FACULTY ISSUE 













Columbia Theological Sem 

Bulleti 



COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BULLETIN 
Volume LLX December, 1966 No. 4 



Published five limes a year by Columbia Theological Seminary, Box 520, 
Decatur, Georgia 30031. Entered as second-class matter, May 9, 1928, at 
the Post Office at Decatur, Ga., under the Act of Congress of August 24, 
1912. Second-class postage paid at Decatur, Georgia. 



CONTENTS 

Page 
FOREWORD By J. McDowell Richards 2 

ARTICLES 

"Witnesses To Glory" 3 

... By J. Will Ormond 

"Discontent  The Lever of Change" 6 

... By Frank B. Davis 

"On The Boundary: The Minister as Catalyst" 12 

... By Charles V. Gerkin 

"John Calvin: Director of Missions" 17 

... By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes 

"On The Road to Damascus" 25 

... By William C. Robinson 

REVIEWS 

Donald J. McGinn John Penry and the Marprelate Controversy 31 

... By Stuart Barton Babbage 
Martin Buber The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism 31 

... By Ludwig R. Dewitz 
Angus Fletcher Allegory, The Theory of a Symbolic Mode 32 

... By Ronald S. Wallace 

Charles F. Pfeiffer (ed) The Biblical World: A Dictionary of 33 

Biblical Archaeology 

... By Dean G. McKee 

J. M. Cameron Images of Authority: A Consideration of the 34 

Concepts of Regnum and Sacerdotium 

... By Richard E. Sanner 

Joachim Jeremias The Eucharistic Words of Jesus 35 

... By Charles B. Cousar 

John B. Grimley and Gordon F. Robinson Church Growth in 36 

Central and South- 
ern Nigeria 
... By Dean G. McKee 

Walter Kunneth The Theology of the Resurrection 36 

... By Charles B. Cousar 

Bernard Eugene Meland The Secularization of Modern Cultures 36 

... By Richard B. Sanner 

Michael Walzer The Revolution of the Saints: A Study of the 36 

Origins of Radical Politics 

... By Stuart Barton Babbage 

D. Z. Phillips The Concept of Prayer 37 

... By Paul T. Fuhrmann 

J. G. Davies The Early Christian Church 38 

... By Stuart Barton Babbage 

SHORTER REVIEWS 39 



FOREWORD 

The pages which follow contain five significant messages delivered by 
men intimately associated with the life of Columbia Theological Seminary 
during the calendar year, 1966. Four of these were written by professors 
of the institution and one by a member of its Board of Directors. While one 
of the addresses was prepared for delivery at another seminary, the others 
were first presented before audiences assembled on our Decatur campus. 

The devotional message on WITNESSES TO GLORY was heard as 
a sermon preached at a chapel service during October by Rev. J. Will 
Ormond, who came to Columbia Seminary this fall as Associate Professor 
of Biblical Exposition. 

The stimulating treatment of DISCONTENT THE LEVER OF 
CHANGE constituted the graduation address delivered here at Commence- 
ment Exercises on June 6. Its author, Dr. Frank B. Davis, is Head of the 
Department of Speech at Auburn University, a ruling elder of the Auburn 
Presbyterian Church, and a Director of this institution. 

Rev. Charles V. Gerkin is Executive Director of the Georgia Association 
of Pastoral Care and for several years has served here as Visiting Professor 
of Clinical Pastoral Training. His address entitled, ON THE BOUNDARY 
 THE MINISTER AS CATALYST, was a part of the seminary's pro- 
gram during the first week of the current session. It provides helpful and 
provocative insights into some of the problems of pastoral leadership in 
our day. 

The discussion of JOHN CALVIN: DIRECTOR OF MISSIONS by 
Dr. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Guest Professor of New Testament, was de- 
livered in March at Calvin College and The Western Theological Seminary, 
Holland, Michigan. It contains a needed corrective to many misinterpreta- 
tions of the great Reformer, and a valuable footnote to the study of Missions. 

Dr. William C. Robinson, Professor of Church History, Church Polity, 
and Apologetics, deals with a theme which, as he indicates, was the subject 
of his first address as a teacher in this institution in the fall of 1926  ON 
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS. In this fact, as in his treatment of the 
subject, there is a reminder of the unchanging nature of the Gospel in 
a changing world. 

The writer, as a member of the seminary's entering class, heard Dr. 
Robinson's first message in the one time carriage house which for so many 
years served as this institution's humble Chapel on the old campus in 
Columbia, S. C. He also heard the revised version of the address which 
constituted the opening message of the 1966-67 school year at the exercises 
held in the lovely sanctuary of the Columbia Presbyterian Church last 
September. The contrast between the two places of worship and the equip- 
ment on the two campuses was striking in the highest degree. The improve- 
ment in the seminary's facilities and the great enlargement in its faculty 
and student body during these forty years challenge us today to inquire 
whether we are in any real sense measuring up to our greater opportunities. 
The problems and the possibilities of our world are new, but the ultimate 
needs of men remain unaltered. We shall be unworthy of the able and 
devoted men who served so well in the old Columbia if we do not con- 
stantly seek for better ways in which to fulfill our ministry. 

J. McDowell Richards 



WITNESSES TO GLORY 

J. Will Ormond 

". . . they saw his glory . . ." 

Luke 9:32 

In Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass there is a conver- 
sation between Humpty Dumpty and Alice which goes like this: 

" 'There's glory for you.' 
'I don't know what you mean by glory,' Alice said. 
I meant "There's a nice knock-down argument for you." 
'But glory doesn't mean a nice knock-down argument,' Alice objected. 
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone. 
'It means just what I choose it to mean  neither more or less'." 1 

"The glory of God" is a phrase which rolls rather easily from our 
liturgical lips, but for which we might be hard put to give a precise defini- 
tion. In fact, it may mean just what we choose it to mean  neither more 
nor less. For example, we can sometimes convince ourselves that a particular 
line of action which we very much want to follow is for "the glory of God." 
Or we may take the phrase in both hands and swinging it 'round our heads 
like a club make of it a "nice knock-down argument" with which to 
devastate our theological opponents. For after all, our interpretation is for 
"the glory of God", while theirs, since it differs from mine, obviously is 
not. Or we may sometimes use the word "glory" simply to embroider our 
Sunday morning language and make it sound particularly religious without 
thinking at all seriously about what we mean by it. 

But "glory" as we find it used in the Scriptures is no vague decoration 
on the fringe of the garment of religion; rather it is of the very fabric of 
revelation. At least one writer of note, Dr. Michael Ramsey, present arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, has written of the word "glory": "The word ex- 
presses in a remarkable way the unity of the doctrines of Creation, the 
Incarnation, the Cross, the Spirit, the Church and the world-to-come.'' 2 

A word which is able to do all this must be rich and complex indeed 
in its connotations, but it is not our purpose to go into all its implications 
here. However, it is safe to say that when the writers of Scripture speak 
of the glory of God they are not setting forth a "nice knock-down argu- 
ment" for the existence of God. Rather they are expressing in awesome 
wonder and proclaiming in vivid figure the almost incredible truth that the 
very God is present in this world and that, by His grace, men may appre- 
hend his presence. Or to put it in a much simpler sentence  perhaps far 
too simple: To speak of the glory of God is a way of saying that God 
is here and that we can see him. 

The Old Testament pictures of the glory of God were ways of saying 
that God was present with his people. The lightning and the thunder, the 
fire and the smoke may seem to our modern minds only meteorological 
disturbances which impressed the superstitious. But through the insight 
of faith Moses and the people of Israel saw the cloud which settled on Mt. 



1. Quoted in Ramsey, A. M. The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ, 
p. 6. 

2. Ibid, pg. 5. 

3 



Sinai as the glory of God; it was the visible manifestation of God's presence. 
As the book of Exodus tells us, "Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, 
because the Lord descended upon it in fire" (Ex. 19:18). "The glory of 
the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. . . . Now 
the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the 
top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel." (Ex. 24:16, 17). 

These awesome phenomena said to the people, "God is here; he speaks 
to us, and what he speaks we must do." The cloud which covered the tent 
of meeting and the glory of God which filled the tabernacle  this was 
visible evidence in the sight of Israel that the Lord was here, dwelling, 
tabernacling with his people, guiding, overshadowing, shepherding them 
along their journey to the promised land. The last words of Exodus are: 
"For throughout all their journeys the cloud of the Lord was upon the 
tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house 
of Israel." (Ex. 40:38). 

Prophets who were almost overwhelmed with the knowledge of God 
expressed that realization in accounts of visions of the glory of God. 
Isaiah at worship in the temple is bold to say that he saw the Lord seated 
upon a throne, high and lifted up. The foundations of the temple shook. 
The house was filled with smoke, and Isaiah felt himself unclean and in- 
significant in the presence of the holiness of God. But in his vision of God's 
glory Isaiah learned that the holiness of God  his utter uniqueness, his 
burning purity  are not impenetrable walls of flame which isolate and 
insulate God from his world and from his people. It was the sense of the 
presence  the "hereness"  of the glory of God, the realization that God 
had come to the place where Isaiah was now which caused him to cry out 
for mercy. But although he knew that "God is here", he also learned that 
God's glory is not localized nor confined to places set apart for formal 
worship, but that "the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah 
found as well that holiness is expressed not only in veiling clouds of smoke, 
but also in the forgiving, cleansing initiative of God who purges the unclean 
lips of his servant and commissions him to proclaim His word. 

Still another prophet, Ezekiel, saw the glory of God as a dazzling bril- 
liance of gleaming splendor seated upon a throne  "the appearance of fire 
enclosed round about" (Ezek. 1:27). Ezekiel fell on his face before the 
brightness of the throne. He dared not raise his eyes nor his voice. He 
waited for the One upon the throne to speak to him. The response to glory 
is worship, awe, reverence. This was true with Moses and the people of 
Israel; the people kept their distance, and Moses himself approached the 
cloud with fear and trembling. Isaiah cried for mercy; Ezekiel fell upon his 
face. 

These Old Testament pictures of the glory of God remind us that God 
is here and that we can see him, but they also say to us that we cannot look 
upon that sight with casual, undazzled eyes nor saunter into that Presence 
with our hands in our pockets. He who deals with us is the God of majesty 
and mystery, of holiness and power, of sovereignty and light unapproachable. 
When this truth breaks in upon us then it makes all the more amazing the 
fact that the glory of God is best expressed and most clearly revealed in 
the life of a man  the man Christ Jesus. 

For if the glory of God is the visible manifestation of his Presence, if 
it is to say that God is here and we can see him, then where is this more 



plainly set forth than in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? 
For if the coming of Christ says naught else, it says, "God is here  Em- 
manuel  God with us." 

"The Word became flesh and dwelt  or tabernacled  among us, full 
of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son 
from the Father" (John 1:14). 

Illustrative of this truth is the experience granted to Peter, James and 
John, who, upon a mountain reminiscent of Mt. Sinai, "saw his glory." 
There was the dazzling brilliance of his own person; there was Moses and 
Elijah who knew about mountains and glory; there was the settling, over- 
shadowing cloud and the Voice from out the cloud, "This is my Son, my 
Chosen; listen to him." (Luke 9:35). 

Here is glory in visible form; but it shines through One who has recently 
told those who now see his glory that he is on the way to Jerusalem to die 
upon a Cross. It centers upon One who speaks with Moses and Elijah about 
his "exodus" which he will accomplish in Jerusalem. It gathers about One 
who truly dwells with men, who tabernacles with them so intimately as 
to know the weariness and pain of a human body, who shows compassion 
and concern for the lost and the lowliest, and who finally pours out his very 
life on behalf of sinful men. It is in such a man as this; it is in this par- 
ticular Man, that the glory of God is most clearly seen. 

For surely the Gospel writers did not mean to say that the glory of 
God was revealed in Jesus Christ only in that mysterious, flashing moment 
on the Mount of Transfiguration. Rather they used the experience of the 
Transfiguration to say, "God is here in Jesus Christ; he who has seen him 
has seen the Father." 

If this be true, then the glory of God is best expressed not in billowing 
clouds and lightning flashes but in His own self-giving, in his own sovereign 
condecension in taking upon Himself the form of a servant. This would 
seem to say that the road to glory leads to a Cross and that the exaltation 
of Resurrection must be preceded by the utter surrender of self. It is to say 
that if we wish to see the glory of God, we must see it in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 

It is no light and easy thing to see the glory of God in the man, Christ 
Jesus. Thus to see God's glory requires the gift of the insight of faith. 
But once we have seen that glory, once we have recognized who he is, once 
we have received what he offers us in his own self-giving  our forgiveness 
and redemption  then we must respond in reverent worship, in grateful 
obedience, in surrender to his lordship. One cannot be indifferent to a 
vision of glory. 

When we have committed ourselves to Jesus Christ, we stand in the 
circle of his glory, and if we do, it is for us in our humanity to reflect 
a measure of the glory which he manifested completely in his human life. 
Something of that same self-giving, something of that same concern for 
the lost and the lowliest, something of that same surrender of self must 
show forth itself in us. For it was the Lord of Glory who said to those 
who claimed to be his own, "Let your light so shine before men, that they 
may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." 
(Matt. 5:16). 

It is of the mysterious grace of God that he reveals his glory to us 
at all; it is of his infinite love that he reveals his glory in Christ Jesus, 



our Lord. To such a grace, to such a love, to such a glory we can do no 
other than respond with adoration, with worship and with obedience. 

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy, as it was in 
the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." 



DISCONTENT  THE LEVER OF CHANGE 

Frank B. Davis 

You realize from the introduction just heard that you have the rather 
unusual situation today of a layman addressing a group of theologians. Or 
if the term "theologians" is a bit too complimentary at least you are a group 
trained for the ministry  some of you may become theologians. But you 
are far more learned in theology and homiletics and Biblical history and 
Greek and Hebrew and Biblical interpretation than any layman can possibly 
be. Therefore, I feel it would be presumptuous of me to bring you anything 
other than a layman's message. That is what I propose to do. I know you 
are used to approaching any subject by way of a text  a chapter, a verse 
or series of verses which states succinctly a basic thought to be developed. 

Therefore, may I quote to you some random verses from which I would 
take my text. Quotations from Chapter II of a book published in 1954 and 
one probably not too frequently quoted by your professors. The book is 
Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck. 

Steinbeck's main character "Doc" is meditating to himself; he thinks 
"how few men like their work, their lives  indeed how few men like 
themselves." And Steinbeck says of Doc that "Discontent nibbled at him  
not painfully but constantly: 

Have I worked enough? 

What has my life meant so far? 

What have I contributed in the Great Ledger? 

What am I worth? 
Discontent is when a man stops and thinks: 

"What am I thinking? 

What do I want? 

Where do I want to go?" 

"There would be wonder in such a man and a little impatience as 

though he stood outside and looked in on himself through a glass shell." 

Finally Steinbeck sums it all up neatly by having Doc ask himself, "Isn't 
discontent the lever of change?" 

Discontent  the lever of change. 

Discontent has been observed in man for a great many centuries. His- 
torically its puzzling characteristics and origins have been the concern of 
philosophers. Plato in The Republic, Book IV suggests that "Wealth is the 
parent of luxury and indolence; poverty of meanness and viciousness; and 
both of discontent." Today's wealth, "the good life" and other cliches dealing 
with the affluent society seem to many to be tranquilizers of any type of 
discontent. 



Plato in The Phaedrus written in the 4th Century B.C. has the character 
Socrates give a prayer to the God Pan which is, I think, one of the most 
beautiful requests of one who wishes to put discontent aside: "Grant," asks 
Socrates of Pan, "that I may be beautiful in the inner man; and that all 
I have of worldly possessions be in harmony with those within. Let me judge 
only the wise man to be rich and let my store of gold be only what 
a soberminded man can bear." Discontent would certainly be foreign to 
a man if such a prayer were granted. Fortunately, perhaps, such a prayer 
is seldom granted. 

Socrates, the man, speaks and teaches of the worthiness of discontent 
with anything but "the good." "The good" or "truth" was of primary im- 
portance to Socrates and Aristotle; the latter of course stressed at great 
length that "truth" and "justice" must be discovered and defended. Any 
man was to suffer discontent until he discovered, upheld and maintained 
the standards of truth and justice which we may today too blithely attribute 
solely to our "Christian way of life." Many virtuous and noble ambitions 
of man stem from the start of recorded history  discontent among them. 
Aristotle felt that young men were probably not concerned much with dis- 
content. In The Rhetoric he observes that "The young are not cynical [or 
discontented], but believe in human goodness . . . they are trustful, for as 
yet they have not seen many examples of vice. They are trustful, for as 
yet they have not been often deceived . . . They live their lives for the most 
part in hope as hope is of the future and for young men the future is long." 

According to Walter Pater, Marius, the Epicurian, had a modern and 
up-to-date approach when he said, "The aim of a true philosopher must lie. 
not in futile efforts towards the complete accommodation of man to the 
circumstances in which he chances to find himself but, in the maintenance 
of a kind of candid discontent in the face of the very highest achievement." 
Note the phrase  "Candid discontent in the face of the very highest 
achievement." This historic approach to discontent permits its application 
to any situation  no matter how well done the task, how perfect the results, 
no matter how satisfied we might be; "maintenance of a candid discontent" 
leaves us a challenge. 

One last reference to historical discontent  which as you recognize is 
also describing and identifying my text  the philosopher Edmund Spenser 
had at one time an interesting comment on discontent. "What hell it is," he 
said, "To wait long nights in pensive discontent." Hell has been described 
in many ways and attributed to many situations  however carrying dis- 
content this far, as may be done, is, I think, going to far. 

Apparently there are two dichotomies of discontent, positive and nega- 
tive, of which the latter is the more unsatisfactory and the less rewarding. 
Negative discontent is perhaps best illustrated by the stereotyped picture of 
the professional, or at least semi-professional "Again'er," the person to 
whom a new idea, a different way of doing something, a so-called "pro- 
gressive" act contemplated by any person, official or institution, is greeted 
by at least questioned suspicion if not downright hostility. And many times 
before even a causal, much less thorough and dispassionate, study can be 
made. I remember as a youngster I laughed at the old, time-honored crack 
that an elderly man may make to the effect that he has seen a great deal 
of progress made in his community during the last 50 years and he's been 
"agin" all of it. In my youth that was humorous  I knew no one could 



possibly be like that. Now, I personally know a few people who are exactly 
like that. They are imbued with such a negativism that one wonders how 
they can enjoy life  and I fully believe some of them don't. It's amazing 
that some men  even ministers  expect God's world and His people 
to be static dullards; not to try and try again and again to find better ways 
of conquering His world, of understanding His works Biblically and in 
nature; to feel that God would be pleased with a people who have the 
colossal egotism to say "We now have the best of all possible worlds," we 
understand you, God, and know your wishes so completely that theology, 
archeology, linguistic studies and other intellectual pursuits of Your world 
and word can be halted  such type of negative reasoning is not only 
surprising but it is unfortunately not out of the bounds of possibility even 
in our denomination. I hope you personally will not be a party to that 
kind of discontent. 

Dag Hammarskjold has vividly described a personal negative approach. 
He pictures a man driving across the country on his vacation when "de- 
scending into the valley, at the last curve he lost control of the car. As 
it toppled over the bank at the side of the road, his only thought was 'At last 
my job's done.' His one, weary, happy thought. It wasn't so. He would go 
on living but not go on with this journey. When he came to and the solid 
world again took shape around him, he could hardly keep back his tears  
tears of self-pity and disappointment because his vacation plans had been 
ruined." Note  he accepts death but weeps at the loss of a vacation trip. 

"The one reaction," say Hammarskjold, "was no less genuine than the 
other. We may be willing to turn our backs on life, but we still complain 
like children when life does not grant our wishes." 

Personal discontent  yes, develop it; but not of the variety that has 
its entire existence on being negative, always against. Rather cultivate, 
if you please, a positive, personal discontent. This can, I realize, sometimes 
be a dangerous thing. Psychiatrists and mental health clinics are kept busy 
by 20th century man who has advanced far in a great many areas of knowl- 
edge but may have lagged considerably in knowledge of himself. Remember, 
to be self-critical is not to be self-debasing. Do your best yet accept the fact 
that your best may not be good enough. To be able to live successfully with 
yourself, however, should include some self appraisal, some introspection, 
some discontent, even with yourself; but to get acquainted with yourself may 
be most difficult. Not that you are really difficult to know, but to get to 
know anyone has to be done over a period of time, time spent alone together. 

One of the valuable things man of the 1960's has practically removed 
from his life is time to be alone. You'll find, as you probably already have, 
that after the committees have met, the sermon has been prepared, the 
minimum family demands met, and so on and on, that suddenly you need 
a 30 hour day and nine day week. That's not good. Any man, and especially 
a minister who's dealing with man and his relationships with his fellow man 
and God, needs some time just to sit and think. So I urge you to keep some 
time for your own, schedule it, insist on having it. You will need time to 
organize your thoughts on what things to think about as well as what you 
think about things. You need time to daydream, to plan ahead, to chase 
speculations up many a road. Time to reflect on the past. 

Oddly enough an amazing number of people never try to find this time. 
They apparently don't really want to. We live in a world that makes available 

8 



1 



destructions of solitude in myriads of forms. We have become used to them 
to the point that silence, quietness, thought, meditation or prayer are seldom 
part of us. For example: you get in your car to go downtown  since all 
of us can drive automatically, on goes the radio; you may have to dial 
some before you find a station that won't cause nausea but you can and 
in doing so you have lost an opportunity for a quiet drive where you could 
have several minutes alone. Another example. I'm continually surprised at 
people who simply don't like to be in their own company. People who will 
say to me, as one friend did yesterday, "Going to Atlanta? Who's going with 
you? By yourself? Long trip over there  wish I could go along to keep 
you company." Now I like that man but to be frank I didn't want him 
along. I'd saved up at least three things to think about while driving over 
here and I didn't want him messing them up. Incidentally, isn't it tragic for 
a man to anticipate only depressing boredom when he faces the prospects 
of his own company for a couple of hours? I must confess I like me. I like 
to spend sometime occasionally in my company and I sincerely hope you 
feel the same way about you. I suggest to you that time alone will not only 
be fun but be profitable if used with some degree of positive, personal 
discontent with yourself. 

The German Chancellor Bismarck once remarked something to the effect 
that in history one-third of the German university students broke down 
from overwork and dissipation, one-third continued to exist, but the other 
one-third ruled Germany. How far will the parallel go with you  this 
graduating class twenty or thirty years from today? Will one-third of you 
have disappeared into breakdown or oblivion, to be remembered at reunions 
only by the phrase, "Oh, him? I don't know  whatever did happen to 
him?" Will one-third of you just be around striving for little more than 
existence? Will one-third of you be the leaders of the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States? Our denomination will continue to develop and be 
worthwhile only in proportion to the trained, dedicated, progressive, intelli- 
gent persons who can give leadership. To be in that number you will have 
to develop the fine art of discontent; a positive, calm, calculated, personal 
discontent can help bring you into the top one-third  the leaders in the 
future. 

A second kind of positive discontent has to do with society; human, 
man-to-man relationships. To work toward an ideal is the calling of a min- 
ister. Perhaps to expect man ever to live in Christ-like relationship with his 
fellowman is too ideal, but it's a dream worth working on. Doc in Sweet 
Thursday points out that "Man owes something to man . . . the quality of 
his gift is the measure of the man." As ministers your gift is complete, it 
is yourself. You have laboriously trained to serve your fellow man in many 
ways, but always with the ultimate goal of bringing him in harmony with 
God, with his fellow man and with himself; and all three of these are in- 
extricably entwined, bound up, part of each other. They must be achieved 
simultaneously. Your authority is in the testaments; your example of a com- 
mander is Christ. Adlai Stevenson once said that statesmanship "consists 
sometimes not so much in knowing what to do ultimately as in what to 
do now." That will be one of your greatest problems, I think, how to 
interpret to your people what to do "Now." The "ultimate," the distant 
future, can be much simpler, much easier and much safer. Exhort your 
people to "do good," "follow the examples of the Biblical saints," and "be 



a good Christian." (You know, that phrase has always struck me as 
tautology.) Those are phrases and sermons unworthy of a Christ who drove 
out the money changers, who went against many of the old, comfortable, 
established ways and who also said "Come unto me all ye. . . ." Knowing 
what to do "now" is in many instances a problem, a discontent beyond our 
abilities and of course, we run the danger of deciding we have discovered 
the one, the exact road to a solution  and that is extremely unlikely. 

