Page 5737 – Christianity Today (2024)

Hundreds of parents from across the country brought their case against Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church and other “cults” to Washington, D. C., last month. They jammed into a Senate caucus room for a meeting arranged by Republican Senator Robert Dole of Kansas. Here they addressed representatives of the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Labor Department, the Postal Service, and the Federal Trade Commission.

The parents asked about possible violations of the tax-exempt status of the religious groups. Some wondered whether deceptive fund-raising practices of the groups are subject to FTC regulations. Youthful ex-members of cults related their experiences. And psychologists reported alarming findings in their studies of members and former members. But deep down, the main question was: “Can you help us get our children back?”

There were no assurances or clear-cut answers from the government officials. For the most part they merely advised persons with a complaint to put it into writing along with documentation and mail it to the appropriate agency.

The conference grew out of a meeting last year between Dole and one of his constituents, Mrs. Jean Tuttle, a parent who had “lost” a child to one of the cults. Back home, Mrs. Tuttle helped to organize a letter-writing and petition campaign. Armed with a petition bearing 14,000 names and with hundreds of letters inquiring about the activities of the Unification Church, Dole set up the informal hearing. A few other congressmen and a number of congressional staffers listened in, while more than 100 of Moon’s followers stood quietly at the rear of the room.

A week before the meeting, three dozen representatives of several parental anti-cult organizations demonstrated in front of the White House. They were led by San Diego-based Ted Patrick, a self-styled “deprogrammer” who says he has “rescued” hundreds of young people from the cults. Deprogramming involves removing a member from the confines of his religious group (it usually requires stealth and force), detaining him, and bombarding him with provocative questions and arguments until he “comes out of it.” The idea, says Patrick, is to get him to begin thinking independently. Once that happens, he says, the rest is easy; the member sees how he has been misled and exploited.

When he began deprogramming individuals about five years ago Patrick charged only for his expenses. Now there’s a fee for his service, usually between $1,500 and $2,000, and he seems to have all the business he can handle. But Patrick insists he also handles many charity cases. He is out on bail or appeal bond from jurisdictions in at least three states where he was prosecuted on illegal imprisonment charges. If his appeals fail he could spend the next two or three years in jail.

A network of deprogrammers, some of them trained by Patrick, has developed, and this is a source of increasing woe to the religious groups, especially the Unification Church. UC president Neil Salonen claims that sixty-five of his members were “kidnapped” last year but that “most of them return to the church despite their horrifying ordeal, threats, and continued intimidation.”

Salonen protested, apparently to no avail, Dole’s sponsorship “of a meeting seemingly organized to discredit the church and its founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.” Just prior to the meeting on Capitol Hill the group ran full-page endorsem*nts of Moon by parents of present members.

Several interesting point were raised by the anti-Moon forces at the Dole meeting. Quoting Moon’s own words from a training manual, psychologist George Swope—an American Baptist minister—underscored the UC’s political aims. They amount to no less than the subjugation of the entire world to a coming Korean-born messiah (Moon’s description fits himself). The plan is to start with the United States. With 8,000 followers in fifty states, “we can do anything with Senators and congressmen,” Moon was quoted as saying. “My dream,” he was further quoted, “is to organize a religious political party” that will field a theocratic leader to rule the world.

One youthful ex-member alleged that the UC’s mass marriages (in which Moon matches up the partners) are intended to circumvent America’s immigration laws. Foreigners are being recruited, he suggested, to help with Moon’s political plans.

Rabbi Maurice Davis of White Plains, New York, who has helped to organize an anti-Moon parents’ group, quoted Moon as recommending that three pretty girls be assigned to each Senator in order to gain political leverage.

Ex-members told how they raised money for Moon’s church, using front names (One World Crusade, for instance) and false stories (the selling of candles, candy, and dried flowers for nonexistent drug programs and nonexistent programs for poor children).

Martha Lewis, a New Hampshire young person who spent nearly three years in the UC said she was taught that two wrongs make a right. Because Satan deceived God’s children, the “Moonies” (as UC members are called by outsiders) are justified in deceiving Satan’s children, a practice known as “heavenly deception.”

Cynthia Slaughter of suburban Dallas said she averaged more than $100 daily in her fundraising activities while a member. Told “to use my fallen nature” to get money, she said she found bars to be especially productive.

Rabbi Davis noted that with only 1,000 members averaging $100 daily, the UC’s take would be $36 million a year. (Moon claims 30,000 followers in the United States, of whom one-fifth are “hard-core.”)

Some parents told Dole they are looking for legislative (reform of tax exemptions and the like) and judicial (extend parental rights) relief to cope with the Moon group. If they don’t get it, they made it clear that deprogramming—which some of them dislike—is all they have left.

Kathryn Kuhlman: Dying To Self

Evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman looked out at her audience at Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, California, and said, “Some of you will never know what I’m talking about.” Her eyes glistened and a tear spilled onto her cheek. To have peace with God, she said, one must intentionally “die to self, to all self ambition, until you are only living for Jesus.”

The appeal was part of a brief sermon she preached last August after allegations involving her handling of finances and purported use of hard liquor were aired in the press. The charges were disclosed in connection with a $430,000 lawsuit filed against her by a former business manager (see August 8, 1975, issue, page 35). In her talk, Miss Kuhlman told of her own suffering and anguish in learning to “die to self.”

On February 20 the struggle ended when she died in a Tulsa hospital of a heart ailment. “She just seemed to give up,” commented a close friend.

The lawsuit was settled out of court, and the participants agreed not to comment further on any of the issues surrounding it, but observers close to Miss Kuhlman say that her health suddenly deteriorated about the time the allegations came to the attention of the press and that afterward she was not the same emotionally.

She was hospitalized in Tulsa last summer and in Los Angeles in November and December for what were described as “minor heart flare-ups.” She entered the Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa again on December 27 and the next day underwent surgery to replace a heart valve and repair a tendon.

Miss Kuhlman was born about 1913 in the village of Concordia, Missouri. Her father, the mayor, was a Baptist, and her mother was a Methodist. She became a Christian at age 14 during a Methodist revival meeting in town and was baptized in a Baptist church where she retained her official membership for the rest of her life. About two years later she dropped out of high school to become a traveling evangelist. Then she settled down with a storefront congregation in Denver. Within three years she was filling a 2,000-seat sanctuary.

Records show that she was married in 1938 to Texas evangelist Burroughs Waltrip. The ceremony was conducted by a Methodist minister in Mason City, Iowa. Because Waltrip left his wife and family to wed Miss Kuhlman, controversy broke out in the Denver church, and the flock scattered. Not long afterward the marriage dissolved.

In 1946 Miss Kuhlman was preaching in Franklin, Pennsylvania, when she had an experience in which she “surrendered completely to the Holy Spirit.” A healing occurred in the audience, and from then on she centered her ministry on the work of the Holy Spirit.

A dispute erupted in the Franklin church, and Miss Kuhlman moved to Pittsburgh, where in 1947 she rented the municipal Carnegie Auditorium for weekly rallies. These were moved later to First Presbyterian Church.

At the time of her death Miss Kuhlman was seen and heard on about fifty radio stations and sixty television stations. For years she traveled back and forth across the continent with the message of the saving and healing power of God. She was virtually a commuter between rallies in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.

Many people claimed they were healed as they listened to her preach, and at times Miss Kuhlman had medical authorities on the platform to verify the healings. There were detractors, however. Some skeptics alleged that many of the cures were of self-diagnosed ailments, and one doctor wrote a critical book after studying twenty-five persons whose healings at a 1973 service did not hold up.

