Papyri by H. H. Hobbs and Proclaiming the New Testament—Philippians, Colossians, Philemon by P. S. Rees; Augsburg, Unfragmented Man by Hans-Joachim Thilo, translated by A. Seegers, and The Making of Ministers edited by K. R. Bridston and D. W. Culver; Abingdon, The Art of Illustrating Sermons by I. Macpherson; John Day, When a Child Is Different (about mentally retarded children) by M. Egg; Harper & Row, For Preachers and Other Sinners by G. Kennedy and The Whole Person in a Broken World by P. Tournier; Broadman, Psychology in Search of a Soul by J. W. Drakeford; Prentice-Hall, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective by W. Clebsch and C. Jaekle; Zondervan, The Art of Preaching by A. S. Wood; Herald, Servant of God’s Servants by P. M. Miller; and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, The Silent Pulpit: A Guide to Church Public Relations by E. Greif.

RELIGIOUS LITERATURE: Eerdmans promises The Rustle of Wings by C. Holding; Fortress, The Sudden Sun by O. Hartman; Funk & Wagnalls, Man on Fire: A Novel of the Life of St. Paul by L. Blythe; Seabury, The Climate of Faith in Modern Literature by N. A. Scott, Jr.; and Sheed & Ward, The New Orpheus: Essays Toward a Christian Poetic edited by N. A. Scott, Jr.

SERMONS: Baker will publish Fathers of the Church by C. P. Dame, Parables of the Old Testament by R. Norden, and Personalities of the Old Testament by R. G. Turnbull; Abingdon, And Our Defense Is Sure (sermons and addresses delivered at the Pentagon) by H. D. Moore, E. A. Ham, and C. E. Hobgood; Van Nostrand, Best Sermons (Protestant edition), Vol. IX, edited by G. Paul Butler; W. A. Wilde, Great Sermons on the Resurrection edited by W. M. Smith; Nelson, The Easter Message Today by H. Thielicke, L. Goppelt, and H. R. Muller-Schwaefe; Scribner’s, Sons of Anak: The Gospel and Modern Giants by D. H. C. Read; Broadman, Nehemiah Speaks Again by K. O. White; and Zondervan, Spurgeon’s Park Street Pulpit (six volumes) by C. H. Spurgeon and Preaching Through the Bible by E. W. Hayden.

DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE: From Seabury will come The Night and Nothing by G. D. Webbe; from Eerdmans, The Christian Calling by J. H. Kennedy; from Doubleday, Pilgrim’s Primer by L. Cassels; and from Zondervan, The Mystery of Godliness by W. I. Thomas, The Ministry of Keswick by H. F. Stevenson, and God Speaks to Women Today by Eugenia Price.

PAPERBACKS: Westminster will publish Drinking: A Christian Position and Agents of Reconciliation, both by A. B. Come, His Life and Our Life: The Life of Christ and the Life in Christ by J. A. Mackey, and A Protestant Approach to the Campus Ministry by J. E. Cantelon; United Church Press, The Principle of Protestantism by Philip Schaff and Moments of Truth: A Book of Meditations for Lent by R. L. Shinn; Signet (New American Library), Promises to Keep by A. Dooley (Dooley’s mother tells the story of his life) and Why We Can’t Wait by M. L. King; Judson, Baptists—North and South by S. S. Hill and R. G. Torbet; Herder and Herder, On Heresy by K. Rahner, S. J.; Eerdmans, The Revelation of St. John by A. Kuyper, An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism by J. H. Greenlee, Missionary Principles by R. Allen, and Phantastes and Lilith (two novels, one volume) by G. MacDonald; Seabury, The Word on the Air by G. M. Jones; Sovereign Grace, Antidote to Arminianism by C. Ness and Absolute Predestination by Zanchius; Fortress, The New Dimension of the Soul by R. Kroner, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ by M. Kahler, The Genesis Accounts of Creation by C. Westermann, The Lord’s Prayer by J. Jeremias, Only to the House of Israel? by T. W. Manson, and Jesus and the Wilderness Community at Qumran by E. Stauffer; Moody, Our Neighbor, Martin Luther by E. R. Charles; World, The Holy Bible (RSV); Bethany, In the Presence of Death edited by C. Dale; Warner, What Was Bugging Ol’ Pharaoh? by C. M. (“Peanuts”) Schulz and Brief Introduction to the Old Testament by A. W. Miller; Baker, The Heidelberg Story by E. Masselink, The Sin of Being 50 by J. Johnson, and An Introduction to Communism by H. H. Barnette; Augsburg, The Church in a Diverse Society edited by L. W. Halvorson; John Knox, The Heidelberg Catechism for Today by K. Barth, The Social Humanism of Calvin by A. Bieler, Sowing and Reaping: The Parables of Jesus by E. Brunner, The Three R’s of Christianity by J. Finegan, and Trinitarian Faith and Today’s Mission by L. Newbigin; Faith and Life, The Theological Basis of the Christian Witness to the State (tentative title) by J. H. Yoder; Friendship, Death of a Myth by K. Haselden; and Abingdon, The Young Church by G. Ladd, Great Nights of the Bible by C. E. Macartney, Getting to Know God by J. A. Redhead, and The Methodist Church in Social Thought and Action by G. Harkness.

The best evangelical contributions of 1963, in the judgment ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY, are listed below. The selections propound evangelical perspectives in a significant way or apply biblical doctrines effectively to modern currents of thought and life. These are not the only meritorious volumes, nor do they in every case necessarily reflect the convictions of all evangelical groups.

BARNHOUSE, DONALD GREY: God’s Covenants: Romans 9:1–11:36 (Eerdmans, 176 pp., $3.50). Israel’s future according to Romans, by a master expositor.

BRUCE, F. F.: Israel and the Nations: From the Exodus to the Fall of the Second Temple (Eerdmans, 254 pp., $3.95). Israel’s history as it occurred within the context of her national neighborhood.

BUSWELL, J. OLIVER: Soteriology and Eschatology, Volume II of A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Zondervan, 600 pp., $6.95). The final volume of a theology whose thought is systematized and whose meaning is always clear.

CAILLIET, EMILE: Young Life (Harper & Row, 120 pp., $2.95). The story of a vital movement for leading teen-agers to Christ and an account of the Young Life Institute’s successful venture into staff training.

CLARK, GORDON: Karl Barth’s Theological Method (Presbyterian and Reformed, 256 pp., $4.95). A scholarly, fair-minded evaluation of Barth’s theology as it relates to the laws of thought and the possibilities of human language.

DOWDY, HOMER E.: Christ’s Witchdoctor (Harper & Row, 241 pp., $3.95). This fascinating and authentic account of the conversion of a witch doctor in a tribe of South American Indians is of anthropological as well as spiritual value.

EVANS, ROBERT P.: Let Europe Hear: The Spiritual Plight of Europe (Moody, 528 pp., $5.95). A survey indicating that sixteen Western European countries are authentic mission fields.

GOODYKOONTZ, HARRY G.: The Minister in the Reformed Tradition (John Knox, 176 pp., $3.75). A study that explains and upholds the distinctive character of the office of minister.

KELLY, J. N. D.: The Pastoral Epistles (from the “New Testament Commentaries” series, Harper & Row, 264 pp., $5). A very lucid interpretation that conveys the results but not the mechanics of scholarship, by an author who argues for Pauline authorship.

POLLOCK, J. C.: Moody (Macmillan, 336 pp., $5.50). A faithful portrait with all the lights and shadows.

MARTIN, JAMES P.: The Last Judgment (Eerdmans, 214 pp., $4). A study of how eschatology was eased out the back door of Christian theology.

METZGER, BRUCE M.: Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism (Volume IV of “New Testament Tools and Studies,” Eerdmans, 165 pp., $4). A highly scientific work by a meticulous scholar of international repute.

MICKELSEN, A. BERKELEY: Interpreting the Bible (Eerdmans, 425 pp., $5.95). A fresh inquiry into the issues, tools, and techniques of biblical interpretation.

RAMM, BERNARD: Them He Glorified: A Systematic Study of the Doctrine of Glorification (Eerdmans, 148 pp., $3). Done with a painstaking competence that tempts the reader to read on.

RICHARDSON, JOHN R., and CHAMBLIN, KNOX: The Epistle to the Romans (Baker, 166 pp., $2.95). A popular, pithy exposition blending the doctrinal, ethical, and homiletical.