Biblical quotations are abundant to suggest rather strongly that Christ 
felt that many of his fundamental principles should be practiced with, for, 
by and on society and our fellowman. It has been said that a university or 
even a person's education generally reflects rather than molds the culture 
of the society in which it functions. This should not be true of the Christian. 
He does not reflect society  he should reflect Christ and he should mold 
society. This approach to a truly living, vital relationship with Christ can 
be troublesome. Many voices will tell you to keep Christ, religion, the 
Church out of the market place, out of politics, out of society. I'm aware 
that there are many definitions of "fundamentalism." That idea  Keep 
Christ, the church, or religion for Sunday only  is one, or part of one. 
This type of "fundamentalism" is a problem to some Presbyterians. But 
please notice that Presbyterians are much more a problem to such "funda- 
mentalists." For the Presbyterian Church in the United States is a community 
of "truth-seekers," a community of Christ's people who take seriously his 
admonition of going "into the world;" and such people are a terrible frustra- 
tion to fundamentalists who tend to resent and resist the 20th century and 
are probably dubious about even re-reading Calvin. 

I don't wish to suggest that you go out and become social reformers, 
but any minister who is worthy of the name and all it implies must see 
that all is not well between God's people and must surely feel an urge to, on 
occasion, associate himself with trying to bring man and society to a better 
understanding of themselves and their relationship with God and His ideals 
for men. You are, of course, familiar with Harvey Cox and his views. 
Valuable to be sure, but I like this statement made by Dr. Rene Williamson, 
"It has become the fashion to describe secular and secularization as 'good' 
words ... If all that was meant by this view was that Christ is the Lord 
of all creation and not of the church only, that God is not confined to 
ecclesiastical channels but speaks and acts outside as well as inside the 
church, there would be no objection. John Calvin made this point with far 
less ambiguity a long time ago. But the contemporary version treats secular- 
ization as the opposite of sanctification." 

God is concerned with His people  their society, their relationships 
one with another. And for you also to be concerned, to have a desire to 
improve society when an opportunity presents itself may not always be 
popular but it will be a manifestation of positive discontent which will be 
in keeping with the young man of Jerusalem who not only thought and 
desired but did something about the money changers. 

So I would ask that you address some part of your ministry of discontent 
to society, to man and his relationships with his fellow man. You'll be on 
solid theological ground when you do. But the pitfalls are many. I remember 
Dag Hammarskjold in one of his speeches once said, "When the devil 
wishes to play on our lack of character, he calls it tolerance; when he wants 
to stifle our first attempts to learn tolerance, he calls it lack of character." 

10 



Finally, I recommend to you a positive discontent in your relationship 
not only with yourself and with society but with God. There has been, and 
there will be many times in the future, occasions when you feel close to 
God, when you feel you understood your place in His scheme of things. 
Also there will be occasions when you will feel unsure, alone, confused. 
Expect this. No skill of mind or body can be retained, much less improved, 
without constant use or practice. And I think the skills of the spirit are 
parallel. Certainly there are some Biblical passages, some action or word 
of Christ's which you find impossible to understand. But unless you continue 
to read, to study, to think, to ask God you can never expect to improve 
understanding. God doesn't change but we do. Use all the resources at your 
disposal  the centuries of Christians, your denomination with its rich 
heritage and current strengths and services  but most of all use the personal 
desire that you will, all your life, continue an unending search for God's 
truth: a search for the Mind of God, what God wants of you. This can be 
a perplexing and frustrating experience but one that we must all do. Perhaps 
to call it a skill is a poor description or parallel yet the connotation is of an 
activity which we must continue to the best of our ability, a perpetual search 
for a better understanding of our relationship with God and what He wishes 
us to do, to be. 

Your relationship with God is an ever changing relationship or perhaps 
it should be said that of the three ingredients involved; God, the relationship 
and you, that really the only one that changes is you. God is the same always, 
there with the same, hard-to-keep demands on our lives, actions and thoughts. 
Our relationship to Him changes only as we change. Man, you and I, is 
continually experiencing, learning. We are never the same "yesterday, today 
and forever." That was not said of man. Man and his problems are the 
most fluctuating, the most fluid imaginable. But, fortunately, God's prin- 
ciples, His commands, His entreaties, remain the same so it becomes a matter 
of each individual carrying out to the best of his understanding and ability 
these entreaties, commands, principles, as they speak to him, to his society, 
to his relationship with God. 

This approach decries the "God is dead," or the "keep God out of life 
or politics or economics" cults. But remember true Presbyterians are a prob- 
lem for these cults. For as I have said before the true Presbyterian is an 
individual and a community of "truth-seekers," continually studying, evaluat- 
ing, testing his understanding and faith in the present, current world and 
such an individual and group are a terrible frustration to those cults who 
think all problems are neatly answered with cliches from the "good old days." 

In this continued discontent of trying to find an improved individual 
relationship with God we are not on our own, not alone struggling with 
difficult questions. We have at our disposal what Roger Shinn has called 
"the Resources of a Pilgrim People." These resources are three: 1  History, 
as given in the Bible and as our own experience: 2  a Mission, the goals, 
purposes for our own lives; and 3  the Church, a community of faith 
where we may not necessarily be protected but will be sustained, guided, 
helped. 

So I recommend to you a positive discontent  when a man stops and 
in the quiet of his own mind evaluates and develops plans to improve him- 
self; to improve his relationships with his fellowman and society; to improve 
his relationship with God. 

11 



This is my layman's message to you: 

May this positive discontent always nibble at you  not painfully but 
constantly; discontent  the lever of change. 



ON THE BOUNDARY: The Minister as Catalyst 

Charles V. Getkin 

When Dr. Richards invited me to speak for this occasion he gave me 
a rather free rein while suggesting that my address might appropriately have 
something to say about the nature of pastoral care. Someone else on the 
faculty suggested I might focus on the changing role of the pastor in con- 
temporary society. Like most preachers, I suppose, I tend to feel that I can 
do my best speaking out of my own current concerns, the things that 
trouble or attract me most right now. Happily, the suggestions received from 
Dr. Richards and my faculty colleagues point in the direction of one of 
my current deepest concerns, so it is with some feeling of personal involve- 
ment that I address myself to the question of the meaning of pastoral 
leadership in the church and the world of our time. 

The question might be put this way: "In a world where gods are dying 
and cities are becoming secular, where the leaven of moral concern is some- 
times more readily apparent in the lump of federal legislation than it is 
in church policy, where many are saying that the Church has become 
irrelevant, what is the nature of the pastoral ministry? With what stance 
can the pastor approach his task? Is there a task that the ordained repre- 
sentative of the Gospel can not only rightly but relevantly perform? What 
kind of person does it take to fulfill this role? And, as a corollary question, 
how can the theological seminary prepare a man for so ambiguous and 
hard pressed a vocation?" 

Those of you who are just entering the seminary will soon find out, 
if you are not already aware of it, that you are beginning your theological 
studies at a time of crisis in the Church and in theological education. Pick 
up any journal for pastors, denominational or otherwise, and the evidence 
of crisis in the Church is readily apparent. One of the evidences one looks 
for in identifying crisis is the expression of radical views and strong feelings, 
for crisis breeds radicalism and the power of emotion. Certainly both are 
present in the Church. The result is that differences are being expressed in 
polemics. Everywhere churchmen are asking with great seriousness if 
Harvey Cox is right in his assumption that "the collapse of traditional 
religion is a necessary corollary to the emergence of an urban, technological 
society." 1 What is to be done with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "religionless 
Christianity"? Does this mean that we are to do away with all the traditional 
forms of religion, i.e., the worshipping congregation, the sacraments, the 
ritual of the eleven o'clock hour, perhaps even the sacred calling of the 
pastor-preacher-priest? Not only this, but radical polemics are just as evident 
in the world of theology itself. Altizer has received most of the publicity, 



1. Cox, Harvey, The Secular City, MacMillan Co. 1965. p. 1. 

12 



but his is not the only voice that is clamoring for radical changes in our 
way of thinking about the God-man relationship. 

Now let me make clear that I am not here to pose as an expert on 
Harvey Cox, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Altizer or any of the others. 
I cannot speak with authority either pro or con about what they represent. 
I allude to what these people are saying only to give substance to the point 
that we are in a time when Christian thought, the Church, and our calling 
as ministers of Christ are in crisis. If we are to become ministers of the 
Christian Gospel in the world in which we live we must forego the right to 
slip easily into well-formed molds and established patterns. For ours is not 
a comfortable time in Christian history and we must find the meaning of 
the pastoral ministry in the midst of polarities, conflicting claims, and 
confused notions about everything from the activity of God in the world to 
the nature of Christian human action. 

In the midst of this crisis where can we look for patterns, guidelines, 
models to follow in forming our identity as ministers of Christ? 

Paul Tillich in his little autobiographical sketch written some years ago, 
but recently re-published in this country, makes use of a symbolic expression 
in attempting to speak concerning the ground upon which he stood in his 
ministry that has been tremendously helpful to me as I have thought about 
these questions. He says that his life has been a life lived always "On the 
Boundary." 2 

For Tillich this boundary symbol had special and unique meanings. The 
polarities in his life were both personal and intellectual. But the boundary 
symbol is one which gathers up something of the struggle for integrity in 
the midst of crisis that characterizes our situation. To be on the boundary 
means to be pulled in two directions, to walk a narrow way between this 
and that, to be always correcting one's movement too far in a given 
direction, to be never fully at home anywhere, to be always saying, ''Yes, 
but on the other hand." In short, to walk the boundary means always to be 
in tension between competing claims. My thought is that perhaps here we 
may find a symbolic way of thinking about the ministry that will sustain 
us and give us direction in a troubled time in the Church. To be a minister 
in today's world is to be "on the boundary." What does it mean? 

First, to be a minister in today's world is to labor on the boundary 
between the Church and the world. 

I suppose there was a time when the pastor could find his calling largely 
as a chaplain to the faithful. His life could be lived out in tending the faithful 
flock of Christ as their lives were centered in the Church, for the Church 
was the community. I recall with warm remembrance one such church- 
centered rural community in which I spent a portion of my childhood out 
in the wheat country of central Kansas. My father was the pastor of the 
little church to which virtually every family in the community belonged. 
There were no other temples in the community and the corporate life of 
the people largely focused on that fellowship. My father was the shepherd 
of these faithful people. 

To a degree that is true today. There are still around every Church 
those faithful people whose lives are centered there and who look to the 
minister as their spiritual leader. And to be a minister one must be able 



2. Tillich, Paul, On the Boundary, Scribner's, 1966. 

13 



to be at home with God's faithful. That is not always easy. Their theology 
is often not very contemporary. Their vision of what the Church should 
be is often cramping and confining. Their expectations of the minister tend 
to be pretty conventional and may make of him more of an unearthly 
creature than he may care to be. Like Jesus, some of us may at times feel 
more at home with publicans and sinners than with the righteous. Never- 
theless, to be a minister one must be able to wear the garment of the 
shepherd of the faithful. 

But in the twentieth century, urban, technological world, many, if not 
most of the centers of activity have moved away from the Church. Our 
cities have new and different temples. The university, the merchandise 
mart, the commerce club, the union hall, the hospital, and even the inner 
city ghetto have taken their places alongside of, if not as replacements for, 
the Church as temples toward which men look for meaning, fellowship, 
guidance and direction. And for a great many people whose lives are 
centered around these shrines, the Church is off to one side, uninvolved 
if not irrelevant. Yet, if one listens carefully to the talk that goes on in 
these other temples, one finds here concern with burning issues that grow 
out of the ultimate questions of life. 

Let me point to just one example of what I mean  the so-called mental 
health movement. It is becoming increasingly clear that the twentieth 
century concern with man's health as a total person, his emotions, his 
attitudes, his relationships, his caughtness in a web of experience from 
which he cannot of his own volition escape  this concern is grappling with 
the same struggle of the human spirit with which Christian theology has 
always grappled. The language is different and the perspective is different, 
but the concern is the same. In mental health we speak of unconscious 
drives, repression, conflicts, identity confusion rather than sin, guilt, pride, 
and bondage. But the struggle of the human spirit that is our concern is 
the same struggle. 

My suggestion is that to be a minister in today's world one must learn 
to be at home in these other temples, these other centers of activity out in 
the world as well as in the Church. We must be able to walk the boundary 
between the Church and the world, at home in both, yet content to stay 
in neither. For you see this is a catalytic ministry  always relating the 
Church to the world and the world to the Church. This means experimenta- 
tion, innovation, renewal, dialog and all the rest. Most of all it means 
taking the risk that boundary walking always involves. Like the tight rope 
walker who must permit himself to lean first to one side and then the 
other if he is to walk without falling, the boundary line minister must be 
flexible enough to move back and forth between the Church and the world. 
Or, to use our other metaphor, like the catalytic agent, the minister must 
be able to nurture a process of reaction between the Church and the world 
without becoming lost in the process. That involves risk taking. 

There is a second boundary that the Christian minister in our time is 
called to walk. It is the boundary between the proclamation of what God 
has done and participation in what God is doing. 

It seems clear to me, though I may be taking the risk of oversimplifica- 
tion, that some of the polemics one finds in contemporary theology can be 
understood by pointing to this tension between proclamation and participa- 
tion. The struggle in theology seems in many respects to be a struggle 

14 



between those who would see theology's task primarily as the proclamation 
of the Biblical message concerning what God has done, on the one hand, 
and on the other those who, immersed in the world of contemporary affairs, 
are attempting to speak a theological word about what God and man are 
doing today. Another way to state this might be to say that the tension 
lies between the proclamation of the Word of Christ and the ministry in 
the spirit of his incarnation. 

Now there was a time when these two aspects of the ministry were not 
in such great tension. If we look at the history of pastoral care, for example, 
we can go back to a time when the language of pastoral care and the 
language of proclamation were much the same. In the care of souls the 
art of pastoral conversation used largely the Biblical images of sin and 
salvation, guilt and forgiveness, being lost and being saved. But in the 
contemporary world these realities are expressed by man in other languages 
having to do with inter-personal relationships, intra-psychic conflicts and 
anxiety. So much has the language of communication about the things of 
the spirit changed that for the modern pastor the art of finding the right 
metaphor of communication is now one of the most important arts in 
pastoral care. The pastor who is to minister in the spirit of Christ's in- 
carnation must be at home in the language with which men now describe 
their bondage. Modern man seldom asks, "What must I do to be saved?" 
But in other language he searches for the reality that Biblical symbol contains. 

As a pastoral counselor I sometimes experience the criticism of my fellow 
pastors for being too immersed in the language and method of psychology, 
psychiatry and psychotherapy. "What does the pastoral counselor do that 
is unique to his calling? Are you just psychotherapists in clerical garb? Where 
and how do you proclaim the Gospel?" we are asked. And for the pastor 
on the boundary between proclamation and participation there are important 
questions. On the other hand I find I am inclined to nod in agreement when 
a troubled parishioner tells me that his pastor cannot participate in his 
suffering and understand his struggle with life because he is too busy 
proclaiming the Word from his pulpit as well as in his study to listen and 
hear. Hear the tension? Proclaim what God has done or participate in what 
God is doing, which shall it be? 

This tension can be seen elsewhere in pastoral care. Dr. E. Jerry Walker 
in an article titled "Let Renewal Begin from Within," 3 quotes Will Oursler 
as saying that "Clergymen are forsaking the pulpit to fight for God in 
the slums, gambling joints and streets. Relevance is their credo." This is 
true. Participation in what God is doing has called many pastors in recent 
years to marches, housing authority meetings and the poverty programs. Dr. 
Walker quotes Time Magazine in response, however, as saying "Worship 
directed churches . . . still form the majority in the United States. The new 
kind of man directed church . . . still has to persuade millions of its Tightness 
in putting service before services." 

My suggestion again is that to be a minister of Christ in the midst 
of this tension is to walk the boundary and act as the catalyst, always 
relating what is the activity of God and God's people now to the ancient 
Biblical message of what God has done in Christ. To stand at one pole or 



3. Walker, E. Jerry, "Let Renewal Begin from Within" in The Christian Advo- 
cate, September 8, 1966, p. 7. 

15 



the other in this tension is to be only half a minister. We are then in 
danger of missing our calling from the Christ who said both, "I have come 
to fulfill the law and the prophets," and "You have heard it said by men 
of old, but I say unto you." Perhaps we need to learn more about the 
proclamation of the Gospel that takes place as we enter into the healing 
of that which is broken in our time and place. 

We asked in the beginning of these remarks concerning the person of 
the pastor who walks this boundary line of which we speak. What kind of 
person does it take to walk a narrow boundary with integrity? My experience, 
both as I have struggled to find integrity in Christ's ministry and as I have 
been involved rather intimately with a considerable number of young men 
in process of becoming pastors, tells me that this is where the crucial battle 
will be fought. Can one walk a boundary with integrity without simply 
becoming a fence straddler, "neither hot nor cold"? Is it possible to be 
"in the world and yet not of it"? Can one be a catalyst on the boundary 
and not be lost in the confusion of competing claims? 

My response to these questions is admittedly a biased one, biased, that 
is, by the limits as well as the opportunities of my own experience. Never- 
theless I am bold to make these suggestions. 

First, if you are to walk the boundary with integrity you must know 
yourself at some depth. Get acquainted with the shape of your own bondage. 
Learn some of the specifics of your own sinfulness, the ways in which your 
finite humanity can block you from being the instrument of God's Holy 
Spirit. If for no other reason, this is why every seminary student should 
have the experience of ministry under supervision such as we attempt to offer 
in the clinical pastoral care programs. More than this, learn to know your 
own assets, your talents, the special God-given capacities for relationship 
and leadership that are yours to offer. For, you see, if we are to be 
catalysts we must know who we are at some depth. 

Second, commit yourself to be God's man, not the one who brings God. 
If there is one thing I have learned in attempting to minister to people in 
all kinds of crises and conditions it is that I have very little control over 
whether or not God will be present or absent. God's providence is often 
present in a life or a situation in ways I do not recognize. I am constantly 
surprised by the mysterious way in which his Spirit is at work. And he seldom 
moves at my command. As a minister, I am called to be God's man, not his 
substitute. That means being a man in the fullest sense, not some unearthly 
creature uninvolved in the follies of ordinary men. What I am seeking here 
is the freedom the Gospel implies to be myself while trusting the Grace of 
God to be participant in my life and in the world. 

Finally, to be a minister on the boundary is to accept the tension of the 
boundary land, the discontent of being never fully at home. It is to risk 
having "nowhere to lay your head." And yet I would suggest that in the 
very acceptance of this tension that is essential to functioning as the 
catalytic agent the minister may learn something of the meaning of that 
peace that transcends human understanding which is of God. 



16 



JOHN CALVIN: DIRECTOR OF MISSIONS 

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes 

Prejudice dies hard; and there are few figures around which prejudice 
has accumulated more tenaciously than that of John Calvin. There are still 
many churchmen today who (though in this much vaunted ecumenical age 
they ought to know better) use the word "Calvinist" as an ecclesiastical term 
of abuse or a theological swear-word. We are repeatedly assured that mis- 
sionary or evangelistic activity was entirely incompatible with the character 
of John Calvin both as a man and as a theologian. The purpose of this paper 
is to demonstrate the falsity and injustice of this damning judgment. 

With regard to Calvin's personal character, it was for a long time a 
popular practice of his enemies to blacken his name as one of the most un- 
natural monsters ever to have been born. Today, however, no self-respecting 
historian would seek to perpetuate the details of the crude calumnies that 
have been invented against the person of Calvin. Indeed the evident sincerity 
of the desire of Roman Catholic scholars like Hans Kung to arrive at a fair 
and sympathetic understanding of the Reformers of the sixteenth century is 
as welcome as it is remarkable; so much so, that, by one of the strangest 
quirks of history, the fiercest detractors of John Calvin are now to be found 
among protestants rather than papists. Their hostility is no less damaging 
because it is necessarily restricted to the use of sweeping generalizations. It 
would not be difficult to draw up a catalogue of such slanders, but two or 
three examples from recent publications must suffice. According to the 
Roman Catholic author Erich Fromm, Luther and Calvin "belonged to the 
ranks of the greatest haters in history" [The Fear of Freedom, 194, p. 80]. 
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross, speaks 
of the "vindictiveness" of Calvin and describes him as "the unopposed 
dictator of Geneva [1957, p. 220]. R. H. Bainton has written that, "if Calvin 
ever wrote anything in favour of religious liberty, it was a typographical er- 
ror'' [Preface to his translation of Castellio's Concerning Heretics, 1935, 
p. 74]. That even so admirable a historian as A. G. Dickens has his blind 
spots is apparent when he says that Calvin "trampled down one opponent 
after another in his steady march toward the triumphant theocracy of his 
later years" [The English Reformation, 1964, p. 198]. It follows axiomatically 
that one who had such hatred for his fellow men and was guilty of such ruth- 
less tyranny could not possibly have felt that compassion for others which 
is characteristic of the missionary-hearted Christian, and could not even 
have understood, let alone promoted, the Gospel of divine love and grace. 

As for Calvin's theology, we are all familiar with the scornful rationaliza- 
tion which facilely asserts that his horrible doctrine of divine election makes 
nonsense of all missionary and evangelistic activity. If certain persons are 
predestined to be saved, and, by simple arithmetic, the remainder are pre- 
destined to be lost, then there is nothing that anyone can do about it; and 
so "Calvinism" is equated with inaction and unconcern. 

There is, however, a very considerable difficulty which these indignant 
critics of Calvin both as man and as theologian fail to take into account, 
namely, that he did not behave himself in the way that they say he did 
[see my introduction to the Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva 
in the Time of Calvin, 1966] and that his theology did not have the conse- 

17 



quences for him that we are assured it must have had. In this respect at 
least, Calvin would appear to be a true successor of the Apostle Paul! 
I suppose no passage in Scripture is more "calvinistic" (to speak anachronis- 
tically) than Romans 9  "So then God has mercy upon whomever he wills, 
and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills"; but it leads on without any 
embarrassment to the great missionary charter of Romans 10: 

There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is 
Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. For, 
"every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." But 
how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And 
how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And 
how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach 
unless they are sent? 

Let us consider, then, the facts of the case. In the mid-sixteenth century 
Geneva was a small city-state of some 20,000 inhabitants. Calvin's return 
to Geneva in 1541, to lead the work of the Reformation there, was at the 
insistent invitation of the city's government, confirmed by the acclamation 
of the populace  and it should not be forgotten that both governors and 
governed knew by first-hand experience what sort of a man Calvin was, for 
he had already lived and laboured in their midst for some two years (1536 
to 1538), and it is evident that they did not think they were inviting a mis- 
anthropic tyrant to return to their city. In an essay which expertly and 
trenchantly "debunks" the Calvin legend Basil Hall, of the University of 
Cambridge, has written: 

Those who wish to focus denigration of Calvin, and what he stood 
for, on his supposed cruelty and dictatorial powers fail to come to 
grips with two major facts. First, if Calvin was a cruel man how did 
he attract so many, so varied, and so warmly attached friends and 
associates who speak of his sensitiveness and his charm? The evi- 
dence is plain for all to read in the course of his vast correspondence. 
Secondly, if Calvin had dictatorial control over Genevan affairs, how 
is it that records of Geneva show him plainly to have been the servant 
of its Council which on many occasions rejected out of hand Calvin's 
wishes for the religious life of Geneva, and was always master in 
Genevan affairs? A reading of Calvin's farewell speech to the min- 
isters of Geneva made shortly before he died should resolve doubt 
upon this point. To call Calvin the 'dictator of a theocracy' is, in 
view of the evidence, mere phrase-making prejudice. [The Church- 
man, London, Vol. 73, No. 3, Sept. 1959, pp. 124f.] 