Miss Kuhlman herself never guaranteed that a cure would take place. She did suggest specific miracles God was performing at her meetings, and she exhorted the affected individuals to identify themselves. If a healing did occur, she insisted that it was of God alone, not of any power she possessed. She told CHRISTIANITY TODAY in a 1973 interview that her main concern was “the salvation of souls.” Divine healing, she asserted, “is secondary to the transformation of a life.”

Sunday Brunch At Jerry’S Place

The following story is based in part on a report filed by correspondent Watson Spoelstra, a former Detroit sports writer now active in the professional baseball chapel program.

President Ford, describing it as his kind of White House function, came right out and said it: “No more outstanding representation of athletic prowess has ever been in this house before.”

Yet there were no introductions of the scores of Super Bowl personalities, World Series participants, and other athletes and coaches among the 200 guests at a “professional athletes prayer brunch” in the East Room. Instead, eight speakers representing seven sports stood up and told how they had accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and now possessed the power of God in their lives.

President and Mrs. Ford seemed moved by the presentation. “What you said and how you said it,” commented the President, “meant a great deal to all of us. You are special because of your faith in God and your love for him.” Afterward, he and the First Lady gave all the athletes signed copies of the Living Bible.

The brunch was arranged by evangelist Billy Zeoli, head of Gospel Films and a close friend of Ford. Before he became President, Ford—who starred at center on the University of Michigan football team in the early 1930s—teamed up with Zeoli to sponsor a Capitol Hill luncheon for top players and officials following the annual National Prayer Breakfast. The brunch was a souped-up version of the earlier get-togethers.

Upon arrival at the White House, the guests were greeted with orange juice. After some mixing they made their way through a reception line (Ford sometimes introduced sports greats to his wife and without coaching outlined their accomplishments) to a spread of baked ham, grilled tomato stuffed with chicken and mushrooms, asparagus tips, and coconut pie. (Coach Chuck Noll of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Super Bowl champs, sat at the President’s table; losing coach Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys sat at Mrs. Ford’s.) Small talk, spiced with plenty of humor, centered on games and sports figures.

Ford said that as a boy he’d always wanted to excell in sports. Even now, he said, he turns to the sports pages before reading the front pages of newspapers, partly because he wants to keep abreast of the sports world and partly because the sports pages have a better chance of being correct. Everybody applauded.

The program was put together by Eddie Waxer, long active in sports chapel work. “Our prayer was that Christ only would be glorified,” he commented afterward. “I feel that occurred.”

Elvin Hayes, the Washington basketball whiz, in the opening prayer thanked the Lord “for the opportunity to honor your name in this place.” Dave Boyer, who lettered in fine arts rather than the brawny kind, sang of love for Jesus and America.

Phillies pitcher Jim Kaat related how he committed his life to Christ many years ago. “Others have found this same peace, purpose, and direction through our chapel program,” he reported. “God’s Spirit is moving in baseball.” When he described a religious fanatic as “someone who knows Jesus better than you do,” the President chuckled along with the others.

Norm Evans, Miami lineman, and Calvin Jones, Denver defensive back, told of spiritual growth in football through chapels and midweek Bible-study groups. “When we say ‘yes’ to God,” said Evans, “we discover blessing far more important than being world champion or all pro.”

Madeline Manning Jackson of Cleveland is not a pro but an Olympic 800-meter gold-medal winner in the last Olympics who will be trying for more this summer at Montreal. “My thing is running for Jesus,” she said simply. “Last year I talked to all Russia on television about the Lord’s goodness.”

The women’s view also came from Janet Lynn Salomon, the ice skating champion from Rockford, Illinois. Other speakers were Dennis Ralston, tennis; Kyle Rote, Jr., soccer; and Rik Massengale, golf. Massengale, who reported on the Tuesday night Bible study on the golf tour, gave his personal testimony and told how he had gone from 127th to twenty-fifth on golf’s money-winning list after accepting Christ. Sports writers Red Smith and Dick Schaap had a field day with that comment.

Elvin Hayes rushed from the White House to outscore Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the Bullets. And Phil Esposito, the National Hockey League’s greatest scorer until he was shipped to the losing New York Rangers, hurried back to New York and scored two goals and an assist in a 5 to 1 victory over Kansas City.

It was a day for winners.

Deferred Income

The economic crunch of 1974–75, with double-digit inflation and a tight money market, caused the red ink to flow in many U. S. businesses, not the least of them church-related ventures. Money woes hit church retirement and healthcare projects especially hard, forcing more than a few to go under or to totter on the brink of bankruptcy.

Among them is an ailing foundation set up and operated by ministers (and some lay persons) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in southern California. Financial problems of the Churchman’s Foundation and its five retirement-care facilities are, unfortunately, by no means unique; the story line could be repeated across the country with different names and different faces.

But what left a particularly sour taste in the mouths of many of the 250 persons who invested a total of more than $1 million in unregistered Churchman’s certificate loans was the fact that when a severe cash-flow problem developed, the officers and directors of the foundation seemed “to vanish into the woodwork,” as one disgruntled widow put it.

As pieced together from interviews with a number of the investors (many of them elderly people who had little money to spare but who trusted their church leaders) and directors (who would speak only anonymously), the story went this way:

Last spring, Jean Hosokawa of Pasadena, a teacher who had invested $7,500, asked to withdraw some of her money in order to send her daughter to Disciples-related Chapman College. Her letters requesting withdrawal were not answered. Six weeks later she learned indirectly through her pastor that the foundation was in severe financial trouble. But repeated phone calls to the foundation office elicited no help: an employee gave no information and said officers and directors were unavailable.

At the same time that Mrs. Hosokawa was trying to retrieve her money, the foundation was soliciting church members for new investments, promising an 8.25 per cent return on five-year loans. All the while, the officers and directors knew that several of the Churchman’s facilities were in serious financial jeopardy.

Mrs. Hosokawa, a long-time member of the Christian Church, said she invested savings from eight years of part-time teaching. But at an investors’ meeting last October she learned chances of recovering anything were practically nil, and she “just about crumpled.”

“I feel they shouldn’t have advertised in church papers,” she said. “We felt that if the money wasn’t safe with the church, then it wasn’t safe anywhere.… What really got us was that they couldn’t give us any honest statement of true conditions—there was no response to our letters or calls.”

One director, a top official in the denomination’s regional office, explained that a basic problem had been that a loan for the projected “keystone” project of the foundation, in Las Vegas, fell through. That project was expected to keep afloat the others, which included retirement high-rises, apartments, and an extended-care hospital. Tight money, inflation, and poor management then combined to bring on collapse, he said.

Another director said he quit the board quickly when he learned foundation officers were continuing to accept investment loans in which the proceeds were used for current operations. Not long afterward, however, the foundation did refuse to accept more investment money.

Nobody seemed to know last month what would happen next—if anything. The foundation’s attorney said he had been holding meetings with some former officers, but many have moved away, are without funds, and can’t get to meetings. A seven-person steering committee, headed by clergyman Wilbur Parry of Camile Christian Church in Santa Ana (the church invested about $20,000 in the foundation), was waiting to hear from the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and the state Corporations Commission, to which it turned over data last November. Investigations may take several more months.

And the denomination? There are no plans to step in, declared a highly placed official, “though it’s a great concern to a great many people.” The Southern California-Southern Nevada unit of the church commissioned the directors in 1959, but the foundation corporation is a separate entity. The Christian Church has no legal responsibility for debts of the foundation, its attorney says.

