Columbia Theological Seminary Bulletin, 59, number 2, July 1966

FACULTY ISSUE

Columbia Theological Seminary

Bulletin

Announcing an institute on

CHRISTIAN ETHICS
July 11-14, 1966

a provocative program to help ministers, D.C.E/s and laymen come
to grips with Christian Ethics and to prepare them for leadership in
congregational study.

Co-Sponsors:

Columbia Seminary /

Board of Christian Education, Presbyterian Church, U. S.

COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BULLETIN
Volume L1X July, 1966 No. 2

Published five times a year by Columbia Theological Seminary, Box 291,
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 3

ARTICLES

"The Mark on Cain" ... By Wade P. Huie, Jr. 4

"Talking About God Today and Tomorrow" 6

... By Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr.

"What the Sabbath Law Intended" ... By James H. Gailey. Jr. 15

REVIEWS

George L. Hunt (ed.) Calvinism and the Political Order 22

... By P. C. Enniss, Jr.

Philip E. Hughes (ed.) Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology 22

... By Edward Henegar

Philip E. Hughes (ed. & tr.) 23

The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time
of Calvin ... By Edward Henegar

George Manford Gutzke Plain Talk on Acts ... By Richard A. Dodd 24
Stuart B. Babbage 24

The Mark of Cain: Studies in Literature and Theology

... By M. Douglas Harper, Jr.

L. Nelson Bell 25

Convictions to Live By ... By J. McDowell Richards

Gustaf Wingren 26

The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church

... By Wade P. Huie, Jr.

G. C. Berkouwer The Work of Christ ... By William C. Robinson 26

John R. Rodgers The Theology of P. T. Forsyth . . . By F. B. Gear 27

E. L. Mascall The Secularisation of Christianity 27

... By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X 28

... By Stuart Barton Babbage

Harvey H. Guthrie, Jr. 29

Israel's Sacred Songs: A Study of Dominant Themes

... By James H. Gailey, Jr.

R. Derek Kidner Proverbs: An Introduction and Commentary 30

... By Ludwig R. Dewitz

Reginald H. Fuller The Foundations of New Testament Christology 30

A. J. B. Higgins Jesus and the Son of Man 30

... By Charles B. Cousar

Tommie L. Duncan Understanding and Helping the Narcotic Addict 32

... By Robert L. Faulkner, M. D.

Alan Paton 33

South African Tragedy: The Life and Times of Jan Hofmeyr

... By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Leslie D. Weatherhead The Christian Agnostic 33

... By Patrick D. Miller

H. Shelton Smith (ed.) Horace Bushncll 34

. . . By Hubert Vance Taylor

Page

John W. Beardslee (ed. & tr.) Reformed Dogmatics 35

... By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes
J. N. D. Kelly The Athanasian Creed ... By William C. Robinson 35
Domenico Grasso 36

Proclaiming God's Message: A Study in the Theology of Preaching

... By Wade P. Hum, Jr.
Robert Gordis The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job 36

... By James H. Gailey, Jr.
Paul Tournier The Adventure of Living ... By Paul T. Fuhrmann 37
Max Weber The Sociology of Religion ... By James H. Gailey, Jr. 37
Rousas John Rushdoony 38

The Messianic Character of American Education

... By Manford George Gutzke
Norman Vincent Peale Sin, Sex and Self -Control 39

... By Stuart Barton Babbage

Erich Fromm The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil 40

... By Hugh L. Eichelberger

Martin North The Old Testament World 41

Otto Eissfeldt The Old Testament: An Introduction to the 41

History of the Formation of the Old Testament

... By James H. Gailey, Jr.

William R. Read New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil 41

... By Cecil Thompson

David M. Reimers White Protestantism and the Negro 42

... By Harold B. Prince

Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough The Psychology of Religious Experiences 42

... By Paul T. Fuhrmann

Nicholas Mosley Experience and Religion 42

... By Olof Halvard Lyon

Henry R. McAdoo The Spirit of Anglicanism: A Survey of Anglican 43
Theological Method in the Seventeenth Century

... By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Jocelyn Gibb (ed.) Light on C. S. Lewis 44

... By Stuabt Barton Babbage

Rousas J. Rushdoony This Independent Republic 44

... By William C. Robinson

Edwin R. Thiele The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings 45

... By Ludwig R. Dewitz

Herschel H. Hobbs An Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew 46

... By Dean G. McKee

Edward Schillebeeckx The Church and Ecumenism 46

Roger Aubert (ed.) Historical Problems of Church Renewal 46

Teodoro Jimenez-Urresti and Neophytos Edelby (ed.) 46

Pastoral Reform in Church Government

Christian Duquoc (ed.) Spirituality in Church and World 46

Pierre Benoit and Roland E. Murphy (ed.) 46

The Human Reality of Sacred Scripture

... By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Horton Davies Worship and Theology in England: 47

The Ecumenical Century 1900-1965

... By Stuart Barton Babbage

SHORTER REVIEWS 49

FOREWORD

This Faculty Bulletin opens with a devotional message from
the pen of Dr. Wade P. Huie, Jr., who occupies with distinction
the Peter Marshall Chair of Homiletics at Columbia Theological
Seminary.

"Talking About God Today and Tomorrow" is the address
delivered by Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr. on the occasion of his
inauguration as Professor of Systematic Theology on April 5,
1966. After six years of service as Associate Professor, Dr.
Guthrie was promoted to his present position by action of the
Board of Directors in May of 1964. Owing to the fact that he
was granted sabbatic leave for study in Europe during the school
year of 1964-65, however, his formal induction into office was
delayed until this spring.

The article entitled, "What the Sabbath Law Intended," con-
stitutes one chapter of a book dealing with the Sabbath which is
under preparation by Dr. James H. G alley, Jr., Professor of Old
Testament Language, Literature and Exegesis. Dr. Gailey will
serve this summer as Director of the Fourth Annual Near Eastern
Seminar conducted by the Institute of Mediterranean Studies.
He will also be Instructor in History for this seminar, which will
do its work in mostly Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. He will be
accompanied by Mrs. Gailey who will serve as Dean of Women.

Included as a supplement to this bulletin is "A Re-Study of
the Virgin Birth of Christ" by Dr. William C. Robinson which
is reprinted from the Evangelical Quarterly for December, 1965.
Dr. Robinson is the senior member of the faculty of Columbia
Theological Seminary in point of service and, with this session,
is completing forty years of his relationship with the institution
as Professor of Church History, Church Polity, and Apologetics.

Attention is called to the fact that the first five articles in the
book review section deal with works recently published by mem-
bers of the faculty of this institution.

J. McDowell Richards

THE MARK ON CAIN

Genesis 4:1-16

Wade P. Huie, Jr.

"Raising Cain" is a hobby we all ride. Each has his own way, and each
has his favorite occasion. Cain is certainly not the favorite character of any
of us, yet he sets the pattern for much of our living. There is more Cain
in us than we want to admit. He may even be thought of as a patron saint
of our culture. Thus to hear the story of Cain is to hear our story.

In the fourth chapter of Genesis Cain is presented in two roles, first
as murderer and then as wanderer. They are interrelated, but here we are
to look only at the former.

Cain and Abel

Adam and Eve had just been expelled from the garden, and the first
event to follow was the birth of their first son. Eve was so excited: "I have
gotten a man," she exclaimed, "I have gotten another Adam." The name
given to the baby was Cain, which means "spear." The second arrival was
also a boy, and he was called Abel, which means "breath." Their names
are a parable Cain the Spear stands for power and force; Abel the Breath,
for frailty and weakness.

Cain became a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Both engaged in con-
structive work, and both attended Church that is, they brought the best
they had from the labors of their hand to offer on the altar of sacrifice
in the worship of God. Both brought offerings, but one was acceptable and
the other was not. "The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for
Cain and his offering he had no regard." We cannot be sure as to why the
difference; perhaps, as the order of words suggests, there was something
about the person himself, rather than the offering, that made him acceptable
or unacceptable. "A broken and contrite heart" God will never despise,
so there must have been something in Cain's heart, in his attitude, that
caused God to look with rejection upon his worship.

Cain versus Abel

How Cain knew that his worship was rejected and Abel's accepted we
do not know, but we are told that "Cain was very angry, and his countenance
fell." Why, he was the elder son, the person of privilege, the hero on the
stage. He was born to dominate, and God should recognize him accordingly.
"Isn't God always on the side of the heaviest artillery and the biggest cars
and the fastest space ships?" asks the Machiavelli in every age. God, how-
ever, does not fit into the Machiavellian pattern. He refuses to dance to
Cain's tune. In fact he turns Cain's system upside down, accepting the
worship of the weaker instead of the stronger. And Cain became so angry
that you could see the madness in his face. Such anger is dangerous, like
a tiger crouching to pounce on its prey. God warned Cain, but the warning
went for naught.

Cain was angry at God, but how can you express anger toward God? You
take it out on one of God's creatures. "Cain rose up against his brother
Abel, and killed him." Pride leads to anger and anger to revenge and
revenge to murder. Being at odds with God leads to being at odds with

your brother. When you cannot get your hands on God to mistreat him,
you get your hands on your brother to mistreat him. Creator and creature
are so closely related that you cannot deal with one without dealing with
the other. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did
it to me," said Jesus. "If any one says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother,
he is a liar," says John, "for he who does not love his brother whom he
has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." "Any one who hates his
brother is a murderer."

This tragic note is added to Cain's crime: sin caught him, not when he
had his back toward God, but precisely at the time his hands were lifted to
God at the altar. The first murder was religious, growing out of a distorted
view of worship based on a distorted view of God. It was based on the
fatal divorce of theology from ethics. "Cain raising" began as part of
a church fight and a family feud.

Cain and the Lord

Now what was God's response to the murder of Abel? He spoke to
Cain: "Where is Abel your brother?" He did not ask him a religious
question, but an ethical question. He did not ask, "What have you done
to me?" but "What have you done to my creature, your brother?" Have
you ignored him? Have you neglected him? Have you shunned him? Have
you hurt him? Where is Abel your brother?

"I do not know," replied Cain. He lied. He tried to hide his wrongdoing.
He even added that snide remark: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Or literally,
"Am I my shepherd's shepherd?" Am I the stronger responsible for the
weaker? Am I the rich responsible for the poor? Am I the brilliant one
responsible for the dunce? Am I the saved responsible for the lost? So he
disowned his evil deed and even disowned his brotherliness. Cain had re-
nounced God and killed brotherhood.

When a man sins and refuses to repent, the result is judgment. With
Cain it was two-fold. "You are cursed from the ground . . . When you till
the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength." So Cain was to
spend the rest of his life in drudgery, in meaningless toil, in fruitless labor.
The second aspect of judgment was this: "You shall be a fugitive and
a wanderer on the earth." Life would be unsettled, with no purpose, no
security. He would be "a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth," dwelling
"in the land of Nod" (literally "the land of wandering") the forerunner
of the migrant American, moving here and there, restless and rootless,
trying to find meaning in life almost everywhere.

"My punishment is greater than I can bear, . . . and whoever finds me
will slay me," cried Cain. A cry of desperation, yet there was no sign of
penitence. He was crushed by his punishment, but not crushed enough to
repent. He was in despair and filled with fear. Still God answered his plea,
not by removing the judgment, but by adding this word of promise: "If
any one slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." Thus God
places himself on the side of Cain, as his personal protector. He becomes
what the Hebrews called the "Go-el," the nearest kinsman whose duty
it was to buy back the person in distress or to avenge the blood of his
kinsman unjustly slain. God identifies himself as Cain's nearest kinsman.
God is not for Abel and against Cain; he is for both. He sides with both
innocent victim and guilty murderer. God loves both!

God gives this word of promise to Cain and then makes the promise
concrete. He gives Cain a mark of protection. "And the Lord put a mark
on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him." What the mark
was we do not know; perhaps it was a kind of tattoo upon his forehead.
Whatever the form of the mark, the meaning is very significant. Too often
this mark has been misinterpreted as if the brand on Cain was a sign of
disfavor. Not so at all. It was a mark indicating God's protective care of
Cain. It was a mark, not of disgrace, but of grace. God would not abandon
Cain to his own deserved fate.

With this mark of Cain we have a glimpse of the Gospel. It was a long,
long way to Bethlehem, a long, long way to Calvary, but here at the
beginning of the Bible one gets a glimpse of the God who loves the un-
deserving, the God who shows himself as man's nearest kinsman, the God
who would spell out this love in a manger and on a cross. He put his
mark on Cain, a promise of his concern for all who are given to "raising
Cain." The sign of the rainbow was for Noah and the sign of circumcision
for Abraham. For us the sign is the cross, expressed in the sacrament of
baptism. "And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him
should kill him." "What then shall we say to this? If God is for us (us
Cains, us murderers, us wanderers), who is against us? He who did not
spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us
all things with him?"

TALKING ABOUT GOD TODAY AND
TOMORROW

Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr.

Following the custom for such occasions as this, I want to speak about
what I consider to be the task of the discipline of "systematic" theology at
Columbia Theological Seminary, an institution of the Presbyterian Church,
in a great modern city at the heart of the southern United States, in the last
third of the 20th century.

In a sense, of course, it is superfluous to add geographical or temporal
qualifications to a discussion of the task of theology. In every time and
place and situation, the theologian has always one task and one task only:
he has to try to speak faithfully and intelligently about God. Of course,
if he is a Christian theologian, a theologian who speaks of the God known
in the man Jesus of Nazareth, he cannot speak only of God. He has to speak
of God in relation to men and the world in which they live. And he must
do this not only to solve his own intellectual or psychological problems,
or even to help the church be theologically correct in its preaching and
teaching; he must try to speak of God and men in order to help the church
as a community and all its individual members (not just professional
theologians or preachers) learn how to bear witness in word and in action,
before the whole world, to the loving power and powerful love of this God.
Nevertheless, in the last analysis, we have said everything when we say
that always, everywhere, the one task of the theologian is to speak about
God this God.

But the way we have to speak about God, and the particular aspects of
the one whole truth about him which we have to emphasize these change
from time to time. The Old Testament prophets always spoke about the
same God, but what they said about him and how they said it, varied
according to Israel's faithfulness or unfaithfulness on the one hand, and
according to the international political situation on the other. The New
Testament writers all spoke of the same God, but they did it quite differently
when the political and cultural environment was Jewish-eastern and when
it was Greek-western, when the church was strong and when it was weak
and threatened. Calvin and Luther both spoke of the same God, but what
needed to be stressed to the frivolous French-speaking Genevans was different
from what had to be stressed to the legalistic Germans. Where we speak
and when we speak and to whom we speak influence how we speak and
what we have to say about the one God who is always the one subject of
theology.

In what follows, therefore, I want to speak first about what I consider
to be the context in which we have to try to talk faithfully and intelligently
about God in our time and place. In order to do that, we too must take
into consideration both the situation of the church and the situation of the
political, social and cultural environment of the church. Then I shall discuss
my understanding of some of the consequences of this context for the way
in which we have to go about our task as Reformed theologians.

The Situation of the Church

I want to describe the situation of the church in terms of three losses
which are bound to alter the way in which we speak of God in our time:
the loss of an old confidence, the loss of some old enemies, the loss of an
old isolation.

1. The loss of old confidence. In order to understand where we are
in the church today, we may go back to a speech a young theologian made
in 1922, after the first world war abruptly exposed the bankruptcy of the
idealistic theology which had prevailed for more than a century. Karl Barth,
then a young preacher of 36, made a gloomy three-point talk on the task
of the ministry: As ministers we ought to speak of God. But we are human
and cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both that we
should and yet cannot, and by that very recognition give God the glory. 1
But during the next 40 years, Barth learned very well how to speak of
God in 13 volumes! And not only Barth. The period following that pes-
simistic speech in 1922 was one of immense theological creativity which
produced comprehensive systems of both dogmatic and Biblical theology
on every side. It was a period of new confidence a confidence different
from that of the old liberalism in that it rested on an attempt to speak
about God in conversation with scripture instead of in a conversation in
which man asked himself questions and gave himself answers; a confidence
on the other hand different from the old orthodoxy in that it was not
content simply to repeat the old classical formulations of Christian truth,
but believed it possible to express Christian truth in new ways for a new
time. But in any case, whether we spoke of God in terms of the "Word" or

1. Karl Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man (New York: Harper and
Brothers. 1957), p. 186.

the "Ground of Being" or "Authentic Existence," we were confident that
in one way or another we could speak about him.

And now in 1966 another young theologian has spoken, once again
exposing the bankruptcy of the church. He has spoken even more radically
than Barth in 1922. He says not just that we cannot speak about God,
but that God is dead. In my opinion, the God-is-dead theology is significant
not because it tells us anything at all about God, but because of what it
tells us about the church. Some people have reacted to it with extreme
hostility and defensiveness. Why? Why not the same amused smile with
which we react to the absurd claim that the moon is made of green cheese?
Could it be that those who have reacted most violently are precisely those
who deep in their hearts are most afraid that it is true? Other people have
reacted with a sense of joy and relief. Why? What kind of God has the
church led people to believe he is, if they think we would be better off
without him? And still others have reacted with confusion. God is not
dead, of course, but how can we talk about him faithfully and intelligently
in a time when neither the old orthodox language and concepts and systems
of the 16th and 17th centuries, nor the neo-orthodox language and concepts
and systems of the 20th century, make sense to most people any more? At
any rate, the hostile or relieved or confused reaction to the God-is-dead
theology is symptomatic of the fact that once again, despite all the creativity
of the past forty years, we are back again where we were in the 20's:
We must speak of God, but we cannot speak of God.

This is by no means to say that the great achievements of the past 40
years have been in vain, nor to deny that we still have much to learn from
them. We may, hopefully, move beyond them, but we cannot ignore or
go back behind Barth, Bultmann, Tillich and the Niebuhrs. Nevertheless,
the confidence with which we learned from them to do theology (a confi-
dence, by the way, which was never so cocksure in the masters as in their
disciples) this confidence has gone just as surely as the confidence with
which theologians went about that task in the 19th century. Once again
we stand naked and unarmed before the very first and all-important theologi-
cal questions: What do we mean when we say the word "God"? Where is
God? What is he like? How does he act? How can we talk faithfully and
intelligently about him now?

2. The loss of an old enemy. We have lost our old confidence, and
we have lost an old enemy. I mean Roman Catholicism. There are still
important differences between protestant and Catholic Christians, of course.
But as a result of hard, honest theological work, faithful exegesis of the
Bible, and courage for self-criticism and self-correction which protestants
can only envy, there is a renewal going on in Catholicism which makes it
more and more apparent that our differences are those of brothers and
not those of enemies.

Some of us, at least, are happy that there are signs that the "dividing
walls of hostility" between Catholics and protestants are breaking down. But
this does cause confusion and a certain loss of orientation as we go about
the task of theology. For 400 years, even when protestant theology has
not always known exactly what it is for, it has at least known what it is
against. We have been able to identify ourselves, take our bearing and
organize our thoughts around the issues which in the 16th century led the
Reformers to break with Rome. But what if the battle lines and the enemy

8

are different now? What if we can no longer afford the luxury of a civil
war among Christians in a time when the Christian faith as such is at
stake? Where do we draw the lines and how do we organize our thoughts
now? What are the central issues? Are the questions our fathers in the
1 6th century asked of scripture the only or even the most important questions
to which scripture speaks? How shall we speak faithfully and intelligently
of God in the 20th century when catholics and protestants are beginning to
stand with and not simply against each other, facing a world simply in-
different to the faith they share?

3. The loss of old isolation. A third loss which helps define the context
in which we have to go about the task of theology in our time is the loss
of our comfortable isolation from other world religions. The problem of
the relation between the Christian faith and other faiths was a burning one
at the end of the 19th century. But the history of the first part of the 20th
century made it possible and even necessary for us to push it aside.
The collapse of liberal theology, and a whole series of political and cultural
crises within Western civilization, made it imperative that theologians
rediscover the Christian faith and its relevance for the modern Western
world. The need for reformation within is never finished, of course, but
now we can no longer afford to work at theology in such cozy isolation.
The problem of the relation between the Christian faith and the other
religions is no longer simply an interesting academic question. East and
West are no longer two worlds. Not only soldiers under brief, abnormal
circumstances, but business men in everyday normal routine, travel back
and forth across all the old boundaries between religions and cultures.
Moslem and Buddhist students flood our universities. Missionaries have
learned that we cannot simply identify Western culture and Christian faith,
and in a patronizing way expect other people to become Americans at the
same time they become Christians.

But how do we talk about God to people who do not think in the
categories of Western philosophy we have used for 2000 years to talk about
him? Do Christians mean something totally different from adherents to other
religions when we say the word "God"? When we enter into conversation
with the followers of other religions, how can we on the one hand avoid the
arrogant attitude that we have everything to give and nothing to receive;
and on the other hand, avoid compromising the Christian faith and ending
up with religious syncretism? The time when we could do theology in isola-
tion is gone. But how do we speak faithfully and intelligently about God now?

The Social -Political Situation

We do not really move to a different context, but only expand the context
we have already described, when we move on to speak about the "worldly"
context in which we have to do theology in our time. I want to summarize
this context and the problems it poses in terms of three adjectives: religious,
secular, technological.

1. Our religious environment. Many thinkers are saying that for the
first time in history, we are living in a completely secular world a world
without any religious presuppositions, standards, goals or values at all. I shall
argue presently that there is in a sense in which this is true, but first I want
to argue just the opposite. Our period may possibly be less influenced by
the Christian religion than previous periods, but men have never been more

9

religious than they are now. In order to see that this is true, one has only
to look at the many gods Americans worship and serve.

There is the god of nationalism. No one and nothing demands and re-
ceives a higher claim on our lives than the interests of our nation. Symbolic
of this is the fact that few Americans question the billions of dollars we
spend to put men on the useless desert of the moon, whereas many Amer-
icans also church members bitterly resent every penny spent to care for
the aged, the poor, the sick and the dispossessed on this planet. No sacrifice
is too great for the sake of the prestige of our national god; any sacrifice is
too great for the sake of our neighbor in need! "Where your treasure is,
there your heart is also" and your god.