RODDY, CLARENCE S.: The Epistle to the Hebrews (Baker, 141 pp., $2.75). Practical commentary on selected texts dealing with the chief motifs of the epistle.

SHOEMAKER, SAMUEL M.: Beginning Your Ministry (Harper & Row, 127 pp., $3). Salty wisdom about the minister and his ministry—spoken out of the ripeness of the author’s years.

STONEHOUSE, NED B.: Origins of the Synoptic Gospels: Some Basic Questions (Eerdmans, 201 pp., $4.50). A scholarly investigation of the authorship, origins, and interdependence of the Synoptic Gospels. A contribution to scholarship.

TENNEY, MERRILL C.: The Reality of the Resurrection (Harper & Row, 221 pp., $4). A doctrinal and apologetic treatment of Christ’s resurrection.

TWEEDIE, DONALD F., JR.: The Christian and the Couch (Baker, 237 pp., $3.95). The author crosses frontiers to discover a distinctive Christian psychotherapy.

WHITESELL, FARIS D.: Power in Expository Preaching (Revell, 174 pp., $4). The author powerfully pleads the equation: expository preaching equals preaching for eternity.

Sometimes I believe I understand the frustration that must have come to mankind at Babel, for nothing is more disconcerting than to be unable to communicate with your fellow man. I have often watched a Babelian type of bewilderment cross the faces of my military congregation on Sunday morning. It strikes them most frequently when I have begun to read the Scriptures or quote from them in the course of my sermon.

Many of the fine Christian people in my flock have developed the commendable habit of bringing a Bible to church. Somehow the reading has more meaning when they can follow it in their Bibles. Also, they are able to keep the sermon text available during the sermon.

Unfortunately, my congregation comes from as diversified a denominational background as can be found in our American pluralistic church society. These people are the unfortunate victims of well-intentioned parsons who have taken to heart the command of God to feed the flock and who have instructed their parishioners faithfully in diverse places with diverse versions of the Scriptures. I do not take exception to the good intent of these ministers of the Lord. Every minister has been called to teach his people God’s Word, so that they may better understand God’s relationship to his children. To accomplish his purpose every alert and conscientious minister will encourage his flock to purchase a translation that will enable them to comprehend the Bible.

But as I stand in my pulpit, I wonder why there is no consensus among my fellow clergymen about the one best version for God’s people. The fact that there is no unanimity makes my task on Sunday morning almost impossible. I enter the pulpit with fear and trembling, gazing around with trepidation at all those parishioners in their pews with Bibles at the ready. Which version do they have? Is it the one from which I am about to read? The answer soon comes in their look of bewilderment, and in the sounds of confusion as the pages of the Bibles are rapidly shuffled in an attempt to coordinate what I am reading with what is printed in their translations.

Little does my congregation realize the battle I have fought over the Bible translations in my hours of preparation for the service. I know Mrs. Adams prefers the beauty of the King James Version and resolutely continues to extol its virtues. Mr. Beale, my youth department superintendent, is equally convinced J. B. Phillips’s is the only translation that speaks the language of youth, tomorrow’s church. And then there is Mr. King, who holds that only a compromise will be of benefit to everyone, and that the Revised Standard Version is therefore the best. But as I begin to read, I know that the disappointed ones are viewing me with a sense of pity and resignation. It seems the chaplain is not intelligent enough to choose the one truly superior version of the Scriptures.

I find myself reacting even more violently when I quote Scripture in my sermon. Lately I have started to paraphrase rather than risk the danger of direct quotation. Most of the passages I have committed to memory come from the King James Version. By dint of great labor and concentrated effort I have managed to relearn a few of the more obscure and difficult ones. Still my memory does play tricks on me, and then J. B. Phillips begins to sound like a scholar at the court of King James. On occasion one such Jacobean scholar sounds as if he had an insight into twentieth-century English. I shudder to think about what this does to those who are intently following my sermon.

I have learned also never to lift my eyes from the pages of the Bible. Should I be reading a familiar portion of the Scriptures in one of the newer translations, King James has a nasty habit of sneaking in. At times the confusion becomes monumental, and I have already lost my place in the heart of the morning lesson. Alas, I am in that awkward age for preachers—too old to relearn the many passages committed to memory from the King James Version, too young to be retired. So I continue to struggle in the midst of the confusion of tongues.

But this is not solely a problem of biblical translations. My Lutheran church has just rewritten the English version of Luther’s small catechism. No longer shall I be able to impress my catechism class as I quote the catechism from memory. I tremble to visualize those same children commiserating with that doddering old chaplain who after so many years can no longer recall even the explanation to a commandment.

Time marches on, and new versions of everything sacred to the Church will continue to roll from the presses. As the process continues, I shall become a more bewildered preacher trying to cut through the maze of sounds to bring the simple Gospel to God’s people. I can even hear the echoes of a young student saying: “Excuse me, sir, in what version are you attempting to communicate with me?”

Yet there is at least a partial answer to the problem. Let each congregation furnish Bibles for church use just as it does hymnals. Hymnbooks have achieved uniformity in worship, conformity in congregational singing. Bibles placed alongside the hymnbooks will ensure the same kind of uniformity in the Scripture lessons and during the morning sermon. Once the congregation’s board has decided upon a specific version of the Scriptures, it should make sure that this version alone is used throughout the program of the church, including Sunday school classes and all other educational functions. Other translations may be used for private study and for comparison, but never at the expense of common fellowship in the Word of God.

Your Spirit Is Showing

Much has been written recently about bigotry. The one point upon which everyone is agreed is that bigotry is a bad thing and should be purged from our society. Little has been said, however, about the way bigotry develops nor yet how it may be counteracted. For this reason, it would be profitable to see how our Lord Jesus detected a bad spirit among his disciples and what he said about getting rid of it.

In Luke 9, the disciples reported to Christ that they saw a man doing miracles in his name and that they had forbidden him “because he was not with us.” But, said Jesus: “Forbid him not; he that is for us cannot be against us” (Luke 9:50). These two propositions, “with” and “for,” spell the difference between bigotry and beneficence. The bigot insists that everyone must join his group or be regarded as a dangerous heretic.

To counteract such a spirit among his disciples Christ used the word “for,” explaining that “he that is for us cannot be against us.” Nor is it difficult to determine whether or not a man is for or against Christ. He who “gathereth with me” is for me, says Christ (Matt. 12:30). Thus, the best antidote for bigotry is to do the work of an evangelist. The thing of prime importance is never, “Are they with us?” but rather, “Are they gathered unto Christ?”

One day Jesus had to reject a proposal for energetic action by his disciples. Peter, seized by an explosive impulse, had cut off the ear of one who had come with those sent to arrest Jesus. This was a proposal for action rather than a veiled hint as to what could be done. But Jesus rebuked Peter saying, “Put up thy sword!”

Now Peter’s spirit was wrong on four counts. First, Jesus reminded him, “He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.” Peter’s action was self-defeating; and what is true of the sword is equally true of any reckless use of the pen. The words of the bigot invariably boomerang with devastating results. Secondly, said Jesus, “Do you not think I could have asked the Father and he would have sent me twelve legions of angels?” If force was of any value in the work of faith Christ sought to accomplish, then forces far more effective than Peter’s sword were available to the Son of Man. The truth is, he does not need our “fighting spirit” so much as our obedient faith to the Holy Scriptures, which Jesus declared “must be fulfilled.” God’s plans are set forth within the written Word in sufficient detail for us to know that nothing can possibly thwart his eternal purpose. That was the third reason why Christ rebuked Peter’s lashing out at those breaking in upon their company. Finally, Jesus asked quietly, “The cup which the Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?” To take any other course of action than that of full obedience to the revealed purpose of the Father would be an affront to the sovereign will of God.

Faith and obedience, therefore, are inseparable in the life that is pleasing to God. And perhaps nothing shows our true spirit more clearly than this. For the besetting sin of the bigot is to substitute strong-headed convictions for whole-hearted consecration to the will of God. Your spirit will be shown most clearly not at the gates of Gethsemane where men resort to swords, but within its cloistered walls where strong men sweat as it were drops of blood, praying, “Father, not my will, but thine be done!”—From A Plea for Faith, by STUART P. GARVER. Copyright 1963 by Christ’s Mission, Inc. Used by permission.