A director, acknowledging that foundation officers had been advised by the attorney not to talk, said the most frustrating thing about the foundation’s misfortunes had been “lack of communication” to investors.

Church involvement doesn’t assure an investor that his money is safe, cautioned Richard Johnson, an investment counselor with the Lee Bernard Company of Pasadena, which specializes in fund-raising for evangelical accounts. “The bottom line on church-related investments is that you’d like to give the organization the money if you could because you’re sold on its work. But an investment implies income, and you’ve got to follow the ‘prudent man rule’: what would the prudent man do with these funds?”

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Bilalian Muslims

Black members of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) can now salute the American flag, engage in electoral politics, dress in a more self-styled manner, and even serve as members of the armed forces “to defend the American government against aggressors.”

And what’s more, the once-excommunicated Malcolm X, whose death has sometimes been attributed to Black Muslims, has now been posthumously accepted back into the fold, his holy title “Shabazz” restored, and a temple named after him.

All these changes were officially to be explained at the group’s annual Savior’s Day Convention in Chicago late last month by the new head of the Nation of Islam, the Honorable Wallace Muhammad, son of Elijah Muhammad, who died last March. The convention marks the anniversary of Wallace’s first year at the helm. More than 15,000 attend the conclave each year to celebrate founder W. D. Fard as the “savior.”

“For us to be alive we must be changing and growing,” says Abdul Farrakhan, national spokesman for the Black Muslims. “Unless you are changing and growing you are dead.” Once the rumored rival to accede to the “throne” upon Elijah’s death, Farrakhan has been Wallace Muhammad’s chief representative ever since Wallace himself brought him to the Chicago headquarters office.

In another dramatic move, the mosque Farrakhan once headed in New York’s Harlem—the second largest in the country, preceded only by the Chicago center—has changed its name from Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No. 7 to Malcolm-Shabazz Mosque No. 7. The name change was officially approved by Wallace, signaling that Elijah Muhammad’s name will no longer adorn every temple of the group. Others of the eighty local temples are expected to opt for a name change.

These follow closely two other radical moves taken earlier by the Nation of Islam. Immediately upon taking leadership last year Wallace announced that whites would be welcomed as members (though none reportedly has joined yet). Later he said the preferred term would no longer be Negroes or blacks but “Bilalians.” This new name for Afro-Americans reflects emphasis upon a historical African convert to Islam named Bilal, who later became the “first muzzein” or minister of the Arabian Prophet Muhammad.

The name of the group’s weekly newspaper has also been changed from Muhammad Speaks to Bilalian News.

In other revisions, dress codes for both men and women have been relaxed (women may now wear pants, for example), as have hair-style codes. Members are being urged to register to vote and to enter political office. Plans are for the Nation to produce commercial movies, once a taboo. And jazz is now played in temples before some gatherings.

For the first time, a woman has been designated as a “minister.” She is Sharolyn X, an instructor in the Chicago University of Islam, who holds graduate degrees from Rutgers. Another woman, Fatimah Ali, formerly a professor at Purdue, has been named a regional director. Noted writer Sonia Sanchez (her name has been changed to Laila Mannun) now heads the Office of Human Development, which is producing new textbooks for forty schools sponsored by the Muslims.

In other developments, an Accident and Mishap Committee has been formed to set up food and clothing banks in every major city, a Social Censor Committee has originated to monitor practices of both blacks and whites in leadership roles in the ghettos, and a college scholarship program has been set up.

Theologically, the Nation is also undergoing change. The traditional apocalyptic language no longer is given political or racial implications, and Wallace is moving the group closer to orthodox Islam, at the same time incorporating more Christian terminology into his teachings. The Nation of Islam is now officially designated the “Body-Christ,” for instance. For the first time, the group also last year celebrated its Ramadan (month of fasting) in conjunction with other Islamic groups throughout the country.

All of these changes appear to be paying off in terms of increasing popularity. Since he has taken charge, membership is up 40 per cent (though official totals are still secret), Wallace states. Circulation of the Bilalian News now stands at 950,000 weekly—up 12 per cent.

JAMES S. TINNEY

Third in a Series

Despite a slowdown in initiative and a crumbling of unity in the last ten years, American evangelicalism has nonetheless undergone some noteworthy developments.

World Vision as an international humanitarian agency has gained remarkable favor as an outlet for the growing commitment to social effort combined with Christian witness.

Evangelically oriented seminaries (among them Dallas, Conservative Baptist, Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, Trinity, and Westminster) continue to show record enrollments. Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship has somewhat come through its financial slump and has significantly expanded its publications programs; its triennial missionary conferences remain vigorous. Campus Crusade continues to enlarge its collegiate evangelistic ministry. The Institute for Advanced Christian Studies has provided over $100,000 to underwrite meritorious research by mature evangelical scholars.

Evangelical scholars continue to work on Bible translation, and the Living Bible paraphrase has gained readers in many circles where more traditional versions seemed linguistically remote. Wycliffe Bible Translators continues to extend the availability of Scripture in developing countries.

Dean M. Kelley observed in Why Conservative Churches are Growing, that despite the secular cultural pressures on American churches, significant growth is taking place particularly in the evangelical wing of Protestantism. Graham evangelistic crusades, while few and somewhat shorter than in earlier years and in some places under some attendance pressure, nonetheless still provide a focus for cooperative evangelism wherever they occur. A staggering number of counseling youths, and church-renewal programs have added depth to local evangelistic follow-up. The church-growth interest nurtured by Fuller Seminary’s Institute of Church Growth gave rise to related books and symposiums (cf. Donald McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, Eerdmans, 1969; McGavran, ed., The Eye of the Storm: The Great Debate in Mission, Word, 1972; Alan R. Tippett, ed., God, Man and Church Growth, Eerdmans, 1973).

The emergence of a literature by evangelicals that criticized the evangelical stance proved not to be an unmitigated liability. Occasional conservative books on social ethics appearing in the mid-sixties (e.g., David Moberg, Inasmuch: Christian Social Responsibility in the Twentieth Century, Eerdmans, 1965, and my own Aspects of Christian Social Ethics, Eerdmans, 1964) touched off a veritable tide of literature in the field. Sherwood Wirt’s The Social Conscience of the Evangelicals (Harper & Row, 1968) and a score of other works appeared in quick succession.

Younger church historians like James A. Hedstrom have assessed the appearance in the late sixties “of very honest and critical analysis of evangelicalism itself, by evangelicals” as a constructively significant sign. Hedstrom notes the call for change, for renewal and reform, that issued from black evangelicals, notably Tom Skinner (Words of Revolution, Zondervan, 1970, and How Black Is the Gospel?, Lippincott, 1970) and the protest of evangelicals against cultural conformity (Robert G. Clouse, Robert D. Linder, and Richard V. Pierard, eds., Protest and Politics: Christianity and Contemporary Affairs, Attic, 1968: Mark Hatfield, Conflict and Conscience, Word, 1971; Carl F. H. Henry, A Plea For Evangelical Demonstration, Baker, 1971; David O. Moberg, The Great Reversal: Evangelism Versus Social Concern, Lippincott, 1972). The growing interest in ethics was crowned finally by the cooperative evangelical effort Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Baker, 1971). It led also to the forging by young evangelicals of a notable declaration of social concerns (cf. Ronald J. Sider, ed., The Chicago Declaration, Creation House, 1974). Unprecedented numbers of young evangelical students ventured into social service, law, political science, and other public fields as a Christian vocation.