There is yet another factor which needs to be weighed, and which, as 
we shall see, is of particular relevance to the theme of this paper. This is 
the remarkable phenomenon of the great numbers of persons who fled to 
Geneva for refuge from the fierce persecutions that raged against adherents 
of the Reformed faith elsewhere in Europe (and especially in France). Is it 
likely that all these people over so many years would so eagerly have 
exchanged one tyranny for another? After all, there were other hospitable 
cities, without a Calvin, whose gates were open to them and where they 
could be sure of a welcome. But they chose to go to Geneva! And it was 
Calvin, the "man-hater", none other, who was their champion; for Calvin's 
most powerful and persistent opponents in Geneva were not those who were 
out of sympathy with his theology or with the aims of the Reformation, 

18 



but the Perrinists, who strongly objected to the opening of their city to this 
influx of foreigners (bringing with them, as they no doubt did, problems 
of accommodation, of assimilation, and of competition) and maintained that 
Geneva should be kept for Genevans. It was thanks to Calvin, as much as 
to anyone else, that the motives of warm humanitarianism triumphed over 
those of narrow jingoism. 

It is important for us to realize, however, that Calvin's Geneva was 
something far more than a terminus of ultima tlmle for Protestant refugees. 
So far from being an end in itself, Calvin saw it as being a means to a much 
more splendid end. It was indeed a haven for hundreds of afflicted fugitives. 
But it was also a school  "the most perfect school of Christ which has 
been seen on earth since the days of the apostles", according to the estimate 
of the great Scottish Reformer John Knox, who himself found refuge and 
schooling in Geneva. Here able and dedicated men, whose faith had been 
tested in the fires of persecution, were trained and built up in the doctrine 
of the Gospel at the feet of John Calvin, the supreme teacher of the 
Reformation. 

But, again, Calvin's Geneva was something very much more than a haven 
and a school. It was not a theological ivory tower which lived to itself and 
for itself, oblivious of its responsibility in the Gospel to the needs of others. 
Human vessels were equipped and refitted in this haven, not to be status 
symbols like painted yachts safely moored at a fashionable marina, but that 
they might launch out into the surrounding ocean of the world's need, 
bravely facing every storm and peril that awaited them in order to bring 
the light of Christ's Gospel to those who were in the ignorance and darkness 
from which they themselves had originally come. They were taught in this 
school in order that they in turn might teach others the truth that had set 
them free. Thus John Knox returned with the evangelical doctrine to his 
native Scotland; Englishmen went back to lead the cause in England: 
Italians to Italy; Frenchmen (who formed the great bulk of the refugees) to 
France. Inspired by Calvin's truly ecumenical vision, which penetrated far 
beyond the horizon of his own environment, Geneva became a dynamic 
centre or nucleus from which the vital missionary energy which it generated 
radiated out into the world beyond. 

The extent of this missionary activity may well astonish us. Its cost, 
in terms of human courage and suffering, was high. Its singleness of pur- 
pose in the face of daunting odds is a moving challenge to us today. Indeed, 
this self-giving, outward-looking attitude is all the more remarkable when 
we remember that the constant demands and difficulties of the Church in 
Geneva itself might understandably have been used as an excuse by Calvin 
and his colleagues for inability to give attention to matters further afield. 

The figures which are available to us are far from complete; but even 
so they are eloquent. They are restricted, in the main, to the few years 
between 1555 and 1562 when it was felt that the names of those who were 
sent out from Geneva as missionaries might be recorded (though not 
advertised) with some degree of safety. The outbreak of the wars of religion 
in France in 1562, with the consequent intensification of the perils at- 
tendant on these activities, made it expedient to resort to the practice of 
imposing a black-out on the names and destinations of these evangelical 
envoys. Another expedient which ordinary prudence dictated was the use 

19 



by many of these men of pseudonyms as they executed their hazardous 
assignments. Indeed, as I have written elsewhere, 

it would be hard to exaggerate the extremely hazardous nature of 
the assignment undertaken by those who sallied forth from Geneva 
as missionaries. The unbridled hostility to the Reformation meant 
that the utmost secrecy had to be observed in sending out these 
evangelical emissaries. . . . Their lines of infiltration were along peril- 
ous paths through the mountains, where they were dependent on 
friendly cottagers for food and hiding in case of necessity. Nor did 
the danger end when they arrived at their various destinations, for 
there too the utmost caution had to be observed lest they should be 
discovered and apprehended, with all the dire consequences that 
would be involved. Where a congregation was mustered, services were 
conducted in a private home behind locked doors or in the shadows of 
a wooded hillside. There were times when, as much for the sake of 
the work as for his own safety, it became advisable for a missionary- 
pastor to leave a place because his activities were becoming suspect 
and his identity was no longer well concealed (he was becoming, as 
the Register puts it, 'trop decouverf) . [Introduction to the Register, 
ut supra.] 

During the period to which we have referred, 1555-1562, the Register 
of the Company of Pastors mentions by name 88 men who were sent out 
from Geneva to different places as bearers of the Gospel; but in actual fact 
these can represent no more than a fraction of the missions that were 
undertaken. The incompleteness of the Register may be gauged, by way of 
example, from the consideration that in 1561, which appears to have been 
the peak year for this missionary activity, the despatch of only twelve men 
is recorded: whereas evidence from other sources indicates that in that 
year alone no less than 142  nearly twelve times twelve  men ventured 
forth on their respective missions. [See Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and 
the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555-1563, Geneva, 1956, 
pp. 79ff.] For the Church, itself struggling, in a small city-republic, this 
figure indicates a truly amazing missionary zeal and virility, and a fine 
unconcern for its own frequently pressing needs. 

If the sending forth of preachers had been somewhat sporadic prior 
to 1555, the eclipse of the Perrinist party in that year enabled Calvin to 
organize this work in a more systematic manner. The whole of France was 
a potential mission-field into the midst of which Geneva jutted like a little 
promontory or springboard, and as the great majority of the carefully 
trained emissaries who were sent out were French-speaking, and indeed came 
originally from France, they were particularly well fitted to minister the 
Gospel in the towns and cities of France. A mere recital of the places to 
which they went sound like a lesson in French geography. Thus we find 
them penetrating to the ancient city of Lyon not far to the west of Geneva; 
southwards to Aix-en-Provence, Nimes, Montpellier, Villefranche, Toulouse, 
Nerac, and the province of Beam; along the Atlantic coast to Bordeaux, 
La Rochelle and the nearby islands, Nantes, Caen, Dieppe, and the Channel 
Islands; and in the north to Bourges, Tours, Orleans, Poitiers, Rouen, and 
Paris; besides a host of smaller places too numerous to mention. There were 
others who ventured into the rugged Piedmontese valleys of Northern Italy 

20 



in response to the call for help from the Waldensian remnant who for so 
long had been manfully battling for their very survival. 

But the venture that most stirs the imagination was the despatch of two 
men across the Atlantic to Brazil. The Register for 1556 simply says, in 
typically laconic fashion, that on Tuesday 25 August Pierre Richer and 
Guillaume Charretier were elected to minister in the islands recently con- 
quered by France off the coast of Brazil, and "were subsequently com- 
mended to the care of the Lord and sent off with a letter" from the Genevan 
church. Through the influence of the Hugenot leader, Admiral Coligny, 
arrangements were made for a group of Protestant emigrants to join the 
expedition that was being sent out, with the expectation that they would be 
able to establish a colony in South America and, free from persecution, 
develop their own culture and at the same time instruct the heathen natives 
in the Gospel of Christ. Richer and Charretier accompanied them in the 
dual capacity of chaplains to the French Protestants and missionaries to the 
South American Indians. Regrettably, however, the project was ill-fated. 
Villegagnon, the governor of the expedition, betrayed Coligny's trust in 
him. He turned against the Calvinists in his party, throwing four of them 
to a watery grave in the sea because of the faith they confessed, and causing 
the rest to seek safety by returning to their homeland, which, ironically, 
they had left in order to enjoy freedom to express and practice their faith 
without being hated and hunted like animals. This project, abortive though 
it was, testifies strikingly to the far-reaching vision which Calvin and his 
colleagues in Geneva had of their missionary task. 

The perilous nature of the missionary enterprises which were organized 
from Geneva is well illustrated in the Register  though perhaps one should 
add that the Register is anything but a martyrology and very frequently in- 
formation has to be culled from other sources in order to complete the 
stories of the persons and events which it mentions. On 12 October 1553, 
some three years prior to the Brazilian interlude, a letter was sent from 
the Company of Pastors of Geneva to "the believers of certain islands in 
France", giving them advice for which they had asked and sending them 
a man (who also carried this letter) to minister in their midst. No names 
or persons or places are mentioned: the times were too perilous, and the 
interception of a letter containing names could lead to the direst conse- 
quences. It is true that the letter is signed "Charles d'Espeville in the name 
both of himself and of his brethren"; but this gave away nothing, for 
"Charles d'Espeville" was a cover-name used on occasions by Calvin when 
it would have been imprudent for him to sign his real name. 

Most dear brethren [the letter reads], we praise God that He has given 
you, in your captivity, the desire to serve Him faithfully, so that you 
are more afraid of being deprived of His grace than of exposing 
yourselves to the dangers into which the malice of men may bring 
you. For the brother who bears this letter has told us that you have 
requested him to return to you as soon as possible, and that you 
wish by every means to advance in blessing and to be confirmed in 
the faith of the Gospel. 

They are admonished to be diligent in meeting together for worship and 
instruction and to separate themselves from the idolatry and superstition of 
the Roman church. In due course, when they have proved themselves in 
these respects and a proper order has been established, but only then, would 

21 



they be well advised to commence the administration of the sacraments. 
"It is not lawful," they are told, "for a man to administer the sacraments to 
you unless you are recognizably a flock of Jesus Christ and a churchly form 
is found among you". The letter closes in a manner which is not only typical 
of such letters from Geneva, but also revealing of the true depth of com- 
passion of Calvin's heart: 

Meanwhile take courage and dedicate yourselves wholeheartedly to 
God who has purchased you through His own Son at such cost, and 
surrender both body and soul to Him, showing that you hold His 
glory more precious than all that this world has to offer. May you 
value the eternal salvation which is prepared for you in heaven more 
than this fleeting life. Therefore, and in conclusion, most dear breth- 
ren, we shall pray the good Lord to complete what He has begun in 
you, to advance you in all spiritual blessings, and to keep you under 
His holy protection. 

The persons to whom this letter was addressed were living on the islands 
off the coast of Saintonge, near La Rochelle (He d'Oleron, He de Re, etc.), 
and the bearer of the letter, who became their first pastor was Philibert 
Hamelin. This man prosecuted his ministry with faithfulness until he suf- 
fered martyrdom in 1557. 

On 27 June 1555 a letter arrived at Geneva from three men, Jean 
Vernou, Antoine Laborier, and Jean Trigalet, who had set out a week 
earlier to minister in the Piedmontese valleys, conveying the news that they 
had got no further than Chambery, where they had been seized and im- 
prisoned. They in turn were comforted and encouraged by letters from 
Calvin and his fellow-pastors in Geneva. The text of a subsequent letter 
from the imprisoned missionaries, dated 1 August 1555, is given in the 
Register. In it they bemoan, not what has befallen them personally, but 
their "fault", as they now believed it to be, in having sought to protect 
the evangelical groups to whom they were being sent by dissembling before 
their interrogators. 

Gentlemen and most dear brethren [they write], we have been greatly 
comforted by the letters which you have kindly written us, especially 
in seeing by them that your customary magnanimity has supported 
us despite our fault, which cannot be described as small, as its effects 
show us all too clearly. Have we achieved anything by what we have 
done? Have we, by our misguided prudence, prevented what we 
feared from happening? Alas, no. For three or four days later, when 
we were still sorrowing over our fault, the news came that Satan was 
inflicting his fury on those whom we wished to preserve. Our grief 
was then redoubled; and we knew very well that this was for our 
humiliation, having learnt that the prudence of man cannot prevent 
the providence of God. We have in ourselves more than enough im- 
perfections to keep us lowly before God; but this one is so obvious 
that it exceeds all the others. The Lord God has caused us to feel 
this most vividly so that for the rest of our lives we may be humbled 
by it; yet He is willing to pardon us, as we believe He has already 
done. We entreat you to pray God for us, since the need for prayer 
is greater than ever  and not so much for us as for these poor 
people, that God may withdraw His rod from them or may soften 
them, and that, if it is necessary, He may soon send upon us what 

22 



He pleases. Meanwhile we shall pray for you and for them while 
awaiting the outcome of our case, whatever it may be that God is 
pleased to give us, confident that in guarding our faith, as is our 
duty, He will enable us to fulfill our calling. 

They were, in fact, never released, but were martyred in that same place. 
The mission to Piedmont was not allowed to fail, however; for as the 
Register shows, others took their place and, braving all dangers, went forth 
from Geneva as Christ's ambassadors to these needy parts. 

Perhaps no assignment was more hazardous than that of being sent to 
minister in Paris, for the enemies of the Reformation in France's capital 
city were so numerous and so influential that to associate oneself with the 
evangelical cause, however secretly, was tantamount to taking one's life in 
one's hands. This is amply borne out by the experience of Calvin's trusted 
lieutenant, Nicolas des Gallars, himself a Frenchman of aristocratic family, 
on one such expedition. Des Gallars set out from Geneva on 16 August 
1557, accompanied by the envoy who had come from Paris to request 
the despatch of a minister to strengthen the cause there. On the way this 
companion was captured and put to death, but des Gallars managed to 
escape and continued on to his destination. But a still greater misfortune 
awaited him there. On 7 September he sent a letter to Geneva conveying 
the news that three days previously their congregation had suffered 
a disastrous raid. "Almost two hundred persons are held captive by the 
enemy," he wrote, "who threaten them with all kinds of dire consequences. 
Among them are many distinguished individuals, both men and women; 
but not the least respect is shown either for their family or for their 
station". This was the notorious affair of the Rue Saint-Jacques, which was 
to have international repercussions. Calvin replied immediately. "Although 
my first reaction was one of horror," he wrote, "and I was almost prostrated 
with grief, yet I lost no time in seeking a means of remedy"  and he 
outlines, though under the circumstances in cryptic terms, the steps that 
had been taken to influence the situation in Paris for the better. Calvin 
also tells des Gallars that his wife was with him and that he had taken care 
to keep the worst news from her, lest she should be over-anxious. In this 
we have a glimpse of Calvin's thoughtfulness and solicitude for others. His 
letter concludes with the following words: "May the Lord guide you and 
them [des Gallars' colleagues in Paris] in this crisis by the spirit of wisdom, 
understanding, and uprightness; may He be present with you and with the 
cover of His wings protect, strengthen, and sustain both you and the whole 
church!" 

Finally, I should like to bring to your attention a letter which was re- 
ceived in Geneva on 15 July 1552. It is true that it came from five young 
men who were not missionaries but students, and that they had been 
studying in Lausanne (where Beza was then teaching) not Geneva (the 
Genevan academy was not founded by Calvin until 1558). But these young 
men were missionaries in the making, and their letter is addressed to "our 
brothers of the church of Geneva". On returning to their native land, they 
were seized and thrown into prison in Lyon; and there they were put to 
death because of the faith they professed steadfastly to the end. They are not 
out of place, therefore, in this paper, and the fact that they were students 
of the Reformed faith preparing for the ministry of the Gospel makes what 
they say in this letter very specially appropriate. It is a most moving docu- 

23 



ment, and these five young martyrs speak clearly to us across the centuries, 
reminding us that, at its deepest level, our training for the Christian min- 
istry consists of something more than the accumulation of learning and 
the passing of exams. 

Very dear brothers in our Lord Jesus Christ [they write], since you 
have been informed of our captivity and of the fury which drives our 
enemies to persecute and afflict us, we felt it would be good to let 
you know of the liberty of our spirit and of the wonderful assistance 
and consolation which our good Father and Saviour gives us in these 
dark prison cells, so that you may participate not only in our afflic- 
tion of which you have heard but also in our consolation, as members 
of the same body who all participate in common both in the good and 
in the evil which comes to pass. For this reason we want you to know 
that, although our body is confined here between four walls, yet our 
spirit has never been so free and so comforted, and has never pre- 
viously contemplated so fully and so vividly as now the great heavenly 
riches and treasures and the truth of the promise which God has made 
to His children; so much so, that we seem not only to believe and 
hope in them but even to see them with our eyes and touch them 
with our hands, so great and remarkable is the assistance of our 
God in our bonds and imprisonment. So far, indeed, are we from 
wishing to regard our afflictions as a curse of God, as the world and 
the flesh wish to regard it, that we regard it rather as the greatest 
blessing that has ever come upon us; for in it we are made true chil- 
dren of God, brothers and companions of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God, and are comformed to His image; and by it the possession of 
our eternal inheritance is confirmed to us. Further, we are bold to 
say and affirm that we shall derive more profit in this school for our 
salvation than has ever been the case in any place where we have 
studied; and we testify that this is the true school of the children of 
God in which they learn more than the disciples of the philosophers 
ever did in their universities  indeed, that it must not be imagined 
that one can have a true understanding of many of the passages of 
Scripture without having been instructed by the Teacher of all truth 
in this college. It is true enough that one can have some knowledge 
of Scripture and can talk about it and discuss it a great deal; but this 
is like playing at charades. We therefore praise God with all our 
heart and give Him undying thanks that He has been pleased to give 
us by His grace not only the theory of His Word but also the practice 
of it, and that He has granted us this honour  which is no small 
thing for vessels so poor and fragile and mere worms creeping on 
the earth  by bringing us out before men to be His witnesses and 
giving us constancy to confess His name and maintain the truth of 
His holy Word before those who are unwilling to hear it, indeed who 
persecute it with all their force  to us, we say, who previously 
were afraid to confess it even to a poor ignorant labourer who would 
have heard it eagerly. We pray you most affectionately to thank our 
good God with us for granting us so great a blessing, so that many 
may return thanks to Him, beseeching Him that, as He has com- 
menced this work in us, so He will complete it, to the end that all 
glory may be given to Him, and that, whether we live or die, all may 

24 



be to His honour and glory, to the edification of His poor Church, 
and to the advancement of our salvation. Amen! 

We need to learn afresh today  and this is a lesson that the Geneva 
of John Calvin can teach us  that the Church of Christ is not merely 
a haven of comfort and security nor a religious club where Christians 
may take their ease (though too many regard it as such), but a dynamic 
fellowship of the reborn, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and commissioned 
to penetrate into all the world with the liberating message of God's free 
grace in Christ Jesus. 



ON THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

William C. Robinson 

The Testimony That Comes From The Lord's Encounter With Paul. 

Acts 26. 15. And the Lord said, I, even I Myself, am 

Jesus whom you are persecuting. 

Forty years ago the faculty in Columbia, South Carolina invited a newly 
elected professor to deliver the opening address there. His theme was, ON 
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS. Providence has graciously granted the 
speaker of that occasion forty years of service at Columbia Theological 
Seminary and the present faculty has kindly arranged this address on the 
same theme. In view of the pressure of time, the introduction is briefer and 
the outline simpler. Forty years have not changed the event that occurred 
on the Road to Damascus. 

Some would explain Paul as a tale of two cities, Tarsus and Jerusalem. 
But a rendezvous on the Road to Damascus had more to do with furnishing 
the dynamics, the direction and the destiny of Paul than either Tarsus or 
Jerusalem. "Paul is one of those people whose lives have been rent in two 
by a single event.'* 1 From this encounter comes a mighty witness to the 
living God and a gracious revelation of the loving Lord. For only a living 
God could have converted Saul of Tarsus, and only a gracious God would 
have received him. 

Here God spoke first in His glory, then in His grace. He spoke in 
a blinding light that smote Paul to the ground and left him unable to see. 
But in the scarred face of Jesus the Crucified Paul the Apostle beheld the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God's grace even unto his bitterest 
enemy. 

I. A Witness to the Living God. 

This encounter on the road to Damascus is a mighty witness to the living 
God. Here are the opening words, Saul (or Saoul), why are you persecuting 
me? That is the living God intervenes in the interest of the little flock of 
disciples. Paul the Persecutor was about to destroy the infant Church of 
God in Christ Jesus, and God stepped in to defend His own. 



1. Dibelius-Kuemmel, Paul, p. 46. 

25 



That the Church was not crushed in its infancy, that she survived the 
Jewish and later the ten Roman persecutions; that she was not lost in Greek 
speculation; that her candle was quenched neither by barbarian invasion, 
nor by papal autocracy; that she survived atheistic revolutions and national 
tyrannies  the existence and the persistence of the Church  is a testimony 
to the living God. That she has weathered the storms of persecution, the 
perversions of heresy, and the inertia of lethargy she owes to her Divine Lord. 
He has kept her as the apple of His eye. He daily works in her to change 
her persecutors into patrons, to forgive her sins, to renew her strength. 
Since He is constantly renewing her life, she stands as the pillar and ground 
of the truth, the Church of the living God, the witness that her Lord is not 
dead. In Germany, the Heil Hitlers have ceased, but the Luther anthem still 
resounds, 

A mighty fortress is our God 
A bulwark never failing . . . 

And He must win the battle. 

When Altizer's dirge of divine death is done, once again the living God 
will have won, and the Wesley paean of praise be but begun: 

O for a thousand tongues to sing, 
My great Redeemer's praise; 

The glories of my God and King, 
The triumphs of His grace. 
He breaks the power of cancelled sin, 
He sets the prisoner free; 

His blood can make the foulest clean, 
His blood availed for me. 

Again the road to Damascus is the sign of the power of the living God 
to transform a human life. It is more accurate to describe the event here 
recorded as the encounter of the living Lord with Saul of Tarsus than to 
speak of it as Paul's meeting with Jesus. The Lord took the initiative. He 
set up and accomplished the meeting. He opens the conversation, Saul why 
are you persecuting ME? And Saul recognizes the Speaker first of all as 
the Lord. For Paul, the "break was not a mere psychological occurrence, 
but an intervention by the same God whom he had hitherto served." 2 

As an Old Testament scholar Saul was familiar with the theophanies and 
at times the appearance to him is described with the same Greek verb, 
ophthe Acts 9.17, I Cor. 15.8. In our text Jesus is the predicate, and I even 
I Myself, the LORD, is the subject of the sentence. Moses at the burning 
bush was arrested first by the glory of God so that he put off the shoes 
from his feet to tread on the holy ground of God's presence; and only later 
learned that the Holy One was the God of his father, of Abraham, of Isaac 
and of Jacob. So Saul a Hebrew of the Hebrews, an Old Testament wor- 
shipper first acknowledged the Lord, Who art thou, Lord?; and only later 
learned that the Lord whom he worshipped was the Jesus whom he was 
persecuting. The Twelve learned that Jesus was the Lord, Paul that the LORD 
was Jesus. It is God in living action who accosts and changes the persecuting 
apostle of the Sanhedrin into Paul the Apostle of the Lord Jesus. "He casts 
Saul of Tarsus, all bruised and wounded into the dust, and draws him behind 



2. Dibelius-Kuemmel, Paul, p. 60. 

26 



His chariot of victory," as He tells Paul what he must do, Acts. 9.6. 3 Thus 
in changing the lives of men God shows Himself to be the living God. In 
this process he used the witness of Stephen, but the power, the glory, the 
change was the act of the living God. 