Thomas W. Klewin is a chaplain (Major) at Loring Air Force Base, Maine. Before entering the chaplaincy, he served as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Morris Plains, New Jersey. He received the A.B. and B.D. degrees from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, and the A.M. from Washington University, St. Louis.

One or two works of reference that cover both Testaments call for mention. The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, edited by Merrill C. Tenney (Zondervan), is a thoroughly conservative work by sixty-five scholars, most of whom belong to the western hemisphere. A number of the geographical and archaeological articles on the New Testament, however, are contributed by E. M. Blaiklock of New Zealand—whose name adds luster to any undertaking. Hastings’s one-volume Dictionary of the Bible, first published in 1909, has been reissued in a new and revised edition (T. & T. Clark), under the editorship of H. H. Rowley (for the Old Testament) and F. C. Grant (for the New). Nearly 150 contemporary scholars have been enlisted to revise and, where necessary, replace the work of their 105 predecessors of half a century ago. But all other dictionaries are put in the shade by the appearance of Volume I of the Kittel-Friedrich Theological Dictionary of the New Testament in an English translation (Eerdmans). The gigantic task of translating this monumental work has been entrusted to G. W. Bromiley, who is carrying it out with characteristic distinction. The present writer has a special qualification for evaluating Dr. Bromiley’s work: he has read through his English translation of Volume I—twice! This volume, which runs to over 800 pages, covers the first three letters of the Greek alphabet. Dr. Bromiley is already well ahead with the translation of the following volumes; at this rate he will soon catch up with the German original, which is now approaching the end of Volume VI with the closing entries under sigma.

English-speaking students of the New Testament Greek are now well provided for. Hard on the heels of R. W. Funk’s English translation of Blass and Debrunner’s Greek Grammar of the New Testament(Chicago University Press) comes Volume III of J. H. Moulton’s Grammar of New Testament Greek (T. & T. Clark), fifty-eight years after the appearance of Volume I (Moulton’s prolegomena) and forty-eight years after Moulton’s death in the Mediterranean. This third volume, which completes the work, is devoted to syntax, and has been written by Nigel Turner. He divides the volume into two parts, the first analytical (“Building up the sentence”) and the second synthetic (“The sentence complete”); he begins with the units from which sentences are constructed and goes on from the more simple to the more complex forms, ending with the involutions of the periodic sentence. An important work on one aspect of the language of the New Testament is Greek Particles in the New Testament, by Margaret E. Thrall (Brill and Eerdmans), Volume III in the series “New Testament Tools and Studies.” Dr. Thrall includes a few important exegetical studies by way of illustrating her findings on the significance of certain particles.

Volume IV in the same series is by the editor of the series, Bruce M. Metzger: Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism (Brill and Eerdmans). This brings together a number of articles contributed by Dr. Metzger to various journals over the past few years; he has revised and expanded them for this publication. We expect further contributions to New Testament textual criticism from Dr. Metzger in the near future. A most valuable handbook for the New Testament student is the first volume of Kurt Aland’s Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (Walter de Gruyter). This is an exhaustive and up-to-date presentation of the Greek manuscript evidence for the New Testament text; although it is a German work, its catalogues can be used quite readily by English-speaking students. Further contributions to New Testament textual criticism will be found in Biblical and Patristic Studies in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey, edited by J. N. Birdsall and R. W. Thomson (Herder and Herder).

New Testament Introductions

Among New Testament introductions Robert M. Grant’s Historical Introduction to the New Testament (Harper & Row) is outstanding. It falls into three parts, of which the second is devoted to special introduction; the first deals with the principles of criticism and the third with New Testament history and theology. On principles of historical criticism he reaches conclusions that are relatively conservative, for example in his assessment of the authorship of Ephesians. A. M. Hunter’s Teaching and Preaching the New Testament (SCM) is a selection of essays and lectures on New Testament themes, including one on the genuineness of Matthew 11:25–30 and another on the style of Paul that call for careful consideration. The New Testament and Current Study, by R. H. Fuller (Scribner’s), surveys current trends in New Testament study and makes some cautious forecasts of trends to come, while pointing out the unpredictable element in such matters; who could have forecast Barth’s commentary on Romans? Gerhard Gloege’s The Day of His Coming: The Man in the Gospels (SCM), a translation from the German, studies the coming of the Jesus of history against the background of his life and times.

A new and revised edition of Oscar Cullmann’s Christology of the New Testament (SCM) has appealed. The debate between Joachim Jeremias and Kurt Aland on the origins of Christian baptism is kept up in Jeremias’s The Origins of Infant Baptism (SCM). William Barclay’s Peake Memorial Lecture has been published under the title Turning to God (Epworth); it expounds the New Testament doctrine of conversion.

The present writer, however, considers that no book in the wider field of New Testament introduction published in 1963 is more useful than A. N. Sherwin-White’s Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Clarendon Press, Oxford). The trials of Jesus and Paul, and questions regarding Roman citizenship, are studied against their contemporary background, with emphasis on how consistent the New Testament record is to its dramatic date.

Bultmann And His Critics

Rudolf Bultmann’s The History of the Synoptic Tradition has had to wait long for an English translator, but now John Marsh has translated the third German edition (Blackwell). English readers now have access to one of the most influential contributions to the form criticism of the Gospels. Two antidotes to the radical skepticism with which Bultmann and his school evaluate the historical content of the Gospel narrative are The Historical Jesus, by Heinz Zahrnt (Collins), and Historicity and the Gospels, by H. E. W. Turner (Mowbrays). Zahrnt’s book (another translation from the German) is aimed at the general reader; he challenges the dogma that it is illegitimate to try to go behind the Christ of the primitive kerygma, and shows how Bultmann’s own pupils are starting to do this very thing and finding in consequence a clear and consistent portrayal of Jesus. Turner deals with the criteria which the historian uses and examines their relevance for Gospel criticism; he finds a much larger historical core in the Gospels than the more radical criticism does. An example of the more radical criticism is provided by R. H. Fuller’s Interpreting the Miracles (SCM); his theological treatment of the miracles is, however, positive and well founded when he makes them integral to our Lord’s proclamation of the Kingdom of God. J. Jeremias’s The Parables of Jesus has appeared in a new and revised English edition (SCM).

Several books on the Kingdom of God have appeared. Herman Ridderbos’s The Coming of the Kingdom has been translated into English, to our immense enrichment (Presbyterian and Reformed); from the same publisher comes Raymond O. Zorn’s Church and Kingdom; these two entities are differentiated though associated now, but merge in the eschatological fulfillment. Two works bear the title The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus: that by the Swedish bishop Gösta Lundström (Oliver & Boyd) surveys the study of the Kingdom from Ritschl to the present day; that by the English Baptist Norman Perrin (SCM) concentrates more on British contributions to the subject and takes the evidence from Qumran into account. In The Spirit and the Kingdom (SPCK), J. E. Yates argues that, for Matthew and Mark, John the Baptist’s prediction that the Coming One would baptize with the Holy Spirit was fulfilled in our Lord’s ministry of the Kingdom, whereas for Luke it was fulfilled at Pentecost. T. W. Manson’s The Teaching of Jesus has been reissued as a paperback (Cambridge); M. Black’s Manson Memorial Lecture, The Son of Man Problem in Recent Research and Debate (Rylands Library, Manchester), brings up to date a study to which Manson paid special attention.

Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, by G. Bornkamm, G. Barth, and H. J. Held (SCM), presents important inquiries into Matthew’s sources and the use which he made of them. The Gospel According to Matthew is also the subject of the first volume of the new “Cambridge Bible Commentary,” based on the text of the New English Bible; it has been written by A. W. Argyle. Another new series of commentaries is the “Pelican Gospel Commentaries,” of which three have appeared: Saint Matthew, by J. C. Fenton, Saint Mark, by D. E. Nineham (editor of the series), and Saint Luke, by G. B. Caird (Penguin Books). The reviewer finds that Dr. Caird communicates to him more intelligibly than the other two commentators do; this may very well be because Dr. Caird is a historian. An interesting contribution to one phase of Mark’s picture of Jesus is given by U. W. Mauser in Christ in the Wilderness (SCM), where he deals with the wilderness theme in Mark’s Gospel against the background of the wilderness theme in the whole biblical tradition.