There is the god of military power. Within as well as outside the church
we praise and admire the "true believers" who are for war, and we mock
and sometimes persecute the "heretics" who refuse to participate in war.
Sometimes, under some circumstances, Christians should perhaps be for
war. But when it is simply taken for granted that that is the only possible
alternative, for everyone, always, then military power has become our
refuge and strength, our trust and our hope our god, before whom all
other gods must bow, including the "God of peace, who brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus Christ."

There is the god of economic success. Truth, justice, Christian integrity,
the welfare of the whole community these are all "fine ideals." But for most
of us it is simply inconceivable that they should be more important than
the present and future financial security of me and my wife and my children
and our ecclesiastical institution.

There is the god of race, with his own fully developed mythology, his
own prophets and priests, his own faithful followers whose lives are given in
total commitment to his service. Even in the church this great god is feared
when he is not loved, and Christians compromise their own Gospel and
sacrifice living human beings in order not to offend him and his followers.

And the problem for theology in our time is: how do we combat precisely
the religious presuppositions and goals and values of American society? How
can we speak faithfully and intelligently about the one true God in a period
when both outside and inside the church, men tolerate the church only so
long as it does not challenge their real religion? How can we find not only
the wisdom, but also the courage and patience to speak of the God who
condemns and overthrows and at the same time frees us from the idols we
Americans (including us American preachers and theologians) love dearly
and serve faithfully even as they enslave and dehumanize us?

2. Our secular environment. Externally it is true that we live in a society
that is more and more secular. We may still say prayers before football games
and print "In God We Trust" on our money, but the word "God" itself and
all traditional religious or metaphysical language about God have more and
more only a sentimental, nostalgic significance even for those people who still
want to talk about God. More and more people live without any reference
to any reality above or beyond the pragmatic, empirical realities of this
world. They are not against God, as were the "despisers of religion" to whom
Schleiermacher spoke; the very concept of God is simply meaningless, not
even important enough to fight. In this sense they are simply irreligious.
Symbolic of this situation is a college class which could think of no real

10

difference it would make if God were dead and an adult Sunday School
class which could think of nothing it would have to say to such a group of
students. Symbolic of the situation is a whole city block of decent, re-
spectable young families of whom only a few have anything to do with the
church. Symbolic of the situation is the fact that also Christians depend on
television and not the intervention of God to explain the weather, the psy-
chiatrist and not the preacher to solve their deepest personal problems, the
professional money-raisers with all their psychological know-how in manipu-
lating people and not on faith, hope and love to build and maintain churches
and schools.

We cannot nor should we have any desire to retreat from the achieve-
ments of the various modern sciences to the world-views and metaphysical
systems of the past. But the secularity around us and in us does raise some
difficult problems. How do we speak of God faithfully and intelligently to
men including Christian men who in fact if not in theory base their
decisions, solve their problems, interpret the world in which they live and
their own individual lives in the light of the scientific, psychological and
sociological wisdom of this world?

3. Our technological environment. Closely related to the secular char-
acter of our own environment is its technological character. It has been
estimated that, as a result of cybernetics and automation, as low as 2% of
the traditional labor force will eventually be able to perform the necessary
production tasks of our country. The vast majority of people will be both
freed and robbed of work as the organizing center, measure, and goal of
a meaningful, worthwhile life. More and more perfect means of birth
control can relieve the terrible problem of hunger in an over-populated
world, but at the same time it has created utter confusion and anarchy in
sex ethics. The knowledge and values which come into every home through
television, and the earlier and broader exposure to the world through ever
increasing mobility, free young people of narrow, rigid family control and
at the same time deprive them of the security and stability of a home- and
family-centered society.

Family, sex, work: these three fundamental areas of man's life have been
vital anchor points for the way in which traditional protestant theology has
talked about God and his relation to men, men and their relation to God.
But how can we talk faithfully and intelligently about God and men when
the structure of these areas of life is being radically and permanently
changed? Technology can obviously free and enslave, expand and destroy,
humanize and dehumanize man's life in the world. Not only the discipline
of theology but the Christian faith itself will live or die according to whether
we can learn to bring the truth of God to bear on the results of modern
technology, the creative and destructive achievements of which we have only
begun to see.

The Task of Theology
Everything we have said about the context in which we must try to work
at the task of speaking about God suggests change, uncertainty, confusion,
many questions and few answers. What can we do in such a period of crisis
and transition? We cannot decide simply to be silent and wait until God
comes back into style again, and we know how to be masters of the
situation. We must speak of God now and we must do it both faithfully

11

and intelligently. How? I do not know any more than anyone else. But it
does seem to me that the context I have described, while it cannot tell us
what we can and must say, does give us some clues about the way we must
set about our task, and the direction in which we must move. And it seems
to me that, strangely enough, what the contemporary situation demands of
us, and what our Reformed tradition demands, coincide, or at least comple-
ment each other, at four points which in my opinion define our task for
the last third of this century.

1 . In a period in which God is to be sure not dead, but when for many
of us in the church he is distant and silent, and when for a secular world
he is simply irrelevant, we can no longer expect to speak as confidently
as we have during the past 40 years, nor can we continue to talk about God
in the same old orthodox or new-orthodox, exclusively Biblical or meta-
physical or existential language and conceptually which was appropriate
for another time and place. We must be prepared for a while to find only
partial answers and fragments of truth, not defend the neat, comprehensive
systems of the past or build new ones. We must be willing to experiment with
new terminology and concepts, to discover that they lead into blind alleys,
to begin all over again. We must hope not so much to reach sure conclusions
as to engage in a fruitful and intelligent searching. We must be satisfied if
instead of arriving at right answers, we can discover the right questions.
We must try to speak about God in new ways, knowing before we begin
that the results will be temporary, inadequate, in need of correction.

But that is simply to apply to our time the classical Reformed motto that
the church must be "always reforming," because no man or group of men,
at any period, past or present, can master the truth of God. In this sense
our time is no different from any other time for genuine Reformed theo-
logians. It is not just an unfortunate necessity but an essential part of our
faith in the living God whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways
are not our ways, that we are both allowed and required to let our thoughts
and language about God be constantly re-formed. Our Reformed heritage, in
other words, gives us the permission, the authority, and the courage to risk
the questionable, new, experimental ways of doing theology our time requires.

2. In a period in which old battles are coming to an end and old dividing
lines breaking down, we can no longer expect to carry on the theological
conversation only with ourselves, or only to instruct those outside our narrow
little circle. We must not only study, but be ready and willing to learn from
Roman Catholic as well as protestant, non-Christian as well as Christian
theologians. We must be ready and willing to listen as well as to speak to the
experts in the various secular-technological disciplines who in their own way
know far more than we about God's world and the possibilities and limitation
of human life in it. Why should we be afraid to listen and learn from "out-
siders"? Calvin himself warned us that true spirituality is not the same thing
as ignorance. He himself taught us that the Spirit of God is not the exclusive
possession or prisoner of the church, but the Spirit who is free to speak
and work, despite the blindness and sinfulness of men, where, when and how
he wills. "If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth,"
Calvin wrote, "we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him,
not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears." 2

2. Institutes II.2.15.

12

We have only to be careful when we set out to work at a listening and
learning as well as a speaking and informing theology, when we try to
enter into a genuine conversation with non-Reformed and non-Christian
thinkers, that we do not insult our partners by sacrificing our own peculiar
theological ground in order to make ourselves popular and acceptable to
them, adapting our talk about God simply to confirm and echo what they
already know and believe and want. Of what possible value either to them or
to us is a conversation in which we anxiously and obsequiously say to our
partners only what they can already tell themselves?

3. In a period such as ours, we must calmly but deliberately, modestly
but unapologetically, carefully but uncompromisingly, at every step, connect
theology with the political, social and economic problems of the modern
world. We must do it because not only the contemporary situation but also
our Reformed emphasis on the sovereignty of God makes it necessary.

We cannot speak faithfully and intelligently about the one sovereign
God without explicitly and unmistakably challenging all the idols of men.
But the idols of men in our time are political, social, economic idols. We
have no alternative but to make it clear that the sovereign God stands over,
not alongside of, or at the service of, all the political, social and economic
ideologies of men including the American ones. Moreover, not only the
present life but the eternal destiny of men depends on their being freed and
turning from their faith in these false gods. To refuse the dangerous task
of a politically colored theology would mean indifference both to the
sovereign honor of God and to his sovereign will for the salvation of men.

Or to look at it from another point of view: It may be true that the
world in our time is being shaped not by the religious and metaphysical
presuppositions of the past, but by the secular forces of science and tech-
nology. But have we not been told that the sovereign God made the world
for our benefit, gave it to us, and expressly commanded that we subdue and
have dominion over it? Why should we not rejoice that the secular disciplines
are fulfilling a god-given privilege and task? How can we speak about the
sovereign God faithfully and intelligently if we do not also as theologians
participate freely, thankfully and obediently in what they are doing? On
the other hand, how can we take seriously the honor and sovereignty of
God if we refuse the difficult task of distinguishing and supporting the life-
giving will of God in opposition to the life-destroying work of the powers of
darkness and evil in these secular forces?

We may expect that we will have some surprising friends and sur-
prising opponents as we go about the political-social theology required both
by the contemporary situation and our Reformed tradition. We may have
to take issue with some religious people inside the church, and join forces
with non-Christian and even atheists outside the church. But our faithfulness
to our task cannot be judged by who our friends and opponents are. It can
only be judged by whether, regardless of who is with us and who against
us, we speak faithfully and intelligently about God the sovereign God who
tolerates no other gods beside him, outside or inside the church; the God
who himself is at work and claims our obedient work not only in the church
but in the world.

4. There is one final aspect of the theological task imposed on us by
both our contemporary situation and our Reformed tradition. Who is this
God we have to talk about? How can we recognize him, his will and his work,

13

in and with and yet distinct from all the various Christian and non-Christian,
religious and secular, movements, ideas, causes and revolutions of our time?
What our modern world longs to hear (whether it knows it or not), and what
our Reformed tradition requires us to answer is this: He is the God whom
we meet in the Bible, the God who was in Christ reconciling the world to
himself. But as modern men and as always reforming Reformed theologians,
I believe that we have to learn to say this too in a different way. And since
Christ is the center of all Christian talk about God, what I want to suggest
now seems to me to draw together everything else I have said about the
task of theology to speak faithfully and intelligently about God in our time.

What does it mean to say that God was in Christ? Who is Christ? Not
an angel or ghost. Not a mythological god of the first century or a mytho-
logical all-American boy of the 20th century. Not a metaphysical dogma
of orthodox theology or the sentimental ideal of love of liberal theology. Not
the abstract "Word" or "New Being" or "Kerygmatic Christ" of more recent
Christology. "God was in Christ" means that God came to us in a man,
a human being. To encounter God is to encounter him not above or against
or behind or under, but in and with human existence. To know God, as Barth
has put it. is to know the humanity of God. 3 And if that is so, then what
God-in-Christ is doing in the world, as Paul Lehmann puts it, is making and
keeping human life human. 4 If God was in Christ, then what he wills and
accomplishes in him is not the creation of religious men, but the creation of
human men; not the salvation of our souls, but the renewal now and for
all eternity of our humanity; not the ability to escape our human existence,
but the ability thankfully to accept and courageously to live a really human
existence already now in this world, and in the new heaven and new earth
to come. "God was in Christ" means that from the very beginning and to
the very end and through all eternity, God is the God who wills and accom-
plishes one thing only with and for us: our humanity.

Now, it seems to me that this line of thought is a very promising, if
not the only, way to go about the task of theology in our time. If we have
to begin from the very beginning again to think and speak of God, what
better place to begin than where the New Testament writers themselves
began with the life, death and resurrection of this man? What better way
to recognize and combat the religious and secular powers of the world
which enslave and dehumanize men who are God's good creation, than by
learning to understand and articulate the Good News that in this man is the
truth of God which frees and re-humanizes them, making them a new cre-
ation? What better way, on the other hand, to discover where God is at work
in the world and where we must join in his work, than to look for those
places, inside and outside the church, where the same kind of freeing and
humanizing activity is going on that we see in Jesus?

In the past, theologians tried to understand and talk about the God who
was in Christ in terms of the problems and thought patterns of their time.
Why should we not do the same? And what better way of doing that than
to learn to speak of the God who encounters us in the one man who was free

3. Karl Barth. The Humanity of God (Richmond: John Knox Press. 1960), pp.
37ff.

4. Paul Lehmann. Ethics in a Christian Context (New York: Harper and Row,
1963). See especially Chapter III, "What God Is Doing in the World," for the
explication of this theme, which runs through the whole work.

14

to be human, the God who gives us the gift modern men desperately yearn
for above all the freedom to be human?

Perhaps this will prove to be a legitimate way of speaking faithfully and
intelligently about God in our time, and perhaps not. But it does underline
one truth which summarizes everything else I want to say: It is a great
and exciting time to be theologians Reformed theologians! We may not
be confident of ourselves and our ability to do theology in such a confused,
uncertain, revolutionary time when the old is passing away and it is not yet
clear what the new will be. But we can be confident of one thing the
one thing that matters most: The God of whom we have to speak, in however
a stumbling and blundering way we manage to do it, is a living God the
living God who was and is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

WHAT THE SABBATH LAW INTENDED

James H. Gailey, Jr.

To ask what God intended when He first gave the command to observe
the Sabbath is not irreverent. And it is begging an exegetical question to
assume that His intention has always been to require men to observe the
institution of the Sabbath in one of the specific forms it has taken during
its long history. Laws are generally issued in view of certain human situa-
tions and with a view to the correction of specific behavior. A law setting
speed limits of 60 miles per hour is not to be expected in a society which
relies on horses for transportation. Of course, not every law in a formal code
is an effort to reform the practices of a body of people, but when such
a code is issued as was done by Hammurabi, Justinian or Napoleon it
may be assumed that the issuing power aims to regulate the behavior of the
people of the community. In general, human leadership, confronted with
behavior that "disturbs the peace" or threatens the order of the community,
responds by making public declaration concerning acceptable and un-
acceptable forms of behavior and threatens any who refuse to conform to
"proper" behavior with sanctions of force or public disapproval.

Because of the paucity of evidence, we cannot know whether the seventh
day Sabbath was an innovation when it first appeared in one of the groups
of Hebrew laws, either as a substitute for the full moon feast conjectured
by J. Meinhold or as an outright creation from nothing, as it appears in
the manna episode of Exodus 16, or whether it represented the inclusion
of a long standing custom in the code of laws and thus offered support to
real innovations being made at a particular time of stress in the life of the
early Israelites. In any code of laws, that is, some laws require conformity
to long established customs and thus provide a sense of familiarity and lead
to general acceptance of the code as a whole, while other laws introduce real
innovations or call for the revival of customs about to fall into disuse.

Our discussion will reject the theory that the Sabbath was once a full
moon feast, and will treat references to the Sabbath as all being concerned
with the seventh day observance which appears in the earliest groups of
laws in the Pentateuch. The innovations which are involved in the later laws

15

need to be studied against the background of the earliest formulation of the
law of the seventh day Sabbath.

Apparently the oldest extant form of the seventh day Sabbath law is in
the so-called "Ritual Decalogue" (Exodus 34:10-26) which dates (perhaps
in oral form) from the time of the earliest settlement of the tribe of Judah
in the promised land, and may derive from the Kenite tribe. This tribe was
probably assimilated into Judah so early that it never appeared as one of
the twelve tribes, and H. H. Rowley has suggested (on the basis of the
absence of a law requiring circumcision) that the grouping of the laws in the
Ritual Decalogue was done before the Israelites made serious contact with
the Philistines, i.e., sometime about 1200 B. C. Its Sabbath law reads:

Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing

time and in harvest you shall rest. (Exodus 34:21)

A closely related law is found in the "Covenant Code" (Exodus 21-23),
which contains many laws and appears to derive from the northern area
of Israel not only after the settlement, but also (in its present form) from
the time of the divided kingdom, i.e., after 925 B. C. Here the law is worded:

Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest;

that your ox and your ass may have rest, and the son of your bondmaid,

and the alien, may be refreshed. (Exodus 23:12)

At first glance it is evident that neither law actually contains the word
"Sabbath." The word "rest," found in both of them (twice in the former),
is the verb from which the noun Sabbath is derived; it is unexpectedly
translated as a noun in the Vatican manuscript of the Septuagint in both
places, but by a slight modification is treated as a verb in the other Greek
manuscripts. The "you shall rest" could conceivably represent the earliest
stage of development of the Sabbath preserved in the Old Testament,
a remnant of the statute initiating the seventh day rest, and dating from
a time before the creation of the word "Sabbath." The full statement of
the law can almost be reconstituted by careful comparison of the forms
preserved in the two ancient law codes:

SIX DAYS YOU SHALL [work?], BUT ON THE SEVENTH DAY

YOU SHALL REST." 1

Six days shall work be done but on the seventh day you shall have a holy

sabbath . . . (Exodus 35:2)

Six days you shall gather it [manna], but on the seventh day, which is

a sabbath, there will be none. (Exodus 16:26)

Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of

solemn rest . . . (Leviticus 23:3)
The most remarkable reminiscence of the sabbath law is to be found in
Deuteronomy, which except for the Decalogue appears not to be aware of
the sabbath law:

1. This is the view of G. Beer in the -Handbuch zum Alten Testament volume on
Exodus, p. 34. All the tangible evidence points to this form for the law, as I have
attempted to show in a paper presented before the Southern Section of the Society
of Biblical Literature.

The originality of this form of the Sabbath law, whatever the precise
word for "work" was, may be confirmed by noting what appear to be traces
of this form of the law in a number of places:

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a sabbath . . . (Exodus

31:15)

16

For six days you shall eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day there
shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God; you shall do no work
on it. (Deuteronomy 16:8)
The parallels are more apparent in the Hebrew than in the English trans-
lation, and there is good reason for believing that a traditional phrasing
has been preserved in each case. If this reasoning is correct, then proposals
to define the primitive law of the sabbath in negative form, "Thou shall not
work on the seventh day," or the like, may be laid to rest. The earliest form
of the law allows and commands six days of normal work routine, but its
"you shall rest" actually forbids work on the seventh day and is in effect
a negative.

There remains the question what word or words defined the "work" that
was approved for the first six days of the week. Julian Morgenstern 2 has
made the ingenious suggestion that the variation in wording at this point
reflects the different cultural milieus from which the two earliest documents
come: the "work" of Exodus 34:21, together with an implied object "the
ground," suggests agricultural activity to him, whereas "you shall do your
doings" (literally) or "you shall make your makings" suggests the multi-
plicity of economic activities of the further advanced northern area. Both
forms of the Decalogue (Exodus and Deuteronomy) join in providing what
appears to be a combination of these two earlier expressions, but with still
another noun after the second verb, appropriately translated in the RSV,
"you shall labor, and do all your work." We may conclude that probably
the earliest form of the law allowed farm work on six days but bade all
farming people rest on the seventh day. The supplementary clause, "in
ploughing time and in harvest you shall rest," tends to confirm Morgen-
stern's suggestion.

The supplement to the early law certainly reflects the higher economic
status of the northern area during the kingdom period:

that your ox and your ass may have rest, and the son of your bondmaid
[here the Samaritan Pentateuch adds "your manservant and your maid-
servant like you and all your cattle"] and the alien may be refreshed.
(Exodus 23:12)

Thus, both early forms of the law and probably in the simpler command
whose earlier existence they reflect point to a command to work the ground
six days and rest on the Sabbath, i.e., to an institution concerned primarily
with those engaged in agriculture. The perennial argument that it could
not have arisen out of a nomadic culture because shepherds' "work cannot
be interrupted one day in seven, as in farm work" 3 seems rather beside the
point in view of the extensive evidence that the law as formulated in the
early sources was directed at farm workers. Too little is known of the actual
circumstances of the period of wilderness wandering to say whether the law
had any real application to the Israelites on their way from Egypt to Canaan
or not. It is hard for us to visualize the nomad observing the traditional
Sabbath, but it should be remembered that the Moslem Bedawi are obligated
to observe the Friday of each week as a special day. At a stage earlier than
is now available to us the law may well have been formulated to have
special relevance to a pastoral life or to the wandering Israelites.

2. See J. Morgenstern, "The Oldest Document of the Hextateuch," HUCA
4H927), p. 63.

3. R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (N.Y., 1941), p. 231.

17

The areas to which the prohibition of "work" was felt to apply can only
be conjectured from a few individual references scattered through the early
history. The incident regarding the man found gathering sticks (Numbers
15:32) is found in what is considered to be a late (Priestly) source, and
may reflect the strictness which led to very late Pharisaic legalism. It does
not accord with the indications found in one or two other incidents that
a man should have been stoned to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath.

The law prohibiting the lighting of fires (Exodus 35:3) poses a real
problem, for it seems to some scholars to reflect a very primitive taboo
in regard to the Sabbath day, but it is linked with a repetition of the law
which concludes: "whoever does any work on it [i.e., the holy sabbath of
solemn rest to the Lord] shall be put to death." If there was an early taboo
against the lighting of fires on the Sabbath, it had lost its force by the time
of composition of the Exodus paragraph, for the sabbath command has to
be supported by the threat of death for its violation. The death penalty seems
to be a later effort to tighten the observance of the Sabbath, while it is not
unlikely that a primitive taboo regarding the lighting of a fire on the Sabbath
did exist.

The suggestion of the Shunammite woman that she be allowed to take
an ass and travel the twenty miles or so to Elisha's establishment during the
harvest season was met with the query (2 Kings 4:23), "Why will you go
to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath." Apparently on these
days whether Sabbath was a full moon feast or either a special harvest
seventh day rest or regular seventh day of rest there was no prohibition
with regard to travel to visit a man of God such as Elisha. On the contrary,
on such days a visit to the man of God would have appeared quite normal.
Only on a work day does the husband appear loathe to give up the services
of his ass and his servant to make what must have seemed a fruitless trip.
Ignoring the husband's apparent hard-heartedness at the distress of his wife,
we may note that if ass and servant would have been available on new moon
or sabbath for such a trip, it would seem that the law of Exodus 23:12,
including its provision of rest from farm labor, would have been more or
less in force. The servant would probably have welcomed the privilege of the
pilgrimage, while the poor donkey was hardly considered.