The God who caused a complete about face in the life of Paul and 
made of him one of His own chief witnesses and one of the great figures 
of all human history, is the God who called Abraham, who wrestled with 
Jacob, who appeared to Isaiah, who converted Augustine of Hippo, Bernard 
of Clairvaux, Luther, Calvin, Blaise Pascal, John Bunyan, John Wesley, 
Jonathan Edwards, Archibald Alexander, William Carey and all those who 
make up the marching hosts of Christian soldiers. In every time and from 
every clime, out of every nation and kindred and tribe, changed men are 
a host of living witnesses to God in action. Today, every day, He is con- 
fronting frustrated souls calling them to existential decision for God rather 
than for mammon, for Eternity more than for time. He made of Paul the 
great missionary to the Gentiles, the formulator of Christian concepts which 
have challenged the best minds of two millenia, the man who wrote a Hebrew 
book deeper into the thinking of the West than even the philosophy of 
a Plato or a Socrates. By the grace of God, Paul the apostle labored more 
abundantly and suffered more severely than any of his contemporaries to 
establish in the skeptical age of the first century faith in the living God. 
Likewise, God turns us from destructive to constructive service according 
to His own plan for each of us. 

Most of all this encounter on the Road to Damascus is a glorious testi- 
mony to the life-giving God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 
Saul is so set in his opposition to the disciples of Jesus' Way that only the 
appearing to him of the resurrected Christ could make the change. According 
to the three accounts in Acts the risen Lord appeared to and spoke with 
Saul of Tarsus. Ananias speaks to Saul of Jesus who appeared unto you in 
the way, 9.17, of God who appointed you to see the Righteous One, and hear 
the voice of His mouth 22.14. That is, the Damascus appearance is no 
exception to the rule that the several appearances of the Risen Jesus are 
bound to a revelation in words.* 

Once the word vision, optasia, occurs, Acts 26.19. Literally this means 
the act of exhibiting oneself to view. cf. Acts 1.3. It is not the word horama 
which is used in Acts 16.7; 19.9, cf. 23.11; 27.23. W. Michaelis finds 
parallels to the appearances of the Risen Lord with the angelophanies, Luke 
22.43; Acts 5.19f; 12.7f. which are recorded as actual interventions. Barnabas 
relates how Paul had seen the Lord in the way, 9.27. The Lord says, "To 
this end have I appeared unto you," 26.14. In First Corinthians, Paul insists 
that the risen Redeemer appeared unto him as definitely as He did to Peter 
and to James; and that he was to be reckoned an apostle, for "have I not 
seen Jesus our Lord?" The active verb horao which occurs here is that used 
of the seeing of Jesus in Mark 16.7; Matthew 28.10, 17; John 20.18, 25, 29.* 
As in Galatians Paul testifies that "it pleased God to reveal His Son to me," 
so in Second Corinthians the lightgiving Creator shined into his heart to give 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 



3. A. Lecerf, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 240. 
* W. Michaelis, TWNT, V.356-358. 



27 



"Paul's call came from the Lord who had been raised up by God." 4 Thus 
he is a personal witness to the resurrection of Jesus. He has, moreover, 
preserved the earliest corporate witness to that mighty act of God. In First 
Corinthians 15.3f the several appearances of Jesus are listed in quite 
evidential fashion. Nor is the mighty witness of First Corinthians 15 to be 
set aside by a misinterpretation of the clause "flesh and blood cannot inherit 
eternal life." As J. Jeremias has shown, this expression "flesh and blood" does 
not refer at all to those who die and are raised, but rather to those who are 
still alive at the return of Christ in His glory. Paul accepted and taught 
a bodily resurrection of Christ and of all those who die in Him. 

In defending, protecting, carrying onward His body the Church, in 
changing lives from the destructiveness of Saul the Inquisitor to Paul the 
Apostle, in raising the crucified Jesus from the dead and lifting Him to His 
own right hand that He might call together and carry through the ages His 
Church, and that in His celestial glory He might encounter and make over 
the man of Tarsus  God shows Himself the living God, working in every 
event that occurs, generally through natural means, but also able to inter- 
vene supernaturally to accomplish His will both in the armies of heaven and 
among men. God is immanent, everywhere present, preserving and govern- 
ing all His creatures and all their actions. At the same time He is the 
Transcendent Person, the flash of Whose will can marvelously intervene, 
who did raise from the dead Jesus our Lord, and on the road to Damascus 
did change Saul of Tarsus. 

May the Damascus Road witness to the living God inspire us in our 
services of worship and in our personal evangelism to magnify GOD IN 
ACTION. "The Church is the place where God acts and man serves." 
(Barth) Opening the worship with the apostolic salutation, Grace be unto 
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, puts us in 
the attitude of looking to the LORD who made heaven and earth for our 
help. Instead of introducing the recital of the Apostles 1 Creed merely as 
the expression of our faith, why not use some such introductory word as 
this, "Let us confess the living God in His great and gracious acts for us 
and for our salvation." Paul was converted into an apostle that by his 
preaching God might open the eyes of the sin-blinded, turn them from 
darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, forgive their sins and 
give them the inheritance of hope. Preaching becomes more effective when 
it calls men to behold God working for them than when it scolds them for 
not working better for Him. Faith comes by hearing the Gospel of Christ, 
for by the proclamation of Christ crucified it pleases God to save. Preaching 
is "the apocalyptic event" which "moves the doors of heaven and hell"; 5 
when it is "the proclamation of the scriptural message as the Word of the 
living God." 6 For the risen Lord Jesus becomes present through the Spirit- 
wrought exposition of His Word, evoking trust and obedience in His Church. 

God brings us into fellowship with Himself and keeps us in His covenant 
of grace by His wonderful work of forgiving our sins. In the Presence of the 
HOLY ONE, "a person does not so much confess a bad act or habit as he 



4. Dibelius-Kuemmel, Paul, p. 55. 

5. H. A. Oberman, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Oct., 1961. 

6. P. E. Hughes, Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology. 

28 



offers his whole sinful self which is in need of the constant forgiveness of 
God." 7 And it is God, God alone who justifies. Let us not be misled into 
a pietism which magnifies our spiritual and moral life while it forgets that 
forgiveness is an act of God. Then prayer is a pleading with God to do in 
and for us what He had graciously promised. With such a hymn as How 
Firm a Foundation we praise God's promises to act in us and in our behalf. 

Likewise the sacrament is primarily a divine action, making what God 
has done in Christ a reality to the believer. The efficacy of the sacrament 
depends upon the work of the Spirit and the Word of institution. In baptism 
God signifies and seals our engrafting into Christ, the remission of sins by 
His blood and of regeneration by His Spirit. The parents primarily confess 
that their infant needs from the heavenly Father these blessings which their 
earthly parents are unable to give. In the Lord's Supper, Christ is more 
active in giving Himself and His blessings to the believer than the minister 
is in distributing the bread and the cup to the communicants. "He ac- 
complishes in our souls spiritually all that He shows us outwardly by these 
visible signs." (Calvin). 
II. A Revelation of the Gracious God. 

As the event on the Road to Damascus is a mighty witness to the living 
God, so is it likewise a glorious revelation of the gracious God. Saul had 
despised the disciples of Jesus as uneducated, weak, common people of the 
land, First Corinthians 1.27-28. They seemed to be all too earthen vessels, 
the very offscourings of the earth. They were on the edge of the law or 
even beyond the law. Now Jesus who had gathered about Himself the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel identifies Himself with His people, Saoul, Saoul, 
why are you persecuting me? In your rage against my disciples, you are 
maltreating me. 

Now that could mean only one thing: Since Jesus Himself and the essence 
of His Gospel is found in the nature of His Church, the very nature of that 
Church compelled Paul to realize that what leads men to God is not their 
pious deeds, but only Divine grace. Paul was radically converted from 
a fanaticism that made salvation to consist in law keeping and limited it 
to those who stood in the center of the religion of law. He was forced to 
recognize that God had given His salvation to these despised and persecuted 
Christians. And that means that salvation is not of law, but of grace. 
Salvation is for those on the outskirts of the law, for those outside the law, 
even for Gentiles. The living God is the God of grace. Grace means God 
for us, God for the lost sheep, even when they are not for Him. God for 
the younger brother who had wasted his substance in riotious living; but, 
as Saul was about to learn, God also for the conceited, self-righteous older 
brother. God for everyone  whether living in sin of the flesh or in self- 
righteous Pharisaic pride  who will look away from self and cast himself 
on God's mercy in Christ. God has made the way of law righteousness 
obsolete by sending His Son to save those outside the law. By grace are 
ye saved and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. And God, the 
God in whom we trust, is the grace-giver: the God of all grace, rich unto 
all who call upon Him. Whosoever shall call on the LORD shall be saved! 

Most of all that grace of God is evident in Saul's own case. He was 
Jesus' sworn enemy, His deadliest foe. By this celestial blaze he deserved to 



7. John B. Coburn in Summer 1966 Theological Education, S.40. 

29 



be incinerated. He was blinded, but only that he might realize his own 
spiritual darkness and turn to Him who is the light indeed. In those three 
days when he saw not, Saul went down into the depths of God's love and 
Christ's Cross deeper than any mere man ever has been. Formerly he had 
used the law of Deuteronomy (21.23) that the man who is hanged is 
accursed of God as occasion to make the persecuted disciples blaspheme 
with the words, Jesus be cursed. I Cor. 12:3. Now he saw that Christ had 
indeed borne the curse, but the curse of all those who had broken the law  
these despised disciples, and also this covetous, envious, hard-hearted 
murderous Persecutor, Paul of Tarsus. And now a broken-hearted Paul adds 
to the syllables he had been forcing from the lips of weak brethren two 
additional words: FOR ME, FOR US. Christ was made a curse for us, for 
cursed is everyone that hangs upon the tree. Upon Saul the self-righteous the 
law which says, "Thou shalt not covet, Thou shalt not kill," fell like a 
prosecuting witness, a judge, and an executioner all in one. Under that 
unerring sentence Saul fell to the ground guilty, undone, blind, bleeding, 
dying under the wrath of the Law-Giver. And then wonder of wonders. 
The Persecuted One revealed Himself as the Ransom, the Propitiation for 
the persecutor. On His Cross, Christ took Saul's place, died the death Paul 
deserved to die. He, the Judge, gave Himself to take the guilty man's penalty, 
to die the sinner's death, to satisfy for his disobedience  that Paul might 
be forgiven for the sake of that Jesus he was persecuting and have the Spirit 
of Christ crying in his heart, Abba, Father. This complete about face on the 
Road to Damascus is the sign of the gracious God, the historical witness that 
the living God is gracious. And conversely, Paul's view of God who shows 
Himself to be righteous and declares him to be righteous who is so out of 
faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26) is of One "who is alive and makes alive." 8 

Now the Christ whose saving Cross drank up Saul's curse is also the 
loving Lord who in this personal encounter with the Persecutor drinks up 
Paul's loyalty and life and love. Souls grow more by contact with souls than 
by any other known means. When Paul rises from the ground he is Jesus' 
man, the slave of the Lord Christ. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives 
in me; and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who 
loved me and gave Himself up for me." The love of Christ constrains us to 
live for Him who for our sakes died and rose again. Yes the Road to 
Damascus reveals the love that would not let Paul go until he had finished 
that which God appointed for him to do, Acts 22.10. Personal loyalty to 
the Lord who loved him and died for him carried Paul with the Gospel of 
the gracious God from Jerusalem to Rome and beyond. 

And our conclusion here? Trust yourself to the God of all grace, to the 
Christ crucified for you. Apart from Christ God is our judge, in Christ He 
is our Father. Stand in Christ and God forgives your sins, and sends His 
Spirit to cry in your heart Abba, Father, so that you may enter the portals 
of to-morrow unafraid. 

The rendezvous of the risen Jesus with the persecutor Paul on the Road 
to Damascus: may it be to you and to me the testimony to the living God, 
the revelation of the gracious Father, the light of the loving Lord upon this 
academic year. 



8. Kaesemann as cited by John Reumann in INTERPRETATION, October 1966, 
p. 451. 

30 



REVIEWS 



John Penry and the Marprelate 
Controversy, by Donald J. Mc- 
Ginn: Rutgers University Press. 
274 pp. $9.00. 

The author has read widely in the 
literature of the Elizabethan period, 
and in this work he seeks once again 
to substantiate the identification of 
the anonymous author of the saucy, 
malicious Marprelate Tracts with the 
separatist, John Penry. 

Unfortunately the author's recon- 
struction is marred by errors of fact 
and weaknesses of presentation. 
James VI of Scotland appears as 
James IV (both in the text and the 
index). No reference is made to J. E. 
Neale's magisterial works on Eliza- 
beth I and her Parliaments, and other 
significant studies are similarly ig- 
nored. This is not to deny that the 
author has read widely: it is simply 
to assert that he has not read widely 
enough. We may also question the 
propriety of an author praising him- 
self. "It has been authoritatively 
stated . . ." we are informed. On con- 
sulting the reference index, at the end 
of the book, to discover the identity 
of the unnamed authority, we learn 
that it is the author himself! Cart- 
wright, we are informed, "has aptly 
been designated the arch-Puritan": 
anxious to discover who first used 
this "apt" designation, we consult the 
reference index, to learn once again 
that it is the author himself quoting 
his previous book! These things are, 
of course, a question of taste: of 
greater importance is the fact that 
the author tends to misinterpret (or 
to misunderstand) basic facts relating 
to the history of the period. Eliza- 
beth's Prayer Book, for example, was 
issued in 1558 and not in 1561: and 
it is not sufficient to say that "she 
had combined the strongly pro-Catho- 



lic First Edwardian Prayer Book with 
the equally strongly pro-Genevan Se- 
cund into the Elizabethan Book of 
Common Prayer." But further particu- 
larization would be tedious. 

Stuart Barton Babbage 



The Origin and Meaning of 
Hasidism, by Martin Buber, ed- 
ited and translated by Maurice 
Friedman: Harper and Row. 254 
pp. $1.75. 

True to his purpose, the author 
traces the origin of Hasidism to the 
spiritual vacuum left by the collapse 
of the messianic surge connected with 
the false Messiah, Shabbathai Zwi. On 
the one hand, Jacob Frank endeavored 
to rally the spiritual forces of Juda- 
ism by a movement destined towards 
an expansive esoteric experience, yet 
doomed to failure through lack of a 
true grappling with the forces of evil 
and sin; on the other hand the Baal 
Shem Tov, the spiritual father of 
Hasidism, was able to contain the 
needed balance between the centripetal 
and centrifugal forces of Judaism, so 
as to identify service to God with 
joyful acceptance of service in and 
to the world. The seriousness with 
which the Hasidic mystics, from the 
18th Century onward, faced the prob- 
lem of evil, and the way in which they 
endeavored to "empty" evil of its 
evil, so to say, bring a redemptive 
force to bear upon it, makes interest- 
ing reading for a Christian. 

Buber's treatment of Spinoza's 
thought in this connection as well as 
that of Zen Buddhism is of refreshing 
vitality, and although his apologetic 
for his theological view of Christ can 
hardly convince the Christian reader, 
the warmth and humility with which 
he approaches the person of Jesus is 



31 



impressive for a Jewish thinker of 
his calibre. A book well worth read- 



ing! 



Ludwig R. Dewitz 



Allegory, The Theory of a Sym- 
bolic Mode, by Angus Fletcher: 
Cornell University Press. 418 pp. 

In the early centuries the Church 
was able to solve many of its inter- 
pretative and homiletic problems by 
finding allegorical meanings in Holy 
Scripture, and few people ever thought 
of raising any objections. They be- 
lieved that the text of the Bible, like 
that of other literature, had several 
meanings. "The sense of the divine 
utterances is manifold and infinite", 
wrote a famous mediaeval Scotsman, 
"even as in one and the same feather 
of the peacock we behold a marvellous 
and beautiful variety of countless 
colours. " The mediaeval preacher, 
moreover, was as much a master of 
illustration as any modern follower 
of Fosdick or Stewart, and most of 
his illustrations had the merit of being 
allegorical as well as interesting for 
their own sake. They therefore left 
their hearers' minds charged with hid- 
den meanings which could tease, tor- 
ment or delight them long after the 
sermon was over. Occasionally alle- 
gory was used to put across political 
or social dynamite in the safest way 
possible from the preacher's or writ- 
er's point of view. 

The Reformers brought the Church 
right back to the literal and gram- 
matical meaning of the Scriptures as 
the necessary basis of all interpreta- 
tion. They wisely cut out most of 
the current illustrations and illustrative 
allegories in preaching. But they 
recognized that the Bible was, after 
all, literature, and they were always 
ready to see and use an allegorical 
meaning over and above the literal. 
Calvin and Luther often presuppose 



a manifold meaning in the text of 
Scripture. 

Since the Reformation, however, 
"science" and reason have taken con- 
trol of our Biblical interpretation, and 
the use of imagination in this sphere 
has been frowned upon. Allegory has 
become almost a dirty word. We are 
warned that we must interpret the 
Bible as if it had one sense only  
the historico-grammatical. 

Under such circumstances it is chal- 
lenging and refreshing to read a book 
from the non-theological world which 
seeks to re-define what allegory is, 
and to root out misconceptions about 
it. Angus Fletcher here suggests that 
the secular world now understands 
the human mind better than the the- 
ological world, and has cashed in 
where the Church has contracted out. 
"While allegory in the middle ages 
came to the people from the pulpit, 
it comes to the modern reader in 
secular, but no less popular form. The 
modern romance and the detective 
story with its solution also carry 
double meanings that are no less im- 
portant for the completion of the 
plots than is the moralitas to the 
preacher's parable.'* 

Most of us are aware that there is 
a good deal of allegorizing in modern 
literature  especially if we have read 
C. S. Lewis or 'The Lord of the 
Flies." Those of us who have listened 
to Dr. Thomas Altizer expounding 
Blake and Melville will appreciate, 
too, how ready the human mind is to 
"see" the allegorical meaning, and 
how easy it is to move an audience 
from one sphere of reference to an- 
other, and then backward quite quick- 
ly. But Angus Fletcher in this book 
takes us much farther. He believes 
that the "allegorical mode of expres- 
sion" characterizes a quite extraor- 
dinary variety of literary kinds. 
Whether we are reading Zane Grey 
for our diversion, or Beatrix Potter 
for our children's amusement, our full 



32 



appreciation and enjoyment of the 
work will depend on how far we can 
make an exegesis of the allegorical 
element in such works. "The whole 
point of allegory is that it does not 
need to be read exegetically; it often 
has a literal level that makes good 
enough sense all by itself. But some- 
how this literal surface suggests a 
peculiar doubleness of intention, and 
while it can. as it were, get along 
without interpretation, it becomes 
much richer and more interesting if 
given interpretation." 

Perhaps this book from the world 
of literary criticism has something to 
teach us about Biblical criticism. There 
may indeed be a pointer here to an 
approach that might give us quite 
legitimately a "richer and more inter- 
esting" interpretation of the Bible. 
Our faith compels us to take the Bible 
seriously as being human literature 
as well as the Word of God. We must 
therefore be ready to find, appreciate, 
and even delight in, allegory, not only 
in those places where we can classify 
the Biblical text as having a purely 
allegorical intention, but also where 
the primary intention of the writer is 
to give a history or story or parable 
or some other literary form. It has 
always struck me as impoverishing 
our Biblical interpretation that we 
have so entirely laid aside the doctrine 
of the manifold sense of Scripture. 
There is a welcome return to typo- 
logical interpretation amongst the the- 
ologians of both the Old and New 
Testaments. This also is a return to 
Calvin who. more than any other 
scholar, laid the foundation for the 
careful development of typology which 
took place in the seventeenth century. 
But we must distinguish between ty- 
pology and allegory. The first is rooted 
in the similarities embodied in the 
events of salvation history, and is 
therefore simply an exposition of the 
literal sense. The latter is a common 
symbolic mode of great subtlety, and 



not easily definable, as any reader of 
Fletcher's book will gather. But it is 
nevertheless a powerful means of 
communication  especially in this 
age of impressionism and symbolism. 

Fletcher's book makes very diffi- 
cult reading. It often uses a jargon 
that only an expert in literary criti- 
cism could be expected to understand. 
It presupposes a massive knowledge 
of English literature. But it is one 
of the best of a series of recent works 
on the same subject. These works 
should at least be in all our the- 
ological libraries. They should be 
studied by all who are concerned with 
the problems of Biblical interpreta- 
tion, and they should draw the atten- 
tion of men who are selecting sub- 
jects for master's or doctor's theses. 
Ronald S. Wallace 



The Biblical World: A Dictionary 
of Biblical Archaeology, edited 
by Charles F. Pfeiffer: Baker 
Book House. 612 pp. $8.95. 

This volume provides the layman 
as well as the theological student and 
minister with another excellent tool 
for biblical study. 

A wealth of material has been as- 
sembled all the way from an 18-page 
list of archaeologists and their work 
to a 4-page article, including illustra- 
tions, on Ramesses II  of current 
interest because of the recent removal 
of one of his great monuments to 
avoid inundation by Lake Nasser 
forming behind the new Aswan dam. 

Over 250 maps, drawings, and 
photographs of sites and artifacts add 
to the interest and value of the book. 
They might have been more accessible 
had the editor and publisher broken 
with custom and indexed them alpha- 
betically rather than listing them 
simply in order of appearance. 

Most of the articles are written by 



33 



those identified with conservative 
Protestantism, but both the content 
of articles and appended bibli- 
ographies, as well as the subjects 
chosen, reflect a careful effort to 
give the reader the benefit of primary 
sources and of recognized scholarship. 
For instance, the article on Joshua's 
Jericho corrects Garstang by the more 
recent work of Kenyon. 

Dean G. McKee 



Images of Authority: A Consider- 
ation of the Concepts of Regnum 
and Sacerdotium, by J. M. Cam- 
eron: Yale University Press. 78 
pp. $4.00. 

The first two of the 1965 Terry 
Lectures concern Vicarious Authority 
and Regnum. In studying authority, 
the Christian is forced to come to 
the conclusion that the authority of 
both the Church and the State is 
vicarious authority, being granted by 
God to enable the two institutions to 
perform the functions for which they 
were created. Institutionally speaking, 
both Church and State exist within 
and under the regnum Christi. (How- 
ever, the Church is not the regnum 
Christi, but the sign of this regnum.) 
The problem involves the evaluation 
of the decisions of the authorities, for 
verification of authority must come 
from a source independent of that 
authority. The answer given by Dr. 
Cameron is that nature (or natural 
law in the pre-fall sense) provides the 
individual with the necessary criterion 
for evaluating the actions of the State 
just as the Holy Spirit operating in 
the Christian authenticates the action 
of the Church. The defense of this 
view is the bright spot of the book. 

The worth of the third and fourth 
lectures, entitled Regnum Christi and 
The Secular Society, is lessened by 
the intrusion of the Roman Catholic 



Doctrines of the Church and the 
Sacraments, for Dr. Cameron says 
that the authority of the Church is 
sacramental in that it is vicarious and 
that the structure of the Roman 
Church is divinely willed. (He does 
not explain how the structure of the 
Roman Church allows the Spirit oper- 
ating in Christians to authenticate the 
action of the Church.) The Church of 
the Middle Ages lost sight of the dis- 
tinction of functions between the 
Church and of the State so that the 
fusing of the authorities produced a 
tyranny, but today, as long as the 
functions are separated, tyranny will 
not develop in either the State or the 
Church. In fact, the current seculariza- 
tion of the Church is to be considered 
a good thing because this will cause 
the Church to concentrate on its in- 
tended functions; the Church would 
be harmed if the State were to espouse 
(as today) "a religion of Christian 
standards." 

Dr. Cameron's analysis of the 
authority of the State is of more value 
than his thought on that of the Church 
and should be read by anyone inter- 
ested in authority. However, the 
laborious style will probably repel 
most readers. 

Richard E. Sanner 



Concilium: Theology in the Age 
of Renewal. Vol. 13, Rethinking 
of the Church's Mission, edited 
by Karl Rahner, S. J. Vol. 14, 
Do We Know the Others? edited 
by Hans Kueng: Paulist Press. 
152 and 180 pp. $4.50 per vol- 
ume. 

These are two volumes in a most 
ambitious program of theological 
writing by Roman Catholic scholars 
in a wide variety of areas of theology, 
especially in the light of Vatican 
Council II. Each volume contains 



34 



articles written by most competent 
authors, mostly Catholic, dealing with 
various phases of the subjects indi- 
cated by the titles of the volumes. 
They give an excellent insight into 
the thinking of Catholic scholarship. 
They give us some idea of what was 
really done in Vatican II. The Catho- 
lic Church is still the Catholic Church, 
but it is making some very signifi- 
cant changes, especially in the recog- 
nition of the primary authority of 
Scripture, and also in an openness 
toward other Churches. We can not 
only see what they are doing, but we 
may well be able to learn some most 
helpful lessons for our own Church 
work from these and other similar 
volumes. 