The call for evangelical renewal precipitated and reflected significant divergencies. Nothing was more needed at the beginning of the seventies than incisive evangelical theological perspective and influential direction to maintain unity in the midst of creative debate. Francis Schaeffer’s L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland reenlisted some runaway evangelicals for apologetic thrust on neglected cultural frontiers. But divergencies multiplied as comprehensive evangelical leadership was increasingly absent. At critical points—especially in the debate over scriptural authority and socio-political stance—the movement’s institutional spokesmen seemed to lack incisive power.

Billy Graham was the one voice that, in concert with CHRISTIANITY TODAY, could until five years ago have sparked a massive realignment of American evangelicals in a new and larger fellowship embracing the National Association of Evangelicals, many clergy and laymen in ecumenically oriented denominations, and even some loosely committed to the fundamentalist right. But such a move would have aroused denominational resistance to cooperative crusades. Graham’s late father-in-law, L. Nelson Bell, had notably opposed an evangelical realignment by Southern Presbyterians. The North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council is currently emerging as a framework to include the Christian Reformed Church, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. (The last named emerged primarily from the Presbyterian Church (Southern).) The time seems now to have passed in America for the emergence of a comprehensive evangelical para-ecumenical movement, if indeed that was ever a desirable development. The charismatic movement, welcomed or tolerated as a potentially potent force for uniting evangelicals across denominational barriers, is now increasingly strained by internal dispute over church authority, tradition, and mission, and by external denominational opposition and theological criticism; Southern Baptists have declared charismatic congregations to be divisive.

Meanwhile, CHRISTIANITY TODAY essayists have been drawn more largely from independent sources than from ecumenically oriented denominations; the fortnightly seems to be putting more and more distance between itself and the call to reexamine the evangelical sociopolitical stance while tightening a commitment to biblical inerrancy as the determinant of evangelical authenticity.

CARL F. H. HENRY

It was the perfect moment of a perfect sunset hour as our car sped on toward San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. “Look, the part of that structure at the left of the approach really looks as if it were made of gold! The sunset light giving just that effect must have given the Golden Gate its name. What a fantastic sight! An illusion of gold.” Our appreciation of the designing and engineering skill and of the sheer wonder of the effect continued as we drove over the bridge itself.

Then as we gained altitude on the road on the other side and looked back at the city, seemingly hung between sky and bay water, glistening with the light of the setting sun in myriads of windows in tall buildings, it gave the illusion of a golden city as high as it is wide, floating in space. After the evening filming was over, in a nearby town, the drive back brought us to the same spot in moonlight; thousands of twinkling lights caused that city on a hill to give the illusion again of being hung in space among stars and moon, almost a cube, reflected in water, breathtakingly beautiful. Perfection? Dream’s end? Paradise found?

And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like jasper stone, clear as crystal; … and the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones [Rev. 21:10, 11, 16–19].

Is this heavenly city a real place? Do you believe our eyes will see it, our hands touch the material it is composed of, our nostrils become filled with the air we can breathe there? What is real?

Jesus says, Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also [John 14:1–4].

In Hebrews 11:16 the promise of Jesus to prepare a place is confirmed by a strong statement from God the Father: “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” God here is telling us that the very real existence of this city, a place we are going to come to know by experience in the future, is one very valid reason why he, God the Creator, can state that he is “not ashamed to be called their God.”

But I saw with my own eyes San Francisco as a golden, glistening city of fairy beauty, floating in space.” Was what I saw with my own eyes real? Was it not painted with sunlight, moonlight, and imagination? What is more trustworthy, our eyes as we watch a magician, our eyes as we “add and subtract” with our own imagination, or God’s clearly stated factual promises? God is trustworthy. God’s Word can be depended upon. He is not ashamed of his promises, and we need never fear that we will later be ashamed of believing him.

Drive into San Francisco now. Hear the sirens screaming as the police answer a call, listen to ambulances with their peculiar shrieks, watch fire engines swerving around corners to get to a fire before it is too late. Remember that this is where the “drug thing” had its beginning. As you are remembering the sixties, look at the p*rno advertisem*nts hanging out in the streets on today’s buildings. Smog is not only a matter of polluted air that hurts human lungs; there is intellectual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual smog pouring forth in so many mediums in all the cities of the world.

The golden beauty and twinkling lights of San Francisco do not spell perfection—this is paradise lost! Here are lost dreams, agony, depression, ugliness. Here are all the marks of the spoiled creation, spoiled at the time of “the fall.” This golden city has so much that mars or “defiles” it; the golden perfection was only an illusion.

Come back to Revelation 21 now and read the last verse: “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Nothing is going to mar, spoil, or pollute this city in any way. No person who is not perfect will even be there: only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will be present. And when are the names recorded? A name is recorded at the same moment that Jesus gives “eternal life” and states that a person will never perish, the moment when that person is born again by accepting the substitutionary work of Christ Jesus.

Listen:

And God shall wipe all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful [Rev. 21:4, 5].

This is reality. Heaven is a place. There is a city we are going to see and walk in. Neither the place, nor the singing instead of sighing, nor the pleasure instead of pain, is an illusion. We await that which is real.

Are you sitting by the bed of someone struggling for breath in a painful, terminal illness? Have you just had a shattering telegram about a plane crash? Do you have fears about the moment of leaving your body? Has a child of yours died? Do you long for beauty and perfection but fear you will never find it? Has your life been a series of disappointments and depressions? Does the spoiled universe cause you to doubt that God can keep his promises and restore all things?

Remember with Isaiah that God spoke centuries ago to reassure his children:

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed: but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles and all thy borders pleasant stones [Isa. 54:10–12].

This hints at the shining, golden, gleaming beauty God is preparing for his children. Enjoy a distant view of San Francisco by sunset, but thank God while you look at it for his city, which will fulfill all his promises of perfection, with no letdown.

EDITH SCHAEFFER

Suddenly a number of people have rediscovered ethics. In recent months Americans have been deluged with information about wrong-doing by people in high places. In the unfolding of events the question of right and wrong has surfaced in a provocative manner.

The Watergate disclosures created waves of disgust, the ripples of which are still with us. Among those who most fervently flogged the offenders were some who in their own actions were also transgressors. They called upon a higher morality only to justify their own actions and to salve their consciences. The hands of the one who stole the Pentagon papers and of those who published them were not that much cleaner than the hands of Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Colson (whose story of repentance and conversion is featured in this issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.)

Wrongful corporate contributions to politicians and political campaigns are another category of dark doing that has recently come to light. The executives who made these decisions knew they were breaking the law. But the politicians and their aides who sought and accepted such contributions knew they too were breaking the law. Should we not call to account the receivers as well as the givers? Some of these disclosures occasioned the reference by Ray Garrett, Jr., former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to “bribery, influence-peddling and corruption on a scale I had never dreamed existed.”

Then the public heard about the corporate bribery by some American businessmen who sell their products overseas. Right now certain Japanese are feeling the heat of the money given them by Lockheed in an effort to increase the sale of its planes to Japan. In the Opinion Research Corporation’s survey among more than five hundred leaders in business, 48 per cent said they thought bribes should be paid to foreign officials if that practice is prevalent in the officials’ country.

Americans have also in recent months been given a taste of corporate, political, and governmental interference in Chile and other nations. Some politicians on Capitol Hill have deliberately breached their own rectitude by leaking documents, tearing down reputations, and drawing conclusions sometimes far removed from documentary evidence. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently spoke out against the damage wrought by certain congressional activities. He had in mind the publication by the Village Voice of the still-secret report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. The Voice publisher stated that the report had fallen on his doorstep; but whatever the circ*mstances, he printed what he knew was supposed to be a private report.