The incident of David's "French leave" from Saul's table during a new
moon feast (I Samuel 20) shows how significant family feasts could be on
the special days observed in early Israel, and indicates that members of the
family group were expected to be present for the occasion, even if it meant
travelling to do so. The reader has the impression that other activities in the
household ceased, and all attention was given to the celebration of a "royal"
feast.

The plot against Athaliah (2 Kings 11 and 2 Chronicles 23) was planned
for and carried out on a sabbath day, and indicates that the day (whether
weekly day or full moon feast) served as a convenient point of division in
the calendar for the changing of the guards in the kingdom of Judah in the
ninth century B. C. Although the service of worship in the temple was clearly
in progress (on the day), it was not considered too sacred a day to carry
out a coup d'etat, and there is no suggestion of censure in the narrative for
the use made of the day. The narrator rather appears to approve the clever
planning which made such use of the sabbatical change of the guard.

18

In 2 Kings 16:18 we read that along with other remodeling prescribed
by the king of Assyria, king Ahaz removed "the covered way for the Sabbath
which had been built inside the palace," along with the outer entrance for
the king. Nothing can be learned from this obscure text beyond the fact
that a sabbath of some kind was observed prior to Ahaz' day in Jerusalem
and that it had influenced the architecture of the temple-palace complex.

The prophetic references to sabbaths, associated with new moons and
other feasts, adds bits of detail to the picture of the observance of the day
during the eighth century before Christ. Hosea, probably the earliest of the
prophets whose words have been separately recorded, voices a firm deter-
mination of God:

And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths,
and all her appointed feasts . . . (Hosea 2:11, Hebrew vs. 13)
Here the sabbaths are associated with other feasts, such as unleavened
bread, first fruits, and tabernacles, but the detail which Hosea's words bring
out is found in the word "mirth." From this we see that the characteristic
mood of joy in the Hebrew sabbath observance dates at least from the time
of the prophet Hosea. Incidentally, the prophet used the verb root behind
"sabbath" to express his "I will put an end," and in voicing God's threat
to bring familiar and enjoyed activities to an end, he includes the Sabbath
among them.

Amos voices a different viewpoint toward the observance of new moon
and sabbath:

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy,
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
saying, "when will the new moon be over,

that we may sell grain?"
And the sabbath,

that we may offer wheat for sale
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great,

and deal deceitfully with false balances, . . . (Amos 8:4-5)
This text shows clearly that trade was customarily suspended on sabbaths
and new moons, and although it recognizes resentment toward the prohibition
of business activities, it is the resentment of the oppressive merchant class
only, and the text does not oppose the enjoyment of the day by the working
classes.

Hosea's words to Israel provide glimpses into the feelings toward the
Sabbath on the part of two classes of people in the northern kingdom, but
do not take any special stand toward the day. Isaiah, on the other hand,
speaks for God in calling into question, even more than Amos had done,
the observance of all days of cultic celebration:
"When you come to appear before me,
who requires of you
this trampling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offerings;

incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath and the calling of assemblies

I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts

my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me, . . . (Isaiah 1:12-14)

19

In the great plea for justice and the right treatment of the fatherless and
the widow, Isaiah gives a glimpse into the temple of Jerusalem, full of
worshippers bringing their offerings and burning their incense on the
regular feasts of the cultic calendar, including the sabbaths. Like the similar
glimpse into mass devotional life at Bethel (Amos 4:4-5) Isaiah's words
suggest that all the special days were observed by the gathering of huge
crowds of people and that the proper sacrifices whatever they were in his
time were amply provided for. The worshippers "spread forth" their
hands in "many prayers" (Isaiah 1:15), like many since their time, un-
conscious of the radical inconsistency between their "religious" behavior and
their business practices. Isaiah's words certify the practices of sacrificial
offerings, prayer and of the burning of incense for the feast days of his
time, but in the name of social justice call in question all of these cultic
acts and even the special days themselves.

The threat voiced by Hosea that God would put an end to the observance
of the special days came about for most of the Israelites with the fall of
Samaria in 722 B. C. The book of Lamentations expresses the mourning
of the people of Judah and Jerusalem over the destruction of Jerusalem and
its temple (in 587 B. C), and specifically mentions the Sabbath:

The Lord has brought to an end in Zion

appointed feast and sabbath. (Lamentations 2:6)
With the destruction of the place dedicated to the appointed feasts, the Lord
has (literally) "caused to be forgotten" the Sabbath and the other feasts.
Here again it is the aspect of joyful celebration which is emphasized in the
reference to the Sabbath.

Thus far it has been assumed that the early, simple form of the law
represented a formulation of customary behavior rather than an innovation
in Israelite religious practice. It appears impossible to identify the time when
the seventh day of rest was first observed, for the earliest laws all refer to
this instiution. while none of the references to sabbaths in the narratives
from the earliest times during the settlement of the land until after the
fall of the Judean kingdom in 587 B. C. specifically identify the Sabbath
as a seventh day observance. Instead, they indicate with considerable uni-
formity that the Sabbath was widely observed as a day of cessation from
farm work and commerce, and that people enjoyed the day in cultic practices,
earlier in "family" meals which no doubt had a religious significance and
later in mass participation in the temple rituals.

The intention of the earliest law and the practice of the early Israelites
could be formulated in the provisions of the fourth commandment of the
Decalogue, whatever date is assigned to its actual composition:

Observe [Exodus: remember] the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the

Lord your God commanded you [clause omitted in Exodus]. Six days

you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath

to the Lord vour God; in it vou shall not do anv work . . . (Deut. 5: 12-14

and Ex. 20:8-10)

In its earliest, simple form, and as this was elaborated in the Ritual
Decalogue and in the Covenant Code, the Sabbath law apparently intended
to confirm the observance of a regular seventh day of rest and worship. The
rest aspect is indubitable. The evidence for the worship factor arises from
the fact that in the two earliest occurrences as well as in the reminiscences

20

of the early law it is associated with other ritual observances. It thus ap-
pears as an effort to regularize the cultic observances of the Israelites
of both north and south. The absence of any law calling for observance of
the "new moon" suggests the possibility that the seventh day ordinance
may at one time have been erected as an opposition to that day, which no
doubt had associations with the moon cult. But this suggestion cannot be
confirmed. What may be affirmed with certainty is that the law sought
to set apart "or make holy" the seventh day Sabbath, just as the fourth
commandment of the Decalogue indicates. For with the early Hebrews
"holiness" was something "set apart" from profane and secular usage,
reserved for the special usages associated with the Deity, His sanctuary and
its ritual. Thus, as far as it is visible to the probing eye of the modern
student, the Hebrew Sabbath has been a day of double significance: on
the one hand a cessation from ordinary labors, but always on the other hand
a day of cultic observances. These observances appear to take at least three
specific forms in the glimpses provided in the Old Testament, family feasts,
pilgrimages to the establishments of "men of God" and mass participation
in the rituals of the nearest sanctuary.

It may therefore be said that it was God's intention that His people
should rest from their labors one day in every seven and that they should
employ the time thus available for sacred purposes, that is, in pursuits
tending toward the honoring and glorifying of God. This is the substance
of the declaration which identified the seventh day as "a sabbath to the Lord
your God." (Deut. 5:14 and Exodus 20:10) It is precisely this day which
was to be observed or remembered through being kept holy, a day "to the
Lord . . . God." It is tempting to speculate that the seventh day "to the
Lord" was in contrast and opposition to a new moon day dedicated to the
moon god. It is possible, if this speculation is justified, that the law did not
so much erect a day of rest in the life of the people as it regulated the days
of rest so as to make them fall especially on seventh days with the under-
stood proviso that it was the cult of the Lord (Yahweh) which was to be
observed on those days. That this statute had a continuing relevance to the
end of the kingdom period is evident from the fact that Josiah (about 621
B. C.) deposed priests who burned incense not only to Baal and the sun,
but also to the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens
(2 Kings 23:5), just a few years before the final destruction of the temple
in Jerusalem.

The law, then, intended to regulate the cultic observance of Israel to
a seventh day Sabbath "to the Lord," to ensure this observance by pro-
hibiting normal secular work and by prescribing the "making separate" of
the seventh day.

21

REVIEWS

Calvinism and the Political Order,
by George L. Hunt, Editor and
John T. McNeill, Consulting Edi-
tor: Westminster Press, 216 pp.
$4.50.

In these days of dispute over church-
state relationships, civil disobedience,
and the Christian's role in politics in
general, this volume comes as a wel-
come help. Editor Hunt has assembled
an excellent collection of essays which
are both scholarly in content and at
the same time highly readable. The
theme of the work, which appears to
be that "Calvinism has always been
explicitly concerned with civil mat-
ters," and has ". . . always regarded
political indifference as a mark not
of superior piety but of defective
ethics," comes as no great surprise
to the reader. The surprise comes in
the perfectly compelling manner in
which the editor traces these historical
sketches of early Calvinism in Euro-
pean Politics, through the St. Bartho-
lomew Massacre, through the Hugue-
not era in France, the Puritan ethic in
America, and concluding with sketches
showing the Calvinistic influence upon
John Witherspoon, Abraham Lincoln
and Woodrow Wilson. The book is no
attempt to formulate a specific Chris-
tian political philosophy, but is rather
an attempt to "... indicate how the
highway of history specifically, the
history of the Calvinist tradition in
Europe and the United States on this
subject can aid in formulating one."
In a final summarizing chapter, the
editor points out twelve principles of
developing Calvinism and their inter-
relation with the institutions, ideals
and theories, and individual sense of
responsibility inherent in American
democracy, which he feels are neces-
sary for the formulation of such an
interdenominational Christian politi-
cal philosophy.

Chapter three, "Philip Mornay and
the Huguenot Challenge to Absolut-
ism," by Columbia Seminary's Dr.
Paul T. Fuhrmann, is one of the most
significant essays of the collection. Dr.
Fuhrmann paints for us a perceptive
portrait of this courageous 16th cen-
tury French political philosopher, set
firmly in an atmosphere of political
tension between the monarchists and
the Huguenots who favored represen-
tation. Into this conflict Mornay brings
his Calvinistic understanding of the
Christian faith, and out of it emerges
an activistic political philosophy which
espouses the notion that a Christian
cannot be neutral in political mat-
ters. Dr. Fuhrmann indicates that
Mornay's contribution to political
philosophy is the setting forth of
four great principles which make up
all our modern constitutions: sover-
eignty of the nation, political contract
(between those in authority and God),
representative government, and the
separation of powers.

This is not just a book for preachers
interested in Church History, nor is
it only for laymen intrigued by the
complexities of church-state relation-
ships, but rather will prove of value
to every citizen who is concerned with
the decline of public responsibility
and morality in the political order.
P. C. Enniss, Jr.

Creative Minds in Contemporary
Theology, Edited by Philip E.
Hughes: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub-
lishing Co., 487 pp. $6.95.

Here is an extremely helpful guide-
book to the principal thought of thir-
teen of the most influential theological
scholars of the twentieth century. Karl
Barth, G. C. Berkouwer, Emii Brun-
ner, Rudolf Bultmann, Oscar Cull-
mann, James Denney, C. H. Dodd,
Herman Dooyeweerd, P. T. Forsyth,

22

Charles Gore, Reinhold Niebuhr,
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Paul
Tillich are the subjects of separate
chapters written by contemporary
scholars of no mean repute themselves
who have in each case demonstrated
thorough knowledge of the man about
whom they write.

Each article consists of four sec-
tions: 1) a biographical sketch; 2) an
exposition of the man's major thought;
3) an evaluation of this thought from
the perspective of historic Evangelical
theology; and 4) a comprehensive
bibliography listing both the works by
and about the scholar in question.
Each critic has written with straight-
forward clarity, displaying a sense of
fairness and genuine respect for the
one who is his subject while measuring
his work by the standard of God's
Word.

The editor's introductory chapter
entitled "The Creative Task of Theolo-
gy" is a refreshing bit of scholarship
itself. In it Dr. Hughes brings into
clear focus the central issues of the
task confronting contemporary the-
ology, asserting that truly creative
theology can be done only by re-
deemed believers who work with the
"given material" of the Word of God
written and who seek through the en-
lightenment and assistance of the Holy
Spirit, to relate the truth thus dis-
cerned to man in his actual life situa-
tion. He stresses the vacuity of the
humanistic approach to theology and
urges the retention of the "old" es-
sential truths of God's sovereignty as
Creator, man's responsibility as sin-
ner, and Christ's Lordship as Redeem-
er.

Every alert minister and student of
theology should have this critique of
the minds which are determining the
course of contemporary theology.
Edward Henegar

The Register of the Company of
Pastors of Geneva in the Time of
Calvin, Edited and Translated by
Philip E. Hughes: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company,
380 pp. $12.50.

Dr. Hughes has made available in
modern English one of the most sig-
nificant documents of the Reforma-
tion. Ten years after Calvin's first
arrival in Geneva, the pastors of that
city began to keep a register of their
affairs and proceedings. This volume
contains the minutes of that company
from 1546 to 1564. A perusal of it
gives "an intimate glimpse of the
Reformed microcosm that was Geneva
in the middle years of the sixteenth
century" and affords valuable insights
into some aspects of the life of that
Church which are remarkably con-
temporary.

Church-state relations were regu-
lated in Geneva by the Ecclesiastical
Ordinances, and the practical (some-
times stormy) outworkings thereof can
be observed in many entries in the
Register. Also, theological issues are
debated here in considerable detail,
affording a wealth of information
about the circumstances in which the
Reformed faith was forged. The of-
ficial record of the Servetus trial re-
veals the true extent of Calvin's in-
volvement in this ignominy and should
correct many misconceptions at this
point. The zeal of the Genevan Church
for Evangelism is reflected in the ac-
counts of the commissioning of doz-
ens of missionaries to other countries.
Conversations across denominational
lines are preserved here, providing
much food for thought amid today's
ecumenical discussions. And perhaps
the chief value of this document is
the portrait it unconsciously paints of
Calvin himself as a sensitive, retiring
man who only reluctantly involves
himself in the life of Geneva, and
then simply because of his sense of

23

spiritual compulsion a picture which
is a far cry from that of the arrogant,
domineering political opportunist Cal-
vin is often imagined to have been.

This book will prove to be a val-
uable source book for ministers and
students of Reformation history and
theology and deserves a wider reading
than its price is likely to allow.

Edward Henegar

is still available and applicable in
the 20th century.

Richard A. Dodd

Plain Talk on Acts, by George
Manford Gutzke: Zondervan
Publishing House, 221 pp. $3.95.

Dr. Gutzke, in a clear and concise
way, describes the phenomenon of the
outreach and influence of the Chris-
tian Gospel. The title, Plain Talk On
Acts, is well chosen. The chapter by
chapter exposition of the Book of
Acts is handled reverently and under-
standably. It should prove to be an
illuminating and helpful tool for min-
ister and layman alike.

The author believes that "The early
Christian church spread because it
made a change in people. They were
transformed." For this reason he
treats the Book of Acts in a biographi-
cal manner. He demonstrates how
God by the activity of the Holy Spirit
works in and through certain per-
sonalities to make His Gospel known.

The book abounds with appropriate
and meaningful illustrations. Many are
related from the actual experience of
the author. Dr. Gutzke's perceptive
insight and knowledge of the Scrip-
tures is clearly in evidence when he
uses Biblical illustrations to clarify and
intensify the meaning of the passage
he is expounding.

The author seeks to make the Book
of Acts live. It is not a dry-as-dust
manuscript but the inspired record of
God's dealing with men in a mighty
way. The message and activity of God
had a transforming effect upon the
early church. Its transforming power

The Mark of Cain: Studies in
Literature and Theology, by Stu-
art B. Babbage: William E. Eerd-
mans Publishing Co., 157 pp.
$1.95.

There are any number of ways by
which one can approach the fact of
sin and what is even more important
the means by which man can be
freed from his sin. In this splendid
book, Dr. Babbage has chosen to
write of man's need and God's grace
by gathering together, from a wide
range of literature, passages which
illustrate sin and salvation. The result
is a volume which is not only a de-
light to read but which is also a solid
addition to the library of American
theology.

The chapter titles will give some in-
dication of the contents of The Mark
of Cain. In "The End of Innocence, or
The Inveteracy of Evil," Dr. Babbage
points out the way in which modern
man has rediscovered the fact of
original sin. "Sodom and the Ma-
donna, or The Impotence of the Will"
is perhaps best described as an ex-
tended commentary on Romans 7:15
ff. "An Awareness of Solitude, or The
Horror of Alienation" deals with the
alienation which is always a conse-
quence of sin and which has so fre-
quently occupied the attention of
modern writers. "Who killed Cock
Robin?" points out the dreadful in-
delibility of guilt, and "Some Sweet
Oblivious Antidote, or The Gift of
Pardon" is concerned to illustrate the
way in which man seeks everywhere
for some means of dealing with his
guilt. "The Enigma of Death, or The
Promise of Immortality" deals with
the fact of death and our modern ef-
forts to evade it. The joy of knowing
God's mercy in Jesus Christ is the

24

burden of the chapter entitled "Good,
Merry, Glad and Joyful Tidings, or
The Ecstasy of Joy." In the last two
chapters of the book, "The Academy
of Love, or The Dilemma of Means"
and "Brother Ass, or The Mystery of
Love," Dr. Babbage is concerned with
living a Christian life in a world in
which sin is a reality.

Let me hasten to say that The Mark
of Cain is not simply a mass of quo-
tations interspersed with a few threads
of discourse. It is a highly successful
effort to comment on the facts of the
Christian gospel and to illustrate the
gospel from great literature. I am
amazed at the breadth of Dr. Bab-
bage's knowledge of literature, and I
am grateful for the masterful way in
which he has put his knowledge to use
in the interests of sound theological
writing.

I have only two adverse comments
to make. First, in my opinion, the
title of the book is unfortunate. The
Mark of Cain is an interesting title
which may catch the attention of
someone browsing through a large se-
lection of theological works, but it
hardly hints at the contents of the
book. One oould almost mourn the
passing of the 18th Century custom
of summing up the contents of a book
in its title. My only other negative
comment is to note the presence of
typographical errors on pages 22 and
81.

Otherwise, The Mark of Cain is a
thoroughly admirable piece of work.
As the pastor of a local congregation
who is called upon Sunday after
Sunday to preach the good news of
Jesus Christ, I am grateful to Dr.
Babbage for furnishing me with so
many passages from good literature
which illustrate and illuminate the
good news. Working pastors will find
real help in this volume, and any
Christian with a taste for good liter-
ature will find many a tasty morsel
here.

M. Douglas Harper, Jr.

Convictions to Live By, by L.
Nelson Bell: William B. Eerd-
mans Publishing Co., 185 pp.
$3.50.

This is an intensely practical book
written by a man who has lived by
the convictions which he declares. Its
author is a "beloved physician," who
has had a remarkably wide and useful
career in many forms of Christian
witness. For a quarter of a century
he was a medical missionary of the
Presbyterian Church, U. S., in China.
After circumstances compelled his re-
turn to this country, he practiced
surgery in Asheville, N. C. while con-
tinuing his primary service as a Chris-
tion. He is a fellow of the American
College of Surgeons. He has served for
years as a member of the Board of
World Missions of the Presbyterian
Church, U. S. and has been appointed
to various other important committees
of that church. He was one of the
leaders in establishing the religious
journal, Christianity Today, of which
he is Executive Editor. It is from his
regular column appearing in that
periodical under the title, "A Layman
and His Faith," that the chapters of
the book have been collected.

The central convictions set forth
in this volume have to do with the
reality of God, man's status as a
sinner, the person and work of Christ,
the inspiration and authority of Scrip-
ture, and the way and means of salva-
tion. These recurring themes are
treated by the author under four
general heads: The Individual, The
Family, The Church, and The World.

This is not a volume of theology
though it deals with truths basic to
that subject. Rather, it is a devotional
handbook written in terms which the
ordinary layman can understand. It
should be particularly helpful to new
communicants or to those who are
seeking an introduction to Christian
Faith. However, it also contains much
which should be of inspiration and of

25

guidance to mature Christians as well.
The highly appreciative Foreword to
Dr. Bell's book was written by Dr.
Emile Caillet, Emeritus Professor of
Christian Philosophy at Princeton
Theological Seminary.

J. McDowell Richards

The Living Word: A Theological
Study of Preaching and the
Church, by Gustaf Wingren: For-
tress Press, 223 pp. $2.25.

With a conviction that nothing is
more practical than good theory the
Professor of Systematic Theology at
the University of Lund, Sweden, seeks
to improve the preaching of the
Church by examining the inner nature
of preaching. His approach is strongly
Christological with the Christus Victor
motif permeating his theology and his
homiletics. The victory Christ has won
continues its conquest through preach-
ing, which is always in tension between
the victory of the First Advent and the
victory of the Second Advent. The
author believes that the way to rele-
vant preaching is not by trying to
apply a truth to the people but by
finding the congregation in the text
itself and helping the people of God
now identify with the people of God
then to whom the Word was ad-
dressed.

This volume is highly commended
by this reviewer as an example of
serious wrestling with the theology of
preaching. He also commends other
volumes in this new "Preacher's Paper-
back Library" edited by Edmund A.
Steimle which includes new works on
preaching, sermons from contemporary
preachers, reprints of classics in homi-
letics, and reprints of sermons by
pulpit masters of the past.

Wade P. Hum, Jr.

The Work of Christ, by G. C.
Berkouwer: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 358 pp. $7.50.

This is a study of the mighty acts
of God in Christ Jesus from the
standpoint of the Reformed Faith,
that is, with constant dependence up-
on the illumination of the Holy Spirit
for the understanding of the pene-
trating words of Scripture. In this
book, our Amsterdam theologian deals
with the offices of Christ, His in-
carnation, suffering, atonement, resur-
rection and victory.