To the same series (“Studies in Biblical Theology”) T. F. Glasson has contributed a monograph on Moses in the Fourth Gospel (SCM); he considers how the strand of interpretation of Jesus as the expected Prophet, the second Moses, is woven into the Johannine picture of him. But the year’s most distinguished contribution to Johannine literature is C. H. Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge), a worthy sequel and companion to The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, published ten years before. The independent transmission of historical material in the Johannine and Synoptic Gospels, he believes, can provide us with a stereoscopic view of the facts about Jesus. Like its predecessor, this book will have to be lived with in order to be properly appreciated.

When we turn to Paul, we recall that some excitement has been caused (in Britain at any rate) during 1963 by the statistical analysis of his vocabulary and style with the help of the electronic computer. It was not so much the analysis itself that caused the excitement as the interpretation put upon it by a statistical expert who suggested that the computer presented a challenge to the authority of the Church. Biblical scholars remain unperturbed; they welcome the statistical analysis as something to be correlated with all the other evidence bearing on the Pauline letters.

A warm welcome has been extended to another posthumously published work by T. W. Manson, his class lectures On Paul and John (SCM). Professor M. Black deserves our deep gratitude for the care with which he has edited these lecture notes for publication. C. K. Barrett, whose commentary on Romans appeared in 1957, has written a little book for the ordinary Christian, Reading through Romans (Epworth), which brings out the evangelical message of the epistle in a way that makes a likeminded reader want to shout “Hallelujah!”—or at least to echo the words with which Dr. Barrett ends his work: “To God be the glory! Great things He hath done.”

Additional Commentaries

Two further volumes have appeared in the “Tyndale New Testament Commentary” series—Romans, by F. F. Bruce, and Ephesians, by Francis Foulkes (Eerdmans). Foulkes points out that while the teaching in Ephesians about reconciliation, the Resurrection and exaltation of Christ, and the Holy Spirit, is characteristically Pauline, in each case it is carried further than in the other Pauline epistles and related specially to the doctrine of the Church. Pauline Teaching on Marriage, by J.-J. von Allmen (Faith Press), contains much valuable exegetical treatment of the relevant Pauline passages, especially First Corinthians 7.

J. N. D. Kelly’s commentary on The Pastoral Epistles (Harper & Row) argues for their Pauline authorship, although in composing them Paul “relied extensively—much more extensively, probably, than in his earlier ones—on the cooperation of a secretary.” The latest volume to appear in the new translation of Calvin’s New Testament commentaries is The Epistle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of Peter, translated by William B. Johnston (Oliver & Boyd). The reviewer found this volume most welcome as he was revising the manuscript of the commentary on Hebrews for the “New International Commentary.” Shortly before, Luther’s Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews also appeared in a new English dress in Volume XVI of the “Library of Christian Classics”: Luther: Early Theological Works, translated by James Atkinson (SCM).

On the fringe of the New Testament canon the English translation of Hennecke and Schneemelcher’s New Testament Apocrypha (Lutterworth) is assured of a welcome. Volume I, which appeared in 1963, covers Gospels and Related Writings; Volume II will include the apocryphal books of Acts. The English translation is edited by R. McL. Wilson in cooperation with a number of other scholars. This work is more than a mere translation, as the scholars entrusted with the various documents have checked the translations by the original Greek, Syriac, Coptic, and so forth. Some of the works from the Gnostic library of Chenoboskion are included, and in this respect the English work is even more up to date than the German one.

F. F. Bruce is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. He holds the B.A. from Cambridge University, M.A. and D.D. from Aberdeen University. Among his books are “The Acts of the Apostles,” “Are the New Testament Documents Reliable?,” and “Epistle to the Ephesians.” Dr. Bruce is the editor of “The Evangelical Quarterly.”

The reader of the Old Testament must constantly turn to his Bible dictionary or encyclopedia for information concerning the people and places mentioned. And with the continuing activity in archaeological and linguistic research, there is a need for new reference books. During 1963 some new works of this kind appeared. Louis F. Hartman, aided by seventeen Roman Catholic biblical scholars, translated, and in part revised, A. van den Born’s Bijbels Woordenboek (second edition, 1954–57) as Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible (McGraw-Hill). The volume contains 2,634 columns of text. There are very few illustrations, but bibliographies are excellent, including the works of both Catholic and non-Catholic scholarship.

Frederick C. Grant and H. H. Rowley edited a revision of the one-volume Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible (Scribner’s). The new edition is based on the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, but it contains cross-references to both the older Revised Version and the King James. The new Hastings is of particular value for acquainting the reader with modern critical scholarship.

Samuel Terrien wrote a concise introduction to the Bible entitled The Bible and the Church: An Approach to Scripture (Westminster). He insists that we read our Bible as a historical document, maintaining our intellectual integrity as we do so. Conversely, he also insists that it is the Bible that judges the Church, not the Church that judges the Bible. The historical aspects of biblical backgrounds are discussed by Cyrus H. Gordon in Before the Bible (Harper & Row). Gordon surveys the cultures of ancient Egypt and the cuneiform world and maintains that Ugarit was the link between Canaan and the Aegean civilizations. He sees the Homeric epics and the sagas of patriarchal Canaan as expressions of a common east Mediterranean cultural continuum.

During 1963 the first two volumes of a work designed for Roman Catholic high school students appeared. The set, known as “The New Library of Catholic Knowledge” (Hawthorn Books, twelve volumes), begins with a volume entitled Preparing the Way, by M. E. Odell. Miss Odell has written a brief summary of the Old Testament, nicely illustrated, and preceded by a fifteen-page discussion of the origins of the universe, of the earth, and of man in the light of contemporary scientific thought. She considers the earth to be about 4,500,000,000 years old and gives theistic evolution a serious hearing.

Old Testament history is presented in F. F. Bruce’s Israel and the Nations (Eerdmans), a survey of Israelite history from the Exodus to the destruction of the Second Temple (A.D. 70). Bruce traces the rise and fall of the Israelite monarchy, the Exile, the return of a remnant, and its history during the period between the testaments, closing with a brief treatment of New Testament Palestine.

In 1957, M. A. Beek of Amsterdam wrote his Geschiedenis Van Israel, which was translated into English by Arnold J. Pomerans and published in 1963 by Harper & Row as A Short History of Israel from Abraham to Bar Cochba. Both Beek and Bruce draw heavily upon archaeology to provide a background for biblical studies. Bruce gives a fuller treatment, but Beek is more inclined to discuss critical matters. He gives a rather extensive discussion of the person and work of Moses in the light of contemporary Old Testament studies. Old Testament students will also welcome a revised and expanded fourth edition of W. F. Albright’s The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (Harper Torchbooks), which gives an excellent summary of the historical and archaeological backgrounds of the Old Testament.

George Eicholz provided 103 color photographs and wrote the accompanying text for a beautiful volume, Landscapes of the Bible (Harper & Row). The large color photographs enable the armchair traveler to visit the countries between the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers, stopping at such exotic places as Palmyra as well as at the more familiar villages of Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee. The hills and valleys of the Holy Land, the Qumran caves, and the ruins of long-abandoned cities are here to give the reader a feeling for the geography and history of the biblical world.

A series of essays by the British Old Testament scholar H. H. Rowley has appeared under the title From Moses to Qumran (Association). Rowley discusses such themes as “Moses and Monotheism,” “The Meaning of Sacrifice in the Old Testament,” and “The Qumran Sect and Christian Origins.” Denis Baly, whose earlier Geography and the Bible has become a standard work, has written a new Geographical Companion to the Bible (McGraw-Hill). Professor Baly has drawn on his experiences in the Holy Land, where he taught for fifteen years at St. George’s School in Jerusalem, to present a realistic picture of the land: its formation, climate, structure, vegetation, and trade routes, and their cumulative effect upon the events of biblical history. The book contains maps, photographs, and a gazetteer.

Preface To Biblical History

Another lavishly illustrated book, Palestine Before the Conquest, by Emmanuel Anati (Knopf), describes pre-historic and historic Canaan from the first arrival of man to the biblical conquest. This might be described as a preface to biblical history. Covering a longer period of time is the two-volume work by the soldier-archaeologist Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands (McGraw-Hill). Yadin has made generous use of color photographs in presenting a history of military life and activity from the most ancient Jericho (c. 7000 B.C.) to the time of Darius I of Persia (490 B.C.). The text and photographs follow the Bible chronologically, beginning with the period before Abraham, continuing through the time of the patriarchs, the sojourn in Egypt, the period of the judges and the United Monarchy to the period of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Photographs of artifacts, monumental inscriptions, and city plans supplement the scholarly text in giving the reader a first-hand view of military life from Egypt to Mesopotamia in Old Testament times.