To turn to the positive side: thousands of businessmen and politicians have never paid bribes to foreigners, given money illegally to political campaigns, or accepted illegal contributions or bribes, and would never do so. And it is good to see that people generally agree that some things are definitely wrong, despite the inroads of situation ethics, endorsed by some who claim to be in the Christian tradition.

The president of the Sperry and Hutchinson Company said recently: “There is no earthly way to defend bribery, kickbacks, or attempts to buy votes.” He was stating what the Judeo-Christian tradition had always affirmed: there are some things that are always wrong. No matter who the person is, what office he holds, or what cause he represents, to lie, cheat, steal, or covet is never right. And for those who confess Christianity to do any of these things is even worse than for those who do not. The Communists pose as ethicists when it suits their purposes to do so. They pretend that what the democracies do is wrong. But they violate every rule they lay down for the conduct of others. Since they neither fear God nor keep his commandments, what they do is understandable even though wrong.

The Rotary “Four-Way Test,” though sometimes scorned as simplistic, is still a useful and reliable guide for evaluating what one proposes to say and do: “Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build good willand better friendship? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”

Bad ethics is bad business, bad religion, bad politics Those who know and practice this truth must ever stand as guardians of what is essentially the Christian tradition and call before the bar of human justice and public opinion those who traduce these truths of natural and special revelation.

Where Do Retired Pastors Live?

The cost of a house continues to climb almost everywhere. The experts tell us that a smaller and smaller percentage of households can scrape up enough money for a down payment and earn enough to handle the monthly mortgage payments and upkeep. In many countries the situation is even worse than in the United States and Canada. And as the costs of buying a house go up, so do those of renting.

Especially hard hit by this escalation are pastors who live in parsonages. Some in the congregation may envy their pastor’s rent-free housing, but they need to ask themselves, What happens when he retires? What happens to his wife when he dies? If the average churchgoer has not paid off the mortgage on his home by retirement, he generally has enough equity so that he could sell it and purchase a smaller house or condominium; or he will have received enough income over the years to provide for suitable housing upon retirement.

But the pastor who has always lived in parsonages has no equity upon retirement, nor has he usually had a salary high enough to enable him to save for retirement housing. Moreover, the combination of social security and, one hopes, a pension is likely to be very inadequate. Frankly, we don’t know what retired pastors are doing about housing these days; many may be living with grown children, or are getting by some other way.

The key question is, What is the responsibility of a congregation in today’s economy toward its pastor and his dwelling? In our opinion, in most cases the parsonage should be sold and the pastor be paid enough to enable him to afford the kind of housing that is average for his congregation. (The Internal Revenue Service grants the same benefits for a properly designated housing allowance as part of a salary as it does for a parsonage provided by the congregation.)

In some instances it may simply not be feasible to sell the parsonage; it may be unsaleable or an inseparable part of the church plant. In such cases it would be in order to pay the pastor a higher salary; a better solution would probably be to increase the church’s pension contribution. Non-profit groups may make pension contributions that are tax deferred up to 20 per cent of the employee’s total compensation. Such a pension plan could provide a lump sum upon retirement that could be used for the down payment on a house. It would also have the advantage, unlike many company pensions, of moving with the pastor without diminution wherever he goes.

Clear Away The Cloud

Just before he left office as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Colby told reporters that it would be “inappropriate” to order his agents to cease contact with American missionaries. He added that such contacts were very limited.

Just after the new director, George Bush, was sworn in, he declared that the CIA would continue its policy of having no paid informants among American clergymen or missionaries.

What is the difference in the position of the former and the present directors? There is none that we can see. The key word in Mr. Bush’s statement last month seems to be “continue.” He was not announcing anything new. He was affirming publicly that it is the policy of the CIA not to pay ministers or other missionaries from the United States to spy abroad. Mr. Colby had said earlier that there were no missionaries on the payroll.

So, what is the fuss about? The policy reaffirmed by Mr. Bush does not rule out contact by his agents with missionaries who might volunteer information. This still leaves a cloud of suspicion over any ambassador of Christ, whether or not he does cooperate with America’s intelligence community.

Shortly after Mr. Bush announced his position, President Ford went on television to explain a new intelligence oversight plan. Simultaneously, he sent a message to Congress, asking its cooperation in safeguarding the nation’s secrets. The President indicated that he was willing to work with the Senate and the House of Representatives as they reconsider their oversight responsibilities.

At first glance, these pronouncements from the executive branch of government seemed a movement in the constructive direction requested by many missionary agencies (See January 2 issue, page 23). Upon examination, however, they indicate no real change. Thus, missionaries still need some authoritative word from Washington that they are “off limits” to the CIA.

Since that assurance has not come from the executive branch, it is time for Congress to act. The President has said he wants to cooperate with the legislative branch. One Congressional attempt is the bill introduced by Senator Mark Hatfield. Both houses of Congress should get to work soon on this proposal or a similar one, and we hope the President will assist in its enactment.

Meanwhile, missionaries must be alert to any attempts to compromise their position as ambassadors of Christ and not representatives of foreign governments. Churches at home should support them as they follow the dictates of their consciences in this matter. Some who are genuinely concerned about developments in their area may be led to share the information. For the good of the mission enterprise, they should not share this with the intelligence community. Until the current questions are cleared up in Washington, all American missionary personnel abroad could be adversely affected by what any one of them does.

Counterpressure On Their Peers

Peer pressure on teenagers is a powerful force. Today Christian young people face degrees of pressure that would have been unimaginable in their parents’ youth.

Some of the most difficult challenges are those to join the crowd in the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. Promoters of these products are now publicizing scientific claims of various beneficial effects, and young non-consumers do not know how to respond. The research on potential harm or good is not yet complete, but one incontrovertible statistic has been fully established: the number of teenagers who use these products is increasing rapidly.

Led by girls, the number of cigarette smokers in their teens continues to rise. The number of teenage alcoholics keeps going up. Larger percentages of young people try (and continue to use) marijuana each year.

One day last month, an ounce of a preferred strain of marijuana cost more on the streets of New York than did an ounce of gold on the London market. Despite the inflated prices, acceptance continues to grow. Maybe Christian youth and their advisers can find a clue in this inflation. What about the stewardship involved?

The Christian’s obvious answer to the question of whether to consume any of these harmful drugs is that his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that he is accountable for its stewardship. To answer peers, the young Christian could also point to the costliness of the products themselves.

Whether Christian or not, most young people today claim a social consciousness. Injustice, poverty, and war stir them to demonstrate. This concern for the cause of the less fortunate should lead them to question the propriety of spending their money on these expensive luxuries. Can they justify the cost of a daily pack of cigarettes when that money could keep starving children alive? Can they justify the cost of regular drinking when that amount could provide simple shelter to a destitute family in a disaster area? Can they justify the exorbitant expense of the marijuana habit when those funds could buy medical care for many who are dying? Christian young people can put such counterpressure on their peers, and in the process ease their strain.

The Word In Washington

America’s evangelical community put on an impressive show of strength in Washington last month. Several thousand of its most influential clergymen and laymen turned out for the first joint convention of the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Religious Broadcasters. A patriotic spirit characterized the four-day bicentennial meeting, but while most participants were respectful and appreciative of their nation’s heritage they also expressed a wide variety of concerns about its moral direction and its lingering injustices.

President Ford addressed the opening session, which suggests that evangelical political potential is now being recognized at the highest echelons of government. That potential had been significantly underscored by the precedent-shattering total of more than three million letters received by the Federal Communications Commission opposing a petition, since denied, to freeze broadcasting permits for certain religious organizations.