The Incarnation by means of the
Virgin Birth is an indivisible mystery
by which God's Messiah was not sub-
jected to the curse of original guilt
that He might freely take our curse
upon Himself. Berkouwer calls for
the recognition that the Resurrection
is a soteriological act of God in ad-
dition to that of the atonement so that
the Cross and Resurrection may not
be supplanted by Bultmann's the Cross
and faith. Against Socinian objections
this work insists on the substitutionary
nature of Christ's suffering and on the
meaning of His blood as a synonym
for His sacrificial death. The dramatic
triumph of Christ as the Conquering
Warrior receives just recognition but
not to the exclusion of His actual
dealing with the guilt of sin, the en-
tail of the past.

We recognize in Berkouwer the
Charles Hodge of the twentieth cen-
tury and regularly commend his writ-
ings to our students and alumni who
want a statement of classical Calvinism
in the light of current scholarship,
even as we advise K. Barth for those
who want Neo-Calvinism. Interestingly
enough each of these top theologians
appreciates the other. Barth expressly
recognizes that he has learned from
Berkouwer in apprehending justifica-
tion.

William C. Robinson

26

The Theology of P. T. Forsyth,
by John R. Rodgers : Independent
Press, 324 pp. 36s.

This is one of several recent books
dealing with the theology of P. T.
Forsyth who was one of the few men
of his time to discern and warn against
the weaknesses and dangers of theo-
logical liberalism of the nineetenth
century. Forsyth published twenty-five
books, wrote 260 articles for periodi-
cals, and contributed to a number of
collections of essays. The work being
reviewed is regarded by the author as
"a statement and evaluation of For-
syth's central theology, which may
serve as an introduction to all his
theology." (p.xi).

Forsyth's view of revelation is of
special interest today:

Revelation may be defined as the
free, final and effective act of God's
self-communication in Jesus Christ
for man's redemption ... It is im-
possible to separate revelation from
redemption. Revelation has no real
and final meaning except as the
act of redemption to the experience
of being redeemed (p. 26).
This conception of revelation is
familiar to all students of Barth,
Tillich, and other contemporary the-
ologians.

Another emphasis of Forsyth's was
the centrality of the Cross. He re-
garded the popular liberal theology of
the last half of the nineteenth century
and the early part of the twentieth as
too man-centered. This led to a dis-
torted view of the meaning of the
Cross, "understanding neither grace
nor sin":

Without such a cross and its
atonement we come to a religion of
much point but no atmosphere,
much sympathy and no imagination,
much kindness and no greatness,
much charm and no force (p. 19).
The Cross shows God's love in holy
action, forgiving and redeeming. Thus

there is no contradiction between
God's grace and His holiness which,
due to sin, makes necessary both di-
vine judgment of sin and "God's move-
ment toward his creatures in holy
love" (p. 41). The work of Christ
on the Cross has three significant
aspects:

The first emphasizes the finality
of our Lord's victory over the evil
power or devil; the second, the
finality of his satisfaction, expiation
or atonement presented to the holy
power of God; and the third the
finality of his sanctifying or new-
creative influence on the soul of
man (p. 45).
These aspects are in a fact a sum-
mary of Christ's kingly, priestly and
prophetic work, as set forth in three
views of Christ's saving work, Christus
Victor, satisfaction and moral theories
of the atonement.

The author makes some minor criti-
cisms of Forsyth's theology but ex-
presses profound appreciation of his
contribution of his creative powers to
the theological realm of his time and
to our own. Forsyth's style of writing
often makes it difficult to follow his
thought and the author does not al-
ways bring his words to life for the
reader. This book should enable min-
isters, theological students and others
to appreciate the thought of a great
theologian and move them to study
him further this could be most re-
warding.

F. B. Gear

The Secularisation of Christianity,
by E. L. Mascall: Darton, Long-
man, & Todd, 286 pp. 32s.

Dr. E. L. Mascall, Professor of
Historical Theology in the University
of London, is well known as an ex-
ponent of Anglo-Catholic theology.
This new book from his pen is the
most thorough and extensive analysis
and critique of the contemporary

27

"secularist" school yet to appear. It
consists in the main of a detailed ex-
amination of two books: Honest to
God by the Bishop of Woolwich and
The Secular Meaning of the Gospel
by Paul van Buren. Both these authors
are, like Dr. Mascall, Anglicans. Moti-
vated by the conviction that the two
works in question are "outstanding ex-
pressions of a radical and destructive
attitude to traditional Christianity,"
Dr. Mascall not only implies that they
are heretical by reminding his read-
ers, with becoming humility, that
Origen wrote against Celsus, Irenaeus
against heresies, Athanasius against
the Arians, and Augustine against the
Donatists, but in the case at least of
van Buren suggests that "there can be
little doubt that if the Chalcedonian
fathers had been offered [his] restate-
ments as reinterpretations 'faithful to
their intention' they would have felt
that there were more dangerous here-
sies to be dealt with than those of
Nestorius and Eutyches."

He observes, very properly, that two
basic factors, namely, the changing
world in which we live and the un-
changing Gospel with which we have
been entrusted, mean that from gener-
ation to generation "the theologian has
a continual duty to relate the unchang-
ing Gospel to the contemporary situa-
tion." The basic problem arising from
the modern call for the secularization
of the faith is that we are now asked
to substitute a changing or a changed
gospel for what has hitherto been the
unchanging Gospel, accepting con-
temporary thought as the standard to
which the faith must conform, and in-
volving "a policy of unconditional sur-
render by the Church to the world."
It is just to object to the cavalier
manner in which the classical phrase-
ology of Christianity is retained while
its meaning is entirely changed, and
to point out that "a religion for which
belief in God is meaningless and for
which Jesus is no longer in existence

has little claim to be regarded as even
a highly modernized version of tradi-
tional Christianity." The Bishop of
Woolwich is charged with being vague,
ambiguous, naive, and unclear, who
appears to have despaired of trying to
convert the world to Christianity and
has decided instead to convert Chris-
tianity to the world.

In a review of this length it is im-
possible to do justice to the closeness
of the argument with which Dr. Mas-
call scrutinizes and dissects this secu-
larist philosophy. His familiarity with
the differing theories of modern philo-
sophical thought makes him well quali-
fied to discuss the issues involved with
penetration and intelligence. His an-
alysis also brings out plainly the sig-
nificant points of difference as well
as the agreements between Robinson
and van Buren. If there is a weakness
in this book, it is the medieval cast of
Dr. Mascall's thought, which comes
to the fore from time to time. But
the diagnostic importance of his book
cannot be called in question.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

The Autobiography of Malcolm
X: Grove Press, 455 pp. $7.50.

In the library of the Norfold Prison
Colony Malcolm X (as he was later
to be known) discovered the Bible. "I
came upon, then I read, over and
over, how Paul on the road to Damas-
cus, upon hearing the voice of Christ,
was so smitten that he was knocked
off his horse, in a daze. I do not now,
and I did not then, liken myself to
Paul. But I do understand his experi-
ence. I have since learned helping
me to understand what then began to
happen within me that the truth can
be quickly received, or received at all,
only by the sinner who knows and
admits that he is guilty of having
sinned much. Stated another way: only
guilt admitted accepts truth. The Bible
again: the one people whom Jesus

28

could not help were the Pharisees; they
didn't feel they needed any help. The
enormity of my previous life's guilt
prepared me to accept the truth." In
another passage he writes: "For evil
to bend its knees, admitting its guilt,
to implore the forgiveness of God, is
the hardest thing in the world."

No one can deny the reality of the
transformation that took place in the
life of Malcolm X (a transformation
from dope addiction and depravity to
ascetic puritanism); it is sobering and
humbling to learn that he attributed
it to the power of Islam: "I found
Allah and the religion of Islam," he
writes, "and it completely transformed
my life."

Malcolm X was a man burning with
passionate anger. He felt deeply the
monstrous evils perpetrated over the
centuries against the Negro race. "How
can white society atone for enslaving,
for raping, for unmanning, for other-
wise brutalizing millions of human
beings, for centuries?" he indignantly
asks. "What atonement would the
God of justice demand for the robbery
of the black people's labor, their
lives, their true identities, their cul-
ture, their history and even their
human dignity? A desegregated cup
of coffee, a theater, public toilets
the whole range of hypocritical 'inte-
gration' these are not atonement."

The tragedy is that, at the time of
his ruthless murder (after his expul-
sion from the Black Muslims) he had
come to see "that the white man is
not inherently evil, but America's
racist society influences him to act
evilly." Furthermore, he had begun
"to recognize that anger can blind
human vision." It is a measure of his
sense of high responsibility that he
was willing to say these things to his
own followers.

This is a profoundly disturbing
book. Let Malcolm X have the last
word: "I believe that God now is
giving the world's so-called 'Christian'

white society its last opportunity to
repent and atone for the crimes of
exploiting and enslaving the world's
non-white people. It is exactly as when
God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent.
But Pharaoh persisted in his refusal
to give justice to those whom he op-
pressed. And we know, God finally
destroyed Pharaoh."

Stuart Barton Bab b age

Israel's Sacred Songs: A Study of
Dominant Themes, by Harvey H.
Guthrie, Jr.: The Seabury Press,
241 pp. $5.95.

Here is a useful presentation of
four great themes which provide the
thought structures underlying most of
the Psalms. The book is an exercise
in "traditio-historical criticism," which
has developed in the wake of the study
of literary types and genres. Under
the theme of God as Over-Lord,
Harvey Guthrie presents the results
of recent study of the structure of the
Mosaic covenant with particular refer-
ence to the pre-monarchic Psalm 81.
Similarly, he studies Psalms which
present the theme of God as cosmic
king, others which reflect on God as
saviour, and still others which recog-
nize God as the source of wisdom.

The final chapter deals with the
problem of using Israel's songs in
our own "alien" age. Precisely because
the Psalms do not rest upon a single
specific ideology, but express the
fundamental conviction that God
brought meaning into the history of
mankind in a specific time and place,
the Christian church has been able to
use these expressions of faith in its
consciousness that "God, in Jesus, has
once again located ultimate meaning
in concrete history . . ." (p. 206)

James H. Gailey, Jr.

29

Proverbs: An Introduction and
Commentary, by R. Derek Kid-
ner: Tyndale Old Testament
Commentaries, 184 pp. $3.00.

While the roles of priest and prophet
are given their rightful place in Old
Testament Studies, that of the "wise
man" is often accorded too small a
corner within the theological spectrum
of the Old Testament. It is, therefore,
a good service which Derek Kidner,
Warden of the Tyndale House Theo-
logical Research Library, Cambridge,
England, renders to Old Testament
studies with his introduction to and
commentary on Proverbs.

The author assesses well the role of
Wisdom Literature in general, and that
of the Book of Proverbs in particular,
when he writes: "And we should do
Proverbs a poor service if we con-
trived to vest it in a priestly ephod
or a prophet's mantle, for it is a book
which seldom takes you to church.
Like its own figure of Wisdom, it
calls across to you in the street about
some everyday matter, or points
things out at home. Its function in
Scripture is to put godliness into
working clothes; . . . The hard facts of
life, which knock some of the nonsense
out of us, are God's facts and His
appointed school of character; they
are not alternatives to His grace, but
means of it; for everything is of
grace, from the power to know to the
power to obey."

A good feature, which will prove
helpful to those who do not wish to
make a verse by verse study of Prov-
erbs, is the section devoted to such
key characters as the Fool, The Slug-
gard, The Friend, The Family, etc.

The actual commentary is concise
in pointing out the important features
of a given passage without enlarging
on textual or hermeneutical problems
unduly. Where there is a difference
of opinion among students of the text,
this is pointed out in a scholarly man-

ner, and footnotes are provided for
those who wish to pursue the study of
a particular point in greater depth.

Quoting the author's introductory
remarks to the famous eighth chapter
of Proverbs may convey something of
the attractive way in which the com-
mentary is written: "A chapter which
is to soar beyond time and space,
opens at street-level, to make it clear,
first, that the wisdom of God is as
relevant to the shopping centre as to
heaven itself: second that it is avail-
able to the veriest dunce: third, that
it is active in seeking us so that our
own search, earnest as it has to be,
is a response, not an uncertain quest."
This is a book which should have
a place in the library of any student
of the Bible.

Ludwig R. Dewitz

The Foundations of New Testa-
ment Christology, by Reginald H.
Fuller: Charles Scribner's Sons,
268 pp. $5.95.

Jesus and the Son of Man, by
A. J. B. Higgins: Fortress Press,
223 pp. $2.25.

The 1960's are rapidly becoming the
decade for the re-writing of N. T.
Christology in light of the post-Bult-
mannian school. A number of German
titles (particularly those of F. Hahn
and H. E. Todt) have already ap-
peared offering at least a slight ad-
vance on Bultmann in terms of what
can be said about Jesus' self-under-
standing and of the continuity between
his self -understanding and the Christ-
ology of the early church. Now two
English-speaking writers have taken up
the task and will no doubt soon be
followed by others.

"The re-writing of N. T. Christ-
ology" is certainly not too strong a
phrase to use for Reginald H. Fuller's
The Foundations of N. T. Christology,
for this book represents a definite

30

change of perspective from his earlier
monograph The Mission and Achieve-
ment of Jesus (1954). Then, in seek-
ing to clarify a basis for the kerygma
in the historical Jesus (over against
Bultmann), he found in the teaching
and action of Jesus "the raw materials
of Christology." Now, however, mov-
ing along a path much more sympa-
thetic to Bultmann, Fuller defines
Christology in terms of believing
man's response to Jesus, thus disallow-
ing Christology a place in the original
revelation or action of God in Christ.

The book begins with three helpful
chapters in which the author traces the
use of the later Christological titles as
they are employed in the various strata
of pre-Christian thought in Pales-
tinian Judaism, in Hellenistic Juda-
ism, and in the Hellenistic Gentile
world. Each of these strata are fol-
lowed by chapters on Christology as
developed in kerygma of the earliest
church, of the Hellenistic Jewish mis-
sion, and of the Hellenistic Gentile
mission. A final chapter draws to-
gether in schematic form the various
stages of Christological development
and offers some hints for the necessary
movement beyond functional Christ-
ology to ontology.

In the weakest chapter of the book,
Fuller examines the various sayings of
Jesus which might reveal his own un-
derstanding of himself and concludes
that the working concept which guided
him in the tasks of his earthly ministry
was that of the eschatological prophet.
As such, Jesus initiated the coming of
the Kingdom of God through his
works and words and confidently
looked for the vindication of his ac-
tivity by the Son of Man at the End.

The earliest Palestinian church in
making explicit what Jesus had im-
plied about himself arrived at a two-
foci Christology. On the one hand,
he was "the Mosaic prophetic servant"
during his earthly ministry, thereby
connected to the prior acts of God in

Israel's history. On the other hand, he
was identified with the coming Son
of Man who would openly vindicate
his first advent as God's eschatological
revelation.

In the Hellenistic Jewish mission
with the delay of the parousia and the
deepening presence of the Holy Spirit,
the Christological emphasis shifted
from the two foci of the earliest
church to a stress on the present work
of the exalted Jesus. The earthly min-
istry was looked upon then as merely
prelude and the parousia as expected
consummation.

As the gospel moved into the Gen-
tile world the church found that it
had to speak a relevant word to man's
search for redemption, and therefore,
a three-foci Christology developed.
Jesus was the pre-existent One who
descended into the human predicament
at the incarnation, defeated the pow-
ers which enslaved man, and then
reascended.

In this pattern of pre-existence, in-
carnation, and exaltation, words of an
ontological rather than purely func-
tional character are used pointing the
way to the later language of the
creeds. This linguistic development,
Fuller suggests, was not merely the
result of translating Christology into
Greek terms but "a universal human
apperception that action implies prior
being even if, as is also true, being
is only apprehended in action" (p.
248). Thus present-day Christology is
not un-Biblical in employing ontic
language. Its starting-point, Fuller
rightly adds, must not, however, be
Chalcedon which tended to center on
only two aspects of the N. T. picture
(the relation of the pre-existent Son
to the Father and the incarnation) but
the N. T. itself with its concern for
God's continuing work through Jesus
in the life of the church.

A. J. B. Higgins' work is much more
limited in scope than Fuller's since
his interest centers on only one (but

31

no doubt the most controversial)
Christological title Son of Man. This
limitation, however, enables the read-
er to follow in more satisfactory detail
the author's rationale in dealing with
the individual sayings of Jesus, their
authentic or secondary character.

Higgins' methodology is to divide
the Son of Man sayings into the three
traditional categories earthly activ-
ity, sufferings, and parousia and to
trace the various categories through
each strand of the Synoptic tradition,
through the Fourth Gospel, and
through the other N. T. books. In a
concluding chapter he seeks to arrive
at some answer to the relationship
between Jesus and the Son of Man.

There is an interesting and some-
what novel twist to Higgins' conclu-
sions. Jesus, he says, did not use the
title Son of Man for himself either in
regard to his earthly ministry or in
predicting his suffering, death, and
resurrection. All the sayings in these
categories recorded in the Synoptics
are of a secondary character. Jesus
did, however, refer to the Son of Man
as a future heavenly witness, advocate,
or judge.

Thus far Higgins follows a path
others have blazed before him. When
he comes to ask of the relationship
between Jesus and this juridical figure
of the future, however, he finds his
answer in terms of the Son of God
Christology. It is true Jesus made no
explicit claims to be God's Son, but
throughout his ministry he exhibited
a unique consciousness of his filial
relationship to the Father. In the light
of this awareness, then, whether men
accepted or rejected his preaching of
the kingdom was of crucial signifi-
cance, since such a decision deter-
mined their acceptance or rejection by
the Son of Man in the heavenly court.
Though Jesus never clearly identified
himself with this eschatological Son of
Man, nevertheless in his thought the
Son of Man was none other than the

Son of God. "The Son of Man idea
was adopted by Jesus to devote him-
self as the Son of God he already
believed himself to be, reinstalled in
his heavenly seat. The Son of Man is
the Son of God exercising his inter-
cessory or judicial functions" (p. 202).

Several questions could and should
be raised with Higgins' conclusions,
especially his easy identification of
Son of Man and Son of God; how-
ever, the questioning would have to be
directed to his interpretation of indi-
vidual passages, a task beyond the
scope of this review.

Here in two well-outlined and docu-
mented books one can follow a trend
being set in N. T. studies whereby an
effort is made to penetrate through
the various Synoptic sayings to the
self-consciousness of Jesus and then
to trace the resulting Christology as
it developed in the early church.

Charles B. Cousar

Understanding and Helping the
Narcotic Addict, by Tommie L.
Duncan: Prentice-Hall, 143 pp.
$2.95.

In this recent addition to the "Suc-
cessful Pastoral Counseling" series
Tommie Duncan, Chaplain Director of
the Fort Worth Federal Narcotic Hos-
pital, has attempted to supply the
pastor with a much needed reference
source. Primarily the book deals with
but two aspects of the narcotic prob-
lem: the psychological and sociologi-
cal world of the addict and the medical
or technical aspects of addiction.

The inner world of the addict, his
frustrations, fears and sense of de-
pendence, is accorded a clear and at
times even a dramatic presentation.
Especially well written are the chap-
ters on acquiring the habit and pro-
curing drugs. Although brief, the posi-
tive suggestions on counseling the ad-
dict should prove helpful.

32

The discussion of the technical
aspects of addiction is readable, but,
unfortunately superficial, and lacking
in the precision and clarity required
of a good reference source.

Robert L. Faulkner, M.D.

South African Tragedy: The Life
and Times of Jan Hojmeyr, by
Alan Paton: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 424 pp. $10.00.

In writing this book Alan Paton is
not merely paying a biographical trib-
ute to an admired friend and lost
leader; he is sending forth a tract for
the times, and his object is impres-
sively achieved. That Hofmeyr was a
great man few would wish to deny. He
was endowed with phenomenal intel-
lectual capacities; indeed, his academic
career was that of a prodigy: he ma-
triculated at the age of twelve, grad-
uated with first class honours at the
age of fifteen (when still in short
trousers!), took his second degree a
year later, spent a brilliant three years
as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, re-
turned to South Africa and a profes-
sorship at the age of twenty-two, was
appointed principal of the young
University of the Witwatersrand at the
age of twenty-four, and became Ad-
ministrator of the Transvaal at the
age of twenty-nine. Such was the
spectacular prelude to his twenty years
of political life which ended with his
untimely death in 1948 at the age
of 54.

Not blessed with the natural graces
of form or personality, Hofmeyr was,
as Alan Paton puts it, "a man not
radiant by nature but by character."
And his character was formed by the
integrity of his Christian commitment.
For him, compromise was always un-
thinkable when principles of justice
and duty were involved, and on more
than one occasion he showed that
he was unhesitatingly prepared to

jeopardize his whole career rather than
give way on matters of principle. This
book is designed as a portrait of a man
of noble intentions feeling his way
towards the formulation of a liberal
racial policy for the country which
he loved and served with such un-
swerving devotion. It has the essential
elements of classical tragedy: there
were many who were looking to him
as the one in whose leadership the
only hope for the future lay; but he
was overshadowed by another, older
man of genius, Smuts, whose lieu-
tenant he continued to the end; his
days were over-dominated by a mother
who virtually never let him out of her
sight; and just when Smuts was a spent
force and he had succeeded in over-
coming his own native diffidence he
was removed from the scene by death.
Hofmeyr's eloquent voice warned
his fellow-countrymen that fear is no
proper foundation on which to build
social and legislative policy, for fear
engenders hatred with all its dire con-
sequences, and it affirmed clearly "the
essential value of human personality
as something independent of race or
colour." "I believe," he declared in
parliament at a critical moment in
his own career, "that every time the
facts are brushed aside and a sur-
render is made to racial and colour
prejudice, impairing the human rights
of a part of our people, every time
that happens we are sapping the moral
foundation of leadership which the
European people in South Africa en-
joy today." His voice is heard again,
in all its earnestness, through the
pages of this volume.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

The Christian Agnostic, by Leslie
D. Weatherhead : Abingdon Press,
368 pp. $4.75.