S. A. Cartledge 



The book still stands as the defini- 
tive contribution to an important topic. 

Charles B. Cousar 



The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 
by Joachim Jeremias: Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 278 pp. $5.95. 

Students of the New Testament 
have been indebted to Joachim Jere- 
mias primarily for his book The Par- 
ables of Jesus. A less known but 
equally significant contribution has 
been his study of the origins of the 
Lord's Supper, first published in Eng- 
lish in 1955 and ably translated by 
Norman Perrin. Now, eleven years 
later, a thoroughly revised edition 
of The Eucharistic Words of Jesus has 
appeared, taking into account later 
material and answering a number of 
critics. 

The arguments of the previous edi- 
tion come in for a fresh evaluation 
and in some cases are re-affirmed 
(e.g., his interpretation of "in remem- 
brance of me"), in other cases are 
more tentatively stated (e.g., the pri- 
ority of the Markan account and the 
contribution of astronomy to the dat- 
ing of Jesus' death), and in still other 
cases are given a new explanation 
(e.g., Jesus' vow of abstinence). 



Church Growth in Central and 
Southern Nigeria, by John B. 
Grimley and Gordon E. Robin- 
son: William B. Eerdmans Pub- 
lishing Co. 386 pp. $3.25. 

This volume, sponsored by the In- 
stitute of Church Growth, is a mine 
of information resulting from the re- 
search and experience of two mis- 
sionaries from Nigeria. Missionary 
candidates would find it required 
reading; missionaries in that land and 
adjacent countries would find it il- 
luminating. Mission minded people 
at home would be inspired and chal- 
lenged by the progress as well as the 
problems confronting the cause of 
Christ in that area. 

Recent upheavals in Nigeria reflect 
the complex problems that have con- 
fronted the missionary from the be- 
ginning  Moslems in Northern Ni- 
geria, a South with a substantial 
Christian group, and a Central belt 
with a largely pagan population. The 
splintered tribalism in the center, the 
400 or more languages and dialects in 
the whole land, the isolation of many 
parts, and the recent social and 
political upheavals make this a field 
of great difficulty as well as oppor- 
tunity. 

The historical chapters tell many 
stories of heroic missionary pioneer- 
ing in areas afflicted by the slave 
trade, human sacrifice, and cannibal- 
ism. Many mission agencies shared 
in sending workers up the Niger River 
and its tributaries. One reward has 
been an indigenous church. Many 
maps and graphs assist in telling the 
story. But the evangelization of the 
land has only begun. This is the chal- 
lenge the book leaves with the reader. 

Dean G. McKee 



35 



The Theology of the Resurrec- 
tion, by Walter Kunneth: Con- 
cordia Publishing House. 302 pp. 
$5.00. 

Walter Kunneth's The Theology of 
The Resurrection has been a standard 
work on the subject in German since 
its first publication in 1933. Only in 
1965 did the first English translation 
appear. 

The translation is based on the re- 
vised German edition of 1951 which 
takes into account treatments of the 
resurrection which have appeared 
since the beginning of the second 
World War. Throughout the book, for 
instance, Kunneth carries on a pro- 
vocative polemic against Rudolf Bult- 
mann and his existentalizing interpre- 
tation, an interpretation which the 
author feels constitutes a major threat 
to the objective reality of Jesus' resur- 
rection. The later edition also provides 
the occasion for a helpful treatment 
of the connection between Jesus' rising 
from the dead and the development of 
Christian eschatology. 

The book is no bed-time story and 
thus will be of use primarily to those 
wishing to consider the topic in depth. 

Charles B. Cousar 



The Secularization of Modern 
Cultures, by Bernard Eugene Me- 
land: Oxford University Press. 
163 pp. $4.75. 

The material in this book is based 
upon The Barrows Lectures for 1964- 
65 which were delivered at the Uni- 
versity of Calcutta and the University 
of Poona under the joint auspices of 
the American Institute of Indian 
studies and the University of Chicago. 
Dr. Meland, Professor Emeritus and 
Visiting Professor in Theology, The 
Divinity School, University of Chi- 
cago, explores the various ways in 



which modern societies, in their at- 
tempts to come to terms with present- 
day political, technological, and moral 
demands, are moving away from his- 
toric guidelines provided by religious 
sanctions and sensibilities. Although 
reference is made to various awaken- 
ings, attention is focused principally 
upon modern India and the West. 

Secularization can be understood 
only within the context of the state 
in which it exists; the secularization 
of totalitarian states differs markedly 
from the secularization occurring in 
democratic societies. Dr. Meland ex- 
amines the differences with a view 
to understanding their respective ways 
of dealing with religious as well as 
historical values conveyed through 
philosophy, literature, and the arts. 

Following this, Dr. Meland shows 
how historical sensibilities are being 
dissolved in modern societies on a 
wide front. He relates this process of 
dissolution to the current dissolution 
of religious sensibilities, giving special 
consideration to the fact that this dis- 
solution is occurring in an increasingly 
scientific and technological society. 

This book should be read by all 
persons involved in the current 
thought concerning secularization. 
The author treats the subject with apt 
scholarship yet with a minimum of 
wordiness. The major weakness is a 
failure to show the incisive nature of 
Christianity in comparison with other 
religions, the result, undoubtedly, of 
the lectures being delivered in India. 

Richard B. Sanner 



The Revolution of the Saints: A 
Study of the Origins of Radical 
Politics, by Michael Walzer: 
Harvard University Press. 334 
pp. $6.95. 

In this learned study we are given 
a fresh interpretation of puritanism 
in sociological terms. "All forms of 



36 



radical politics," the author explains, 
"make their appearance at moments 
of rapid and decisive change, moments 
when customary status is in doubt and 
character (or 'identity') is itself a 
problem." It was the great merit of 
Puritanism, he says, that it provided 
what he calls an "ideology of transi- 
tion." The puritans, who lived in a 
period of rapid social change and 
political danger, boldly met the threat 
of disorder by seeking to create a holy 
commonwealth. Walzer asks the ques- 
tion: "What lay behind the warfare 
of the Saints?" and he replies: "Two 
things above all: a fierce antagonism 
to the traditional world and the pre- 
vailing pattern of human relation and 
a keen and perhaps not unrealistic 
anxiety about human wickedness and 
the dangers of social disorder. The 
saints attempted to fasten upon the 
necks of all mankind the yoke of a 
new political discipline  impersonal 
and ideological, not founded upon 
loyalty or affection, no more open 
to spontaneity than to chaos or crime." 
The keynote of their system, he af- 
firms, was repression. 

The author is heavily indebted to 
Weber's pioneer study, The Protestant 
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 
("the most adventurous of all the 
books on puritanism"). "My chief 
intention," he confides, "was to pur- 
sue an analogous but not identical 
line of thought, studying the relation 
of puritanism not to economic but to 
political activity." 

This is an important book. The 
author argues his case with cogency 
and analytic power. The terms "way- 
faring and warfaring" provide us, he 
suggests, with the key to puritan poli- 
tics. 

And yet, in spite of the brilliance 
of the author's presentation, there are 
grounds for legitimate complaint. 
What is conspicuously lacking is imag- 
inative empathy and sympathetic un- 



derstanding. Commenting on the Cal- 
vinist "tender conscience" he observes: 
"the word 'tender' in this important 
phrase does not mean 'easily injured' 
or 'sensitive' but rather 'scrupulous', 
'exacting'. The Puritan conscience does 
not so much receive God's imprint, as 
reproduce his tyranny and willfulness." 
"Calvin's views," he writes, "did not 
differ from those both Luther and 
Bucer had expressed many years 
earlier, though his statement probably 
benefited from his superior powers of 
equivocation." What is regrettable is 
that the author should allow crude 
prejudice to distort scholarly ob- 
jectivity. 

Stuart Barton Babbage 



The Concept of Prayer, by D. Z. 
Phillips: Schocken Books. 167 
pp. $4.95. 

The author is a professional phi- 
losopher in England. In this rather 
technical book he keeps present espe- 
cially the Logical Empiricism of 
Wittgenstein (for whom philosophy 
could meaningfully say what science 
says) but he also gives great impor- 
tance to Simone Weil (for whom in 
prayer our thought should be empty, 
waiting, not seeking anything but 
ready to receive naked truth, p. 155). 
The conclusion is that philosophy 
alone will not bring the blind to see 
(p. 160). 

As a follower of Calvin, I remem- 
ber that Calvin said that in prayer 
we seek the mind of God. For me 
higher Christianity and true philoso- 
phy are one and the same thing. In- 
deed, since philosophy is the love and 
pursuit of truth and wisdom, and 
since God is love, truth and wisdom, 
it follows that true philosophy and 
true religion are identical. 

Paul T. Fuhrmann 



37 



Mani and Manichaeism, by 
George Widengren. Translated by 
Charles Kessler: Holt, Rinehart 
and Winston. 168 pp. $6.00. 

Born in Mesopotamia in 216 A.D., 
Mani experienced a heavenly revela- 
tion in which the Living Paraclete 
disclosed to him a mystery of Good 
and Evil. Mani preached his Gnostic 
gospel in the East and there died a 
martyr's death. His new religion was 
once wide spread. 

Dr. Widengren, professor at the 
University of Uppsala, does not seem 
to raise the question, but some his- 
torians suspect that St. Augustine, 
who had been once attracted by Mani- 
chaeism, quite unwittingly introduced 
Manichaean moods and ideas into the 
Church. To make matters worse, in 
suppressng the Cathari, the Church 
unconsciously fell victim to a further 
dose of Manichaeism. Were some 
gloomy and sad Puritans half Mani- 
chaean? When a "Christian" is 
scared, is not his fear a belief in two 
universal powers instead of One? 
When "Christians" are today trembling 
in their shoes, are they not believing 
that an evil power other than God 
may after all prevail? 

Paul T. Fuhrmann 



The Early Christian Church, by 
J. G. Davies: Holt, Rinehart and 
Winston. 314 pp. $8.50. 

The author's presentation is chrono- 
logical rather than topical. The result 
is that students are able to keep in 
focus those events in the life and 
thought of the church which are 
necessarily interrelated and contem- 
poraneous. 

The great merit of this present work 
is its comprehensiveness. It is difficult 
to think of any other work which, in 
the compass of a single volume, covers 
so adequately so many different facets 
of the life of the church. The author 
rightly stresses the importance of the- 
ological questions but these theological 
questions are set firmly in the wider 
context of the developing worship and 
witness of the church. Thus, in re- 
lation to each succeeding century, 
what we are given, with scholarly 
expertise, is a vivid picture of the 
pagan background, an account of the 
extant literary sources, a summary of 
the expansion and development of the 
church, with descriptive information 
about beliefs, worship and social life. 

This new volume forms a notable 
and impressive addition to the His- 
tory of Religion Series edited by E. O. 
James. 

It is to be hoped that the later 
history of the church will be por- 
trayed, on a like scale, in subsequent 
volumes. 

Stuart Barton Babbage 



38 



SHORTER REVIEWS 



The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin: 
An Introduction, by Michael H. Mur- 
ray: The Seabury Press. 177 pp. $4.95. 
The late Teilhard de Chardin, Jesu- 
it scientist and theologian, is said to 
be the most exciting influence on 
younger priests and thinkers in the 
Roman Catholic Church. His in- 
fluence among Protestants is also con- 
siderable. To understand him, even 
in an elementary way, may be entre 
to understanding much of the future 
development of theology. This book 
gives a very readable and clear in- 
troduction to him. 

Religious Faith and Twentieth-Century 
Man, by F. C. Happold: Penguin 
Books. 181 pp. $1.25. 

Twentieth-century man does not 
have to give up his intelligence or his 
scientific orientation in order to be 
deeply and profoundly religious. This 
Pelican paperback explains how a 
mystical but realistic approach to 
faith can be an alternative to un- 
belief. The author challenges much 
of our religious thought with this 
summary of mysticism: "He who sees 
not God everywhere, sees him truly 
nowhere." 

Ernest Hemingway: A Reconsider- 
ation, by Philip Young: The Pennsyl- 
vania State University Press. 297 pp. 
$5.95. 

The author prefaces this highly in- 
telligent critical study of Hemingway 
with a fascinating account of his cor- 
respondence with Hemingway over the 
propriety of its publication. Heming- 
way was nervously defensive: no man, 
he explained, wants to be portrayed 
as a "neurotic". It was characteristic 
of Hemingway that he finally relented, 
giving the author carte blanche. 

This study, newly revised, is by far 
the most helpful study yet to appear. 



Of particular interest is the parallel 
that the author traces between the ex- 
periences of Huckleberry Finn and 
those of Hemingway's first "hero" 1 
Nick. And he has a convincing ex- 
planation of Hemingway's obsessive 
preoccupation with death. 

Prayer in Sixteenth Century England, 
by Faye L. Kelly: University of Flor- 
ida Press. 69 pp. $2.00. 

Beginning with an interest in the 
prayers, oaths and curses of Shakes- 
peare's history plays, the author has 
turned to a study of the place of 
prayer as reflected in the publications 
of Elizabethan England. Her interest 
is sociological and literary rather than 
theological and devotional. There was, 
she suggests, religious literature for 
every taste. This is to ignore the fact 
of censorship (a matter to which no 
reference is made): religious literature 
was freely produced provided it was 
neither papist nor puritan. 

The Night Battle: Essays, by J. M. 
Cameron: Helicon Press. 243 pp. 
$4.95. 

The author describes himself as "a 
Catholic of the Left": in these essays 
he discusses the paranoia that distorts 
the thinking of multitudes today. An 
earlier work Scrutiny of Marxism was 
justly praised: these essays have the 
same admirable quality of incisiveness. 

William Faulkner: Art in Theological 
Tension, by John W. Hunt: Syracuse 
University Press. 184 pp. $5.00. 

The author, in this extended discus- 
sion of three major novels, finds both 
Stoic and Christian concepts in Faulk- 
ner's artistic vision. "Stoic courage," 
he explains, "is heroic, while Christian 
courage is humble; Stoic endurance 
is a human achievement, while Chris- 
tian endurance is a gift of forgiving 



39 



love." He then asks the question: "Do 
Faulkner's bedrock virtues of courage, 
endurance, pride, and love ultimately 
have a Christian or a Stoic reference?" 
He concludes "that his religious cen- 
ter is essentially Christian humanism 
and that the humanistic side of his 
Christian religiousness arises from his 
Stoicism." 

The Search for God, by Robert W. 
Gleason. S. J.: Sheed and Ward. 311 
pp. $5.00. 

Is God absent or just silent? For 
increasing numbers of people this is 
the alternative, and in this book a 
Jesuit professor of theology at Ford- 
ham University explores this problem. 
In a most stimulating way he probes 
and analyzes the question with his- 
torical, psychological and theological 
insight. 

The Measurement of Delinquency, 
by Thorsten Sellin and Marvin E. 
Wolfgang: John Wiley and Sons. 423 
pp. $9.95. 

As the title suggests, this book is 
concerned with the problem of meas- 
uring crime and delinquency. The 
authors begin by describing and chal- 
lenging accepted methods of measur- 
ing criminality and delinquency. Then 
they describe their own research and 
what they feel to be a more sensitive 
method. The problem they attack is 
one that needs attacking. 

Howel Harris 1714-1773: The Last 
Enthusiast, by Geoffrey F. Nuttall: 
University of Wales Press. 87 pp. 
12s. 6d. 

An engaging portrait of one of the 
lesser-known leaders of the Evangeli- 
cal Revival, who numbered among 
his friends George Whitfield in Eng- 
land and Jonathan Edwards in Amer- 
ica. Of Howel Harris, Whitfield wrote: 
"May I follow him, as he does Jesus 
Christ! How he outstript me! Fye up- 
on me, fye upon me." 



Notebooks, 1935-1942, by Albert 
Camus. Translated from the French, 
and with a Preface and Notes, by 
Philip Thody: The Modern Library. 
224 pp. $2.45. 

In an interview Camus explained 
his writing procedure: the accumula- 
tion of "notes, scraps of paper, reverie 
. . . Then, one day, I have the idea 
of conception that makes all those 
isolated fragments coagulate together. 
There then begins a long and painful 
putting them in order." These Note- 
books contain themes, experiences, and 
ideas, relating to the years 1935 to 
1942. 

Notebooks, 1942-1950, by Albert 
Camus. Translated from the French, 
and annotated by Justin O'Brien: 
Alfred A. Knopf. 274 pp. $5.00. 

We have, in these Notebooks, tenta- 
tive drafts of future stories, random 
reflections, epigrammatic quotations. 
One of the last entries reads: "I used 
to long at times for a violent death  
a death which excuses one from cry- 
ing out at the tearing away of the 
soul." His wish was granted when 
the oar in which he was being driven 
by a friend crashed at 90 m.p.h. 

The Fall, and Exile and the Kingdom, 
by Albert Camus. Translated from the 
French by Justin O'Brien: The Modern 
Library. 361 pp. $2.45. 

Man, Camus insists, is in exile (the 
exile of loneliness and self-isolation) 
and he seeks a kingdom in which he 
can be at home. 

Secular Salvations: Rites and Symbols 
of Political Religions, by Ernest B. 
Koenker: Fortress Press. 220 pp. 

$3.75. 

With a wealth of documentation the 
author illustrates the way in which, 
in this twentieth century, ideologies 
tend to be transformed into idolatries. 



40 



On Graves and Epitaphs, by Kenneth 
Lindley: Hutchinson. 171 pp. 50s. 

This book (handsomely illustrated 
with sketches and photographs) indi- 
cates something of the fascination 
which is to be found from an examina- 
tion of the monuments of a bygone 
age. They were, the author points out, 
erected not merely to commemorate 
but also to warn: 

My time is come Next may be thine 
Prepare for it whilst thou hast time 
And that thou mayst prepared be 
Live unto Him who died for thee. 
Not the least attractive feature of this 
study is its period flavor. 

Ezekiel: Prophecy of Hope, by An- 
drew W. Blackwood, Jr.: Baker Book 
House. 274 pp. $4.50. 

The author makes a commendable 
effort to explain the prophet's ob- 
scure and complex symbolism, and to 
find, in the prophet's message, en- 
couragement and hope for today. The 
following is a characteristic comment 
(on Ezekiel 8:12): "They had not 
ceased to believe that God exists but, 
far worse, they had decided that God 
does not care. The sorrows that be- 
fell Israel led them to think that God 
had forsaken the land, rather than 
leading them to wonder if they had 
forsaken God." 

Robust in Faith: Men from God's 
School, by J. Oswald Chambers: 
Moody Press. 219 pp. $3.50. 

The General Director of the Over- 
seas Missionary Fellowship has an 
international reputation as a Bible 
teacher, and his books are now avail- 
able in nine different languages. These 
biographical studies of Bible char- 
acters are a happy combination of the 
expository and the devotional. 

An Introduction to Christian Educa- 
tion, Edited by Marvin Taylor: Abing- 
dom Press. 412 pp. $6.50. 

This volume contains thirty-two 
chapters dealing with many aspects of 



Christian education. There is also a 
useful bibliography of recent works 
in the field. There is specific help here 
for those dealing with youth, young 
adults, the public school issue, the 
family and our sociocultural setting. 
This is a book which should be in 
every church library, and many chap- 
ters should be read by pastors. 

Christian Faith and History, by Thom- 
as W. Ogletree: Abingdon Press. 236 
pp. $4.00. 

The author makes a critical com- 
parison of the historicism of Ernest 
Troeltsch with the Christological ap- 
proach to history of Karl Barth. Pro- 
fessor Ogletree finds points of mutual 
concern and suggests ways in which 
the insights of both men can be useful 
in developing a Christian understand- 
ing of history. 

God and Incarnation in Mid-Nine- 
teenth Century German Theology (G. 
Thomasius, I. A. Dorner, A. E. Bildcr- 
manri) Edited and translated by 
Claude Welch: Oxford University 
Press. 391 pp. $7.00. 

A Library of Protestant Thought, 
of which this volume is a part, has as 
its purpose to illumine and interpret 
the history of the Christian faith in 
its Protestant expression by making 
available selections from the pens of 
significant writers. Professor Welch 
has thrown light on a portion of Ger- 
man nineteenth century theology 
which has generally been neglected. 
By drawing from the works of Thom- 
asius, Dorner and Biedermann, Welch 
is able to focus upon the problem of 
the period as well as to illustrate the 
interest of the times in history, piety, 
true scholarship and religious experi- 
ence. These men wrestled creatively 
with the question of the being of God 
in the historical person of Jesus Christ. 
In Thomasius we have a Lutheran 
theologian; Dorner represents the 
"meditating" thinkers of the time; and 



41 



Biedermann gives us an illustration of 
a bold and rigorous "speculative" the- 
ologian. 

Claude Welch introduces the book 
with a brief but penetrating essay; he 
also furnishes us with an introduction 
to each of the texts he so ably trans- 
lates. 

Religious Currents in the Nineteenth 
Century, by Vilhelm Gronbech. Trans- 
lated from the Danish by P. M. 
Mitchell and W. D. Paden: The Uni- 
versity of Kansas Press. 201 pp. $4.50. 

The nineteenth century was an age 
of spirituality and splendor. The 
author's life work (as he defined it 
in 1922) was "to show how vast the 
human being is, and how awesome in 
his vastness, and thus to spur on his 
contemporaries to reach deeper with- 
in themselves for unity." 

Personal Religious Disciplines, by 
John E. Gardner: William B. Eerd- 
mans Publishing Co. 134 pp. $3.00. 

The disciplines suggested border on 
being pietistic "rules" for self-sancti- 
fying human conduct, but frequent 
references to the individual's needed 
participation in Christ relate these 
Christian disciplines to how God wills 
man to live. 

The Apostolic Fathers: A New Trans- 
lation and Commentary. Volume 2: 
First and Second Clement, by Robert 
M. Grant and Holt H. Graham. 138 
pp. $4.00. Volume 3: Barnabas and 
the Didache, by Robert A. Kraft: 
Thomas Nelson & Sons. 188 pp. $5.00. 

What we are given, in this series, 
is an able summary of the consensus 
of scholarly thought in relation to the 
way in which each work attained its 
present form: its place of origin, its 
authorship, its ethos and purpose, its 
theology. The text of each work is 
newly translated with appended com- 
mentary. 



Aristotle's Poetics and English Liter- 
ature: A Collection of Critical Essays, 
Edited, and with an introduction by 
Elder Olson: The University of Chi- 
cago Press. 236 pp. $2.45 (Paper- 
back). 

A collection of important articles, 
dating from 1744 to 1965, revealing 
how Aristotle has been interpreted 
(and misinterpreted) by exegetes and 
scholars. 

Man's Nature and his Communities: 
Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas 
of Man's Personal and Social Ex- 
istence, by Reinhold Niebuhr: Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 125 pp. $3.95. 

In a disarming introduction Niebuhr 
confesses that these essays are in- 
tended to summarize, and to revise, 
previously held opinions. He admits 
to an increasing sympathy for the 
other two great traditions of western 
culture, Judaism and Romanism, and 
to an increasing uneasiness in regard 
to Protestant individualism and per- 
fectionism. 

Niebuhr charges that Southern 
Christianity has been largely congre- 
gational in character and polity, al- 
most universally dominated by the 
mores and viewpoints of its congrega- 
tion. "Thus," he explains, "neither the 
congregation, usually under the aegis 
of a White Citizens' Council, nor the 
traditional emphasis on individual con- 
version, could root out social evil of 
long standing." 

Shakespeare: An Existential View, by 
David Horowitz: Hill and Wang. 134 
pp. $4.00. 

The author's insights (derived from 
Buber) helpfully illuminate the work 
of Shakespeare. 