NAE delegates pledged to “commit ourselves to participate in every lawful and morally right function of human government and oppose with all our determination whatever is unlawful and morally wrong. While we work, we wait for the return of him whose right it is to reign, whose kingdom shall abide throughout eternity.”

(A comprehensive news report on the NAE-NRB convention will appear in the next issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.)

Simeon: Filled, Taught, Led

The name of Simeon appears in the New Testament in the account of the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple (see Luke 2:22 ff.). He is in a sense an unknown; we are not told his work, his age, his tribe, or whether he was a layman, a scribe, a Pharisee, or a Sadducee. But this much we do know: he was a man of God and a prototype of the kind of person each of us ought to be.

Luke tells us three things about Simeon that throw light on his life. First, “the Holy Spirit was upon him.” The full meaning of this we do not know. But we do know Simeon had something that not everyone possessed. Scripture says elsewhere that John the Baptist would “be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.” We can conclude that Simeon was in some similar fashion filled by the Spirit.

Second, Simeon was taught by the Spirit. In this instance it was more than illumination of what already existing Scripture meant. It was some kind of direct revelation that would not have come to one who was not under the lordship of the Spirit: “it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.”

Third, he was led by the Spirit. The account says that “inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple” at the time Mary and Joseph brought Jesus for the presentation. Had he been late he would have missed this event. But led by the Spirit he was there at God’s appointed time.

The words Simeon spoke as he held the infant Son of God in his arms are beautiful, for they express the heartbeat of the loving Father who wants everyone to be saved: “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” Simeon was a true believer, a saved man. “A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.” What a large vision! God is not the God of Israel alone. He is also the one who loves the Gentiles and sent them, too, the light of the world, Jesus.

What God could do through this unknown personage he can do through us, too—if we are filled, taught, and led by his Spirit.

Elsewhere in this special issue we have mentioned numerous books written from a variety of religious stances on topics related to the Bible and theology Here we call special attention to a few books, both for reference and for general reading, that are aimed at all Christians who take their faith seriously, not just scholars or professional ministers. Books from areas such as practical theology are included even though they were not in the scope of the preceding surveys. Also, the titles we commend here are written from a more or less orthodox Christian perspective, a kind of book often sadly underrepresented in public and academic libraries.

By far the most significant reference sets by evangelicals to appear last year are the five-volume Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible edited by Merrill Tenney (Zondervan) and the two-volume Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia edited by Charles Pfeiffer, Howard Vos, and John Rea (Moody). One or the other should be in every school and public library and in the personal libraries of Christian workers and theological students.

We also specially commend the publishers for finally completing (except for the index volume), after some twenty years, a fifty-four-volume set of Luther’s Works: American Edition (Concordia and Fortress). Although Luther is to be tested according to the same Word of God to which he sought to be faithful, many of his insights remain of crucial value to the whole Church. Reading him can be more profitable than trying to keep up with the latest theological fads spawned in his homeland.

Besides these three multi-volume sets, there are seven single-volume works to which we wish to call attention. They are major overviews of important subjects and will serve for reference or reading or both. So Many Versions? by Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht (Zondervan) is of immense help for understanding the seemingly endless stream of English Bible translations. Paul: An Outline of His Theology by Herman Ridderbos (Eerdmans) is likely to be a standard work. Lutheran Cyclopedia edited by Erwin Lueker (Concordia) is a dictionary of general church history rather than the history of only the sponsoring denomination. The Evangelicals edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge (Abingdon) is a good though incomplete beginning at group self-understanding. Toward a Biblical View of Civil Government by Robert Duncan Culver (Moody) is a thorough exegetical study with particular foundational value at a time when numerous books for the times are appearing. Note that Culver claims merely to write toward a biblical view; in this he offers welcome contrast to the propagandists who imply that they have arrived. A Theology of Christian Education by Lawrence Richards (Zondervan) and Childhood Education in the Church edited by Roy Zuck and Robert Clark (Moody) are major contributions to practical theology.

In addition to the above ten titles for reference or comprehensive study, we also note (alphabetically by author) ten books that are more limited in scope, often advocating particular viewpoints. They deserve consideration even when they do not compel wholehearted acceptance. Almost all treat some aspects of the relations between God and man and among men in the context of the pressures and challenges of contemporary life. The New Demons by Jacques Ellul (Seabury) looks at the new forms of false religion characterizing a supposedly secular world. Angels: God’s Secret Agents by Billy Graham (Doubleday) is both a runaway bestseller and a competent presentation of the biblical data. Would that were true of more books! In Picking Up the Pieces (Eerdmans) W. Fred Graham is, like Ellul, concerned with Christian witness amid a strangely religious secularity.

The Unraveling of America by Stephen Monsma (InterVarsity) presents a Christian approach to government. Jesus by Malcolm Muggeridge (Harper & Row) is a well-illustrated presentation of the Saviour by a fairly recent convert. I Pledge You My Troth by James Olthius (Harper & Row) offers a fresh look at family and friends. Faith, Psychology and Christian Maturity by Millard Sall (Zondervan) seeks to reconcile what many consider opposites. What Is a Family? by Edith Schaeffer (Revell) is a very practical guide to improving parent-child ties. The Problem of Wineskins: Church Structure in a Technological Age by Howard Snyder (InterVarsity) is a creative contribution to church renewal discussion. Testament From Prison by Soviet evangelical leader Georgi Vins (David C. Cook) reminds us both of the persecution that can come to any Christian and of the corresponding provision of God’s power to stand firm.

Finally, we call attention to last year’s additions to three established series: Holy Scripture in G. C. Berkouwer’s massive Studies in Dogmatics (Eerdmans) is not without weaknesses but cannot be ignored; C. E. B. Cranfield has revived the multi-author International Critical Commentary with a masterly volume on the first eight chapters of The Epistle to the Romans (T. & T. Clark); and William Hendricksen’s volume on Mark continues his highly valued one-man New Testament Commentary (Baker).

The Acts Of The Church

According to radio commentator Paul Harvey, a problem arose in Milwaukee recently. The association of tavern owners was upset with the Roman Catholic Church. The church was hurting their business, they said.

It wasn’t that revival had struck Milwaukee and that all loyal beer drinkers had abandoned the bar for baptism. The problem was more direct than that. The church was attempting to get a hard liquor permit for New Year’s Eve and the bartenders were upset.

It was bad enough that the church could serve beer at bingo, they contended, but now the Catholics were going all the way and the tavern owners felt they couldn’t compete. After all, whose side would God be on anyhow?

But if the Catholic church is competing head to head (or mouth to mouth) with the tavern owners in Milwaukee, then the conservative Protestant church is competing claw to claw and jaw to jaw with the circus in America. All you have to do is look at almost any major metropolitan area church page.

How can any law-abiding, conscientious circus promoter compete with “Ronald McDonald in person at First Baptist’s Sunday School,” or Fred Heyerbrund, Christian skydiver, parachuting to earth in a chute that reads, “Jesus Saves. Yes, even you.” And all the while Fred is floating “into church property from 5,000 feet,” he speaks to the crowd in the parking lot via two-way radio.

And Ronald and Fred aren’t the only acts at the church. We now have gospel magicians, talking birds, Christian karate experts, and strong men who speak. We have pastors who swallow goldfish, preach from the roof if over 600 attend the service, and generally make animals of themselves.

If the tavern owners can complain to the City Council of Milwaukee, then Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey ought to complain to pastors across the continent. But there’s a bright side to the picture. If the church keeps perfecting its act, it can soon move to circus life all together and quit messing around with the gospel. After all, what can the gospel compete with?