The minister emeritus of City Tem-
ple, London, addresses here the
"Christian Agnostic," described as one

33

who is attracted to Christ and many
Christian truths but who finds much
in generally accepted theology to
which he cannot subscribe. The author
is careful to distinguish between the
"agnostic" who does not know, and
the "athiest" who does not believe.
This sounds entirely reasonable in the
preface. But the mood of the book is
indicated at the beginning of Chapter
One when the author says, "I am an
angry old man." Then to an enquirer's
question about what a church member
should believe he replies, "Only those
things which appear to you to be
true." Having been given so clearly
the audience to be addressed, the mood
of the writer and his basis for deter-
mining what truths a believer is to
accept, one should not be shocked by
what follows. A considerable amount
of that which the historic Christian
community has held to be revealed
truth is simply thrown overboard. Dr.
Weatherhead's characteristic and pas-
sionate love for Christ shines out in
the middle section of this book and
only there does his anger subside. For
the most part, in this book, he seems
willing and eager to demolish whatever
he feels may keep the modern intel-
lectual from being at home in the
church.

Patrick D. Miller

Horace Bushnell, Edited by H.
Shelton Smith : Oxford University
Press, 407 pp. $7.00.

Our nation had scarcely gained
freedom before brother attacked
brother in theological controversy.
The issues voiced in William E. Chan-
ning's famous 1819 Baltimore sermon
Trinity, Christology, human de-
pravity, atonement were not new.
Harvard, under Unitarian control,
had been weathering orthodox attacks
mounted at nearby Andover. Soon
Nathaniel Taylor's efforts at Yale to
unite Calvinists developed the New

School theology and stimulated op-
ponents to found Hartford Theological
Institute as an Old School citadel.
When conservative Presbyterians
purged New Schoolism in their 1838
schism, Princeton proceeded to erect
an objective orthodox theology. Ten
years later a Hartford pastor, Horace
Bushnell, in lectures at Harvard, Yale
and Andover developed a new method-
ology, created in part, out of his 1848
subjective experience of illumination.
With this methodology he recon-
structed thought on these issues and
freed Congregationalists from increas-
ingly scholastic orthodoxy. Inheritors
of Princeton thought need knowledge
of Bushnell's reconstructions if they
are to understand the later nineteenth
century American pulpit and the
contemporary man in the pew.

This Volume in A Library of Protes-
tant Thought traces the controversies
and gathers the Bushnell documents
that reveal his method and his recon-
struction of doctrine. Smith's intro-
ductory essay is invaluable; his critical
notes indicate both recognized and neg-
lected sources of Bushnell's thought.
Readers will discover here much more
than the seed thoughts of the Ameri-
can religious education movement!
The Puritans, the Romantics (Cole-
ridge, Victor Cousin), the German
philosophers (Kant, Schleiermacher),
the linguists (Josiah Gibbs) helped
this creative pastor wrestle with both
the issues and thought forms of his
day as he reinterpreted rather than
rejected historic doctrines. Those who
have read excerpts in systematic the-
ologies should read these in context
here. Refusing capitulation to either
scholasticism (orthodoxy) or ethics
(Unitarianism) he sought empirical
evidence in an empirical age. Perhaps
his subjective emphasis led to eventual
imbalance as he opposed stagnant ob-
jectivity, but the struggle between sub-
jective and objective theology con-
tinues in our day according to the

34

evidence on the back page of an
Easter bulletin just received.

Hubert Vance Taylor

Reformed Dogmatics, Edited and
Translated by John W. Beardslee,
III: Oxford University Press, 471
pp. $7.50.

Ordinarily the title "Reformed Dog-
matics" would be understood as re-
ferring to the theology of the sixteenth-
century Reformation. This volume,
however, which is a fine addition to
the growing excellence of the "Library
of Protestant Thought," contains ex-
tracts from the major works of three
seventeenth-century scholars, Johannes
Wollebius (Compendium Theologiae
Christianae), Gisbert Voetius (Selec-
tae Disputationes Thcologicae), and
Francis Turretin (lnstitutio Theologiae
Elencticae), who are representative of
Calvinistic "orthodoxy" as it became
crystallized in the century following
the Reformation. Of course, Heinrich
Heppe's celebrated volume of the
same title relates to the same period,
though following a different and more
comprehensive method but this, if
anything, will add to the confusion.
This is said only by way of clarifica-
tion. It in no way detracts from the
value of the book's contents. These
systematizers of the seventeenth cen-
tury were indeed men to be reckoned
with, even though in certain respects
the effect of their work was that of
scholastic calcification, and it is a
matter for gratitude that so generous
a portion of their writings has been
made available in this way. It is pleas-
ing too to learn that further volumes
in this series now in preparation will
be devoted to Elizabethan Puritanism,
Puritan piety, and seventeenth-century
Lutheranism.

Dr. Beardslee's introduction is inter-
esting and competent, but this par-
ticular volume would have benefitted

from a much fuller essay than he has
given us. Wollebius, Voetius, and Tur-
retin were men of erudition and high
intellect, but their class was below
that of the Protestant genius which
flowered so phenomenally in that
period and included such names as
Kepler, Rembrandt, Locke, Newton,
Leibnitz, and Bach, who died in the
middle of the next century. Their in-
fluence, however, was considerable
an influence which, in the case of
Turretin, was felt in the American
Presbyterianism of the last century
through Hodge and the Princeton
school and Shedd and others who had
discovered his writings. Dr. Beardslee
well remarks that the extent to which
speculative logic had triumphed over
the soteriological insight of the Refor-
mation is exemplified in the way in
which predestination is separated from
soteriology in Turretin's system. This
can be followed through in the section
which Dr. Beardslee selects from his
lnstitutio, namely, "Locus IV: Con-
cerning the Decrees of God in General
and Predestination in Particular." For
the true genius of Reformed theology
we have to go back to the sixteenth
century with its Luther, its Calvin,
and its Cranmer.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

The Athanasian Creed, by J. N.
D. Kelly: Harper & Row, 140 pp.
$3.00.

Principal J. N. D. Kelly has placed
us further in his debt with this scholar-
ly examination of the Nicene Creed.
He traces out the historical discussion
of this great statement of the faith and
the critical reading of the same. Kelly
concludes that the Nicene Creed is one
of the most splendid legacies of the
patristic age whose qualities far out-
shine its defects. It has been criticized
for seeming to identify saving faith
with mere intellectual assent, yet the
creed reminds us that faith consists

35

in worshipping the Divine Trinity. The
damnatory clauses indicate the awful
necessity for making right decisions.
"No other official document sets
forth, so incisively and with such
majestic clarity, the profound theology
implicit in the New Testament affirma-
tion that God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto Himself.**

Dr. Kelly concludes that the Nicene
Creed comes from the cradle of Lerins
reflecting both the language of Augus-
tine and of Vincent, but it was prob-
ably formulated by one of those about
Caesarius of Aries in the early sixth
century. We are grateful to the Oxford
scholar for this addition to his other
notable works on the patristic period
of Church history and on the Pastoral
Epistles.

William C. Robinson

Proclaiming God's Message: A
Study in the Theology of Preach-
ing, by Domenico Grasso, S. J.:
Notre Dame Press, 272 pp. $6.00.

Many Protestants have been pleased
at evidences of reform taking place in
the Roman Catholic Church, and
among the most significant is a re-
newed interest in preaching. The ac-
tivities and publications of the Cath-
olic Homiletical Society in the United
States indicate the extent to which
many ministers of this communion are
approaching their pulpit work with
serious biblical and theological con-
cern. In this volume the professor of
pastoral theology at the Gregorian
University in Rome demonstrates his
effort to articulate a theology of
preaching, and with his many refer-
ences he also reflects the findings of
other writers in this field, some Protes-
tant, but mostly Roman Catholic.

According to Father Frasso the
problem with contemporary preaching
is the way it clings to shop-worn
themes and forms and language. "It

is too abstract and unreal, fragmentary
and lacking in sincerity; its character
is mainly moralistic. The preacher's
words, like anachronisms, are blood-
less and lifeless; they leave the hearer
cold." The solution to the problem
begins with a recognition of the pre-
eminence of preaching in the worship
of the Church. "Preaching is more
important than administering the
sacraments," he says. "Listening to
preaching is therefore the best form
of worship that man can render to
God." He calls for a return to the
proclamation of the Good News
through textual or exegetical sermons
as the crucial part of the Church's
worship.

So much of his study is congenial
to this reviewer, though there are
problems with his view of the sacra-
ments and his doctrine of ordination
as it relates to the efficacy of preach-
ing. However, one delights to see this
type of serious concern for Proclaim-
ing God's Message by all branches of
"the holy catholic church."

Wade P. Hum, Jr.

The Book of God and Man: A
Study of Job, by Robert Gordis:
The University of Chicago Press,
389 pp. $8.50.

Next to the joys of observing a great
work of art for oneself are the pleas-
ures of hearing a great student of
that work present what he has seen
in it. Robert Gordis is just such a
devoted and sensitive student of the
Book of Job, and his volume, The
Book of God and Man, brings the
reader his observations of this ancient
poetic masterpiece.

One chapter discusses the interre-
lationship between the creative artist
and his reader or his interpreter.
Gordis consciously presents himself
as the creative partner with the poet
in the process of communication and
draws from his own rich reading of

36

literature, philosophy and comment
and from his own experience of life to
spell out many significant impressions
that Job has left on him. His special
interest is the wide variety of literary
devices used by the author of Job.
Among them are quotations which lack
the introductory "you say" or "you
thought." Gordis is also interested in
the parallelism of Hebrew poetry and
the allusive analogies which enable the
poet to give force to his ideas.

According to Gordis practically all
of the book is the work of one master
thinker whose ideas matured slowly
in the progressive writing of different
sections. The Elihu material represents
"the fruit of years of observing the
educative and disciplinary role of suf-
fering" (p. 116), and the poet's ul-
timate message goes beyond "we may
never know" to "let us rejoice" (p.
134).

A brief review cannot do justice to
the wealth of insight in the study
Gordis has produced, but it can recom-
mend his work to those who would like
to probe deeper into the mysteries with
which the Book of Job wrestles.

James H. Gailey, Jr.

The Adventure of Living, by Paul
Tournier. Translated by Edwin
Hudson: Harper & Row, 250 pp.

$3.75.

In his various books Paul Tournier,
M.D., often refers to his new 'Calvin-
ism'. He does indeed read Calvin,
adopts some vital ideas of our Re-
former but adds to our tradition and
uses the findings of modern depth
psychology and even some thoughts
from the Far East. Dr. Tournier's ex-
perience therefore is vast and his
thought very rich. He is a physician
of the whole man of his body, mind
and spirit. Man has indeed something
deeper than body and mind an inner
life and experience which determines
the mind and the body.

For the author, God's creation was
a great venture. As God created man
in his own image, men also ought to
have a spirit of adventure which is the
very opposite of rigidity, fixity and
lethargy. According to Dr. Tournier,
Jesus, for example, did not conform
to his environment. On the contrary
he opposed the Religionists of his day
because of their mediocrity, disregard
for God and man, cruelty and legal-
ism. Jesus took great risks. Jesus loved
God and man, and ventured. Should
we do the same, a new meaning of
life would be disclosed to us.

As Dr. Tournier practices a med-
icine of the whole person in Geneva,
that is, in a Calvinian society, his
books ought to be of very great value
to Presbyterians.

Paul T. Fuhrmann

The Sociology of Religion, by
Max Weber, translated by Epha-
rim Fischoff, introduction by
Talcott Parsons: Beacon Press,
304 pp. $2.75.

When a major sociologist examines
religion, it is well for religionists to
listen and learn. Max Weber lived
and wrote during the period which
ended with the first World War, but
he helped to pioneer the study of
social behavior in a variety of areas,
and his Sociology of Religion, incom-
plete at his death in 1920, was con-
ceived as a contribution to a monu-
mental survey of Economics and So-
ciety. Though it falls short of its in-
tended completeness and is only a
portion of the total project, its breadth
and perceptions make it a significant
stimulant even more than 40 years
after its initial publication. Because
the manuscript was fragmentary, the
early (posthumous) publication was
revised in 1956 by a dedicated disciple
of Weber's. The English translation
presented in the Beacon paperback is
derived from this revision and presents

37

for the first time in English Weber's
significant investigation into the soci-
ology of religion.

For Weber "religion" includes prin-
cipally the world religions. Christian-
ity, Judaism. Buddhism, Islam and
their variants. The sociology of re-
ligion is the study of a wide range
of aspects from magic and totemism
to prophetic and pastoral ministries.
Economic aspects are always noted.
Illustrations are frequently drawn
from the Judeo-Christian cases, but
the richness of the book is evident in
many illustrations drawn from other
religions. The student who approaches
this book from a dogmatic standpoint
will frequently be disconcerted to note
that Weber assumes that the specific
conditions observed in one religion
may be a phase of a movement whose
earlier or later phases can be glimpsed
in some historically unrelated example.
In other words, Weber seems to as-
sume a sort of linear development
from naturalism to symbolism, from
mythological to rational thinking, and
the like.

On the other hand Weber is aware
that differing sociological situations
have given rise to differing solutions
to many problems. His careful enumer-
ations of the various ideal possibilities
provide the reader with a series of
mental pigeonholes for the analysis
of his own and other religions. And
always, in sketching these possibilities.
Weber makes the most pertinent of
observations in the most condensed
statements. (The translator has ob-
viously done well in simplifying the
original German sentences.)

Anyone engaged in the professional
leadership of religion needs to read
and re-read Weber's study. The re-
ligious leader in a pluralistic society
can gain much from the insights and
observations of one whose aim was
a matter-of-fact analysis of the variety
of religious and social factors abroad
in the world. If he is a missionarv or

a student preparing to work with those
of a religious heritage different from
his own, such a work as Weber's
Sociology is a necessity. As pastor or
layman, he will meet enough of the
types discussed in Weber's book to
justify his careful attention to it.

James H. Gailev, Jr.

The Messianic Character of
American Education, by Rousas
John Rushdoony: Presbyterian
and Reformed Publishing Com-
pany. 410 pp. S6.50.

American Education exhibits an
astonishing change of direction and
purpose in the course of its history.
The whole development is so vast as
to discourage any attempt to compre-
hend its meaning by comparison of
contemporary education with the
practices of the Early New England
states, but our author has traced sig-
nificant changes initiated by outstand-
ing thinkers in the field of Education
which will enable the reader to see
the steady trend in the reorientation
of philosophy and the reconstruction
of practice.

Dr. Rushdoony does not dwell on
the elements in the New England mind
which contributed to this massive
transformation, but he mentions cer-
tain features in the prevailing Calvin-
ism of Early America which can be
seen as factors in the ensuing course
of affairs. The early dominance of
the Church is still reflected in the
wearing of the judicial gown in the
administration of justice by the state,
and the academic gown in the rites of
the University. Out of this background
Calvinism emerged with a sense of re-
sponsibility to the state and to the
school. "The salvation character of
scholarship, utterly foreign to the rest
of the world, is the religious key to the
political building erected by the Refor-
mation'* (p. 17).

38

The philosophical views of the Early
Americans were clearly grounded in
Christian convictions. Man was cre-
ated in the image of God and had
fallen into sin, and man's social re-
lationships, including the state, were
to be developed under the law of God
set forth in the Scriptures. The en-
suing shift in philosophical outlook
was largely imperceptible (1) because
so many Christian terms were retained,
and (2) because a spirit of independ-
ence was apparently willing to accept
new and different theses without seri-
ous examination. Former views were
simply abandoned or bypassed. With
the Unitarian rejection of the Biblical
doctrine of Man, the Fall, and sal-
vation by the grace of God through
the mediation of Jesus Christ as the
vicarious sacrifice, there was affirmed
(on the questionable ground that "all
men are children of God") salvation
as potential because of natural proc-
ess. This dubious interpretation con-
tinued because of two new lines of
thought in Western culture.

The erosion of the prestige of the
significance of the Scriptures was pro-
moted by European Higher Criticism
so that the authority of Genesis 1-11
was repudiated, whereas the general
interpretation of the Scriptures as part
of the American heritage was exer-
cised so loosely that the actual mean-
ing of the Bible as authoritative was
completely ignored. The result was
that man was no longer thought of as
a created person who had sinned, but
as a natural product who was poten-
tially good and could be educated into
virtue; society was not responsible to
God for its conduct of its affairs,
because it was actually advancing
through experience.

The popularization of Evolution
following Darwin provided the liberal
view of man with a philosophic basis
for unlimited optimism about inevit-
able progress. Evolution was seen as
more than biological; it was accepted

as the principle operative in develop-
ment of social entities, of meanings of
values, and of philosophies. It was
when learning was understood as pro-
moting Evolution that American Edu-
cating achieved its full stature as the
Messianic, Utopian project it is today.

Dr. Rushdoony points out that the
complete omission of any recognition
of God in the total educational out-
look, combined with definite insis-
tence upon "integration downward" in
school practices, makes the observa-
tion of A. A. Hodge to be prophetic
when he wrote: "It is self evident that
on this scheme, if it is consistently
and persistently carried out in all
parts of the country, the United States
system of national popular education
will be the most efficient and wide
instrument for the Propagation of
Atheism which the world has ever
seen." (p. 335)

Thus the Early American concern of
the church for the promotion of edu-
cation as a means to bring men into
the kingdom of God has been reversed.
Its present purpose is to enable man
to evolve into a better life by finding
his fulfillment in the better social
affairs of mankind in the world today.
Manford George Gutzke

Sin, Sex and Self-Control, by
Norman Vincent Peale: Double-
day Co., 207 pp. $4.50.

This book may be lacking in the-
ological substance but there is plenti-
ful psychological pap. Is your problem
that of over-eating? "Ask yourself why
you're overeating, overdrinking, etc. Is
it simply because you're fond of good
food and have grown accustomed to
taking the line of least resistance? Is
it possible that you are resentful of
something or somebody and are eating
because it seems to reduce your anger?
Is it conceivable that you are starved
for affection and are finding a sub-
stitute in food? Are you running away

39

from the normal problems of life,
reaching for a sweet as one doctor
put it instead of a solution?"

The fatal weakness of this approach
is its over-simplification of complex
issues. The panacea for all our ills,
according to the author's comforting
prescription, is a regular dose of posi-
tive thinking. Commenting on Schop-
enhauer's dictum : "To preach morality
is easy; to find a foundation for
morality is hard," he says: "Of course,
Schopenhauer was a pretty gloomy
fellow. He was a famous philosopher,
but he was also a negative thinker,
poor chap."

Nevertheless, a number of helpful
observations are interspersed. Concern-
ing the erosion of absolute standards,
the author writes: "The danger, once
you've abandoned your absolute, is
that you will keep on drawing tempo-
rary lines and then stepping over them,
until there are no standards left."
Stuart Barton Babbage

The Heart of Man: Its Genius for
Good and Evil, by Erich Fromm :
Harper and Row, 156 pp. $3.95.

Erich Fromm; psychoanalyst, writ-
er, and "theologian incognito"; in his
book, entitled The Heart of Man: Its
Genius for Good and Evil, seeks to
deal with the question whether man
is good or bad, free or determined.
"Maybe the entire alternative is er-
roneous. Maybe man is both wolf and
sheep or neither wolf nor sheep." Dr.
Fromm goes on to state that man's
goodness or badness, constructiveness
or destructiveness is determined by the
choices he makes individually and col-
lectively.

Concerning the direction the choices
might take Dr. Fromm discusses three
phenomena which lead to what he
calls the "syndrome of decay," that
which prompts men to destroy for the
sake of destruction. These three phe-

nomena are the love of death, malig-
nant narcissism, and symbiotic-inces-
tuous fixation. All three represent
movement away from maturity and
growth and constitute regression lead-
ing to eventual death and destruction.
Dr. Fromm feels that the more an
individual's choices are in the direction
of this "syndrome of decay" the less
he is able to choose otherwise. This
is what he sees the Bible referring to
when it speaks of Pharoah's heart
being "hardened." Pharoah chose the
direction of the "syndrome of decay"
so often that he became ensnared in
the consequence of his choices, and
no other choice was open to him. As
a modern example Dr. Fromm offers
Hitler as a person where these three
phenomena converged and formed the
"syndrome of decay."

In opposition to the "syndrome of
decay" Dr. Fromm describes the "syn-
drome of growth." "This consists of
love of life (as against love of death),
love of man (as against narcissism),
and independence (as against symbio-
tic-incestuous fixation)." While the
two "syndromes" are fully developed
only in a few, it is recognized that all
men are moving at varying degrees of
speed toward one or the other.

This is a significant book. Of par-
ticular interest to the minister are the
sections describing how the "syndrome
of decay" manifests itself in groups
such as the community, the family,
the nation, and even in the church. For
instance: a question can be raised for
those Christians who have identified
a kind of pietism with true Christian-
ity. Dr. Fromm seems to be saying
that pietistic moral hypochondria is
just another form of narcissism (self
love). This book will be valuable to
all who are seriously concerned about
man's predicament and desire to un-
derstand it better.

Hugh L. Eichelberger

40

The Old Testament World, by
Martin North, translated by Vic-
tor I. Gruhn: Fortress Press, 404
pp. $8.00.

The Old Testament: An Intro-
duction to the History of the For-
mation of the Old Testament, by
Otto Eissfeldt, translated by
Peter R. Ackroyd: Harper and
Row, 861 pp. $9.50.

Pastors and students interested in
updating their libraries with newly
translated reference works from noted
German Old Testament scholars
should consider purchasing Otto Eiss-
feldt's massive "introduction" as well
as Martin Noth's comprehensive com-
panion to his earlier history of Israel.

Noth's volume covers Palestine's
geography, its archaeology, some "per-
tinent aspects of near eastern history,"
and the text of the Old Testament. It
is a factual book whose indices offer
a key to the wealth of information it
contains; enough material is provided
to illuminate almost any custom or
situation about which a pastor might
inquire in the preparation of an Old
Testament sermon, but the scholar will
also find careful documentation of the
sources upon which the study is based.
The volume is most useful in explain-
ing such matters as how the various
conquerors of Palestine designated the
divisions of territory or what factors
led to the fixing of the ancient trade
routes.