Worser Days and Better Times, by 
J. Mason Brewer: Quadrangle Books. 
192 pp. $5.00. 

These Negro folk tales, sometimes 
grave, sometimes gay, illustrate man's 



42 



indomitable capacity to redeem the 
tragic by the comic. 

God and World in Early Christian 
Theology, by R. A. Norris, Jr.: Sea- 
bury. 177 pp. $4.95. 

The author illustrates the way in 
which the early Fathers sought to 
express the Christian faith in the 
thought forms of Greek philosophy. 
"Biblical principles and philosophical 
terminology did not always march 
comfortably in step," he explains, and 
as a consequence, the early Fathers 
found themselves involved in "a proc- 
ess of continual dialectical adjust- 
ment." This study suggests something 
about the nature of our apologetic 
task today. 

Athens or Jerusalem? A Study in 
Christian Comprehension, by L. A. 
Garrard: George Allen and Unwin. 
183 pp. 21s. 

The author (a former editor of the 
Hibbert Journal) believes that the 
church today is too exclusively de- 
voted to its biblical inheritance. "It is 
not easy," he willingly concedes, "to 
fix the limits beyond which syncret- 
ism must not be allowed to pass." 

The Christian Intellectual: Studies in 
the Relation of Catholicism to the 
Human Sciences, Edited by Samuel 
Hazo: Duquesne University Press. 179 
pp. $4.50. 

The mission of Catholic higher 
learning, the editor explains, is "to 
synthesize the tradition of human 
letters and the Judaeo-Christian tradi- 
tion." 



himself with the aid of God and 
Friday, Gulliver's Travels is a power- 
ful rebuttal to such optimism. Swift 
answers no, it is not in the nature of 
man: his experience will be far other- 
wise." 

A valuable pioneer study. 

Living With Sex: The Student's Dilem- 
ma, by Richard F. Hettlinger: Sea- 
bury. 185 pp. $4.50. 

The author discusses, for a male 
readership, some of the inescapable 
problems relating to sexual morality 
today. The discussion is compassion- 
ate and understanding. 

Ihe Modem Tradition: Background of 
Modern Literature, Edited by Richard 
Ellmann and Charles Feidelson, Jr.: 
Oxford University Press. 953 pp. 
$13.75. 

This encyclopaedic volume is con- 
cerned with various facets of modern 
literature. The concluding section, de- 
voted to "Faith", has a series of 
descriptive sub-sections: Christianity 
and Christendom, Deified Man, Poet- 
ized Religion, Paganised Christianity, 
The State of Doubt. 

This is essentially a reference book. 
The authors are to be congratulated 
on collecting, within the compass of 
one volume, a wealth of diversified 
material. 

Hamlet and the Eternal Problem of 
Man, by Arthur G. Davis: St. John's 
University Press. 227 pp. N. P. 

A sensitive study of the "soul" of 
Hamlet, as a mirror of the soul of 
man. 



Swift's Use of the Bible: A Docu- 
mentation and a Study in Allusion, 
by Charles Allen Beaument: Univer- 
sity of Georgia Press. 68 pp. $2.50. 

"If Defoe felt he was showing how 
an average, reasonably good, English 
Protestant will survive when cast 
adrift in strange lands to fend for 



Samuel Johnson: A Collection of 
Critical Essays, Edited by Donald J. 
Greene: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 185 pp. 
$3.95 (Clothbound). $1.95 (Paper- 
bound). 

The selected articles in this volume 
are percipient and informative. Again 
and again we are reminded that what 



43 



is still required is a thorough exam- 
ination of Johnson's religious beliefs. 
"No one," Herman W. Liebert ob- 
serves, "who has read the Prayers and 
Meditations can ever doubt the stark 
reality of that anguished soul. Di- 
vided in spirit but single in his ab- 
sorption with man's happiness here 
and salvation hereafter, Johnson re- 
mains one whose character stimulates 
continued analysis, whose moral in- 
fluence dynamically persists." 

A History of Christian Thought {Vol- 
ume 1), by Otto W. Heick: Fortress 
Press. 509 pp. $8.75. 

The present work is not a work of 
original scholarship; it is, nevertheless, 
a discerning account of the develop- 
ment of theological thought down to 
and including the post-Reformation 
controversies. The author associates 
himself with the judgment of Flaccius 
who, in his pioneer work, characterizes 
"the period following Leo the Great 
as a continuous process of becloud- 
ing specifically evangelical doctrines, 
with an occasional witness to the truth 
incapable of arresting the fatal de- 
velopment." 

William Temple: Twentieth Century 
Christian, by Joseph Fletcher: Sea- 
bury Press. 373 pp. $7.50. 

Temple, at the height of his powers, 
was a towering ecumenical figure; 
today, his theology is a thing of the 
past. "He who marries the spirit of 
the age," Dean Inge sagely observes, 
"must expect to find himself widowed 
in the next." 

Those who knew and admired 
Temple (particularly for his social 
concern) will be glad to have access 
to his thought in this compendious 
volume. 

The World of Witches, by Julio Caro 
Baroja. Translated from the Spanish 
by O. N. V. Glendinning: The Univer- 
sity of Chicago Press. 313 pp. $6.50. 
"There is a dangerous tendency to 
accept magic, which needs to be 



strongly countered. For a world which 
accepts magic is, above all, a world 
which accepts slander." The author 
illustrates his thesis by a variety of 
historical cases, many drawn from 
Spain. This book is a sad and dis- 
turbing reminder of man's inhumanity 
to man. 

Essays in Modern English Church 
History in Memory of Norman Sykes, 
Edited by G. V. Bennett and J. D. 
Walsh: Oxford University Press. 227 
pp. $5.75. 

As the editors say in their preface, 
Norman Sykes "was in his day the 
most considerable of modern English 
church historians." He wielded an in- 
fluence on the discipline of historio- 
graphy which was as profound as it 
is likely to be lasting. The nine essays 
in this volume, contributed by univer- 
sity teachers who were his friends, 
form a fitting tribute to his memory, 
and one which would have pleased 
him. They will be read with both 
pleasure and profit. 

Miracles: Yesterday and Today, by 
Benjamin B. Warfield: William B. 
Eerdmans Publishing Co. 327 pp. 
$2.25. 

It is nearly fifty years since this 
work was first published, under the 
title Counterfeit Miracles. Its republi- 
cation is welcome both because its 
contents were originally delivered as 
the Thomas Smyth Lectures in 1917 
at Columbia Theological Seminary 
(then situated at Columbia, South 
Carolina). The chapters deal succes- 
sively with the cessation of the charis- 
mata, patristic and medieval marvels, 
Roman Catholic miracles, Irvingite 
gifts, faith-healing, and mind-cure. 

Religious Studies, Volume 1. Number 
1. October 1965: Cambridge Univer- 
sity Press. $5.50. Annual subscription 
$9.50. 

Finely produced though this new 
periodical is, the price is formidable. 



44 



Its purpose, however, is commendable, 
namely, to provide a medium for dis- 
cussion of religious questions with 
particular reference to contemporary 
trends in philosophy, psychology, so- 
ciology, and anthropology. By its na- 
ture Religious Studies will be of most 
value to the student and the specialist. 
It has made an auspicious beginning. 



A Select Liturgical Lexicon, by J. G. 
Davies: John Knox Press. 146 pp. 
$1.50. 

"Ecumenical Studies in Worship" is 
a series designed to keep pastors and 
laymen abreast of new developments 
and research in the field of worship. 

This new volume is a short lexicon 
with entries that include terms most 
frequently encountered by the student 
of liturgy. In some instances only a 
simple definition is given; in other 
cases a description with a brief his- 
tory is provided. Bibliographical ref- 
erences are provided for the main 
items. 



Presbyterian Authority and Discipline, 
by John Kennedy: John Knox Press. 
118 pp. $1.50. 

This volume will help church mem- 
bers understand the biblical and the- 
ological rootage of authority and disci- 
pline, and ways that they can be 
exercised in true Presbyterian fashion. 



The Future of John Wesley's Method- 
ism, by Henry D. Rack: John Knox 
Press. 80 pp. $1.75. 

This slender volume (one of an 
important new series "Ecumenical 
Studies in History") is a rich digest 
of Methodist origins. Brief but pene- 
trating pictures of Wesley and suc- 
ceeding leaders show the way this 
tradition has grappled with changing 
times. 



The Unsilent South: Prophetic Preach- 
ing in Racial Crisis, Edited by Don- 
ald W. Shriver, Jr.: John Knox Press. 
169 pp. $2.25. 

This is a volume of sermons by 
Presbyterian, U. S. ministers. Each 
sermon was preached in a tense local 
racial situation when many arguments 
could have been made for being silent. 
Some of the congregations refused to 
tolerate this kind of preaching and 
the preacher had to "move on." 

Every minister in the South has 
to debate "the wisdom" of preaching 
a sermon such as these represent. In 
every situation certainly more than 
courage is called for, but God be 
merciful to us if we try to pass off 
a failure of nerve as wisdom! 

Most of all, we looked to see if, in 
these sermons, pastoral concern was 
as prominent as prophetic courage: in 
most instances we were sure that it 
was. 



Martin Luther: Creative Translator, 
by Heinz Bluhm: Concordia 236 
pp. $8.00. 



German Bibles Before Luther, by 
Kenneth A. Strand: William B. Eerd- 
mans Publishing Co. 64 pp. $4.00. 

Luther's German Bible is a genuine 
masterpiece reflecting the native geni- 
us of the Reformer himself and his 
splendidly dynamic view of Scripture. 
In this book of unusual interest Dr. 
Bluhm's method is that of examina- 
tion and analysis of selected passages 
as illustrative both of Luther's devel- 
opment as a translator and of his in- 
fluence on the shaping of the English 
Bible. 

Dr. Strand tells the story of fourteen 
High German editions of the Bible 
prior to the appearance of Luther's 
version. It is a scholarly well docu- 
mented monograph. 



45 



Witches' Sabbath, by Maurice Sacks. 
Translated from the French by Rich- 
ard Howard: Stein and Day. 315 pp. 
$7.50. 

This is a work of unusual literary 
distinction, with passages of lyric 
beauty and descriptive power. The 
author tells the sordid story of his 
life: born a Jew he became a Roman 
Catholic (under the influence of 
Jacques Maritain); subsequently, in 
America, he became a nominal Pres- 
byterian when he married the daughter 
of a former Moderator. 

There is bitter poignancy in a con- 
cluding entry: "I no longer want to 
be great, or famous, or perfect  Oh 
Candor!  but I want to go where I 
can be, in obscurity, a man who 
doesn't disgust himself." 

Speaker's Resources from Contemp- 
orary Literature, Edited by Charles L. 
Wallis: Harper and Row. 282 pp. 
$4.95. 

This collection has a depressing pre- 
ponderance of extracts from the writ- 
ers of so-called "religious" fiction. 

Plato On Immortality, by Robert Leet 
Patterson: The Pennsylvania State 
University Press. 141 pp. $4.50. 

This extended essay is a careful ex- 
position of Plato's arguments for the 
immortality of the soul. We are com- 
pelled, Plato points out, to sail the 
seas of darkness and doubt on the 
frail "raft" of reason, "not without 
risk ... if a man cannot find some 
word of God which will more surely 
and safely carry him." 

Tennessee Williams and Friends: An 
Informal Biography, by Gilbert Max- 
well. The World Publishing Co. 333 
pp. $5.95. 

Those who enjoy inconsequential 
anecdotes and gossipy chitchat will 
delight in this book. Written by Ten- 
nessee Williams' longtime friend and 
fellow writer, it provides a feeling 



account of the vicissitudes and frus- 
trations of authorship. 

Mental Health and The Bible, by 
Carroll A. Wise: Harper & Row. 168 
pp. $1.45. 

Written by an authority in the mat- 
ter, this book relates the insights of 
the Bible to the recent findings of 
depth-psychology and medicine. Let us 
hope that this book will help us to 
see the morbid elements found in 
certain local and tribal "religions" 
and lead us to a wholesome Christian- 
ity which practices forgiveness and 
love. 

The Showing Forth of Christ: Sermons 
of John Donne, Edited by Edmund 
Fuller: Harper and Row. 230 pp. 
$5.00. 

This volume is a collection of six- 
teen sermons representative of the 
important themes on which Donne 
based his sermons. Amazingly modern, 
they reflect his genius as a literary 
craftsman and his faithfulness as a 
biblical preacher. Most compelling is 
his style, so rich in striking figures of 
speech with images forged from fields 
of medicine and law, cosmology and 
agriculture, travel and commerce. 
"They are not sermons for one cen- 
tury, but for all centuries." 

Christ and the New Humanity, by 
C. H. Dodd: Fortress. 35 pp. 75c. 

A reprint (in the "Social Ethics 
Series") of the Burge Memorial Lec- 
ture, "Christianity and the Reconcilia- 
tion of the Nations" (1951). and the 
William Ainslie Memorial Lecture. 
"The Gospel and the Law of Christ" 
(1946). 

What Christians Stand For In the 
Secular World, by William Temple: 
Fortress. 35 pp. 75c. 

Originally written for The Christian 
Newsletter, the late Archbishop's dis- 



46 



cussion has more than historical in- 
terest. If anything, it is even more 
contemporary and significant today 
than it was twenty years ago. 

Legal Responsibility and Moral Re- 
sponsibility, by Walter Moberly: For- 
tress. 55 pp. 75c. 

In the Riddell Lectures of 1951 Sir 
Walter Moberly explores the implica- 
tions of treating the criminal as a 
sick man rather than a sinner. In this 
penetrating and humane study the 
author analyzes the juridical, the psy- 
chiatric and the Christian attitudes to 
crime. 

A Private and Public Faith, by Wil- 
liam Stringfellow: William B. Eerd- 
mans Publishing Co. 99 pp. $1.45. 

An acerbic attack on the role of 
the church in the life of America 
today. "The clergy have been invited 
to decorate public life, but restrained 
from intervening significantly in it. 
They have been relegated to the literal 
periphery  the invocations and the 
benedictions  of secular affairs." First 
published in 1962. 

Protestantism and Progress: A Histori- 
cal Study of the Relation of Prot- 
estantism to the Modern World, by 
Ernst Troeltsch. Translated by W. 
Montgomery: Beacon. 210 pp. $1.45. 

Students will be grateful for a new 
edition of this classic work first pub- 
lished in 1912 by the eminent his- 
torian of religious ideas. 

A History of the Warfare of Science 
with Theology in Christendom, by 
Andrew Dickson White: Dover. Vol. 
ume I 415 pp. Volume II 474 pp. 
$2.00 each. 

These volumes recall the unhappy, 
and sometimes unedifying, story of 
"old unhappy far-off things/And bat- 
tles long ago." Written by one of 
the founders of Cornell University 
and later its President, these volumes 



(which first appeared in 1896) are 
still a fascinating mine of recondite 
information. 

History of Dogma, by Adolph Har- 
nack. Translated from the third Ger- 
man Edition by Neil Buchanan. Seven 
volumes bound as Four. Volume I 362 
pp. $2.50. Volumes II and III 380 pp. 
and 336 pp. $2.75. Volumes IV and 

V 353 pp. and 331 pp. $2.75. Volumes 

VI and VII 317 pp. and 328 pp. $2.50. 
Harnack was, by general consent, 

the outstanding patristic scholar of 
his generation. Theologically a Ritsch- 
lian, Harnack regarded metaphysics 
as an alien intrusion into Christian 
theology from Greek sources. These 
volumes are works of epic scholar- 
ship. 

The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910- 
1913, Edited by Max Brod: Schocken. 
345 pp. $1.95. The Diaries of Franz 
Kafka 1914-1923, Edited by Max 
Brod: Schocken. 343 pp. $1.95. 

It is an incontrovertible fact that, 
with the passage of the years, Kafka's 
works gain in compelling urgency. 
Here we see something of his extra- 
ordinary powers of introspective self- 
analysis. 

Franz Kafka Today, Edited by Angel 
Flores and Homer Swander: The Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin Press. 290 pp. 
$1.95. 

This is the third reprinting of a 
work first published in 1958. The 
last word on Kafka has not yet been 
spoken, but these selected contribu- 
tions indicate something of the quality 
of the work that is being done. 

The Renaissance: A Reconsideration 
of the Theories and Interpretations of 
the Age, Edited by Tinsley Helton: 
The University of Wisconsin Press. 
160 pp. $1.65. 

These lectures were occasioned by 
the centenary of Jacob Burckhardt's 



47 



The Civilization of the Renaissance in 
Italy (1860). A distinguished panel of 
scholars seek to examine the validity 
of Burckhard's thesis that "the Renais- 
sance, through its anti-Christian, anti- 
authoritarian, and highly individual- 
istic and experimental spirit, repre- 
sented a distinct and abrupt break 
with the Middle Ages and ushered in 
the modern world." 

On History and Historians, by Jacob 
Burckhardt. Translated by Harry 
Zohn, with an introduction by H. R. 
Trevor-Roper: Harper and Row. 280 
pp. $1.60. 

Burckhardt refused to believe in 
the doctrine of infinite progress: it 
seemed to him unwarranted, im- 
mature, half-baked: not an idea, but 
a parrot cry. "I know too much his- 
tory," he repeated, "to expect any- 
thing from the despotism of the 
masses but a future tyranny." These 
disjointed, but characteristically opin- 
ionated, lecture notes were first pub- 
lished in English in 1958 under the 
title of Judgments on History and 
Historians. 

The Epic of Russian Literature from 
its Origins through Tolstoy, by Marc 
Slonim: Oxford University Press. 369 
pp. $2.25. 

Originally published in 1950 as the 
first volume of a trilogy, and subse- 
quently corrected and revised, this 
work sets the Russian writers firmly 
in the context of their time. The 
author tells us that he has sought to 
be both historian and critic. He has 
admirably fulfilled his self-appointed 
goals. 

Spiritual Values in Shakespeare, by 
Frnest Marshall Howse: Abingdon. 
158 pp. $1.25. 

This book illustrates graphically 
the way in which it is possible to 
use Shakespeare for homiletic pur- 
poses. Originally delivered as sermons 



to student audiences, these addresses 
were first published in 1955. 

War In Heaven, by Charles Williams: 
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 
Paperback, $1.95. Descent Into Hell, 
by Charles Williams: William B. 
Eerdmans Publishing Co. Paperback. 
$1.95. 

Charles Williams, in attempting to 
chart the unknown world of the soul 
of man in these two "novels", voyages 
into an esoteric sea of imagination, 
his own. 

The Descent of the Dove: A Short 
History of the Holy Spirit in the 
Church, by Charles Williams: William 
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 245 pp. 
$1.95. 

Williams' refreshing insights and 
novel vocabulary bring spice to church 
history and invite fresh reflection on 
the "Order of Coinherence" which 
is the open secret of Christianity. 

Christianity and the Problem of His- 
tory, by Roger Lincoln Shinn: The 
Bethany Press. 302 pp. $1.95. 

A masterly analysis of Christian 
answers to the problem of history. 
First published in 1953. 

The History of the Church from 
Christ to Constantine, by Eusebius. 
Translated, with an introduction, by 
G. A. Williamson: Penguin Books. 
429 pp. $1.95. 

An indispensible work of reference 
for every serious student of church 
history. 

The Soul of Prayer, by P. T. Forsyth: 
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 
92 pp. $1.45. The Cruciality of the 
Cross, by P. T. Forsyth: William B. 
Eerdmans Publishing Co. 104 pp. 
$1.45. 

Reprints of books which were pub- 
lished in 1909 and 1916, respectively, 
and which are as timely and as 
trenchant today as they were then. 



48 



The Golden Sequence: A Fourfold 
Study of the Spiritual Life, by Evelyn 
Underhill: Harper and Brothers. 193 
pp. $1.25. 

A study of the spiritual life based 
on the words of the ancient hymn, 
Veni, Sancte Spiritus. "It represents," 
she explains, "the precipitation of my 
own thoughts, as they have moved to 
and fro . . . along a line which has 
the spiritual doctrine of St. John of 
the Cross at one end, and the philoso- 
phy of Professor Whitehead at the 
other." 

Shakespeare's Tragic Frontier, by Wil- 
liam Farnham: University of Califor- 
nia Press. 288 pp. $1.95. 

The author discusses the fatal flaw 
which, in Shakespeare's tragic heroes, 
overwhelms the protagonist in dis- 
aster. Each chapter represents a pro- 
found and compassionate analysis of 
character. 

The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, 
by P. T. Forsyth: William B. Eerd- 
mans Publishing Co. 357 pp. $2.25. 

This profound work is still a power- 
ful antidote to all humanistic re- 
interpretations. 

From Tradition to Gospel, by Martin 
Dibelius: Charles Scribner's Sons. 311 
pp. $1.65. 

A pioneer work in the field of 
form criticism. 

Love Declared: Essays on the Myths 
of Love, by Denis de Rougemont: 
Beacon Press. 235 pp. $1.75. 

Eros and Agape symbolize, the 
author says, divergent patterns of life. 
Eros is adulterous passion, subversive 
to marriage, in love with love rather 
than the beloved, forever sad, suicidal 
and unsatisfied. By contrast, Agape is 
Christian love. Eros is a love of death; 
Agape is a living communion. The 
concept of Agape originates with the 



New Testament; that of Eros with 
the medieval legend of Tristan and 
Iseult. 

Camus: Revised Edition, by Germaine 
Bree: Harcourt, Brace and World. 
280 pp. $2.25. 

Germaine Bree, in this revised edi- 
tion of her former book, provides a 
factual and informative account of 
Camus' literary achievement. 

The Thought and Art of Albert 
Camus, by Thomas Hanna: Henry 
Regnery Co. 264 pp. $1.25. 

The author, who took his doctorate 
at the Chicago Divinity School, at- 
tempts, in this illuminating study, a 
theological interpetation of Camus. 

Life in Christ Jesus: Reflections on 
Romans 5-8, by John Knox: Seabury. 
128 pp. $1.25. 

The author is concerned that Chris- 
tians should possess their possessions. 
"We have been forgiven; let us accept 
our forgiveness. Peace has been won 
for us; let us rest in it and enjoy it. 
Let us have peace." 

The Stammering Century, by Gilbert 
Seldes: Harper and Row. 414 pp. 
$2.45. 

This book is an effort to interpret 
nineteenth century America in terms 
of minor movements, cults, manias, 
fads, sects and religious excitement. 
The book ably conveys the temper and 
spirit of the age. 

Ulrich von Hutten and the German 
Reformation, by Hajo Holburn. Trans- 
lated by Roland H. Bainton: Harper 
and Row. 209 pp. $1.60. 

Although by training and instinct 
a humanist and a poet, von Hutten 
proved a doughty and resourceful con- 
troversialist. A man of judgment, he 
finally broke with Erasmus and 
sought refuge with Zwingli. 



49 



A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto's 
Letter to the Genevans and Calvin's 
Reply, Edited, with an introduction, 
by John C. Olin: Harper and Row. 
136 pp. $1.25. 

The text of the classic debate be- 
tween Cardinal Sadoleto and the 
Genevan Reformer, together with a 
helpful theological and historical in- 
troduction. 

An Intellectual and Cultural History 
of the Western World, by Harry El- 
mer Barnes. Third Revised Edition: 
Dover. Volume I {From Earliest 
Times Through the Middle Ages); 
Volume II {From the Renaissance 
Through the Eighteenth Century)-, 
Volume III {From the Nineteenth 
Century to the Present Day). 1,381 
pp. $2.00 each. 

The author rightly laments the de- 
cline of humane ideals. He sadly com- 
ments: "We have not advanced from 
where we stood two generations ago 
when H. G. Wells correctly described 
the human future as a race between 
Education and Catastrophe." 

The author explains the rise of 
Christianity in sociological terms. The 
resulting reconstruction, with its em- 
phasis upon all things secondary and 
its neglect of the one thing needful, 
lacks conviction. 

Art in the Early Church, by Walter 
Lowrie. Second Revised Edition: Har- 
per and Row. 229 pp. $2.75. 