EUTYCHUS VII

Who And Where

In a recent essay (Footnotes, Jan. 16) Dr. Carl Henry made reference to the volume we edited entitled The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing. He wished to know who among the authors defined what “authentic Christianity” is. The answer is that the editors did (pp. 18–19), Dr. Kantzer did (pp. 38–67), Dr. Gerstner did (pp. 21–37), and Dr. Ahlstrom (pp 270, 271) and Dr. Williams (pp. 211–48) reinforced their definitional work.

JOHN D. WOODBRIDGE

DAVID E WELLS

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Ill.

Provoking Redefinition

Thank you for your thought-provoking issue, “The Church in Black and White” (Jan. 30). I found the article “Down With the Honky Christ—Up With the Funky Jesus” particularly stimulating. The phrase “personal salvation and little beyond that” occupied my attention for more than an hour.

We hear much today from evangelicals concerned with social issues to the effect that personal salvation is an inadequate solution to the problem of sin—particularly collective, institutionalized, social sin. Perhaps we need to redefine “personal salvation.”

If by personal salvation is meant the passive acceptance of an alleged change in one’s standing before God upon condition of a supposed sterile “faith” that does not necessarily produce a moral rebirth in the life … then it could be truthfully said that “personal salvation” is ineffective.… But if by personal salvation is meant the active experience of the grace of God that brings salvation … and that is accompanied by the personal moral revolution that Jesus said consists in supreme love for God and equal love for our neighbor … then it can be truthfully said that “personal salvation” is the basic solution for everything human.

J.W. JEPSON

First Assembly of God Church

McMinnville, Oreg.

The January 30 issue of your magazine opened a door and let fresh air into what had become a stuffy room. If you would like to send sample copies to the seniors at George Fox College … this is the issue to send.

ARTHUR O. ROBERTS

Professor of Religion

George Fox College and Philosophy

Newberg, Oreg.

It should not surprise Mr. Hilliard that central in the preaching of the “honkey gospel” is the cross on which Christ died. This cross, not the ones Christ carried before, was central in the writings of Paul (1 Cor. 1:18; Gal. 6:14). It is the message of this cross that is an “offense” to unbelieving man (Gal. 5:11), not the ones Christ carried “before He shouldered the last one,” nor “the crosses he expects us to lift.”

Mr. Hilliard seems to be calling the white middle-class church to deliver the Gospel from its social and cultural accretions, since “the call of the gospel is to join the black nigg*r Jesus at the very bottom of the social order.” I am wondering if Hilliard would interpret this literally or in a “spiritual” sense. It would seem that he means this “move to the bottom of the social order” in a literal way. If this is the case, do we not end up with a Christ who is still locked into a certain cultural and social level as much as He supposedly is in the “honkey gospel”? Putting Hilliard’s statements into a cross-cultural context, would he tell a Brahman that he must become a low caste person in order to become a Christian? Does not Christ rather both identify with and transcend every culture? Hilliard seems to have merely moved Christ from one social level to another and in the process lost sight of Him as the Son of Man who meets all men where they are. DR. JOHN GRATION Wheaton Graduate School Wheaton, Ill.

ERRATUM

In the article “Committing Seminaries To the Word” by Carl F. H. Henry (Feb. 13) the three lines above the featured quote on p. 8 should read: … earnestness tend to be committed mainly to relativism. Scripture speaks of those who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of truth”.…

Saul Bellow: Higher-Thought Clown

Since his first novel, Dangling Man (1944), Saul Bellow (b. 1915) has written short stories, articles on literature and culture, a novella, several dramas, and four major novels, two of which—Herzog (1964) and Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970)—garnered the National Book Award for fiction.

Mr. Sammler’s Planet was the first work by Bellow to impress me. Here was a superbly narrated story, a modern novel with an old-time hero whose intellectual and spiritual interests revealed an author with deep insight and consummate artistry. So I then went on to read most of Bellow’s earlier major works. Still, for me, Mr. Sammler’s Planet has remained the peak experience.

Bellow’s fifth major novel is now out: Humboldt’s Gift. Again reviewers are commending it, again a Bellow novel is a best-seller, again Bellow is up for the National Book Award.

But what a disappointment! With Humboldt’s Gift Bellow tries to do two things and fails at both. He continues the highly intellectual interior monologue that was the triumph of Mr. Sammler and he reverts back to the comic chicanery of Henderson the Rain King (1959). That is, he tries to combine high seriousness (here associated with the themes of death, intimations of immortality, the clash of world views and moral values) with slapstick comedy. Only occasionally does this combination work.

Here is one place it does. Seeking his origins, as it were, Charlie Citrine, the central figure of the novel, returns to his birthplace in Wisconsin to see the house where he was born. He knocks, gets no answer, and then goes to the back, climbs on a crate, and peers through a bedroom window. The lady of the house is home, however, and suddenly her husband, who runs a nearby filling station, appears behind him. Charlie explains who he is, asks for the neighbors by name, calms the man down, and saves himself a punch in the nose as a Peeping Tom.

Charlie reflects:

I could not say “I am standing on this crate among these lilacs trying to solve the riddle of man, and not to see your wife in her panties.” Which was indeed what I saw. Birth is sorrow (a sorrow that may be cancelled by intercession) but in the room where my birth took place I beheld with sorrow of my own a fat old woman in underpants. With great presence of mind she pretended not to see my face at the screen but slowly left the room and phoned her husband. He ran from the gas pumps and nabbed me, laying oily hands on my exquisite gray suit—I was at the peak of my elegant period. But I was able to explain that I was in Appleton to prepare an article on Harry Houdini … and I experienced a sudden desire to look into the room where I was born.

“So what you got was an eyeful of my Missus.”

He didn’t take this hard. I think he understood. These matters of the spirit are widely and instantly grasped. Except of course by people who are in heavily fortified positions, mental opponents trained to resist what everyone is born knowing [Viking, 1975, pp. 90–91].

Such humor, resulting as it does from the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the sublime, is fine in short pieces, but Bellow tries to sustain this tone throughout nearly five hundred pages. Rather too soon the sublimity begins to blend with the ridiculousness until one can’t tell whether Bellow expects us to ooh and ah or to double over with laughter.

The frustration is that Bellow’s hero knows what the tough and serious questions are: “The death question … [is] the question of questions.” He knows what one should do with these questions: “Either I conceded the finality of death and refused to have any further intimations condemned by childish sentimentality and hankering, or I conducted a proper investigation.” And Charlie Citrine has “incessant hints of immortality,” reminiscent of Mr. Sammler’s “God adumbrations in the many daily forms” or Peter Berger’s “signals of transcendence.”

He knows that these intimations are challenged by the prevailing naturalistic world view:

The existence of a soul is beyond proof under the ruling premises, but people go on behaving as though they had souls, nevertheless … and they have impulses and desires that nothing in this world, none of our present premises, can account for [p. 479].

But a reader can’t take Charlie’s seriousness seriously because he can’t take Charlie seriously. While his metaphysical meanderings are replete with touches from every era of Western philosophy and literature, Charlie himself clowns his way through life. He has had a string of relationships with women, mostly younger (often much younger) than he. When he is still in divorce court he is courting Renata, a well-endowed divorcee who is out for his money. His many friends include Pierre Thaxter, a parasite fellow writer; Rinaldo Cantabile, a would-be Chicago syndicate hoodlum; and George Swiebel, a successful contractor. And Charlie is blown about among them, moving when they push.