The translation of the third German
edition of Eissfeldt's Einleitung in-
cludes a 65 page section of "Addition-
al Literature and Notes" beyond the
documentation provided at each sec-
tion of the work. The result is the
most comprehensive survey of current
investigation of all aspects of the Old
Testament, Apocrypha, Pseudepigraph
and Dead Sea Scroll material to be
found in one volume in any language.

Like Artur Weiser, Eissfeldt begins
with a review of literary types to be
found in the Old Testament, and then
presents the literary development of
the various books and sections of the
ancient literature together with surveys
of the study of the questions treated.
He himself views most of the books of
the Old Testament in terms of a proc-
ess of supplementation, with earlier
editions and later revisions in con-
trast to "scissors and paste" docu-
mentary theories. In addition, he is
always interested in literary forms and
their use with reference to specific
areas of content. The result is that
most of what he says has an objective
basis in the text, even though the
separate stages of its development are
not now extant.

Eissfeldt knows as well as anyone
that new studies continue to appear,
and though he lists the literature
which shows how the ancient suzerain-
ty treaties influenced the pattern of
covenant formulation between God
and His people, it is regrettable that
his introduction could not give due
place to its significance.

What is important, however, is the
way the volumes by Eissfeldt and
Noth contribute to the growing sense
of three dimensionality in the stu-
dent's reading of the Old Testament.

James H. Gailey, Jr.

New Patterns of Church Growth
in Brazil, by William R. Read:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 240 pp. $2.45. (Paperback)

A stimulating book in a series on
Church Growth. While filled with
statistics, this book is both informa-
tional and inspirational. It should be
read by all missionary personnel on
the field and considering such service.
It will also be helpful to pastors here
at home. The rapid growth of Pente-
costalism incites a scientific consider-

41

ation as to why some groups are
growing rapidly and others are lag-
ging. The author deals not only with
numerical growth but with other areas
such as the social application of the
Gospel.

The book will jar some and may
cause a wholesome re-examination of
policies, principles, and procedures.

It behooves us to take off some-
times our robes of respectability and
take a real, hard look at facts and
figures. All missionaries, mission
boards and even pastors today need
to "read" and "heed" what other
groups are doing, oftentimes more suc-
cessfully, if we don't we may "miss
the plane."

Cecil Thompson

eludes hopefully may yet help white
Protestant churches to learn the full
meaning of brotherhood.

Harold B. Prince

White Protestantism and the
Negro, by David M. Reimers:
Oxford University Press, 236 pp.
$5.00.

That the Negro despite white
Protestant resolutions, goals, and pro-
gress has not achieved equality in
American church life is the not-to-be-
denied conclusion of Reimers in this
chronicle of snail's-pace moves by
Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, and
Presbyterian churches of the north and
south to "adjust."

Divided by slavery and war, north
and south branches of denominations
found renewed congeniality after Re-
construction, as northern enthusiasm
for "full-equality" cooled and Jim
Crowism manifesting itself in sepa-
rate Negro denominations; separate
colleges and seminaries; separate con-
gregations; separate conferences, syn-
ods, associations, and jurisdictions;
and separate pews was accepted and
justified.

But from these segregated facilities
have come men like Ralph Abernathy,
Martin Luther King, Jr., and James
H. Robinson, who the author con-

The Psychology of Religious Ex-
periences, by Erwin Ramsdell
Goodenough: Basic Books, Inc.,
XII-192 pp. $5.00.

According to our author, the var-
ieties of response which man has made
to the great "Unknown of which he is
a part are legalism, supralegalism, or-
thodoxy, supraorthodoxy, aestheticism,
symbolism, sacramentarianism, the
Church, conversion and mysticism.
The author ends by admiring the
tolerance of pagan antiquity which
recognized that people of one tem-
perament or level of intelligence find
their security in religious experiences
that have little meaning to others.
I note, however, that four hundred
years ago Calvin advanced, if not a
practice, certainly a similar theory of
tolerance and understanding when he
said that "all men must not be forced
to live in the same manner, because
there is in men a diversity of make
up (Latin conditio) and complexes
(French complexions) and one same
thing is not suitable to all men"
(Calvin on Matt. 9:16), "hence min-
isters ought to offer a variety of in-
struction according to case and capa-
city" (Calvin on Matt. 13:25).

Paul T. Fuhrmann

Experience and Religion, by Nich-
olas Mosley: Hodder and Stough-
ton, 156 pp. 16s.

This little book was a delight to
read. Written by an English novelist,
it is sub-titled "a lay essay in the-
ology." With remarkable psychological
insight and with a fresh, original way
of thinking he struggles with the con-
temporary problem of religious lan-

42

guage which has lost its meaning for
so many people. Starting out with
a short but brilliant synopsis of Carl
Jung's psychological understanding,
the author struggles to give new and
relevant meaning to the language sym-
bols of Christian faith. The author is
not a trained theologian and it can
hardly be said that he develops a
theological understanding that could
be called either distinctively Christian
or Biblical.

The delight of the book is to sit
with this impassioned, articulate lay-
man and watch him struggle more
honestly with the theological problem
of our day than do most "theological
students." His lack of full orthodoxy
does not destroy his value as one
who can enlighten, provoke and moti-
vate his more orthodox brethren to a
deeper and frequently more relevant
theological struggle in themselves.

Olof Halvard Lyon

The Spirit of Anglicanism: A
Survey of Anglican Theological
Method in the Seventeenth Cen-
tury, by Henry R. McAdoo:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 422 pp.
$5.95.

In bygone generations it was nothing
unusual for Irish bishops to produce
works of substantial scholarship, but
today when the episcopal office is
equated with the techniques of busi-
ness administration one has virtually
ceased to expect theological enterprise
from these quarters. Shunning the
temptation to suggest that only an
Irish bishop might find the leisure for
such a diversion, we give a most sin-
cere welcome to this weighty study
from the pen of Dr. McAdoo, who is
Bishop of Ossory. His volume is one
of solid learning and a really valuable

contribution in the field of historical
theology.

The title of the book is somewhat
misleading, excepting in that Dr. Mc-
Adoo approves the theological meth-
od, with its threefold cord of Scrip-
ture, reason and antiquity, stretching
from Hooker to Gore by way of the
seventeenth century Cambridge Pla-
tonists and Latitudinarians, as consti-
tutive of the true spirit of Anglicanism.
His own method, however, must be
treated with some reserve, for he
fails to give due weight to the classical
Anglicanism of the sixteenth century
and the Anglicanism of the Puritans
and of men like Archbishop Ussher is
passed over with little more than a
mention. He must also be criticized
for starting from the presupposition
that there is no such thing as an of-
ficial theology of Anglicanism but
only a theological method, since, how-
ever much Anglicanism may be in the
melting-pot at the present time, hither-
to the Prayer Book, Articles, and
Homilies have certainly been repos-
itories of an official theology.

But, recognizing the limits within
which Dr. McAdoo moves, this volume
may be approached with confidence
as a thorough and expert exposition
of the thought of the Cambridge
Platonists, the Latitudinarians, and the
leaders of the "new philosophy" in
seventeenth-century England; and as
such it deserves to stand beside and
supplement two other important studies
of recent years: H. J. McLachlan's
Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century
England (1951) and Charles and
Katherine George's The Protestant
Mind of the English Reformation,
1570-1640 (1961). Dr. McAdoo, who
has previously written a book on
Caroline Moral Theology, shows an
acquaintance with the original liter-
ature of the period which is impres-
sive throughout.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

43

Light On C. S. Lewis, Edited by
Jocelyn Gibb: Geoffrey Bles, 160
pp. 16s.

Nevill Coghill, in a discussion of
C. S. Lewis' contribution to English
studies, relates a characteristic anec-
dote. On being asked what he thought
of the Hydrogen Bomb, C. S. Lewis
replied that he could not see that it
made any difference; the world had
been expecting to come suddenly and
painfully to an immediate end since
at least the end of the eleventh cen-
tury, as anyone who had read Wulf-
stan would realize; "and anyhow, when
the bomb falls there will always be
just that split second in which one
can say 'Poof! you're only a bomb.
I'm an immortal soul'."

Austin Farrer, in a discussion of
Lewis' apologetic, points out that there
are frontiersmen and frontiersmen.
"There is what one might call the
Munich school, who will always sell
the pass in the belief that their posi-
tion can be more happily defended
from foothills to the rear. Such people
are not commonly seen as apologists.
They are reckoned to be New The-
ologians. They are too busy learning
from their enemies to do much in de-
fence of their friends. The typical
apologist is a man whose every dyke
is his last ditch. He will carry the
war into the enemy's country; he will
yield not an inch of his own." Lewis,
he says, emphatically belonged to the
latter category.

This revealing book consists of a
series of tributes by friends and former
pupils. Coghill compares him to Dr.
Samuel Josnson, and says that, like
Johnson, he was a formidable figure:
formidable in learning and in the
range of his conversation; above all,
formidable in controversy. Neverthe-
less he was the most kind of men, and,
as one and another testify, the most
generous of men. "Genius is formid-
able and so is goodness," Coghill
writes, "and he had both."

Chad Walsh speaks of his impact
on America. "I am convinced," he
writes, "that he had an impact on
American religious imagination which
has been very rarely, if ever, equalled
by any other modern writer." Never-
theless, he adds that his influence now
appears to be waning. "Among college
students I hear much less talk about
religion than ten years ago. They are
not inclined to argue about either its
truth or falsity. They are much more
concerned, when they think of it at all,
with its relevance. The most profound
expression of religious feeling among
young people in America today is
probably membership in the Peace
Corps or participation in inter-racial
activities and demonstrations. It is
action rather than talk and theorizing.
To such young persons Lewis seems
much too theoretical and abstract.
They find in his books very little hav-
ing to do with political and social
questions and it is these dilemmas that
dominate the thought and feeling of
the more perceptive young people in
America today." Although the works
of C. S. Lewis may appear to be enter-
ing into temporary eclipse, "I am con-
vinced," Walsh continues, "that his
imaginative works" {The Screwtape
Letters, The Great Divorce, the three
interplanetary novels, the the seven
Nardia stories for children) "will be-
come a permanent part of our literary
and religious heritage."

Stuart Barton Babbage

This Independent Republic, by
Rousas J. Rushdoony: The Craig
Press, 172 pp. $3.95.

This is a brilliant substantiation of
the thesis that the American Republic
rests upon feudal and contractual
rights, anti-statist in nature. The Amer-
ican union was pluralistic not national,
and the standard usage for our first
hundred years was, "The United States
are." As adopted, the first amendment

44

to the Bill of Rights forbids, not the
states, but the Federal Congress from
having an established church and
from interfering with the free exercise
of religion. Accordingly the author
holds that "the Supreme Court is
limited to the intent of those who com-
posed the First Amendment. Otherwise
we are no longer under a constitu-
tional government." In many ways the
American was the antithesis of the
French Revolution. Ours was a con-
servative counter-revolution, maintain-
ing the rights exercised by colonial
legislatures against the efforts of
George IV to usurp these for the
British Parliament. Jefferson saw the
Virginia House of Burgesses, and
other colonial legislatures, as analo-
gous to that of the London and Edin-
burgh Parliaments from 1603 to 1707,
that is, several parliaments under one
crown. The American Declaration was
a repudiation only of the British
Crown, the colonies considered them-
selves already free of the London
Parliament.

The Christian Commonwealth con-
cept held by the founding fathers has
left its mark on the United States,
and despite increasing statism is to be
found in our local communities. This
concept affirms that after all law
rests on God's fundamental law; it
restricts legal sovereignty to God, and
on the governmental and political
levels makes power diffuse; it holds
strongly to a limitation of powers in
terms of a diverse and federal struc-
ture, based on a distrust of man and
a recognition of various areas and
spheres of laws; for it, civil govern-
ment can best be Christian by a sepa-
ration from ecclesisastical government;
it affirms the restrictive rather than
the compulsive role of Christianity.
Our population as a whole still re-
gards the United States as a Christian
country.

This historic position is being
eroded today by a humanistic demo-

cracy, that derives from the Enlighten-
ment, from the French Revolution,
from the Communist Manifesto and
from John Dewey's "Great Com-
munity." It is headed toward Federal
totalitarian statism.

William C. Robinson

The Mysterious Numbers of the
Hebrew Kings, by Edwin R.
Thiele: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 201 pp. $6.00.

Biblical chronology dealing with
the relative dating of the kingdoms of
Judah and Israel and their relationship
to absolute dates in the reckoning of
history may appear to be of concern
only to the specialist in such things.
Yet any Bible student who is inter-
ested in the historical accuracy of the
Biblical record should find Dr. Thiele's
book fascinating reading.

Ever since the first edition of the
book appeared, reviewers of it have
been impressed with the way in which
the author marshals his facts into a
comprehensive whole so that the ad-
mittedly puzzling dates of the Books
of Kings fit into a pattern of accurate,
reliable dating. To the criticism that
the system of accession and non-ac-
cession years, Nisan and Tishri
regencies and co-regencies appears too
complicated, Thiele replies: "If print-
ers, surveyors, and tailors must take
into consideration the nature of the
measuring instruments employed and
their specific methods of use, this is
also true of those dealing with ancient
chronology. Complex? Perhaps. But
unreasonable or lacking in logic? Not
at all."

And this is true. Thiele does take
the masoretic text as it stands and
shows how reliable it is for historical
accuracy in dealing with the reigns of
the kings of Judah and Israel.

The most interesting part of the
book is the one dealing with the prob-

45

lematical reign of Hezekiah where
Thiele, true to his method, lets the
number 14 stand for dating Senna-
cherib's invasion in 701 B. C. in re-
gard to Hezekiah's accession as king
without assuming that the number
should be 24 to make the other syn-
chronisms fit into the general pattern.

For anyone who wishes to study
scholarly method in presenting a
thesis Thiele's book is recommended
for the way in which first the prob-
lem is analyzed textually and in charts,
and how it is then brought to its
proper conclusion.

It will not be easy for critics to
assail the dates for which Thiele con-
tends.

Ludwig R. Dewitz

An Exposition of the Gospel of
Matthew, by Herschel H. Hobbs :
Baker Book House, 422 pp.
$6.95.

This is primarily a preachers' com-
mentary. By many thoughtful and
often stimulating observations it seeks
to expound the meaning of The Gospel
according to Matthew chapter by chap-
ter. (Why not use the RSV instead of
the KJV even the titles illustrate
the improvement.) It often illumines
the text by use of the Greek and is
alert to textual problems but it neglects
the broader arrangement and structure
of the materials. It is full of mean-
ingful insights and not a few times
contributes bits of historical informa-
tion only to be found in scattered
sources. Sermonizers will like its
terse, alliterative and usually help-
ful outlines.

This commentary is conservative but
not sectarian. For instance, it steers
a flexible, undogmatic course through
the difficult predictive chapters, 24
and 25. It sometimes handles critical
problems by arguing the need for the
particular truth today. (E.g., p. 66. I
wonder if the author is aware of how

this tends to follow the pattern that
form critics say was followed in the
first century?)

What one misses in this work is
any adequate sense of the contempo-
raneity of The Gospel according to
Matthew. This quality in the book is
made clear for the first century but
there is little of it for the 20th cen-
tury. Many preachers and church
members reading the first gospel
through the glasses of this commen-
tary would probably remain in their
"anti-'s" and by so doing hasten the
day of judgment for the church, our
nation, our world and all of us.

This work is mostly good as far
as it goes. But why must we preach
a one-legged gospel? Must we constrict
its outreach and spirit much as did the
Pharisees who crucified Jesus?

Dean G. McKee

The Church and Mankind, Edited
by Edward Schillebeeckx, 177 pp.

The Church and Ecumenism,
Edited by Hans Kung, 215 pp.

Historical Problems of Church
Renewal, Edited by Roger Au-
bert, 179 pp.

Pastoral Reform in Church Gov-
ernment, Edited by Teodoro
Jimenez-Urresti and Neophytos
Edelby, 184 pp.

Spirituality in Church and World,
Edited by Christian Duquoc, 166
pp.

The Human Reality of Sacred
Scripture, Edited by Pierre Ben-
oit and Roland E. Murphy, 212
pp.

Paulist Press. $4.50 each volume.

The launching of this important
series of volumes under the general

46

heading of Concilium, "Theology in
an Age of Renewal," is one of the
most significant consequences of the
recently ended Vatican Council (as
the title indicates). It represents a
concerted effort on the part of Roman
Catholic Scholars in many different
countries to bring to realization the
aggiornamento or bringing-up-to-date
of the image of their church. The con-
tributors to the different volumes in-
clude the names of many well known
scholars and a high level of presenta-
tion is maintained. In their general
introduction to the series, Karl Rahner
and Edward Schillebeeckx explain that
the authors are primarily concerned
with those who carry out the pastoral
tasks within the Church, since one of
the lessons learned from Vatican II
is that the science of theology and
pastoral practice are mutually inter-
dependent. They point out that within
the Roman Catholic Church a "new
theology" is taking shape which is
"deliberately based on Scripture and
the history of Salvation" and which
seeks, "on the basis of our contempo-
rary situation, a better understanding
of the Word of God for man and the
world in our time."

Each volume contains original
articles dealing with a particular
branch of theology, such as dogmatics,
ethics, exegesis, pastoralia, spiritual-
ity, liturgies, church history, ecumeni-
city, and so on. Concilium, we are as-
sured, "does not wish to arrogate any
monopoly whatsoever to itself. The
only criterion is scientific theological
sincerity in the service of God's revela-
tion." We welcome this assurance and
approve this criterion, for this too is
the basis on which we would wish to
promote discussion and fellowship be-
tween Roman Catholics and Protes-
tants today.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Worship and Theology in Eng-
land: The Ecumenical Century
1900-1965, by Horton Davies:
Princeton University Press, 494
pp. $10.00.

In this magisterial work the author
succeeds in bringing into unified focus
the kaleidoscopic changes of this
twentieth century. Merely to read the
relevant material is difficult enough;
to digest it, he concedes, calls for a
Gargantuan appetite.

The English Churches, since 1914,
he suggests, have had four related
concerns: "They have played a not-
able part in the Ecumenical Movement
for the reunion of a divided Christen-
dom. They have shared in the recovery
of a Biblical and Patristic theology of
depth and relevance. They have, with
less theoretical success, been trying to
develop a more sophisticated social
ethic in the modern technocratic con-
text. Finally, they have been greatly
influenced by the Continental Liturgi-
cal Movement and have made some
considerable contributions to the new-
er understanding of worship and the
renewal of the people of God." The
author explores each of these four
areas of concern with a wealth of
fascinating detail.

This work is no uncritical pot-
pourri. Commenting on Gueranger's
opposition to a liturgy in the language
of the people and his argument that
a partially understood language (the
Latin of the Mass) preserves the es-
sential element of mystery in Christian
worship, Davies writes: "He seemed
unaware that such a thesis makes
mystery and ignorance equivalents,
whereas mystery and transcendence
are more properly correlated." Else-
where, Davies attacks the pietistic sub-
jectivism of much popular worship.
"True Christian worship," he insists,
"can never be an individualistic, idio-
syncratic search for personal merit or

47

advantage ('O it will be glory for
me') but must be the communal action
of the entire Corpus Christi."

The author has a gift for the arrest-
ing metaphor. Speaking of Gueranger's
liturgical work, he comments: 'The
flies in this liturgical amber were
romanticism and ultramontanism." He
also has an eye for the arresting quo-
tation. He quotes Charles Kingsley's
impressionistic verdict about St. Paul's
Cathedral: "The place breathes im-
becility and unreality and sleepy life
in death, while the whole nineteenth

century went roaring on its way out-
side . . . Coleridge's dictum that the
cathedral is petrified religion may be
taken to bear more meanings than
one."

In a work of this magnitude oc-
casional slips are inevitable. On page
44 G. F. Bromiley should be G. W.
Bromiley and D. E. Harrison should
be D. E. W. Harrison. Nevertheless,
this is a work of monumental erudi-
tion and literary distinction.

Stuart Barton Babbage

48

SHORTER REVIEWS

The Early Church, by W. H. C. Frend:
J. B. Lippincott Co. 281 pp. $3.50.

This volume, in the Knowing Chris-
tian Series (edited by William Neil),
is excellent value. The author is both
an historian and an archeologist. He
has assimilated, and used, the wealth
of new material that is now coming to
light. The result is a popular, but
documented study, of unusual utility.

Christian Unity and Religion in New
England. Collected Papers in Church
History. Series Three, by Roland H.
Bainton: Beacon Press. 294 pp. $6.00.

The emeritus professor of Ecclesi-
astical History at Yale has placed
scholars in a further debt by making
these varied papers available. In the
preface he utters a word of wise
caution: "The breath of friendliness
blown by Pope John provides a new
atmosphere for Catholic-Protestant
discussions. But, as a leader of the
World Council has remarked, thus
far we have been engaged not in
dialogue, but in a dialogue about a
dialogue. We have still to come to
grips with the issues which divide."

Religion and Freedom in the Modern
World, by Herbert J. Muller: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press. 129 pp. $1.50.

This fierce, accusatory book is a
good purgative for complacent op-
timism.

The Poet and His Faith: Religion and
Poetry in England from Spenser to
Eliot and Auden, by A. S. P. Wood-
house: The University of Chicago
Press. 304 pp. $6.95.

This work is the author's last legacy.
Nevertheless, he has left us, in these
lectures, a splendid bequest.

Of outstanding merit is the author's
sensitive discussion of Milton's poetic
achievement. This is a work of elo-
quent and feeling scholarship.

The Creeds of Christendom. Volume
III: The Evangelical Protestant Creeds
With Translations, by Philip Schaff:
Baker Book House. 966 pp. $12.95.

Baker Book House are to be con-
gratulated and commended on spon-
soring, by means of the Limited
Editions Library, the reprint of notable
works of scholarship long since out
of print. Schaffs History of the
Creeds belongs to the select company
of works of classic scholarship. The
publishers have printed Volume III
first, the ether volumes are to follow.
In this valuable source book Schaff
provides in parallel columns the origi-
nal documents of the Protestant Refor-
mation with English translation.

New Testament Times, by Merrill C.
Tenney: William B. Eerdmans Pub-
lishing Co. 396 pp. $5.95.