The late Walter Lowrie had two 
great interests: Kierkegaard and early 
Christian Art. And he was a pioneer 
in both fields. This illustrated volume 
(first published in 1947) reveals the 
range of his scholarship. A work of 
loving piety. 

The Bible and Social Ethics, by Hen- 
drik Kraemer: Fortress. 38 pp. 75c. 

These two lectures, originally given 
at the Ecumenical Institute, are here 
reprinted in the "Social Ethics Series" 



of Facet Books. The veteran the- 
ologian of Christian Missions insists 
that "the theological task ... of the 
present hour is to formulate a new 
doctrine of man and a theology of 
common life." 

The Spirit of Tragedy, by Herbert J. 
Mullen Washington Square Press. 362 
pp. 75c. 

A lively account of the history and 
significance of tragedy from the point 
of view of an avowed and ardent 
humanist. 

Chekhov and Other Essays, by Leon 
Shestov, with a New Introduction by 
Sidney Monas: The University of 
Michigan Press. 205 pp. $1.95. 

The essay on Chekhov is a brilliant 
piece of interpretative analysis (Chek- 
hov, the author suggests, was infatu- 
ated with death, decay, and hopeless- 
ness); the discussion of Dostoievsky 
is impressionistic and idiosyncratic. 

The Scope of Demythologizing, by 
John Macquarrie: Harper and Row. 
256 pp. $1.60. 

This work is a careful assessment 
and evaluation of Bultmann's the- 
ology and methodology. Pastors and 
laymen who are trying to keep up 
with and understand the theological 
debates going on in the academic 
world will find this a clarifying book. 

God Is Not Dead, by Gordon H. 
Girod: Baker Book House. 125 pp. 
$2.95. 

This Reformed pastor accepts and 
vigorously proclaims the Calvinistic 
or Biblical position in sharp anti- 
thesis to other views, and does so in 
incisive fashion. He affirms the living 
God and the sanctity of His command- 
ments. Salvation is of God's grace, 
through the imputation of Christ's 
righteousness to those brought to faith 
by regeneration. 



50 



Letters of C. S. Lewis, Edited, with 
a memoir, by W. H. Lewis: Geoffrey 
Bles Ltd. 308 pp. 30s. 

These are intensely human letters. 
They reveal, better than anything else, 
the depth of C. S. Lewis's personal 
commitment to Christ. To a Christian 
lady he writes: "Though I'm forty 
years old, I'm only about twelve as a 
Christian, so it would be a maternal 
act if you found time sometimes to 
mention me in your prayers." On the 
question of churchmanship he com- 
ments: "To me the real distinction 
is not between high and low, but be- 
tween religion with a real supernatur- 
alism and salvationism on the one 
hand, and all watered down and mod- 
ernist versions on the other." Concern- 
ing the fact that he was being con- 
tinually sought for counsel from 
persons known and unknown, he ob- 
serves: "The reason I am saddled with 
many people's troubles is, I think, 
that I have no natural curiosity about 
private lives and am therefore a good 
subject. To anyone who (in that 
sense) enjoyed it, it would be a 
dangerous poison." 

And so one might go on, finding 
rich nuggets embedded in the com- 
monplace soil of a voluminous cor- 
respondence. It was part of Lewis's 
greatness that he answered letters 
punctiliously (would that we did the 
same!) with courtesy and with care. 

Movies, Censorship and the Law, by 
Ira H. Carmen: The University of 
Michigan Press. 339 pp. $7.95. 

A careful and intelligent case study 
of Supreme Court decisions from 1915 
to 1965 relating to the right of free 
expression under the Constitution, to- 
gether with an examination of censor- 
ship procedures in various States and 
cities. The author pleads for a system 
of regulation and classification as a 
substitute for existing censorship pro- 
cedures. It is difficult to contradict 



the cogency of the author's conclu- 
sions. 

Thomas More and Erasmus, by E. E. 
Reynolds: Fordham University Press. 
260 pp. $6.00. 

Of Sir Thomas More Erasmus 
wrote: "When did nature ever create 
a character more gentle, endearing 
and happy than that of Thomas 
More?", and it was to More that 
Erasmus dedicated The Praise of 
Folly. 

This book is a valuable addition to 
the already considerable corpus of 
literature relating to More and Eras- 
mus. It is not only a sympathetic bio- 
graphical study of two men: it is, 
above all, the impessive record of an 
unclouded and unbroken friendship in 
the cause of Christian humanism. If 
the portrait of Erasmus is perhaps 
idealized, the main outline is clear. 
The narrative is helpfully illustrated 
by extensive quotations from the let- 
ters and writings of both men. 

Voices of Despair: Four Motifs in 
American Literature, by Edward 
Stone: Ohio University Press. 240 pp. 
$5.00. 

The author discusses the imagery of 
American literature in relation to the 
use of certain motifs: in the opening 
chapter he explores the significance of 
animal imagery; in the second, the use 
of white as an image of horror and 
nothingness; in the third, Edward 
Eggeston's progression from faith to 
agnosticism; finally, the theme of 
despair as it is represented in the 
Naturalists' use of the word "nothing- 
ness." 

This is a book of formidable learn- 
ing and massive documentation. The 
author, quite properly, quotes ex- 
tensively: at times, because of the pro- 
fusion of the material, it becomes 
difficult to discern the developing 
theme. 



51 



What the author has done, in this 
highly original study, is to blaze the 
way for further exploration. 

The History and Religion of Israel, 
by G. W. Anderson: Oxford Univer- 
sity Press. 210 pp. $3.75. 

Here is an exceedingly compact sur- 
vey of Israel's history, the develop- 
ment of Hebrew religion, and the in- 
troductory notes necessary to an un- 
derstanding of the books of the Old 
Testament. The volume includes some 
illustrations, amazingly detailed in- 
dexes, and a four page historical 
chart, depending on John Bright's 
chronology, which lists the principal 
secular sources for the illumination 
of the history. 

The Restless Quest of Modern Man, 
by William Graham Cole: Oxford 
University Press. 110 pp. $3.50. 

The author invites us to accompany 
him in a pilgrimage from "The Age 
of Meaninglessness" to life in "The 
New Community." The author says 
little new, but nevetheless he says it 
pleasantly. 

Schleiermacher on Christ and Re- 
ligion: A New Introduction, by Rich- 
ard R. Niebuhr: Charles Scribner's 
Sons. 267 pp. $5.95. 

"There is no gainsaying that Schlei- 
ermacher was a gigantic revolutionary 
figure," the author points out, "and 
the most influential figure since Cal- 
vin." Today, however, there are many 
men who "deplore the motives, the 
methods, and the results of his revolu- 
tionary activities." Niebuhr, in this 
magisterial work, suggests that criti- 
cism has not always been based on 
"an intelligent consideration of the 
issues and the first principles in- 
volved"; too often it has been "nothing 
more than the noise of 'schools' and 
parties clashing." 

Niebuhr is concerned to insist, in 
the first place, that "the study of the 



man's mind is eminently worthwhile, 
if only because it forces the imagina- 
tion out of the provincialism and 
parochialism of the present and re- 
quires us to think the perennial prob- 
lems and affirmations of Christianity 
from a standpoint other than that from 
which we are accustomed to proceed"; 
secondly, he compels us to face the 
proper relation between theology and 
philosophy; thirdly, he connects 
preaching and theological thinking. 

Of course, Schleiermacher needs to 
be read with judicious discrimination. 
Niebuhr is not uncritical: Schleier- 
macher, he points out, has an exag- 
gerated fear of anthropomorphism and 
his doctrine of God is inadequate. 
Nevertheless, Niebuhr makes it abun- 
dantly plain that "whoever reads 
Schleiermacher will find himself in- 
structed not only in the doctrines of 
Christianity but also upon the mean- 
ing of Chrst and Christianity for man 
as a religious being." 

Who is Jesus of Nazareth? Concilium 
Volume II, Theology in the Age of 
Renewal: Paulist Press. 163 pp. $4.50. 

It is incontrovertible that some of 
the most creative and exciting the- 
ological study is taking place at the 
present time within the Roman 
Church. This volume is a further 
demonstration of this fact. Yves Con- 
gar discusses, with luminous clarity, 
the significance of recent Christologi- 
cal study. Today, we frankly recog- 
nize, he writes, "the Reformation as 
a radical criticism of a 'naive realism' 
practiced in the later Middle Ages, 
and an awareness of the personal, 
dramatic and paradoxical relationship 
between my salvation (created by the 
beneficient act of God which is Jesus 
Christ) and myself the sinner in whom 
the faith, wrought in me by God, has 
affected this salvation." There are, of 
course, in this symposium, areas of 
profound disagreement (e.g. "The 
Significance of Christ's Descent into 



52 



Hell") but also much for which to 
thank God and take courage. 

The Church and the Liturgy. Concil- 
ium Volume 2, Edited by Johannes 
Wagner: Paulist Press. 191 pp. $4.50. 

The Church Worships. Concilium Vol- 
ume 12, Edited by Johannes Wagner 
and Helmut Hucke: Paulist Press. 175 
pp. $4.50. 

These volumes develop and apply 
principles stated in the documents of 
Vatican Council II. Ways of worship 
evolve from concepts of the nature 
of the Church and here such concepts 
are explored in relation to the people 
assembled for worship, church archi- 
tecture, music, orders of service. Of 
special interest are the reports of 
regional experiments with native 
music and the excellent essay on 
church music by Dr. Hucke in the 
second volume. 

Sexual Inversion: The Multiple Roots 
of Homosexuality, Edited by Judd 
Marmor: Basic Books, Inc. 358 pp. 
$8.50. 

"Although innumerable explana- 
tions can be found in psychiatric and 
psychological literature for the origins 
of specific cases of homosexuality," 
the Editor explains, "there is as yet 
no single constellation of factors that 
can adequately explain all homosexual 
deviations." This symposium provides 
a wealth of factual up-to-date infor- 
mation, both clinical and statistical. 
It is the opinion of the psychoanalysts 
(with one exception) "that homosex- 
uality is definitely an illness, to be 
treated and corrected." A valuable 
book of reference. 

Paul Tillich, by J. Heywood Thomas: 
John Knox Press. 48 pp. $1.00. 

This title inaugurates a new series 
entitled, "Makers of Contemporary 
Theology." The author judiciously ob- 
serves: "Paul Tillich is a difficult the- 



ologian, but he repays critical reading. 
If some of the popularity he has re- 
cently gained has been due to the 
rash employment of some of his more 
obscure ideas it is to be hoped that 
a fuller and more informed under- 
standing of his thought will issue in 
clearer and richer theology." 

Rudolf Bultmann, by Ian Henderson: 
John Knox Press. 47 pp. $1.00. 

A warmly appreciative, but not un- 
discriminating, account of the life and 
thought of Bultmann. The author 
quotes Barth's penetrating observation 
that Bultmann has reduced christology 
to soteriology. A helpful introduction. 

The Beginning of Christianity: Part h' 
The Acts of the Apostles. Volume IV, 
Edited by F. J. Foakes- Jackson and 
Kirsopp Lake: Baker Book House. 420 
pp. $7.95. 

What we have, in this volume, is 
an English translation and commen- 
tary on the Acts by Kirsopp Lake and 
Henry J. Cadbury. It is an established 
classic (first published in 1932): a 
product of encyclopaedic learning, ex- 
haustive research, and meticulous 
scholarship. 

The Drama of Comedy: Victim and 
Victor, by Melvin Vos: John Knox 
Press. 125 pp. $1.95. 

The author's thesis is "that the 
structure of dramatic comedy and the 
structure of Christ's passionate action 
bear an analogical relation to each 
other and that a study of these two 
orderings of experience may deepen 
our perception at once of the essential 
meaning of comedy and of the Chris- 
tian account of human experience." 
The author's interpretation of comedy 
is intriguing: he illustrates his thesis 
by detailed reference to Wilder, Iones- 
co and Fry. A challenging pioneer 
study. 



53 



The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's 
Psychological Themes, by Frederick C. 
Crews: Oxford University Press. 279 
pp. $6.75. 

The author joins issue with those 
who see Hawthorne as primarily a 
dispenser of moral advice. His writing 
was, he suggests, the product of psy- 
chological necessity, not of conscious 
virtue. Hawthorne, with Freudian in- 
sight, admitted: "Truth often finds 
its way to the mind close muffled in 
robes of sleep, and then speaks with 
uncompromising directness of matters 
in regard to which we practice an 
unconscious self-deception during our 
waking moments." His outward life 
was exemplary, but his inner life, the 
author argues with cogency and pow- 
er, was twisted and tormented. "We 
must," he says compassionately, "ad- 
mire the art and separately regret the 
life." 

Successful Calamity: A Writer's Fol- 
lies on a Vermont Farm, by Edmund 
Fuller: Random House. 239 pp. $4.95. 

Some years ago Edmund Fuller 
angrily attacked "glandular writing" 
in a book entitled, Man in Modern 
Fiction. This present book is very 
different: it is an autobiographical 
account of the author's migration from 
the hazards of city life to the very 
different hazards of life on a Vermont 
farm. Light reading. 

Shakespeare and the Comedy of For- 
giveness, by Robert Grams Hunter: 
Columbia University Press. 272 pp. 
$7.50. 

The forgiveness of sins is a central 
concern in the religious drama of the 
Middle Ages. The paramount ques- 
tion, the author insists, is that of 
God's forgiveness of sinful humanity. 
In Shakespearean comedy the basic 
pattern is perpetuated: an action in 
which a central figure sins, repents 
and is forgiven. "Within these plays," 
the author writes, "as within the 



nature of God, are forces which de- 
mand justice and forces which plead 
for mercy, and it is the reconciliation 
in forgiveness of these forces that 
permits the comedies to end happily. 
Furthermore, that forgiveness, like 
God's, is freely given by the offended 
party and it is merited, as it is in the 
miracle and morality plays, by con- 
trition." A study of luminous depth. 

Three Modes of Modern Fiction: 
Ellen Glasgow, William Faulkner, 
Thomas Wolfe, by C. Hugh Holman: 
University of Georgia Press. 99 pp. 
$3.00. 

The three writers chosen are dis- 
cussed as representatives of three dif- 
ferent regions of the South. All, how- 
ever, share "a sense of evil, a pes- 
simism about man's potential, a tragic 
sense of life, a deep-seated root of 
the interplay of past and present . . ." 
Nevertheless, there are differences of 
emphasis and interpretation: Miss 
Glasgow is a realist and her approach 
is ironic; Faulkner is a romanticist 
and his approach is symoblic and 
mythic; Wolfe is an epic lyricist and 
his view is satiric. The discussion is 
scholarly and suggestive. 

The Reformation In Essex to the 
Death of Mary, by J. E. Oxley: Man- 
chester University Press. 320 pp. 
$8.00. 

Documentary records for Essex are 
particularly abundant, and it is these 
records which the author has used to 
good effect in his careful account of 
the sequence of events in this part of 
England. He shows that Lollardy was 
a continuing tradition, and that it was 
among the Lollards that the move- 
ment for reform first began. The 
author concludes his account with a 
description of the Marian reaction in 
a chapter entitled, "Fire and Faggot." 
This is a meticulously documented 
survey, and a valuable contribution 
to our understanding of the English 
Reformation. 



54 



On the Boundary: An Autobiographi- 
cal Sketch, by Paul Tillich: Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 104 pp. $3.95. 

"The age-old experience of man- 
kind," Tillich writes feelingly, "that 
new knowledge can be won only by 
breaking a taboo and that all autono- 
mous thinking is accompanied by a 
consciousness of guilt, is a fundamen- 
tal experience of my own life." In this 
engaging exposition Tillich discusses 
the dominant motifs of his thought 
against the background of his youthful 
training in Lutheran pietism. 

Christianity and the Encounter of the 
World Religions, by Paul Tillich: 
Columbia University Press. 97 pp. 
$1.25 (Paperback). 

In relation to the religions of the 
world, what is required, Tillich 
argues, is "not conversion, but dia- 
logue." "It would be a tremendous 
step forward," he suggests, "if Chris- 
tianity were to accept this." What he 
seeks to oppose is "particularity." It 
would be a mistake to ignore the fact 
that Tillich's philosophy is synthetic 
if not syncretistic. 

Readings in Christian Thought, Edited 
by Hugh T. Kerr: Abingdon Press. 
382 pp. $7.95. 

This selection ranges all the way 
from Justin Martyr to Pope John 
XXIII. The author's selection is cath- 
olic and discriminating. He divides his 
material into five main periods ("Or- 
thodoxy and Heresy in the Early 
Church" to "The Contemporary 
Quest"), and provides selected pas- 
sages from representative writers in 
each period. A biographical sketch 
precedes the work of each writer. 
Calvin is represented by seven extracts 
taken from the Tracts, the Commen- 
taries and the Institutes. 

It would be difficult to improve on 
this splendid selection which is cal- 
culated to meet a real need. The 
volume is handsomely produced. 



Milton and the Modern Critics, by 
Robert Martin Adams: Cornell Uni- 
versity Press. 231 pp. $1.95. 

The author's object has been to cut 
through the jungle of critical inter- 
pretation (Jungian, Freudian, Rab- 
binic, etc.) to rediscover the un- 
corrupted Milton. This vigorous, un- 
abashed, polemical book was first 
published in 1955. 

From the Renaissance to the Counter- 
Reformation. Essays in Honor of Gar- 
rett Mattingly, Edited by Charles H. 
Carter: Random House. 437 pp. $7.95. 

Garrett Mattingly of Columbia Uni- 
versity died in 1962. He was a gifted 
writer and an accomplished scholar. 
In this volume an international band 
of scholars has joined hands to honor 
his memory. The essays, related to the 
field of his special interest, are a fit- 
ting tribute. Christopher Hill con- 
tributes an important paper on the 
role of the people ("the many-headed 
monster") in seventeenth century Eng- 
land. 

The Social Gospel in America 1870- 
1920, Edited by Robert T. Handy: 
Oxford University Press. 399 pp. 
$7.00. 

"The story of the rise, spread, in- 
fluence, and decline of the social 
gospel in America is one of the most 
distinctive and fascinating chapters in 
the history of Protestant social con- 
cern." The Christian social movement 
in the United States, the Editor con- 
tinues, was fundamentally indigenous. 
It flowered, he points out, at a mo- 
ment when many middle class Ameri- 
cans were exhibiting an unusual de- 
gree of moral idealism and exuberant 
optimism and were ready to respond 
to pleas for social reform. But the 
movement never recovered from the 
general disillusionment consequent up- 
on World War I. 

This volume contains extensive quo- 
tations from Washington Gladden 



55 



("the father of the social gospel"), 
Richard T. Ley, and Walter Rauschen- 
busch. "A study of representative se- 
lections from the voluminous writings 
of these three men," the Editor rightly 
suggests, "can be a very profitable 
approach to the theology, the ethics, 
and the program of an important 
movement in the history of Protestant 
thought." 

Lux in Lumine: Essays in Honor of W. 
Norman Pittenger, Edited by R. A. 
Norris, Jr.: The Seabury Press, 186 
pp. $4.50. 

These essays were written to honor 
Norman Pittenger on the completion 
of thirty years teaching at General 
Theological Seminary, New York. 
The Editor describes the book as "a 
token payment of an immense collec- 
tive debt." Prominent among the dis- 
tinguished contributors are the names 
of John Knox and Joseph Fletcher. 
A bibliography of Pittenger's volumin- 
ous works and articles is appended. 

The Disappearance of God: Five 
Nineteenth-Century Writers, by J. Hil- 
lis Miller: Schocken. 367 pp. $2.45. 

The disappearance of God in the 
nineteenth century, the author argues, 
paved the way for the death of God 
in the twentieth. In a series of brilliant 
literary analyses the author traces this 
process. "I have chosen," he explains, 
"to approach five writers from a the- 
ological perspective because in De- 
Quincey, Browning, Emily Bronte, 
Arnold, and Hopkins, theological ex- 
perience is most important and de- 
termines everything else." This is a 
work of exceptional penetration and 
power. 

Deliverance to the Captives, by Karl 
Barth: Harper & Row. 160 pp. $3.00. 

These sermons were delivered main- 
ly to the inmates of a Swiss prison. 
John Marsh, in a felicitous preface, 
writes: "Barth knows that when he 



preaches to prisoners he is but preach- 
ing to himself, to them and to himself 
as dying sinners and yet as men re- 
deemed from death by the gracious 
act of God." These faithful, simple, 
expository sermons are wonderfully 
addressed to the heart as well as the 
head. 

Mind and Heart: Studies in Christian 
Truth and Experience, by Ronald A. 
Ward: Baker Book House. 144 pp. 
$3.95. 

Ronald Ward is a scholar with a 
warm evangelic faith. In these ad- 
dresses he discusses helpfully and 
practically the great doctrines of the 
faith. 

Shaw in his Time, by Ivor Brown: 
Nelson. 212 pp. $6.00. 

Ivor Brown's concern is to set Ber- 
nard Shaw firmly in the context of 
his time. He admirably succeeds in 
his task. "Once," he relates, "Shaw 
was horrified to find himself on an 
anti-vivisection platform surrounded 
by wealthy women wearing the furs of 
trapped animals and plumage of 
slaughtered birds. He could not share 
a humanitarian spirit so limited in 
scope." One chapter is devoted to 
"Things Believed." 

The Poetry of Michelangelo, by Rob- 
ert J. Clements: New York University 
Press. 368 pp. $10.00 (Cloth). $3.95 
(Paperback). 

Michelangelo's painting, sculpture 
and architectural monuments have 
long been objects of universal admir- 
ation, but only after a period of com- 
parative obscurity is his poetry re- 
ceiving the attention, and admiration, 
it deserves. 

The religious poems are the expres- 
sion of a pure and fervent faith. 
Michelangelo, who could make of 
verse a kind of anxious prayer, im- 
precation, or monologue to God as the 
Saviour, belongs to the ranks of the 



56 



baroque poets. The author testifies: 
"He appeals to Christ to strengthen 
his faith and tear away the icy veil 
of doubt, he prays to be spared from 
the Saviour's upraised and wrathful 
arm, at the Last Judgment to receive 
assurance of salvation  these appeals 
constitute some of the finest pages of 
religious verse ever written." Just be- 
fore his death he penned these poig- 
nant lines: 

Painting and sculpture satisfy no 
more 

The Soul now turning to the Love 
Divine, 

That oped, to embrace us, on the 
cross its arms. 

Light from the Ancient East: The 
New Testament Illustrated by Re- 
cently Discovered Texts of the Graeco- 
Roman World, by Adolf Deissmann, 
Translated by Lionel R. M. Strachan: 
Baker Book House. 535 pp. $7.95. 

Baker House are to be congratulated 
on The Limited Edition Library, the 
purpose of which is to reprint editions 
of scholarly works now rare or un- 
obtainable. Deissmann's celebrated 
work has long been in this category. 
First published in German in 1910, 
it was extensively revised and trans- 
lated by Lionel Strachan while in- 
terned as an enemy alien. Deissmann 
was a pioneer in biblical philology, 
utilizing, for this purpose, the wealth 
of newly discovered papyri and ostraca 
rapidly coming to light. 

This erudite work is still topical, 
supplying an abundance of fascinat- 
ing detail. 

The Burned-Over District: The Social 
and Intellectual History of Enthusi- 
astic Religion in Western New York 
1800-1850, by Whitney R. Cross: 
Harper & Row. 383 pp. $2.45. 

First published in 1950 by Cornell 
University Press this work is a defi- 
nitive study of some of the bizarre 
expressions of early nineteenth century 
revivalism. 



The Reformation Crisis, Edited by 
Joel Hurstfield: Harper & Row. 126 
pp. $1.25. 

Originating in a series of talks over 
the BBC, this symposium numbers 
among its contributors such eminent 
authorities as Gordon Rupp and A. G. 
Dickens. What we are given, in cap- 
sulated form, is a lively and authorita- 
tive introduction to various aspects 
of the Reformation. 

In the Footsteps of Martin Luther, 
by M. A. Kleeberg and Gerhard 
Lemme: Concordia Publishing House. 
223 pp. $3.95. 