During 1963 the one-volume Harper’s Bible Commentary, by William Neil (Harper & Row), appeared. This is not a verse-by-verse treatment of the Bible, and its brevity (only 544 double-column pages) precludes the full treatment that scholarly readers desire in a commentary. Nevertheless Neil has crowded a wealth of information into his commentary, and readers will often be amazed at the way he gets to the heart of his subject. Twenty-one pages are devoted to the apocrypha.

The two-volume work by Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Abingdon), presents the conclusions of a well-known Scandinavian scholar who is convinced that most of the Psalms were composed to serve a liturgical or cultic function. The Finnish scholar Helmer Ringgren has attempted to go beyond cultic research in his The Faith of the Psalmists (Fortress). He sees the Psalms as profoundly human and profoundly religious documents, containing expressions of timeless, living religion closely akin to that of the New Testament.

Studies In The Prophets

Elmer A Leslie, whose earlier works on The Psalms and Jeremiah have had a wide following, has written a new work: Isaiah: Chronologically Arranged, Translated and Interpreted (Abingdon). Leslie, who holds to the view that there are three “Isaiahs,” has rearranged the canonical text on the basis of his chronological principle and has given his own translation of the Hebrew text.

After forty years of study in Israel’s prophetic literature, Johannes Lindblom of the University of Lund has written a definitive study, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Fortress). The Swedish scholar begins with a survey of prophets outside Israel, including such diverse personages as Mohammed, Cassandra of Troy, and Saint Bridget of Sweden. He then traces the phenomenon of prophetism in Israel, observing similarities and differences in the earlier non-writing prophets and the later prophets of the classical period. Lindblom indicates a distrust of modern psychological explanations of the lives and messages of the prophets. He does, however, see the work of many hands, including disciples and redactors, in the prophetic books.

The religion of the prophets was not one of mystical experience, in Lindblom’s view; it was rather a historically based faith in a God who had revealed himself in the events of history. The crux of religious life is thus faith and obedience rather than mystical experience. In Lindblom’s thought, the prophets were primarily men with a message for their own times, and he shows little sympathy with what is generally regarded as predictive prophecy.

Another important study of prophecy was made by Abraham J. Heschel of the Jewish Theological Seminary and published as The Prophets (Harper & Row). Heschel first considers the kind of men the Israelite prophets were and then discusses representative prophetic writers (Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Second Isaiah). Next he discusses a number of topics that arose from his study of contrasts between prophecy and related phenomena. He sees the prophet as a man conscious of God’s “attentiveness and concern,” a concern often unnoticed. On occasion, however, that very concern may manifest itself in wrathful anger. To Heschel the themes and claims of prophetic theology may be summarized in terms of God’s concern for man and man’s relevance to God.

A shorter work, Prophets in Perspective, by B. D. Napier (Abingdon), presents an analysis of the prophetic movement from its inception in the days of Moses to the period of the classical prophets (800–600 B.C.). Napier’s study is an expansion of his article in The Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary. It does not discuss the individual prophets but rather takes the prophetic movement as a whole, seeking to determine its faith, characteristics, and relevance to contemporary life. Napier sees the prophets as heralds both of God’s judgments and of his redemption.

Amos and His Message, by Roy Lee Honeycutt (Broadman), likewise strives to make the words of an ancient prophet relevant to contemporary life. Honeycutt, however, has written a verse-by-verse commentary in which linguistic detail, historical background, and doctrinal and practical matters are given due attention. Although conservative in outlook, Honeycutt draws upon all schools of thought in making Amos speak to our generation. Merrill F. Unger has written a verse-by-verse commentary entitled Commentary on Zechariah (Zondervan). He writes as a representative of the pre-millennial, dispensational school of interpretation. Although he draws on the Hebrew text, the Septuagint and other versions, Unger’s commentary is particularly designed for readers of the King James Version or the American Standard Version.

Jack Finegan’s Let My People Go (Harper & Row) bears the subtitle, “A Journey Through Exodus.” The author of the widely used Light From the Ancient Past brings his knowledge of archaeology to bear on his study of the Book of Exodus and also makes Exodus speak to our needs. Every struggle for freedom is seen in the light of ancient Israel’s experience of an exodus from the house of bondage. Meredith Kline in Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy (Eerdmans) examines the pattern of suzerainty treaties in the ancient Near East and views Deuteronomy as a covenant-renewal document based on that pattern. Kline writes as a scholar convinced that Deuteronomy truly records the farewell address of Moses to Israel on the plains of Moab. The second part of Kline’s book is a commentary on Deuteronomy.

A series of studies in the inner experience of Job is given in Job: Defense of Honor, by Roger N. Carstensen (Abingdon). Carstensen sees in Job the picture of a man of integrity, and in Jesus an answer to the outcry of Job.

The New Translations

Old Testament translations, although not so numerous as New Testament translations, continue to appear, and 1963 saw the beginnings of a J. B. Phillips Old Testament. Popular in both style and format is Phillips’s volume Four Prophets (Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah), published by Macmillan. Phillips is more concerned with relating the message of the prophets to contemporary life than with literally translating their words. He has divided the biblical text into paragraphs with titles to help the reader follow the thought. Entirely different in style and purpose is the work by J. Wash Watts, A Distinctive Translation of Genesis (Eerdmans). Watts has the Hebrew student in mind in his translation and notes. Appendices discuss the principles of translation and problem passages.

As the subtitle of his book Interpreting the Bible (Eerdmans), A. Berkeley Mickelsen has given, “A Book of Basic Principles for Understanding the Scriptures.” He stresses the fact that he is presenting principles rather than fixed formulas or mechanical rules for interpreting the Bible. He gives due attention to figurative elements and shows the place occupied by descriptive language in the biblical accounts of Creation and Climax. The author also notes that the biblical interpreter must first be concerned with the discovery of the original meaning of a statement, and then take account of changes in meaning which contemporary readers may attach to the same words. Ideally, the interpreter will find the meaning of a statement for the author and for the first hearers or readers, and transmit that meaning to modern readers.

A revised edition of A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible, by Robert M. Grant (Macmillan), has been issued. Grant traces the history of schools of interpretation from New Testament times to the present. He gives us not only a history of past systems but also a timely warning that if we insist on rewriting the Bible in our own categories we ultimately create God in our own image.

The discipline of Old Testament hermeneutics is treated in a composite work edited by Claus Westermann, Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics (John Knox). The fifteen papers deal with such themes as “Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament” (Von Rad), “Prophecy and Fulfillment” (Bultmann), and “Jesus Christ and the Old Testament” (Johann Jakob Stamm).

Another “panel discussion” is presented in The Old Testament and Christian Faith, edited by Bernhard W. Anderson (Harper & Row). It presents an introductory discussion by Rudolf Bultmann on “The Significance of the Old Testament for the Christian Faith,” followed by contributions from an international panel of scholars including Alan Richardson, Wilhelm Vischer, Oscar Cullmann, E. Ernest Wright, and Claus Westermann. The contributors represent a variety of viewpoints, and the volume as a whole will give the serious student a grasp of contemporary thought on the Old Testament and Christianity.

Twenty-three articles that have appeared in Bibliotheca Sacra since 1934 have been republished as Truth for Today, edited by John F. Walvoord (Moody). Articles include “A Scientific Approach to the Old Testament—A Study of Amos 9 in relation to Acts 15,” by Allan A. MacRae, and “The Poetic Structure of the Book of Job and Ugaritic Literature,” by Charles L. Feinberg.

Several articles of interest to Old Testament students appear in the festschrift, In the Time of Harvest: Essays in Honor of Abba Hillel Silver on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, edited by Daniel Jeremy Silver (Macmillan). Notable among these are Benjamin Mazar’s “David’s Reign in Hebron and the Conquest of Jerusalem,” Solomon Zeitlin’s “The Origin of the Idea of Messiah,” and Tur Sinai’s “On Some Obscure Passages in the Book of Psalms 1–35.”