This history (complete with black
and white pictorial illustrations and
maps) is a work of businesslike com-
petence.

Early Christian Thought and Classical
Culture: Studies in Justin, Clement and
Origen, by Henry Chadwick: Oxford
University Press. 174 pp. $4.00.

The Regius Professor of Divinity in
the University of Oxford, in this work
of graceful scholarship, is concerned
with the perennial problem of the re-
lationship between Christianity and
classical learning.

The Scope of Theology, edited by
Daniel T. Jenkins: The World Pub-
lishing Co. 270 pp. $4.95.

49

This is a radical work which help-
fully syntheses the consensus of
scholarly opinion on a variety of im-
portant issues.

The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians:
An Introduction and Commentary, by
R. A. Cole: William B. Eerdmans Pub-
lishing Co. 188 pp. $3.00.

The great merit of this commentary
is its engaging freshness. The writer,
who is serving as a theological teacher
on the mission field, brilliantly relates
the problems of the past to the pre-
occupations of the present.

Letters from the Dead: Last Letters
from Soviet Men and Women Who
Died Fighting the Nazis (1941-1945):
New Era Books. 232 pp. $1.50.

These are letters of harrowing
pathos. A twenty year old girl writes:
"Farewell Mummy. I'll soon be gone.
Don't cry over me . . . How much I
want to live! I'm only 20, and death
is knocking at the door . . ." Another:
"Farewell Mama, your daughter Ly-
uba is going into the damp earth." On
the wall of her death cell a girl
scratches: "My whole body is mutil-
ated . . . It's terrible to die at 22. How
I want to live! We depart for the sake
of those coming after us." But more
insistent still is the note of hate and
the implacable cry for revenge: "Fare-
well comrades. Avenge our deaths. De-
stroy the fascist scum."

These men and women were without
faith in God. Sometimes, however,
instinct proved stronger than ideology.
"I've never been a believer in God,
you know that, Mum. Yet at times
. . . I've prayed to the Almighty,
begged with all my soul . . ."

The Deep South In Transformation,
edited by Robert B. Highsaw: Univer-
sity of Alabama. 175 pp. $5.95.

This volume contains eight essays

which recognize the problems and is-
sues, real and fancied, which arise
from changing economic, technologi-
cal, and cultural patterns and their
relations to the social sciences. Marten
ten Hoor, Oliver Carmichael and
Luther Hodges are among the con-
tributors to this volume.

Religious Strife on the Southern Fron-
tier, by Walter Brownlow Posey:
Louisiana State University Press. 112
pp. $4.00.

The ecumenical spirit of the age
has done much to bring believers to-
gether. We need this keen and well-
written reminder of earlier days when
Protestants fought Protestants as well
as sects and Roman Catholics. This
book can help us understand who we
are and why we are like we are.

Churches in North America, by Gus-
tave Weigel, S.J.: Schochen Books.
152 pp. $1.75.

In this brief volume Father Weigel
gives us a thumbnail sketch of the
numerous religious groups in North
America. The volume represents ex-
traordinary skill and clarity in as-
similating the results of a vast amount
of research.

Man's Quest for God: Studies in
Prayer and Symbolism, by Abraham
Joshua Heschel: Charles Scribner's
Sons. 151 pp. $3.95.

Abraham Heschel faces the crisis of
the sterility of much prayer and wor-
ship in our time, and as a Jew appeals
to Jews not to burn the sacred bridges
prepared by earlier generations as a
means of reaching towards God.

The Art of Pastoral Conversation:
Effective Counseling Through Person-
al Encounter, by Heije Faber and Ebel
van der Schoot: Abingdon Press. 223
pp. $3.75.

50

The pastor seeking clarification of
his unique role as counselor and the
theological significance of this task
will find it here. Definitions are clear,
distinctions are definite, objections are
met.

The Wine of Absurdity: Essays on
Literature and Consolation, by Paul
West: Pennsylvania State University
Press. 249 pp. $6.00.

Paul West indicates the different
ways in which twentieth century writ-
ers have sought to grapple with the
problem of the world's absurdity.
"Imagination," he suggests, "whether
we call it mystique or reason or action,
is the only weapon we have against
death."

Theology of the Pain of God, by Kaz-
oh Kitamori: John Knox Press. 183
pp. $4.50.

The problems of life in the East
and the West are different. Americans
do not suffer much. Their problem
generally is one of guilt, whereas the
problem of the East is that of human
suffering. It is not surprising that this
work from the Far East offers us a
new theology of love rooted in the
suffering of God.

Protestantism In An Ecumenical Age,
by Otto A. Piper: Fortress Press. 249
pp. $4.50.

Dr. Piper, Professor Emeritus of
New Testament Literature and Exe-
gesis at Princeton Seminary, is a
Protestant without apology. The au-
thor feels very deeply that the ecu-
menical movement of our day is a part
of holy history, under the guidance
of the Spirit of God. He makes no
suggestion that Protestantism sur-
render to Orthodoxy or to Rome. He
does insist, however, that we who are
Protestants should seek to follow as
the Holy Spirit appears to lead us

through the ecumenical movement
toward a new unity in Christ.

The Reformation of Our Worship, by
Stephen F. Winward: John Knox Press.
126 pp. $1.75.

British Baptist Stephen Winward
here presents the why, not the how,
of liturgical reform. He asks basic
questions, seeks answers in the es-
sentials of the biblical revelation as
these are applied to contemporary cir-
cumstances, manages to find solutions
remarkable for their balance between
the demands for order and those for
freedom, and reports the whole usually
with precision and sometimes with de-
light.

The Text of the New Testament, by
Bruce M. Metzger: Oxford University
Press. 268 pp. $7.00.

Dr. Metzger's knowledge is encyclo-
paedic. The footnotes refer to just
about every significant book and
article written by American and Euro-
pean scholars in the past century
even to many unpublished theses. In
an appendix he gives a list and brief
description of every known papyrus
manuscript of the New Testament.

This book provides an excellent sur-
vey and evaluation of all the theories
of textual criticism that have ap-
peared in the past century.

An Encyclopedia of Religion, by Ver-
gilius Ferm with 190 Collaborators:
Philosophical Library. 844 pp. $10.00.

This volume, which was first pub-
lished twenty years ago, is still a fine
reference work covering briefly the
whole field of religion Christianity,
Judaism, and other significant world
religions. The contributors are recog-
nized scholars, but they approach
their task from every conceivable
brand of theology. The articles have
good bibliographies for further study.

51

What's Ahead for the Churches?
Edited by Kyle Haselden and Martin
E. Marty: Sheed and Ward. 214 pp.
$4.50.

This is a book to be read, not just
to read about in a review. First pre-
sented as a series of monthly articles
in the Christian Century in 1963, the
editors have revised the scripts, adding
further references than the exigencies
of space previously made possible. An
opening chapter by Editor Marty and
a concluding one by Editor Haselden
give this volume an unusual unity.

On The Theology of Death, by Karl
Rahner: Herder and Herder. 127 pp.

$2.25.

This book forms part of a new
series of short treatises entitled Ques-
tiones Disputatae in which some of
the more urgent "open" questions of
the Christian faith are discussed by
eminent Roman Catholic writers.

This book will stimulate our think-
ing on a subject which is much neg-
lected, yet sure to be experienced by
all.

Members of One Another, by Robert
T. Handy: Judson Press. 114 pp. $1.50.
(Paperback)

The Church needs to understand
more clearly its mission: an evangelism
which manifests itself through preach-
ing, through worship, through Chris-
tian education, and through Christian
service. Handy calls for social action
to demonstrate the reality of new life
in Christ by seeking justice as well as
converts.

Old School Ties: The Public Schools
in English Literature, by John R.
Reed: Syracuse University Press. 330
pp. $7.00.

The author of this book, by means
of highly selective quotations, brings
a heavy indictment against English

public schools. They are, he asserts,
at best, oppressive and coercive; at
worst, tyrannical and sadistic; they
minister to standardization and they
suppress individuality; worst of all,
they promote, by their sexual segre-
gation, homosexuality.

Reed entitles one of his chapters,
"The swindle of education." But this
is not the language of scholarship but
of propaganda.

On the Growing Edge of the Church.
New Dimensions in World Missions,
by T. Watson Street: John Knox Press.
128 pp. $1.95.

E>r. Street reveals a keen insight
into the contemporary situation. Is the
church ready and willing? Unexciting
routine and institutional introversion
dull the cutting edge.

"Christian missions requires a firm
conviction about the gospel. We will
not be ready, intent, or eager to pro-
claim the gospel if we are not sure . . .
that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour."

Religion In America, by Winthrop S.
Hudson: Charles Scribner's Sons. 447
pp. $7.95 (Hardback). $3.95 (Paper-
back).

Winthrop Hudson's new book de-
serves to become a classic.

To begin with, Professor Hudson
has written a readable history. It is
a pleasure to move through the schol-
arly yet simple prose of this volume.
Next, the author has blended the
streams of American religious life so
harmoniously that the story of our
national development exhibits a unity.
In addition, Hudson has alloted "equal
time" to the post Civil War develop-
ments and to the twentieth century.
We have needed such a balanced
treatment for a long time.

In a day when the church in the
United States seems to be passing
through an identity crisis, such a study
as this is invaluable.

52

The Protestant Establishment: Aristo-
cracy and Caste in America, by E.
Digby Baltzell: Random House. 429
pp. $6.95.

Professor Baltzell traces the de-
velopment and decay of the traditional
American upper class of Anglo-Saxon
origins. He contends that these politi-
cal, religious, economic and educa-
tional leaders have become separated
from the Masses and no longer offer
national leadership but work to pro-
tect their privileges.

Graham Greene: Some Critical Con-
siderations, edited by Robert O.
Evans: University of Kentucky Press.
286 pp. $5.50.

A discriminating collection of arti-
cles (including one translated from
the Finnish) on the theological, as
well as the literary, significance of
Graham Greene.

God Here and Now, by Karl Barth
(translated by Paul M. van Buren):
Harper and Row. 108 pp. $3.75.

This volume forms another in the
RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES series
planned and edited by Ruth Nanda
Anshen. It contains seven addresses
given to various audiences and pre-
sents Barth's views on such questions
as the nature and importance of
preaching, the authority of the Bible,
Roman Catholicism, the ecumenical
movement, the meaning of grace and
of faith, the basis of ethics, and the
renewal of the Church.

Whatever the audience and what-
ever the subject, for Barth the one
constant remains: Jesus Christ is
God's here and now.

Worship in the Free Churches, by
John E. Skoglund: Judson Press. 151
pp. $3.95.

Author Skoglund (Baptist) builds
an order of worship upon theological

foundations with frequent references
to Calvin. His fourteen principles of
worship are especially helpful.

God's Revolution and Man's Respon-
sibility, by Harvey Cox: Judson Press.
128 pp. $1.50.

These lectures, provocatively de-
signed to "spark discussion and dis-
agreement" among college students,
insist that "the Biblical God calls man
through events of social change, and
that the church becomes the church
by participating in the revolutionary
work of God." Cox shocks, reinter-
prets, and often prophetically illumi-
nates.

The Narrow Pass: A Study of Kierke-
gaard's Concept of Man, by George
Price: McGraw-Hill. 218 pp. $5.50.

Kierkegaard wrote for a generation
which had no doubts about the exis-
tence of God, but profound doubts
about the human relevance of God. He
took as his starting point not God, the
remote and questionable, but man, the
reality everyone supposedly knew.

It is for this reason, George Price
contends, that the only route by which
Kierkegaard's scheme of thought may
be entered and understood is the
"narrow pass," his concept of man.

Christian Themes in Contemporary
Poets, by Kathleen E. Morgan: SCM
Press. 208 pp. 21s net.

"The Christian poet is aware of the
availability of what in theological
language is called 'grace' and of
its manifestation in quite ordinary
people." Mrs. Morgan's book is a
lucid investigation of the poet's ex-
ploration and expression of grace as
it operates in a world that so often
appears "graceless." However, one
could wish that some of our non-
Christian, or at least non-religious
poets, who nevertheless illumine the

53

depth of life and its meanings, had
been included.

Readings in the History of Christian
Thought, by Robert L. Ferm: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston. 619 pp. $10.00.

This volume is designed as a source
book for the history of doctrine. The
selections (from writings anterior to
1300) are concerned with: Method in
Christian Theology, The Knowledge
of God, The Person and Work of
Christ The Human Condition and
Its Remedy, The Church and the
Sacraments. The selections range from
Tertullian. Clement of Alexandria,
Origen, and Augustine through the
pronouncements of great councils and
the medieval scholastics, to Luther,
Calvin, Arminius, Wesley, Hooker,
and Channing.

The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology
(Revised and enlarged edition), by
George S. Hendry: The Westminster
Press. $3.50.

Dr. Hendry deals with the relation
of the Holy Spirit to Christ, to God,
to the Church, to the Word, and to
the Human Spirit. The way he an-
alyzes problems is incisive and il-
luminating. His citations are interest-
ing. He draws attention frequently to
the text of Scripture.

This is a good book in a field
where good books are scarce indeed
where literature is scarce.

Fallible Man, by Paul Ricoeur. trans-
lated from the French by Charles
Kelbley: The Henry Regnery Co. 224
pp. $1.95.

Paul Ricoeur is a glorious ornament
of the Reformed Church of France.
He has twice visited Columbia The-
ological Seminary: once, to say a few
things during a Ministers' Week; a
second time, to live incognito and to
prepare his Terry Lectures for Yale

University. Philosopher, Sorbonne Pro-
fessor, collaborator in the review
Esprit, one of Europe's foremost con-
temporary scholars, Paul Ricoeur
gives here a new dimension to Pheno-
menology with a profound analysis of
man, the ''flawed creature."

The Work of William Tyndale, edited
by Gervase E. Duffield: Fortress Press.
406 pp. $6.25.

This first volume in the Canterbury
Library of Reformation Classics re-
minds the twentieth century believer
of how much he owes to the Reform-
ers of the sixteenth century. Tyndale
was a better Greek scholar than
Luther and his faithfulness to the
original is evidenced in all his trans-
lations. It is estimated that 90% of
the Authorized Version of the New
Testament is his work.

The bulk of this volume consists of
the writings of Tyndale himself, his
Prologue or Pathway into the Holy
Scripture, Prefaces, Expositions, speci-
mens of his translations and extracts
from his controversial writings.

The Servant of God, by W. Zimmerli
and J. Jeremias: S. C. M. Press Ltd.

120 pp. S2.25.

This is a study of one of the basic
concepts of Old and New Testament
alike. In happy collaboration Pro-
fessors Zimmerli and Jeremias de-
lineate the figure of the 'ebed Yaluveh
as he emerges from the pages of the
Old Testament and continues as the
Pais Theou in the New Testament.

Style and Content in Christian Art, by
Jane Diilenberger: Abingdon. 240 pp.
$2.95.

Mrs. Dillenberger's enthusiasm is
ineffectious. She provides 82 plates of
famous works, and adds helpful com-
ments on their significance. No novice
could ask for a more understanding

54

guide to the artistic treasures of the
ages.

The Work of Thomas Cranmer, intro-
duced by J. I. Packer and edited by
G. E. Duf field: The Sutton Courtenay
Press. 370 pp. 42s.

This second volume in the Courte-
nay Library of Reformation Classics
has a percipient introduction by Dr.
Packer in which he carefully expli-
cates Cranmer's views on Scripture,
justification, the church, and par-
ticularly the eucharist.

The great merit of this work, how-
ever, is that it makes available the
actual work of Cranmer himself.

Rome and Reunion, by Frederick C.
Grant: Oxford University Press. 196
pp. $5.00.

This is a running survey of Church
History from the point of view of
the Papacy.

Dr. Grant rightly interprets Mat-
thew 16 as teaching that neither Peter
the man nor Peter's faith is the foun-
dation of the Church, "but the divine
revelation." "Flesh and blood (human
cogitation) has not revealed this to
you, but my Father who is in heaven."
Peter's position is unique and non-
transferable. He was neither the found-
er nor the bishop of Rome, but was
likely martyred there.

There is much to commend in this
work of the venerable professor.
Nevertheless, one could wish for a
more appreciative treatment of the
Reformed Faith and a more consistent
setting forth of the rule of faith,
practice and worship.

Christ's Church: Evangelical, Catholic,
and Reformed, by Bela Vassady: Wil-
liam B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 173
pp. $1.95.

The thesis of this closely reasoned
discussion of the Blake proposal for

church unity is that the church is
truly evangelical when it is truly cath-
olic and truly reformed, each of the
terms evangelical, catholic, and re-
formed being interchangeable in the
statement.

The Praise of God in the Psalms, by
Claus Westermann (translated by
Keith R. Crim): John Knox Press.
172 pp. $4.25.

Ministers who want a fresh look
at the Psalms should secure this com-
pact volume and study it carefully.

Declaration of Dependence: Sermons
for National Holidays, by John H.
Baumgaertner: Concordia Publishing
House. 135 pp. $2.00.

Milwaukee Lutheran Pastor Baum-
gaertner reminds his readers in these
sermons that national holidays are a
time for renewing faith and giving
thanks rather than feverishly pursuing
enjoyment through recreation.

Between Heaven and Earth: Conver-
sations with American Christians, by
Helmut Thielicke, translated and ed-
ited by John W. Doberstein: Harper &
Row. 192 pp. $3.75.

Those who heard Helmut Thielicke
in person during his visit to the United
States in 1963 will be particularly
interested in this reconstruction of his
discussion with various groups. He
felt that perhaps he had been sent to
help American fundamentalists get
free from their repressions and the
dichotomy of their life.

Asked what the most important
question for our times is, Thielicke
suggested that for Americans at least
it is how we deal with suffering.

Prophets and Wise Men (Studies in
Biblical Theology No. 44), by William
McKane: Alec R. Allenson, Inc. 156
pp. $2.85.

55

The conflict between the prophets
and the more secular advisors to the
kings of Israel and Judah has received
considerably less attention than the
prophetic "attack" on the sacrificial
cult. Professor McKane has written
a thought-provoking monograph.

Presbyterian Heritage: Switzerland,
Great Britain, America, by A. Mervyn
Davies: John Knox Press. 141 pp.
$1.95. (Paperback)

From background and beginnings in
Europe to splits and accomplishments
in America, here is an accurate, well
interpreted, and yet simple and very
readable account of Presbyterianism
that should be read by all who are
the heirs of its great benefits.

The Christian Faith, by F. W. Dilli-
stone: J. B. Lippincott Co. 188 pp.
$2.95.

This volume seeks to make the
basic doctrines cf the Christian faith
living and satisfying realities in a
world that has no inhibitions at ques-
tioning anything. Both laymen and
ministers should find the results fresh,
meaningful, and yet biblical.

Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and
Cure, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Wil-
liam B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 300
pp. S3.95.

These sermons exemplify a way of
wrestling with a text and demonstrate
a concern that a faith inspired by the
event of Easter should move beyond
spiritual depression to an exuberant
joy.

The Poetic Art of W. H. Auden, by
John G. Blair: Princeton University
Press. 210 pp. $4 50.

"You cannot te!' people what to do.
you can only tell them parables; and
that is what an really is, particular

stories of particular people and experi-
ences from which each according to
his immediate and peculiar needs may
draw his own conclusions." Thus
Auden defines the poetic task.

"His ability," the author says, "to
elucidate the broad implications of
particular events on human types
places him, at least potentially, in the
great tradition of moral and philo-
sophic poets whose vision proves the
nature of the human heart."

This is a work of graceful erudition.

The Landscape of Nightmare: Studies
in the Contemporary American Novel,
by Jonathan Baumach: New York Uni-
versity Press. 173 pp. $5.00 (Cloth).
$1.95 (Paperback).

"Since 1945 the serious American
novel has moved away from natural-
ism and the social scene to explore
the underside of consciousness (the
'heart of darkness'), delineating in its
various ways the burden and ambiva-
lence of personal responsibility in a
world which accommodates evil that
nightmare landscape we all inhabit."
The author of this percipient study
illustrates his thesis by reference to
the major works of ten contemporary
novelists.

Healing and Redemption: Toward a
Theology of Human Wholeness for
Doctors, Nurses, Missionaries and
Pastors, by Martin H. Scharlemann:
Concordia Publishing House. 122 pp.
S1.95.

In this book the author tries to
apply the Biblical message to the prob-
lem of man's need for wholeness, for
healing. Man is isolated from himself,
his God. and his fellow man; he needs
to be made whole. This wholeness can
and should be found in the Christian
Community. But neither the problem
nor the solution are as simple as he
seems to make them.

56

The Edge of Wisdom, by Robert S.
Wicks: Charles Scribner's Sons. 265
pp. $3.50.

Sub-titled "A Source Book of Re-
ligious and Secular Writers," the
editor has chosen selections from the
Neibuhrs', Tillich, Fromm, Weigel,
Herberg, Saroyan and others from
the contemporary scene.

The book, however, gives neither a
very good introduction to the men
from whom selections are chosen nor
to the themes around which the se-
lections are grouped.

Racism and the Christian Understand-
ing of Man, by George D. Kelsey:
Charles Scribner's Sons. 178 pp. $4.50.

Drew University Professor Kelsey
shows racism as a religion, idolatrous
because it rests on a desire for self-
deification and blasphemous because
it denies the equality of men as cre-
ated by God.

With an extended analysis, Kelsey
exposes the strategems, subterfuges,
symbols, and myths by which the
racist Christian or non-Christian
affirms his faith and practices it.

Morality and the Muses: Christian
Faith and Art Forms, by Johan B.
Hygen (translated by Harris E.
Kaasa): Augsburg Publishing House.
113 pp. $3.00.

The author of this wise and under-
standing book has the unusual merit
of knowing both art and theology, and
the result is that he is able to bring
both realms into a meaningful re-
lation without repudiating either the
one or the other.

The Necessary Earth: Nature and
Solitude in American Literature, by
Wilson O. Clough: University of Texas
Press. 234 pp. $5.00.