This pictorial history provides a 
lively account of the great Reformer. 
By means of photographs, woodcuts 
and sketches it illuminates the major 
events in Luther's life and career. 
Excellent value. 

The Life of Jesus for Everyman, by 
William Barclay: Harper & Row. 96 
pp. 95c. 

The chapters of this book were 
given over television for the Scottish 
BBC. The addresses are deceptively 
simple: William Barclay wears his 
learning lightly. It is a deft, polished 
performance; at points one could wish 
for greater attention to the theological 
issues involved. 

Psychotherapy and the Christian Mes- 
sage, by Albert C. Outler: Harper & 
Row. 286 pp. $1.75. 

A welcome reprint of a pioneer 
study. 

The Diary of Michael Wiggle sworth. 
1653-1657: The Conscience of a Puri- 
tan, Edited by Edmund S. Morgan: 
Harper & Row. 125 pp. $1.25. 

An austere puritan document dating 
from the earliest years of New Eng- 
land. Invaluable for students and his- 
torians. 



57 



Liberty and Reformation in the Puri- 
tan Revolution, by William Haller: 
Columbia University Press. 410 pp. 

$2.45. 

A worthy successor to the author's 
brilliant study The Rise of Puritanism, 
this work (first published in 1955) 
was soon recognized as a definitive 
study. It will not scon be superseded. 

Thomas Carlyle: On H?roes, Hero- 
Worship and the Heroic in History, 
Edited, with an introduction, by Carl 
Niemeyer: University of Nebraska 
Press. 255 pp. $1.75. 

"No one better than Carlyle epit- 
omizes the nineteenth century," the 
Editor writes, "with its moral fervour, 
its courage, its blindness to the future, 
its mingled complacency and dissatis- 
faction with the present, and its de- 
votion to strange causes." 

History, Carlyle affirms, is the bi- 
ography of great men. The difficulty 
about this concept is its lack of defini- 
tion: that is why the doctrine of the 
hero easily degenerates into the doc- 
trine of the drillmaster. As a guide, 
Niemeyer suggests, Carlyle is unsafe; 
as an exhorter, he is unsurpassed. 

Gnosticism and Early Christianity. 
Revised edition, by Robert M. Grant: 
Harper & Row. 241 pp. $1.75. 

The author has added to his earlier 
study (published by Columbia Uni- 
versity Press in 1959), an additional 
chapter: "Beyond Judaism and Chris- 
tianity: The Gospels of Thomas, 
Philip, and Mary," for this new edi- 
tion in Harper Torchbooks. This 
authoritative study, on a complex sub- 
ject, is welcome. Dr. Grant's thesis 
is that Gnosticism was the result of 
a reaction to the failure of Jewish 
apocalypticism with the Fall of Jeru- 
salem in A. D. 70. 



A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy 
Life, by William Law. Introduction by 
G. W. Bromiley: William B. Eerd- 
mans Publishing Company. 313 pp. 
$1.95 (Paperback). 

This spiritual classic played a sig- 
nificant role in the conversion of 
Samuel Johnson, who called it the 
"finest piece of hortatory theology in 
any language," and in the life of 
John Wesley, who was led by it to 
an "explicit resolve to be all devoted 
to God." The Editor of the present 
edition testifies: "Here is a work 
which, by the sheer power of inde- 
pendent greatness, bears eloquent tes- 
timony to the influence of the written 
word and the efficacy of spiritual 
operation." 

Pascal: Pensees, Translated, with an 
introduction by A. J. Krailsheimer: 
Pengiun Books. 359 pp. $1.65. 

This is an edition of the Pensees 
as they were left by Pascal at the 
time of his death in 1662. It was 
Pascal's pious ambition to write a 
great work of Christian apologetics: 
what we have here, in draft form, are 
Pascal's initial notes and reflections. 
The pattern of Pascal's thought, as 
the Editor rightly explains, "is the 
stark contrast between man in his 
state of fallen nature and in a state 
of grace." 

The Editor's introduction, as well 
as the translation itself, from the point 
of view of scholarly excellence, is all 
that could be desired. 

Jonathan Edwards: Freedom of the 
Will, Edited by Paul Ramsey: Yale 
University Press. 494 pp. $7.50 
(Cloth). $2.95 (Paperback). 

Paul Ramsey, in an impressive pref- 
ace, describes Jonathan Edwards "as 
the greatest philosopher-theologian yet 
to grace the American scene." Into 
this work, he says, Edwards "poured 
all his intellectual acumen, coupled 
with a passionate conviction that the 



58 



decay to be observed in religion and 
morals followed the decline in doctrine 
since the founding of New England." 
What we are given, in this historic 
study, is a persuasive presentation of 
classic Calvinism. 

The Vision of God: The Christian 
Doctrine of the Sum mum Bonum, by 
K. E. Kirk: Harper & Row. 582 pp. 
$2.95. 

This unabridged reprint of Kenneth 
Kirk's celebrated Bampton Lectures is 
to be warmly welcomed. This book 
deservedly ranks as a classic: no other 
work explores, with a like thorough- 
ness, the vexed problems of rigorism 
and formalism in the life of the church 
down the ages. 

Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Edited and 
abridged by G. A. Williamson: Little, 
Brown and Company. 476 pp. $7.50. 

For generations Foxe's Book of 
Martyrs occupied a place of honor 
alongside of the Bible in the homes 
of English Protestants. Long regarded 
as a monument of Protestant hagiog- 
raphy, its worth as a mine of accurate 
and reliable historical detail is being 
increasingly recognized. Nevertheless, 
it is true to say that, as a book, it is 
better known than read. The most re- 
cent edition was published over a 
century ago: the Victorian edition con- 
sisted of eight bulky volumes. (The 
original work contained over four mil- 
lion words.) G. A. Williamson has 
achieved a skillful task of condensa- 
tion: and he has also supplied a valu- 
able explanatory introduction which is 
a model of scholarly competence. 

Luther's Works: Volume 41: Church 
and Ministry HI, Edited by Eric W. 
Gritsch, with an introduction by E. 
Gordon Rupp: Fortress Press. 412 pp. 
$6.00. 

Fortress Press and Concordia are 
sharing in the joint publication of 
a monumental edition of Luther's 



major works in fifty-five volumes. It 
is a publishing venture of incalculable 
importance and, in keeping with the 
occasion, the volumes are being hand- 
somely and worthily bound and 
printed. 

The present volume consists of three 
occasional writings: On the Councils 
and the Church (1539), Against Hans- 
wurst (1541), Against the Roman 
Papacy, an Institution of the Devil 
(1545). In these writings Luther af- 
firms the limited utility of Councils: 
"We for our part have never desired 
a council to reform our church. God 
and the Holy Spirit already sanctified 
our church through his holy word . . . 
so that we have everything (God be 
praised) pure and holy  the word, 
baptism, the Sacrament, the Keys, and 
everything which belongs to the true 
church  without the additions and 
filth of human doctrine." 

Gordon Rupp contributes a brief 
introduction which provides helpful 
background information about the 
circumstances which prompted these 
particular works. Two of these 
treatises have not previously been 
translated into English. 

Luther s Works: Volume 8: Lectures 
on Genesis Chapters 45-50, Edited by 
Jaroslav Pelikan: Concordia. 360 pp. 
$6.00. 

Luther's lectures on Genesis were 
given over a period of ten years, 
during a time of increasing bodily 
weakness. The commentary concludes 
with words of deep poignancy: "God 
grant that after me others will do 
better. I can do no more. I am weak. 
Pray God for me that He may grant 
me a good and blessed last hour." 
Three months later he was dead. The 
Editor points out that Luther's final 
lecture on Genesis was thus "not only 
the last lecture of his massive work of 
Biblical exposition but the last lecture 
of his professional career." 



59 



The great value of these com- 
mentaries is that they enable us to 
enter into Luther's heart and mind. 
We are reminded that Luther's skill as 
a dialectician never obfuscates or 
smothers his determination to preach 
the gospel of Jesus Christ with un- 
remitting forcefulness and clarity. 
Though he attacks and refutes his 
opponents with many darts, yet his 
heart overflows with Christian love. 
To the very end his mind was razor- 
sharp and instantly alert. 

The Unbelievers: English Agnostic 
Thought 1840-1890, by A. O. J. Cock- 
shut: New York University Press. 192 
pp. $5.00. 

In a series of vivid biographical 
sketches the author discusses what he 
calls "the old guard of English ag- 
nosticism, those strong, simple, im- 
mensely energetic, confident, moral- 
istic men who never heard of Freud, 
and ignored Marx and Kierkegaard 
and Nietzsche, the makers of the 
world we know." Their besetting error, 
he suggests, was Pelagianism: "that is, 
they not only merely said people 
ought to be unselfish and good, but 
that it was natural and easy for them 
to be so." The author is to be con- 
gratulated on a brilliant reconstruc- 
tion. 

Zwingli and the Arts, by Charles Gar- 
side, Jr.: Yale University Press. 190 
pp. $7.50. 

This is an important pioneer study. 
The author writes: "There exists, to 
my knowledge, no book on the subject 
of Zwingli's attitude toward the visual 
arts and music prior to this one." By 
a careful study of the original docu- 
ments the author has recreated the 
sequence of events in Zurich which 
led to the abolition of all music and 
singing from public worship and then 
to the removal of images and other 
works of art. "Insofar as it was pos- 
sible, Zwingli eliminated everything 



sensuous from worship. Music, vest- 
ments, incense, ritual gestures, and 
images  all were of no avail because 
faith . . . had nothing to do with the 
senses." One consequence of this, the 
author points out, was the rapid secu- 
larization of art. 

This is a work of impeccable schol- 
arship. It is, beyond doubt, the most 
illuminating study yet to appear on 
the work of Zwingli. 

Toward a Theology of Involvement: 
The Thought of Ernst Troeltsch, by 
Benjamin A. Reist: The Westminster 
Press. 264 pp. $6.00. 

In this work of judicious scholar- 
ship the author provides us with a 
critical account of the thought and 
achievement of Ernst Troeltsch. 
Troeltsch insisted that the history of 
Christianity is the history of the com- 
promises of the church with the world: 
the author further relates this insight 
to the work of such contemporary 
thinkers as Paul Lehmann, Peter Berg- 
er and Harvey Cox. This is a highly 
informative study. 

The Other Victorians, by Steven Mar- 
cus: Basic Books. 292 pp. $5.95. 

The Associate Professor of English 
at Columbia University seeks to un- 
derstand the significance of mid-Vic- 
torian pornography as an historical 
phenomenon. It was, he argues, a sub- 
culture, a negative analogue, a reverse 
image of the morality of upper-class 
society. That society, we now know, 
tended to equate ignorance with in- 
nocence. The consequence was much 
hypocrisy and much guilt. The 
author's stance is a happy combination 
of critical objectivity with psycho- 
analytic understanding. 

God Is Dead: The Anatomy of a 
Slogan, by Kenneth Hamilton: Wil- 
liam B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 86 
pp. $1.25. 

This book is essentially a tract for 
the times. With skill and grace the 



60 



author succeeds in a brilliant task of 
analysis and clarification. But he 
avoids smugness. "Conservative the- 
ology," he cautions, "tends to substi- 
tute nostalgia for 'the old time re- 
ligion' for wrestling with the task of 
making theology face the contempo- 
rary human situation so as to present 
faith in a form that really speaks to 
man, challenging his intellect and his 
imagination." This also needs to be 
said, and it is to the author's credit 
that he says it frankly. 



of the Roman Catholic Church that 
this volume contains a contribution 
by the Quaker, Roland Bainton, and 
that the bibliographies reveal a close 
familiarity with contemporary Prot- 
estant writing. This symposium dis- 
cusses such vital topics as religious 
freedom, poverty, pacificism, and the 
population explosion. The discussion 
is frank and forthright. Would that 
Protestants could discuss the same 
subjects with a like openness and 
maturity! 



Contemporary Existentialism and 
Christian Faith, by J. Rodman Wil- 
liams: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 180 pp. 
$3.50. 

In this book (an expansion of a 
Convocation lecture at Austin Semi- 
nary) the author discusses Sartre, Jas- 
pers, Heidegger, Tillich and Bultmann 
in relation to the Christian faith. Stu- 
dents will appreciate the author's 
synoptic analyses: the fruit of much 
industrious labor. 

The German Church Conflict, by Karl 
Barth: John Knox Press. 77 pp. $1.75. 

These miscellaneous essays, dating 
from the years 1933 to 1939, were 
written as forewords and articles, and 
are here reprinted as the first in a 
new series, entitled Ecumenical Stud- 
ies in History. This collection of es- 
says, as the translator (T. H. L. 
Parker) freely acknowledges, adds 
little to our knowledge of the church 
conflict, but the collection "has a 
certain historical value in having been 
written by a leading participant of 
the calibre of Barth." 

War, Poverty, Freedom: The Christian 
Response. Concilium Vol. 15, Edited 
by Franz Bockle: Paulist Press. 163 
pp. $4.50. 

No one can fail to be impressed by 
the intellectual ferment that is taking 
place within the Roman Church: and 
it is indicative of the new openness 



Worship: Its Theology and Practice, 
by J. J. von Allmen: Oxford Univer- 
sity Press. 317 pp. $6.50. 

Professor von Allmen of Neuchatel 
here provides a thorough examination 
of the meaning of worship. The basic 
questions that frequently engage and 
divide Christians who discuss this sub- 
ject are explicated: worship's Christ- 
ological basis, Christ's presence in 
worship, the nature of the worshipping 
community, the necessity for the cult. 

No other contemporary book deals 
so helpfully with this subject. For the 
reader who seeks the why rather than 
the how superficial reading will not 
suffice. This is meat, not milk. Pres- 
byterians need this volume as they 
evaluate materials currently before 
them. Before adopting or rejecting 
patterns and orders let us discover 
their meaning; before we argue about 
cultic practice let us know what the 
Christian cult is. This work enables 
us to know. 

The Soul of the Symbols, by Joseph 
R. Shultz: William B. Eerdmans Pub- 
lishing Co. 198 pp. $3.95. 

Joseph R. Shultz, Dean of Ashland 
Theological Seminary (Church of the 
Brethren) has a high Christology and 
a high view of the importance of the 
Christian symbols. His insistence upon 
foot-washing as a sacrament will not 
bear Reformed scrutiny, but his study 
of its relationship to cleansing in the 



61 



Old Testament rites is provocative. 
Impressed again with the breadth of 
the liturgical reform movement this 
reviewer anticipates that Shultz's 
thought may well make worship 
among the "plain people" (Brethren) 
no longer plain. 

Foreign Policy in Christian Perspec- 
tive, by John Coleman Bennett: 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 160 pp. $3.50; 
(Paperback) $1.25. 

Dr. Bennett's distinguished record 
as scholar, teacher, author and ad- 
ministrator qualifies him to write on 
this important theme. He here ex- 
amines, from the Christian point of 
view, such topics as the Cold War, 
the nuclear age, Communism and 
Communist China, Vietnam, the Uni- 
ted Nations and the necessity for 
ethical criticism of all governments 
in the making of foreign policy. Being 
a realist, this author holds in sound 
common sense that the Christian 
should take a stance which is political- 
ly possible. He states his conviction 
that "no government responsible to 
an existing nation can adopt a policy 
based on pacifist convictions." This 
slender volume represents the mature 
thinking of an informed Christian 
who is deeply concerned about the 
foreign policy of our nation in these 
so dangerous days just ahead. 

Religion and Social Conflict, Edited 
by Robert Lee and Martin E. Marty: 
Oxford University Press. 193 pp. 
$5.00. 

Though we try to escape it or 
minimize it, conflict has positive func- 
tions as well as negative ones. To 
develop this thesis ten authors probe 
various areas of social conflict as 
they impinge on religious institutions, 
technology, religious group formation, 
racial protest movements, right wing 
and left wing extremism, religion and 
politics, church-state relations, inter- 
religious group conflict, and the role 



of the pastor in social conflict. The 
minister or laymen, concerned about 
social conflict, or theatened by it, can 
profit from this study. 

The Art of William Golding, by Ber- 
nard S. Oldsey and Stanley Weintraub: 
Harcourt, Brace and World. 178 pp. 
$4.50. 

The authors of this composite work, 
have written what they modestly call, 
a "critical progress report." But it is 
far more than this: it is a brilliant 
piece of elucidatory analysis. 

Immortality and Resurrection. Four 
essays by Oscar Cullmann, Harry A. 
Wolf son, Werner Jaeger, and Henry J. 
Cadbury. Edited and with an introduc- 
tion by Krister Stendahl: The Mac- 
millan Co. 149 pp. $1.45 (Paperback). 
A reprint of Cullmann's celebrated 
Ingersoll Lecture; together with the 
subsequent Ingersoll Lectures by a 
classicist, a philosopher, and a New 
Testament scholar, criticizing and 
commenting upon Cullmann's thesis. 

Existentialism and Alienation in 
American Literature, by Sidney Fink- 
elstein: International Publishers. 314 
pp. $2.25 (Paperback). 

Sidney Finkelstein uses the insights 
of Marxism to launch a massive at- 
tack on the moral decadence of the 
West. Commenting on Henry Miller 
he scathingly observes: "What these 
writers can be described as doing, 
figuratively, in their gloating natural- 
ism of coition, perversion, toilet, drug 
addiction and mental and bodily dis- 
solution, is forcing this society to 
eat its own excrement, as if to admit 
that this is its truth." It is difficult 
to deny the justice of this indictment. 

Teen-Agers and Sex, by James A. 
Pike: Prentice-Hall. 146 pp. $3.95. 

On one occasion Bishop Pike was 
approached by a woman, deeply dis- 
tressed about her unmarried daughter's 



62 



pregnancy. "Her sense of distress and 
shame," he writes, "centered around 
the fact that her daughter had com- 
mitted fornication. But when at the 
mother's request I saw the daughter 
(principally to talk about whether or 
not the couple should be married), 
wrongly or rightly I immediately 
zeroed in on this question, 'How could 
the two of you  seniors in college  
have been so irresponsible as not to 
have taken precautions?' " "This," 
Bishop Pike explains, "seemed to me 
the immediate existential ethical 
question." 

Two persons, in deep perplexity, 
sought guidance and advice; what they 
received was a lecture on contracep- 
tion. God help us! 

Albert Camus: The Artist in the 
Arena, by Emmet Parker: The Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin Press. 245 pp. 
$6.00. 

Emmet Parker illustrates, in this 
pioneer study, the varied nature of 
Camus' journalistic activity. In his 
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Cam- 
us said: "A writer has two trusts that 
constitute the nobility of his calling, 
the service of truth and the service of 
freedom." 

Man in the Modern Theatre, Edited 
by Nathan A. Scott, Jr.: John Knox 
Press. 100 pp. $1.00 (Paperback). 

A quick and lively introduction to 
four modern dramatists: T. E. Eliot, 
Eugene O'Neill, Bertolt Brecht, Sam- 
uel Beckett. 

Four Ways of Modern Poetry, Edited 
by Nathan A. Scott, Jr.: John Knox 
Press. 95 pp. $1.00 (Paperback). 

A companion booklet which ex- 
plores questions of belief in the poetry 
of Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, 
Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden. "A 
good poem," Robert Frost suggests, 
"like love, ends in a clarification of 



life  not necessarily a great clarifica- 
tion, such as sects and cults are 
founded on, but in a momentary stay 
against confusion." 

Studies in Seventeenth-Century Poetic, 
by Ruth Wallerstein: The University 
of Wisconsin Press. 421 pp. $2.95. 

The latter section of this study is 
devoted to a detailed examination of 
the work of Andrew Marvell; the 
earlier (which is of more immediate 
interest), to an examination of the 
funeral elegy. Donne (who was pre- 
occupied with the fact of death and 
the meaning of saving faith) imposed 
on the traditional poetic form a meta- 
physical pattern. 

The Mystery of Death, by Ladislaus 
Boros, S. J.: Herder and Herder. 201 
pp. $4.50. 

The author (a disciple of Teilhard 
de Chardin and Karl Rahner) radi- 
cally reinterprets the traditional un- 
derstanding of death in Christological 
and personalist terms. The author 
writes persuasively, but not all readers 
will be able to accept his dogmatic 
presuppositions. 

Russian Literature and Modern Eng- 
lish Fiction. A Collection of Critical 
Essays, Edited by Donald Davie: The 
University of Chicago Press. 244 pp. 
$1.95 (Paperback). 

"It would be absurd to deny," the 
Editor forthrightly affirms, "that the 
Russian novelists have exerted a pow- 
erful influence on virtually every 
serious British and American prose 
writer in the twentieth century." The 
validation of this claim is to be found 
in the essays that follow the editor's 
introduction. With much skill he has 
gathered together a series of critical 
and interpretative articles. Students 
will appreciate access to these helpful 
studies. 



63 



Introduction to Russian Realism, by 
Ernest T. Simmons: Indiana Univer- 
sity Press. 275 pp. $6.50. 

"Realism in fiction," the author 
explains, "is a literary artist's way of 
looking at life." "I am," Dostoevsky 
confesses, "a realist in the higher 
sense; that is, I portray all the depths 
of the human soul." In the Patten 
Lectures the author, who has pre- 
viously written a number of admirable 
biographical studies, illustrates his 
thesis by fresh and illuminating stud- 
ies of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, 
Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Sholokhov. 

The Power of Life and Death, by 
Michael V. DiSalle with Lawrence G. 
Blochman: Random House. 214 pp. 
$4.95. 

This book, by the former Governor 
of Ohio, with its carefully docu- 
mented case studies, is devoted to the 
thesis that the death penalty is "im- 
moral, ineffectual, inhuman, unjust 
fin that nobody with money is ever 
executed), and uneconomic." On the 
ground of justice, if not of humanity, 
he urges that in the home of the brave 
and the land of the free, we should 
heed the example of practically every 
civilized nation in the world and 
abolish the death penalty. "When Cain 
killed his brother Abel and lied about 
it," he sagely observes, "the Lord did 
not see fit to take Cain's life in re- 
turn. Instead, he marked Cain as a 
fratricide and exiled him for life." 

Art and Action, by C. H. Sisson: 
Methuen. 166 pp. 21s. 

The author of these miscellaneous 
essays invites us to accompany him 
as he wanders down some of the 
highways and by-ways of literature. 
"The subjects of these essays," he con- 
fides, "reflect the interests of a mind 
concerned with the possibilities of 
accommodation between literature and 
. . . 'practical life'." He proves an 
amiable guide as he reflects on the 



recurrent themes of "the church, the 
crown, the clerc." 



Historians Against History: The Fron- 
tier Thesis and the National Covenant 
in American Historical Writing Since 
1830, by David W. Noble: University 
of Minnesota. 197 pp. $5.00. 

It is the author's contention that, 
"from 1830 to the present, each gen- 
eration has seen the emergence of a 
historian who has become a public 
philosopher as he differentiates be- 
tween the timeless harmony of the real 
America and the intrusion of artificial 
and alien patterns from abroad." From 
Bancroft to Boorstin, the author 
argues, historians have sought to pre- 
serve inviolate the concept of America 
as a nation living under a covenant. 
Students of historiography will find 
food for thought in this study of the 
perpetuation of the American myth. 

Zwingli: Third Man of the Reforma- 
tion, by Jean Rilliet. Translated by 
Harold Knight: The Westminster 
Press. 320 pp. $6.00. 

This volume presents the life and 
thought of the chief founder of the 
Reformed Church. Zwingli (1484- 
1531) was no medievalist: he loved 
the new learning offered by the Ren- 
aissance. Not being an obscurantist, 
he admired Erasmus who taught that 
the world was overloaded with ob- 
scure dogmas invented by obscure 
class-room theologians. Zwingli, too. 
was an enlightened, up-to-date man. 
interested in a new Christianity issuing 
from a fresh study of the New Testa- 
ment. Zwingli's Exposition of True 
and False Religion (1525), however, 
does not separate religion from phi- 
losophy. 

Zwingli admired "the richness and 
splendor of Plato," "the finesse and 
erudition of Aristotle," and placed 
these great philosophers in heaven. 



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