G. S. Wegener’s 6,000 Years of the Bible (Harper & Row) recounts the story of the Bible, its earliest history as known through archaeology and its subsequent preservation and dissemination. The book is illustrated with more than two hundred photographs of archaeological and historical interest. The book could be classified as belonging to the category “General Biblical Introduction.” Non-technical, it answers in popular language the recurring question, “How did we get our Bible?” Scribes, translators, printers, even forgers of ancient documents, are encountered on its pages.

J. B. Segal’s The Hebrew Passover from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70 (Oxford) is a careful analysis of biblical and extra-biblical documents pertaining to the Passover, and an evaluation of modern theories concerning its origin. Segal analyzes the discussions of the Passover in the Book of Jubilees, the New Testament, and the Qumran literature. The book concludes with a description of the Passover observance during the decades immediately before the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70).

Old Testament students have long appreciated the two studies of Babylonian texts made by the late Alexander Heidel and published by the University of Chicago Press, and these studies have now been reissued. An analysis of the cuneiform creation accounts is given in The Babylonian Genesis, and the Babylonian flood stories are translated and analyzed in The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (both Phoenix Paperbacks).

The reviewer’s Tell el-Amarna and the Bible (Baker) gives a summary of the excavations at Amarna in Egypt, a survey of the reforms of Pharaoh Akhenaton, and a summary of the contents and significance of the Amarna Tablets.

The Oxford University Press has reprinted, without alteration, the 1913 edition of the definitive work edited by R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. These volumes represent the finest scholarly thought of an earlier generation. A thorough revision is needed, but in the absence of this the original work remains indispensable to students of apocryphal literature.

Charles F. Pfeiffer is professor of Old Testament literature at Gordon Divinity School, Wenham, Massachusetts. He holds the B.A. degree from Temple University, the B.D. degree from Reformed Episcopal Theological Seminary, and the Ph.D. degree from Dropsie College. His most recent book is “Tell el-Amarna and the Bible.”

The present century may not go down in history as the most wise or the most learned. It may not make the greatest contribution to Christian knowledge. It may not even be remembered as theologically the most literate. But it will certainly make its mark for the quantity of theological literature. If there is a deficiency of true learning, it is not for any lack of the necessary tools. Even to list the titles that have been made available during the last year would require far greater space than is available for the present article, and obviously no space is open for extended review of those books which seem to be significant for various reasons.

We may begin by mentioning the continuation of some of the established series of the past. The great Luther translation still continues (Concordia and Muhlenberg), and this year has seen the addition in three volumes of the lectures on Galatians and also of a selection of letters. The new translation of Calvin’s Commentaries (Eerdmans) is also making headway; serious Calvin students would do well to purchase Hebrews and I & II Peter, since these epistles, especially Hebrews, are of great importance in Calvin’s thought.

The year has also seen the initiation of a number of new series of some importance. Denominationally we may refer to the History of the Church of Christ and also to the first of two volumes by E. T. Thompson on Presbyterians in the South (John Knox). Reference may also be made to the three-volume History of Early Christian Doctrine that is being undertaken by J. Daniélou, and to a five-volume Roman Catholic series under the title The Christian Centuries. It will be particularly interesting to see how far the new ideas in modern Romanism have affected its understanding and presentation of Christian history.

One of the most interesting and valuable parts of historical study is the consultation of original documents. In this field we might mention two very different works. The first is a revised edition of H. Bettenson’s Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford), which is a well-known selection of some of the greatest documents of the past. The second is C. M. Drury’s First White Women over the Rockies (two vols., Arthur H. Clarke Co.), which reproduces the diaries and letters of six women of the mission to Oregon Indians during the period 1836–1838 and which thus represents documentation under the microscope.

Centenaries always provide an occasion for historical survey, and this past year has been no exception. One of the most important commemorations was that of the landing of St. Columba in Iona, and this has led to a retelling of that fascinating story of monastic-missionary endeavor which did not begin or end with Columba, but of which he is in a sense the center and symbol. We are grateful to J. Bulloch for doing this in The Life of the Celtic Church (St. Andrew Press), even if some of his emphases will not command universal assent. Another centenary of some importance is that of the Apology of the Anglican reformer Jewel, which is one of the clearest statements of the truth that Reformation faith is genuinely catholic and apostolic, and which enjoyed a European reputation in its day. In honor of this celebration we have both a new edition of the Apology (Cornell Univ. Press) and a study of John Jewel as Apologist, by J. E. Booty. Finally 1963 was the anniversary of the beloved Heidelberg Catechism, and the story of the making of the catechism is briefly retold in Three Men Came to Heidelberg, by T. B. van Halsema (Christian Reformed Publishing House).

The historical world has also had the benefit of a number of solid individual studies during the past year. Pride of place belongs, perhaps, to the Cambridge History of the Bible, edited by S. L. Greenslade (Cambridge). For those interested in the Middle Ages we may refer also to The Crusaders, by R. Pernoud (Oliver & Boyd), and The Popes at Avignon, by G. Mollat (Nelson). In English church history F. Barlow has given us a detailed study of the immediate pre-Norman period in The English Church 1000–1066 (Longmans), and in American church history we must mention the second volume of American Christianity (Scribner’s)—a monumental collection of documents relating to the period 1820–1960 and edited by R. T. Handy and L. A. Loetscher.

This has been an interesting year for biography. In addition to a revised edition of the biography of Spurgeon (Spurgeon, the Early Years, Banner of Truth Trust), there is now a completely new account of the life of Moody (Moody, A Biographical Portrait, Macmillan) by the well-known writer J. C. Pollock, who makes use of many new papers in this presentation. Also of interest are the accounts given of two prominent figures from the Roman Catholic world in Jacques Maritain, edited by J. W. Evans (Sheed & Ward), and Alden Hatch’s A Man Named John (Hawthorn), an early assessment of the late Pope John XXIII. That dominant and complicated figure, Martin Luther, still continues to attract attention. In addition to the account by F. Lau, Luther (SCM), we may commend the work by a Finnish scholar, L. Pinomaa (Faith Victorious, trans. by W. J. Kukkonen, Fortress), whose concern is to provide an introduction to the theology of Luther in the light of modern research. A no less dominant personage from an earlier period is St. Augustine; for a new study readers may consult St. Augustine of Hippo, by G. Bonner (SCM).

Toward A Theology Of History

A healthful trend in modern historical study is toward a greater emphasis on the meaning and interpretation of history. In this field we may mention two very different works from two different angles, each with its own value. The first is that of E. C. Rust, Towards a Theological Understanding of History (Oxford); the second, that of the well-known Roman Catholic scholar, H. U. von Balthasar, A Theology of History (Sheed & Ward). Whatever we think of these essays in detail, the important thing is that they both recognize the fact that history demands a theological understanding.

From the standpoint of theology in the narrower sense of doctrine this has not been an outstanding year. On the evangelical side we may commend two valuable studies that have come from Eerdmans. The first, by James P. Martin, is The Last Judgment, and the second, by Bernard Ramm, Them He Glorified. Ramm explores a relatively neglected area in his discussion of the doctrine of glorification. Martin is concerned to analyze the presuppositions that have led to so serious an evasion of the doctrine of judgment in much contemporary theology.

Two books in the Roman Catholic sphere constitute a reminder that we must not be too optimistic in looking for reformation as a result of recent movements. From L. Legrand we have a discussion of The Biblical Doctrine of Virginity (Sheed & Ward) and from O. Semmelroth an essay in Mariology, Mary, Archetype of the Church (Sheed & Ward).

From The Liberal Corner

Liberal theology has not produced anything of vital importance. H. P. Van Dusen has attempted a new tracts-for-the-times movement in his Vindication of Liberal Theology (Scribner’s), but it may be doubted whether the work is finally very relevant to our own times. Nels Ferré has a good subject in The Finality of Faith (Harper & Row) and writes with his usual charm, but the work is hardly likely to be definitive. No little stir has been caused by Bishop Robinson’s Honest to God (SCM and Westminster), but in effect this is simply an effective and challenging popularization. For much the same type of thing one might just as well turn to Paul Tillich’s Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (Columbia Univ. Press). But this is a far cry from dogmatics in any strict sense.