"American literature," the author
states, in this masterly survey, "has

been most American precisely when
it has been least concerned to fit
some transplanted formula, most
American when it has consulted first
its own observation and its own ex-
perience." The author demonstrates
the validity of his thesis in a work
of rare literary grace and scholarly
excellence.

Augustine of Canterbury, by Margaret
Deanesly: Nelson. 167 pp. N. P.

Margaret Deanesly, in this lively
biography, fleshes out the dry bones
<f Bede's Ecclesiastical History. At
points Bede needs correction, but, as
the author admits, "little can be added
to what Bede tells us, so unforget-
tably, of the inception and course of
Augustine's mission to the English."

Forms of Extremity in the Modern
Novel, edited by Nathan A. Scott, Jr.:
John Knox Press. 96 pp. $1.00 (Paper-
back).

Four different writers discuss the
Christian significance of Franz Kafka,
Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus and
Graham Greene. Students will find
these perspicacious studies helpful and
suggestive.

Selected Prayers, by Karl Barth (trans-
lated by Keith R. Crim): John Knox
Press. 72 pp. $1.00 (Paperback).

These prayers are characterized by
two things: a deep compassion for
men in their need and an indomitable
faith in the God of grace.

Primer On Roman Catholicism for
Protestants, by Stanley I. Stuber: Re-
vised edition, 1965. Association Press.
276 pp. $3.95.

Roman Catholicism Today, by H. M.
Carson: William B. Eerdmans Pub-
lishing Co. 128 pp. $1.45.

These two volumes are both con-

57

cerned with the differences between
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism,
and are timely and useful. The former
is written to inform Protestants about
current Roman teachings; the latter is
a tract designed to bring Roman
Catholics back to the true biblical
posture. Carson, however, does not
recognize adequately the position of
infants in baptism, nor does Stuber
stress sufficiently the Name of Jesus
Christ in prayer.

The New Orpheus. Essays Toward a
Christian Poetic, edited by Nathan A.
Scott, Jr.: Sheed and Ward. 431 pp.
$7.50.

This is a valuable symposium of
unusual quality and diversity. Doro-
thy Sagers points out that the church
has tended either to denounce the
arts or to exploit them. Denis de
Rougemont suggests that the criteria
by which we ought to judge the
quality of a work of art are ( 1 ) tech-
nical and (2) theological.

Studies in Structure: The Stages of the
Spiritual Life in Four Modern Au-
thors, by Robert J. Andreach: Ford-
ham University Press. 177 pp. $5.00.

The author accepts the mystic way,
the purgative way, the illuminative
way. the unitive way as a normative
description of Christian growth, and
argues that, since Hopkins, Joyce,
Eliot and Crane wrote from within
a spiritual frame of reference, we
may expect to discover the presence
of "the stages, or degrees, or ways,
of the spiritual life" in their work.

The Lost Image of Man, by Julian N.
Hartt: Louisiana State University
Press. 131 pp. $4.00.

The author argues that images live
for a season and then die. "The end
may not be dramatic some worlds
die with a bang and others with a

whimper but any way the end does
come for every system and phase of
culture." The author, in this book, is
concerned with the death of the epic
image of man.

/ Loved This People, by Dietrich Bon-
hoeffer: John Knox Press. 62 pp. $1.00
(Paperback).

Those who know the circumstances
of Bonhoeffer's life will find a poig-
nant interest in these miscellaneous
fragments written from prison. Bon-
hoeffer writes: "I believe that in every
trial God will give us as much power
to resist as we need. But in order
that we will rely on him alone and
not on ourselves, he does not give it
ahead of time."

The World of Josephus: The Life,
Times and Works of the First Century
Historian, by G. A. Williamson: Lit-
tle, Brown. 318 pp. $6.00.

The author tells in detail the story
of the fall of Jerusalem and examines
Josephus' subsequent career as a
favored Jew in Rome. Every student
of the first century of the Christian
era should read this book.

The Body of Christ: A New Testament
Image of the Church, by Alan Cole:
The Westminster Press. 90 pp. $1.25
(Paperback).

The author criticizes those who de-
scribe the church as "the extension
of the incarnation." "Such extrapola-
tions can only lead, at best, to
analogical thinking (which is usually
dangerous), and at worst to emotional
thinking (which is always pernicious)."

Shaw and Christianity, by Anthony S.
Abbott: The Seabury Press. 228 pp.
$4.95.

The Davidson Professor writes "The
Shavian realist anticipates Bultmann,

58

because he understands the demytho-
logizing process; he anticipates Tillich,
because he believes in God within
rather than in a transcendent being
'out' there; he anticipates Bonhoeffer,
because he is non-religious." It is
doubtful whether this comparison is
fair either to Shaw, on the one hand,
or to Bultmann, Tillich and Bonhoeffer
on the other.

The Religion of Abraham Lincoln, by
William J. Wolf: The Seabury Press.
219 pp. $3.95.

The author shows how Lincoln's
faith steadily matured under the im-
pact of national calamity and public
responsibility. Lincoln's faith, he
argues, was biblical rather than
churchly.

The Half -World of American Culture,
by Carl Bode: Southern Illinois Uni-
versity Press. 259 pp. $5.50.

Of particular interest, in this varied
miscellany, are the articles concerning
the religious fiction of Lloyd Douglas.
"His writing," Professor Bode points
out, "is too often gaudy in its emo-
tional effect, superficial in its char-
acterization, and marked by lapses in
literary taste." The fact that he never-
theless wrote books which have proved
phenomenally successful is due, the
author suggests, to the way in which
he succeeded in making literature out
of the confusions and frustrations of
his own psychic life.

Aldous Huxley 1894-1963, edited by
Julian Huxley: Chatto & Windus. 175
pp. 25s.

This memorial volume consists of
moving tributes from a distinguished
company of friends. His constant pre-
occupation was, Sir Julian reminds
us, "the contrast between luminous
science and numinous existence."
Much of his life, Lord David Cecil

notes, "was spent in search of a
faith." This memorial volume appro-
priately concludes with the essay,
"Shakespeare and Religion," which
Aldous Huxley dictated as he lay
dying. "The dominion of time is not
absolute," he soberly observed, "for
time must have a stop ... It must have
a stop in the last judgment, and in the
winding up of the universe. But on
the way to this general consumma-
tion, it must have a stop in the in-
dividual mind, which must learn the
regular cultivation of a mood of
timelessness. of the sense of eternity."

Death, Grief and Mourning, by Geof-
frey Gorer: Doubleday and Co. 205
pp. $4.50.

In our society, "mourning," Geof-
frey Gorer accuses, "is treated as if it
were a weakness, a self-indulgence,
a reprehensible bad habit instead of
as a psychological necessity."

A great deal of maladaptive be-
havior is due, he suggests, to the
failure of the church to provide ade-
quate guidance to those who find
themselves caught in the crises of
misery and loneliness.

Contemporary Theatre and the Chris-
tian Faith, by Kay M. Baxter: Abing-
don Press. 112 pp. $2.75.

Mrs. Baxter has had a long asso-
ciation with the theatre; she is also
well grounded in theology. These
lectures were first given at Union
Theological Seminary in New York.

Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography,
by G. A. Starr: Princeton University
Press. 203 pp. $6.50.

The author shows that, in seven-
teenth century England, there was a
ready market for works of spiritual
autobiography. These works were con-
cerned with the protagonist's early
disobedience, his progressive aliena-

59

tion from God, and final conversion.
Robinson Crusoe, he suggests, con-
forms to this tradition, and is ex-
emplary rather than episodic.

/// This Land of Eve, by J. Birney
Dibble: Abingdon Press. 160 pp.
$2.95.

This is an engaging account of a
year spent on the staff of the Lutheran
Kiomboi Mission Hospital in Tan-
ganyika. With disarming modesty the
author writes: "Although we certainly
hope that our contribution has been
worthwhile, it is of Lilliputian size
in a Gulliver world. Truly, the har-
vest is great, and the helpers few."

Fatigue in Modern Society, edited by
Paul Tournier: John Knox Press. 79
pp. $1.00 (Paperback).

Dr. Tournier writes compassionately
and helpfully about the physical, psy-
chological and spiritual significance of
fatigue (e.g. "A frantic activism is
sometimes a compensation for some
private anxiety, a flight from one-
self, or the consequence of unresolved
conflicts"); Dr. Andre Sarradon writes
bluntly about the dangers arising from
an excessive use of drugs (e.g. "When
one has gained the fearful power of
transforming a perfect specimen of
manhood or womanhood into an
hermaphroditic aberration, it is neces-
sary to be careful with our nte-
scriptions").

Pagan and Christian in an Age of
Anxiety, by E. R. Dodds: Cambridge
University Press. 144 pp. $5.50.

The third century of the Christian
era was "an age of anxiety" character-
ized by contempt for the human con-
dition and hatred of the body. Pro-
fessor Dodds compares and contrasts
pagan and Christian attitudes to life
and the world. The concluding chapter
is an able summary of the dialogue
of paganism with Christianity. The
author's learning is lightly worn.

Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature
and Learning, by Lionel Trilling: The
Viking Press. 235 pp. $5.00.

"No literature has ever been so
shockingly personal as that of our
time it asks every question that is
forbidden in polite society ... It asks
us if we are content with ourselves,
if we are saved or damned more than
anything else, our literature is con-
cerned with salvation." In these es-
says a highly civilized intelligence
reflects on selected aspects of the
literary scene.

Images of Man, by Roger Me hi: John
Knox Press. 64 pp. $1.00 (Paperback).

A sympathetic analysis of the Marx-
ist, Existentialist, and Christian inter-
pretations of man, by the professor
of theology and philosophy of re-
ligion at Strasbourg.

A Short Hish*ry of the Ancient Near
East, by Siegfried J. Schwantes: Baker
Book House. 175 pp. $4.95.

The author states in his foreword
that this book aims at supplying the
need for a short and yet substantial
history of the Ancient Near East in
the English language.

He succeeds in his task, but the
inherent tension between the words
"short" and "substantial" presses on
the reader as he reads the twenty-four
chapters dealing with the various
peoples and periods making up the
history of the Ancient Near East.
However, the book contains all the
essential facts which a student of Near
Eastern History would wish to know,
and the index, maps and pictorial
reproductions make the book very
readable.

60

Nature and Art in Renaissance Liter-
ature, by Edward William Tayler:
Columbia University Press. 225 pp.
$5.00.

"There was no doubt in the minds
of most Elizabethans that post-lapsar-
ian man needed watching and re-
straint," the author writes, "that fallen
Nature required the discipline of Art
and the gift of Grace." This is a
work of painstaking scholarship.

C. S. Lewis Poems, edited by Walter
Hooper: Geoffrey Bles. 142 pp. 16s.

Although the life of C. S. Lewis
spanned more than half of the twenti-
eth century, he was not a modern
poet. Many of Lewis' poems deal with
the predicament of modern man
though always in the style of a former
age and an older tradition.

C. S. Lewis was a scholar and a
classical one at that. Thus the major
portion of his poetry relates directly
or indirectly to the classical world and
its concerns.

The Secular Promise, by Martin Jar-
rett-Kerr: Fortress Press. 224 pp.

$3.25.

The author argues that a Christian
presence is to be discerned in secular
humanism. Grace, he insists, com-
pletes nature. The question, however,
is whether grace does not rather
contradict nature. What secular man
needs is not completion, but renewal.

Transcendent Justice, by Carl J. Fried-
rich: Duke University Press. 116 pp.
$3.50.

The present reviewer believes that
Calvin did more for human liberties
and civil rights than this book conveys.
The Huguenots did not believe in a
flat, equalitarian and insipid democra-
cy but in a varied, colorful, and hence
free society. They finally wrote several

political treatises which were passed
abroad, translated into English, and
made no small contribution to English
and American constitutionalism.

Man In the Modern World, by John
Edward Hardy: University of Wash-
ington Press. 228 pp. $5.00.

The professor of English at the
University of Notre Dame explores
the quest for identity which is the
subject matter of many contemporary
novels. Outstanding is the author's
discussion of Faulkner's biblical sym-
bolism. "Christ," he insists, "in what-
ever embarrassing disguises, is there,
and must be confronted."

The City of the Gods: A Study in
Myth and Mortality, by John S.
Dunne: The MacMillan Co. 243 pp.
$5.95.

"The shadowed figure of Gilgamesh
roaming over the wasteland in search
of the means of indefinitely prolong-
ing life," the author writes, "is the
figure of man wandering through the
centuries in quest of immortality." In
this unusual study the author dis-
cusses some of the forms in which
the passion for immortality has found
political and ideological embodiment
and expression.

The Care of the Earth and Other
University Sermons, by Joseph Sittler:
Fortress Press. 150 pp. $1.90 (Paper-
back).

These sermons represent a com-
mendable attempt to present the truth
of the gospel to a university audience.
In a desire to eschew "mystical cot-
ton candy rhetoric," the author em-
ploys the harsh jargon of contempo-
rary philosophy. Such words as "en-
personalization" and "factic" are
admittedly not "mystical cotton candy
rhetoric" but they are literary bar-
barisms. Is there not a mean between
the two extremes?

61

The Hunger, The Thirst, by Malcolm
Boyd: Morehouse-Barlow Co. 128 pp.
$1.50.

An articulate Episcopal priest an-
swers the questions of college students.
His topics are race, American culture
and religion. Boyd speaks a language
students will understand.

Hateful Contraries: Studies in Liter-
ature and Criticism, by W. K. Wim-
satt: The University of Kentucky
Press. 259 pp. $5.50.

These technical studies, which range
from Aristotle's Poetics to Eliot's The
Cocktail Party, are characterized by
insight and wit.

The Moral Vision of Jacobean Trage-
dy, by Robert Ornstein: The Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press. 299 pp. $2.25
(Paperback).

The various divided and distin-
guished worlds of Renaissance thought
are explored, particularly those of
Stoicism and Christianity. Shakespeare
illustrates, in his greatest tragedies,
the truth that "whatever ultimate des-
tiny awaits the race of man, the life
greatly lived has timeless meaning."

Time's Revenges: Browning's Reputa-
tion as a Thinker, 1889-1962, by Boyd
Litzinger: The University of Tennessee
Press. 192 pp. $4.50.

It may be a matter of some histori-
cal interest to note how Browning has
been successively praised and damned,
but critical judgments are notoriously
subjective ("visceral rather than in-
tellectual"), as the author rightly ob-
serves. A fresh discussion of his
aristic achievements, however, would
have been more timely and signifi-
cant.

St. Jerome as a Satirist, by David S.
Wiesen: Cornell University Press. 290
pp. $6.00.

"Among the masters of malignant
vilification aimed at intellectual op-
ponents," the author rightly insists,
"St. Jerome stands supreme." A
polished work of careful and im-
peccable scholarship.

Prefaces to Renaissance Literature, by
Douglas Bush: Harvard University
Press. 110 pp. $3.00.

These illuminating addresses are the
rich distillation of the study and re-
flection of a life time. Again and
again the author contrasts the Renais-
sance concept of man with naturalistic
views current today.

Elizabeth and I and the Puritans, by
William Haller: Cornell University
Press for The Folger Shakespeare Li-
brary. 40 pp. $1.00.

A suggestive, but necessarily sketchy,
study of a significant period in the
history of English Christianity.

Four Spiritual Crises in Mid-Century
American Fiction, by Robert Detweil-
er: University of Florida Monographs.
Humanities, No. 14, Fall 1963. The
University of Florida Press. 54 pp.
$2.00.

An analysis of representative works
by Stryon, Updike, Roth and Salinger
portraying "individuals in dilemmas
that are first characteristically human
and then open to theological defini-
tion." A useful and illuminating dis-
cussion.

The Church Reclaims the City, by
Paul Moore, Jr.: The Seabury Press.
241 pp. $4.95.

Bishop Moore has done a good
job in his book, The Church Reclaims
the City, and if he gives the impres-
sion that he believes the city could
be reclaimed if all shared his ecclesi-
astical viewpoint, he, doubtless, does

62

not intend it that way. The book con-
tains no final solutions but presents
helpful suggestions and some very
keen insights.

Wildfire: Church Growth in Korea,
by Roy E. Shearer William B. Eerd-
mans Publishing Co. 242 pp. $2.95.

Where could one find a closer
counterpart to the first hundred years
of the expansion of Christianity than
the story of the growth of the church
in Korea in the last one hundred
years? Though it has spread like
"wildfire" it has known fire and
sword, famine and faction, repeatedly.

A valuable book for congregations
and boards at home and for missions
abroad.

The Language of the New Testament,
with accompanying Workbook, by
Eugene Van Ness Goetchius: Charles
Scribner's Sons. 349 pp. $5.95; Work-
book, $2.95.

This is a grammar of the Greek
New Testament with an accompanying
workbook written for the purpose of
enabling students to learn the basic
ground-rules of the language and to
develop facility in using the necessary
tools for exegesis translations, lexi-
cons, concordances, commentaries, etc.
Vocabulary is de-emphasized, while
the grammatical structure of the lan-
guage viewed inductively receives
careful and detailed treatment.

The Origin of I Corinthians, by John
Coolidge Hurd, Jr.: Seabury Press.
355 pp. $7.95.

John C. Hurd, Jr., in a very detailed
and technical study, has attempted to
reconstruct the contents of the cor-
respondence between Paul and the
Corinthian church leading up to and
including I Corinthians. The message
of Paul's founding mission; "the pre-
vious letter" (in which, Hurd sug-

gests, he was trying to implement the
Apostolic decree); the negative Corin-
thian reply; and finally I Corinthians
are set forth in terms of a sharp give-
and-take.

The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to
the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
and Colossians, by John Calvin, edited
by David W. and Thomas F. Torrance,
translated by T. H. L. Parker: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 369 pp.
$6.00.

John Calvin was at his best as an
interpreter of Scripture, allowing the
text itself to be heard in the language
and problems of his own time. And yet
his commentaries, like few others,
have about them a timelessness which
makes them relevant not only for
reformation scholarship but also for
Biblical exegesis.

This volume, rendered into clear
English by T. H. L. Parker in keeping
with the excellent quality of the
series, shows Calvin at his best.

The Epistle to the Romans, Vol. II,
Chapter 9-16, by John Murray: "The
New International Commentary on
the New Testament." William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co. 286 pp.
$5.00.

"The New International Commen-
tary on the New Testament" is a
series in which conservative scholars
have sought a balance between the
technical details of exegesis and the-
ological exposition.

While in no way offering a fresh
breakthrough in the interpretation of
these difficult chapters, Murray never-
theless wrestles honestly and helpfully
with the issues involved.

Ten Perspectives on Milton, by Mer-
ritt Y. Hughes: Yale University Press.
291 pp. $7.50.

These collected articles will give

63

pleasure to all those who are inter-
ested in Milton's relation both to the
classics and English Puritanism.

The Acton-Newman Relations: The
Dilemma of Christian Liberalism, by
Hugh A. MacDougall, O. M. I.: Ford-
ham University Press. 199 pp. $5.00.

The author of this scholarly work
traces the way in which Lord Acton
and Cardinal Newman sought to op-
pose the forces of ultramontanism.
"Should an aggressive insolent fac-
tion," Newman demanded, "be al-
lowed to 'make the heart of the just
to mourn, whom the Lord hath not
made sorrowful'?"

makes a beast of himself gets rid of
the pain of being a man" (Dr. John-
son).

This is a highly original selection
of inexhaustible interest.

Death and Identity, edited by Robert
Fulton: John Wiley and Sons. 416 pp.
$6.95.

This symposium is a descriptive
and analytic study on the theme of
death. What emerges is that men with-
out God tend to evade the fact of
death and run away from its in-
evitability, taking refuge in a gigantic
conspiracy of pretense and self-de-
ception.

The Scandal of Christianity: The Gos-
pel as Stumbling Block to Modern
Man, by Emil Brunner: John Knox
Press. 115 pp. $1.25 (Paperback).

What a refreshing antidote these
lectures are! Here is a man who does
not hesitate to speak about historical
revelation, the triune God, original
sin, the Mediator, and the resurrection.
Delivered as lectures in Scotland in
1948, and now printed for the first
time, they are as timely as they are
trenchant.

The Viking Book of Aphorisms: A
Personal Selection, by W. H. Auden
and Louis Kronenberger: The Viking
Press. 405 pp. $6.50.

An aphorism, the authors explain,
is not a witticism, but a general
truth expressed pithily, and ironically.
Take these definitions of man, "I be-
lieve the best definition of man is
the ungrateful biped" (Dostoevsky);
"Natural man has only two primal
passions to get and to beget" (Osier);
"Man is the only animal that laughs
and weeps; for he is the only animal
that is struck by the difference be-
tween what things are and what they
might have been" (Hazlitt); "He who

The Trouble with the Church: A Call
for Renewal, by Helmut Thielicke:
Harper and Row. 136 pp. $3.50.

Thielicke, in this timely tract, at-
tributes our present malaise to the
fact that we do not preach out of
the context of a vital contemporary
experience of the grace and power
of God.

Soren Kierkegaard: The Last Years.
Journals 1853-1855, edited and trans-
lated by Ronald Gregor Smith: Harp-
er and Row. 384 pp. $6.95.

Kierkegaard's paranoic attacks on
women and the official church make
sad reading. In spite of evidence of
mental derangement there are flashes
of devotional insight. "To love," he
finely says, "is to be changed into
likeness with the beloved."

The Seventh Solitude: Man's Isolation
in Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and
Nietzsche, by Ralph Harper: The John
Hopkins Press. 153 pp. $4.50.

This book is of uneven quality and
uncertain grammar. In relation to
Kierkegaard the author is both patron-
izing and pontifical.

64

MINISTERS' WEEK

October 24-28, 1566

Smyth Lecturer
THE REV. OSCAR CULLMAN, Th.D., D.D.

PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT, UNIVERSITY OF BASEL, SWITZERLAND;
GUEST PROFESSOR, UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK.

Alumni Lecturer

RENE DE VISME WILLIAMSON, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, BATON
ROUGE, LOUISIANA

Guest Preacher

THE REV. BENJAMIN LACY ROSE, D.D., Th.D.

PROFESSOR OF PASTORAL LEADERSHIP AND HOMILETICS, UNION
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN VIRGINIA