Three more modest, but probably more valuable, works may be mentioned at this point. The first is historical—a competent survey of Twentieth Century Religious Thought, by John Macquarrie (Harper & Row). The second is more constructive—a retreatment of the old theme of the interrelation of Christianity and philosophy by Geddes MacGregor in his book The Hemlock and the Cross (J. P. Lippincott). The main criticism of this work is that there is too much emphasis on the “and” rather than on the “or.” The third is linguistic—a fairly technical paperback of an earlier work by I. T. Ramsey on philosophy and theology in the light of language (Religious Language: An Empirical Placing of Theological Phrases, Macmillan).

The last two works lead us directly to an interesting study of Barth’s Dogmatics by G. Clark in his Karl Barth’s Theological Method (Presbyterian and Reformed). Here the possibility of fruitful discussion is ruled out from the first by the fact that Barth and Clark take quite different views of the theological possibilities of philosophically shaped language. Barth’s American tour is perhaps responsible in part for the publication of other works on Barth, e.g., a translation of the Portrait of Karl Barth, by Georges Casalis (Doubleday), the homiletical application of Barth’s material in A. B. Come’s An Introduction to Barth’s Dogmatics for Preachers (Westminster), and especially, perhaps, the dogmatic wrestling with Barth in R. W. Jenson’s Alpha and Omega (Nelson). From Barth himself there has been little this year. His Evangelical Theology was published early in 1963 (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), and we also have the small work The Preaching of the Gospel (Westminster), which is for the most part a work of homiletics. In addition, J. D. Godsey has collected some of the spoken material in Karl Barth’s Table Talk (John Knox). But the expected continuation of the Dogmatics has not materialized, and there now seems to be good reason for thinking that Barth will terminate the series without further addition.

Mention of Barth is a reminder of the new book on The Virgin Birth by T. Boslooper (Westminster). This contains a great deal of useful historical information and a good bibliography, but the argument that we should retain the infancy stories as a necessary myth for those who think mythically is ingenuous, and the attempt to shelter this under Barth’s umbrella is ridiculous. Also from Westminster came a book on The Inspiration of Scripture, which attracted attention largely because its author, D. M. Beegle, is associated with Biblical Seminary. The work itself simply repeats a movement from conservative to liberal evangelicalism which might have caught the headlines fifty years ago but is of no constructive theological significance today.

The ecumenical movement has again contributed largely to theological production. On the native scene, R. A. Brown and D. H. Scott have edited some essays on the Blake-Pike proposal under the heading The Challenge to Reunion (McGraw-Hill). Apart from a discordant voice or two, these turn into an essay of self-congratulation. Another symposium from Faith and Order is edited by N. Ehrenstrom and W. G. Muelder (SCM) under the title Institutionalism and Church Unity; it is a model of how not to conduct a theologico-sociological inquiry. The first volume of yet another symposium, edited by R. S. Petton, is entitled The Church as the Body of Christ (University of Notre Dame), and this brings us more deeply into the issues. Also worth noting are P. S. Minear’s Faith and Order Findings (Broadman) and J. W. Bevan’s The Churches and Christian Unity (Oxford). The evangelical contribution, The Dynamics of the Ecumenical Movement, edited by W. S. Mooneyham (Zondervan), is a comforting repetition of familiar convictions but hardly comes to grips with the real point of the ecumenical movement, at any rate at its deeper levels. Perhaps the most interesting contribution in this whole area is a by-product; we refer to Creeds and Confessions, by E. Routley (Westminster; Duckworth, 1962), which is a study of confessions from the Reformation to our own day.

The year has been a valuable one in pastoral theology. We might very well begin here with Beginning Your Ministry, by S. M. Shoemaker (Harper & Row), which is a distillation of much wisdom and experience for the ordination candidate and the young minister. From the standpoint of homiletics note should be taken of Horton Davies’s Varieties of English Preaching 1900–1960 and also of the compilation by Wilbur M. Smith, Great Sermons on the Birth of Christ (W. A. Wilde). Indeed, there seems to be a wealth of sermon material available at the present time. From the past we may cite yet again Master Sermons Through the Ages, edited by W. A. Sadler (Harper & Row). From the present there is an interesting discussion of Norman Vincent Peale as a preacher, He Speaks the Word of God, by A. R. Broadhurst (Prentice-Hall). A powerful voice comes from Edinburgh, that of M. E. Macdonald in The Call to Obey (Hodder and Stoughton). From Scotland, too, we have the Warrack Lectures, Preaching the Eternities (St. Andrew Press), by H. C. MacKenzie. And finally we have no less than four works from Helmut Thielicke, Out of the Depths (Eerdmans), Man in God’s World (Harper & Row), The Freedom of the Christian Man (Harper & Row), and Encounter with Spurgeon (Fortress), which is made up for the most part of selections from Spurgeon’s lectures and sermons that Thielicke has found of particular interest and value. If we fail to produce a new race of preachers, it will not be for lack of precept and precedent.

The Minister Addresses His Congregation

Softly warm, the candles’ glow reflects upon the altar flowers, tastefully arranged.

From the unobtrusive organ’s niche, Bach’s solemn harmonies issue deftly.

Quietly efficient, carnation-lapeled ushers seat the fashionably attired worshipers,

all footsteps silenced in the carpet’s crimson depths.

The morning sun shines opaquely through jewelhued artistic glass.

Flawlessly (any crudeness long-since banished) the worship service proceeds:

the call to worship, sung by properly vibratoed, diction-perfect voices

the creed, intoned in modulated smoothness

responsive reading, anthem, Gloria—

Oh, yes—here is perfection.

From behind the polished pulpit, fresh from

silent prayer, robed in prescribed black, he rises to face them—

the piously righteous pillar

the bitter-visaged elderly widow

the lovers, ready to encompass even Gospel in their luminosity

the new communicant, aglow with fervor

the patient blind man, groping for an inner light

the well-spaced complacent vegetables—

Oh, God—one message for all?

Humbly he begins, “Beloved …”

LOURINE WHITE

Geoffrey W. Bromiley is professor of church history and historical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena. He holds the M.A. from Cambridge University, the Ph.D. and D.Litt. from the University of Edinburgh. Formerly vice-principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol, England, he is the translator of Karl Barth’s “Church Dogmatics” and the author of other works.

Bloody fighting between Hindus and Muslims engulfed parts of the Indian subcontinent this month. By mid-January the death toll was reported to have passed the 100 mark. Hundreds more were injured in the clashes.

The violence apparently was touched off by the theft December 27 of a three-inch strand of hair from a mosque near Srinagar, Kashmir. The hair was said to have been from the head of Mohammed, founder of the Islamic (Muslim) religion. It was therefore esteemed as a sacred relic nearly 1,400 years old.

Fighting flared despite the announced recovery of the hair in its silver-capped glass vial.

Mobs clashed with police in Calcutta and in suburban and rural areas stretching up to East Pakistan.

The day following the theft of the hair saw thousands of mourning Muslims demonstrating in Srinagar, and mourning soon turned violent. The city was paralyzed by a general strike. Mobs burned stores and houses. In Jammu, Kashmir, two copper idols of Hindu gods were reported missing.

Following the reported recovery of the hair, announced by Prime Minister Khwaja Shamsuddin of Kashmir, the Muslim masses converged on their mosques to offer thanks. The hair and the glass container were said to have been intact, although no details of the recovery were immediately announced. Indian Prime Minister Nehru was quoted by Shamsuddin as saying that he was “greatly relieved and happy” to learn of the recovery.

However, violence subsequently flared anew, although both the Indian and Pakistani governments seemed reluctant to release details of the flareups. Army leaders were sent from New Delhi to Calcutta to put down waves of looting and arson by roving bands taking advantage of the upheavals.

More than 1,000 persons were reported to be under arrest. One source said some 73,000 were homeless.

Kashmir has been the center of a dispute between predominantly Hindu India and mainly Moslem Pakistan since the Indian subcontinent was divided in 1947.

Protestant Panorama

A study group of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. came out against proposed legislation to combine men’s work with women’s work in a Board of Lay Activities. The group decided that “historical and psychological differences” weighed against such a merger.

Methodist Board of Education expressed “shock and shame” at declining Sunday school membership and attendance. The board, at its annual meeting in Dallas, called for a “comprehensive endeavor” to reverse the trend.

A series of radio programs on sexual topics spawned a controversy between Lutheran bishops in Norway and the Norwegian Broadcasting Company. Refusal to give air time to allow the reading of a pastoral letter from bishops prompted a debate in the Norwegian parliament.

Miscellany

The Church of England has organized a new commission on Roman Catholic relations to pursue “informal friendly discussions” on theological questions.

President Johnson’s first weekend at Camp David included a ten-mile Sunday morning trip to attend services at Harriott Chapel, a 100-year-old Protestant Episcopal church in the village of Catoctin Furnace, Maryland.

Deaths

HUCH REDWOOD, 81, journalist and leading Christian layman, best known for his bestseller God in the Slums; in London.

DR. DONALD GORDON DAVIS, 59, former professor of church history at Talbot Theological Seminary; in Los Angeles.

THE REV. CHARLES H. MENCEL, 84, former Evangelical Congregational bishop; in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

A former student at Oklahoma Baptist University killed himself by purposely crash-diving his light plane into a campus building. No one else was hurt.

A twenty-year-old Scottish model who paraded in the nude at last year’s Edinburgh Festival was acquitted of charges of “shameless and indecent behavior.”

Covenant College of St. Louis announced the purchase of a resort hotel atop Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which will be turned into a new campus.

Personalia

Dr. Landrum R. Bolling elected president of the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities.

Dr. L. A. Slaght, pastor of the First United Baptist Church of Lowell, Massachusetts, named editor of The Watchman-Examiner. He succeeds Dr. John W. Bradbury, who is retiring after twenty-five years at the helm of the independent Baptist weekly.

Dr. Winburn T. Thomas named secretary of the United Presbyterian Department of Interpretation and Stewardship.

The Rev. Raymond L. Wiechmann named executive secretary of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s General Board for Home Missions.

Msgr. John Tracy Ellis resigned as professor of church history at the Catholic University of America to take up a similar post at the University of San Francisco. He had charged publicly that Catholic University has been undergoing a “type of suppression” for nearly a decade.

They Say

“You are to be commended for your determination, the way in which you harnessed your skill and disciplined your spirit. Your country and your church are proud of you.”—President Oliver P. Harms of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, welcoming home Davis Cup champion Chuck McKinley.

“Millions of churchmen are merely backseat Christians willing to be observers, ready to criticize or to applaud, but not willing even to reconsider the possibility of real participation.”—Dr. D. Elton True-blood, in an address at the New England Conference on Evangelism.

After a poll conducted among British booksellers, London’s Sunday Telegraph has published its best-seller list for 1963. Not surprisingly, Morris West, Daphne du Maurier, Ian Fleming, and Agatha Christie are to be found in the first dozen, but none of these occupies a place in the leading quartet, three of which are nonfiction. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, that most staid of all publishing houses, rocketed into the limelight with The Denning Report, which ranked fourth. Third was Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, its sales predictably boosted by a court case. The New English Bible, published in March, 1961, was still a strong second. But the man whose year it was, and whose name, like that of Abou Ben Adhem, led all the rest, was John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, who caused a shaking of the foundations in England with his paperback Honest to God (see Current Religious Thought, June 21, 1963).

A subtle feature of this book is the way in which the bishop adroitly covers himself on occasion by professing merely to be “raising the question” and “thinking aloud.” But by many whose faith is shaky or whose intellectual grasp is limited, this technique may be dimly comprehended as doubts uttered with all the weight of the episcopal office behind them. To such criticism Dr. Robinson points to the prophetic as an integral and neglected aspect of his ministerial office. This simply will not do. As the Church Times puts it: “Since when was ‘talking aloud’ equated with prophecy? There is not much of ‘Thus saith the Lord’ about Honest to God.” A bewildered English factory worker said, “What I get in the canteen is that they always said there isn’t a personal God, and now one of the bishops has said so too.” The principal of one Anglican theological college reported that two of his students had lost their faith as a result of reading the book. Peter Howard, Frank Buchman’s successor, in his New Year message to the European Assembly for Moral Re-Armament, appealed to people to “call the bluff of beatnik bishops and intellectual confidence tricksters who use their brains to destroy the conscience of our community.”

Even secular writers have after the manner of their kind expressed disapproval. Noted columnist Michael Frayn of The Observer, taking his cue from an article by Robinson in that paper, found in the book a clarion call to join the Our-Image-of-God-Must-Go Movement, but ventured a complaint: “There’s nothing in this new scheme, so far as I can see, about the Wonderful Free Gift Offer that life subscribers got under the old system.” And that is as good a commentary as any. Alasdair MacIntyre, no friend of Christianity, ran true to form when he concluded a scathing review in Encounter thus: “The creed of the English is that there is no God and that it is wise to pray to him from time to time.”

The SCM Press, London, and the Westminster Press, Philadelphia, have now published some reactions to Robinson’s book under the title The Honest to God Debate. It costs a fraction more, but is twice as long as the original work. More than 100,000 had been ordered before it was ready. The book is edited by the British publisher, David L. Edwards, who writes also the opening chapter on “A New Stirring in English Christianity.” Dr. Robinson himself has contributed in unrepentant vein an essay unhelpfully entitled “The Debate Continues,” and among other articles a place has mysteriously been found for part of John Macquarrie’s inaugural lecture, “How Is Theology Possible?,” at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Of special significance are the two chapters that incorporate respectively some readers’ letters and some reviews. During the first three months after his first bombshell hit Britain the bishop received more than a thousand letters. Fifty of these are now reproduced wholly or partly. Only five are hostile. It was made clear that although many critical letters were received, more were not printed lest “it might be thought that the Bishop and his publisher were seeking to hold them up to ridicule.” While this leaves an impression of gentlemanly conduct, it poses also a lot of unanswered questions. In the following chapter twenty-three reviews are printed, not one of which expresses the conservative evangelical viewpoint. On this occasion we are not assured that the utterances were suppressed for the conservative good. An editor who in his preface stresses the importance of “assessing the climate of opinion,” yet admits to writing “with a bias,” will not be surprised if at this point some of his readers familiar with another brand of whimsy are found murmuring:

“I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,” said cunning old Fury;

“I’ll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.”

The preface does mention, however, the bare fact that Dr. J. I. Packer has written a reply to Robinson’s book, called Keep Yourselves from Idols (Church Book Room Press, London, one shilling). Librarian of Latimer House, Oxford, the evangelical Anglican research center, Packer suggests that in mutilating the Christian message “the bishop is not, as he thinks, rescuing the perishing; he is merely sinking the lifeboat.” In a calm, logical, and scholarly manner, completely devoid of the “unrestrainedly emotional” kind of attack that Mr. Edwards so discounts, Packer makes four criticisms of the bishop’s teaching. Only the merest summary is possible here:

1. It does not stand up by itself. Invoking the category of love to one’s neighbor as the criterion of behavior is something which lacks precision and can be defined “only in terms of the gospel of grace that Dr. Robinson has abandoned.”

2. It makes true worship impossible, for the bishop’s “God” is not a person, has done nothing to be praised for, and, as merely an aspect of “the depth in me,” must involve self-worship. Similarly, the bishop’s Jesus may not be worshiped, for he was not God in any personal sense.

3. It denies Christianity, for it offers a choice, not between two images of the same God, but (in Packer’s words) “between two Gods, two Christs, two histories, and ultimately two religions.… And if Robinsonianism is accepted, the faith of the Apostles’ Creed is rejected.”

4. It misconceives both the nature of the Word of God and its relation to the world of men, and has such an utterly inadequate conception of Christianity that it is in fact a new idolatry.

Concluding his twenty-page booklet, which is a model of lucidity, Packer carries the fight into the enemy camp by asserting that a truer and profounder radicalism is found in “those who, in face of the shibboleth that ‘modern man’ is entirely different from any man before him, are bold enough to maintain that the Bible is still right, that God is still on the throne, that the risen Christ is still mighty to save, that man remains the sinner he always was, that the apostolic gospel is still ‘the power of God unto salvation,’ and that not even such great mistakes [as Robinson’s] can finally stop its course, or thwart its triumph.”

How is a Christian responsible to God for the use of his free time? This issue deals with several of the more important aspects of leisure in the context of harried modern life. The editors feel that leisure represents a vast area deserving of continuing Christian inquiry (see the editorial on page 20). More articles on the subject are scheduled for future issues.

Related to the proper use of leisure is the Christian’s responsibility in good works. One area needful of the time and effort of many more evangelicals is that of mental retardation. For a survey of this need, see Mrs. Hampton’s article on page 12.