Moreover, he is troubled by the legacy left by his friend Von Humboldt Fleisher, a Dylan Thomas-like dissipated poet from whom Charlie has learned the ways of the decadent literary world. What story line there is traces Charlie’s attempt to discover what the legacy is and then to cope with it.

Charlie certainly rejects the prevailing naturalistic world view of contemporary culture. But instead of taking serious things seriously, he pursues truth in the anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner. Intrigued but not satisfied by Steiner, Charlie looks nowhere else—neither back to his own Jewish heritage nor around to the Christian tradition.

In this novel, Saul Bellow, unlike Charlie’s friend Thaxter, shuns the “major statement” he might have made with a work touching on so many significant issues. Instead Bellow lets Charlie Citrine, his “higher-thought clown,” wander ever more deeply into “crank theories” and what Charlie himself sees as “quaint metaphysical opinions.”

Of course, a novel need not make a major statement, but this one plays around the edges of the urge to do so, and that leaves me unsatisfied.

Bellow ends Humboldt’s Gift on a horrible death-resurrection cliche, thumbing his nose at the reader who is looking for any deep penetration of reality. So I end this review on a horrible reviewer’s cliche, waiting with anticipation for the appearance of Bellow’s sixth major novel.

JAMES W. SIRE

James W. Sire is editor of InterVarsity Press and author of the newly released book “The Universe Next Door: A Basic World View Catalog” (IVP).

DOCTRINE Relatively few books of 1975 sought to present systematically one or more of the doctrines revealed by God in Scripture. Systematics by F. Leroy Forlines (Randall House) expounds on God, man, and salvation. The author teaches at Free Will Baptist Bible College. Retired Baptist pastor Herschel Hobbs presents in brief, alphabetical entries A Layman’s Handbook of Christian Doctrine (Broadman), an admirable work. Truths That Transform by noted Presbyterian pastor D. James Kennedy (Revell) focuses on salvation.

Two notable reprints were Fundamentals of the Faith edited by Carl F. H. Henry (Baker), thirteen essays that first appeared in CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the mid-sixties, and The Protestant Faith by George Forell (Fortress), first issued in 1960. In his new preface, Forell, a professor at the University of Iowa School of Religion, tells us, “I have ignored the so-called radical developments in theology since 1960 because they appear to be as evanescent as the pop songs of yesterday.”

Although it properly belongs in the area of biblical theology, handled elsewhere in this issue, Paul: An Outline of His Theology by Herman Ridderbos (Eerdmans) deserves notice here as well. It is an outstanding work. Much more popularly aimed presentations are What Did Jesus Say About That? by Stanley Baldwin (Victor) and Mystery Doctrines of the New Testament by T. Ernest Wilson (Loizeaux).

Three of the twelve essays in The Evangelicals edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge (Abingdon) deal with evangelical theology. Excerpts from the numerous writings of two prominent evangelicals are arranged topically in Blow, Wind of God! Spirited Messages From the Writings of Billy Graham (Baker) and The Meditations of Elton Trueblood (Harper & Row).

A rather large number of books appeared treating the range of Christian doctrine from one or another Roman Catholic perspective. (There is no longer One Catholic stance, if indeed there ever really was.) Encyclopedia of Theology edited by Karl Rahner (Seabury) is a massive reference work for those who do not have access to the six-volume Sacramentum Mundi of which it is an abridgment. An American Catholic Catechism edited by George Dyer (Seabury) and The Catholic Catechism by John Hardon (Doubleday) are major attempts to restate doctrine in the wake of Vatican II. Although not in catechetical format, several books are concerned with explaining Catholic teaching to (probably confused) laymen: Positioning: Belief in the Mid-Seventies by William Bausch (Fies), An Introduction to the Faith of Catholics by Richard Chilson (Paulist), Searching For Sense: The Logic of Catholic Belief by Frank De Siano (Paulist), and Focus on Doctrine by James Gaffney (Paulist).

The widely publicized Common Cathechism edited by Johannes Feiner and Lukas Vischer (Seabury) is a joint Catholic-Protestant effort and covers the whole range of doctrine, including areas of dispute. However, lay persons, to whom it is addressed, will be sorely misled if they think it represents anything close to orthodox Catholic or Protestant doctrine.

SCRIPTURE By far the most noteworthy book in this area is Holy Scripture by G. C. Berkouwer (Eerdmans), the thirteenth volume to appear in his Studies in Dogmatics series. No Final Conflict: The Bible Without Error in all That It Affirms by Francis Schaeffer (InterVarsity) brings together four brief studies of the subject. More Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell (Campus Crusade), a sequel to his bestseller, presents competent evangelical rebuttals to the documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch and form criticism of the Gospels.

A very important kind of study is The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology by David Kelsey (Fortress). Case studies of the way scriptural authority was invoked by seven theologians, including Barth, Bultmann, and Warfield, show that there was no common concept of “Scripture” or of “authority.” More of this kind of inductive study of what is done, not just what is claimed, can be profitably undertaken over a wide range of topics on which Christians disagree. In this same area the widely known religious writer William Barclay asks By What Authority? (Judson).

ANGELS Of the large number of works dealing with holy and wicked spirit beings we mention three: Angels: God’s Secret Agents by Billy Graham (Doubleday), Angels, Elect and Evil by C. Fred Dickason (Moody), and The Real Satan by James Kallas (Augsburg).

CHRIST AND SALVATION Limited atonement—the view that Christ died only for Christians rather than for all—is one of the key distinctives of the Calvinist theology that has long been a major force within evangelicalism and is currently receiving renewed emphasis, especially through conferences and book reprints. In defense of the view that Christ died for all Clark Pinnock has gathered thirteen essays under the title Grace Unlimited (Bethany Fellowship). Some of the contributors part from Calvin chiefly on this point; others disagree on other matters such as the perseverance of the saints. A brief defense of the latter point is Once Saved, Always Saved by Perry Lassiter (Broadman). A major challenge to this doctrine is posed in a comprehensive exegetical study by I. Howard Marshall, Kept By the Power of God: A Study of Perseverance and Falling Away (Bethany Fellowship).

Other books in this area that appeared last year were chiefly popular presentations of common evangelical teaching. Among them are Studies in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ and Regeneration and Conversion, both by W. E. Best (Baker), The Word Made Flesh by John Bisagno (Word), A Day That Changed the World by Gordon Bridger (InterVarsity), Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hell by Harold Bryson (Broadman), Free For the Taking: The Life-changing Power of Grace by Joseph Cooke (Revell), He Has Come! Messages Proclaiming the Birth of Christ edited by W. Glyn Evans (Broadman), The Messianic Hope: A Divine Solution for the Human Problem by Arthur Kac (Baker), I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans), and Jesus: The Man Who Lives by Malcolm Muggeridge (Harper & Row).

More technical and controversial is Sacrifice and the Death of Christ by Frances Young (London: SPCK).

THE HOLY SPIRIT Books on the Spirit pour forth in a seemingly endless stream; they are rivaled in number only by those on the return of Christ. By far the most significant to appear last year is a major work of scholarship, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus andthe First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament by James Dunn (Westminster). Noteworthy popular titles include: Speaking in Tongues: Seven Crucial Questions by Joseph Dillow (Zondervan), The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer by George Duncan (John Knox), Help! I Believe in Tongues by K. Neill Foster (Bethany Fellowship), I Believe in the Holy Spirit by Michael Green (Eerdmans), and Touched by the Spirit by Richard Jensen (Augsburg). I prefer not to say which authors are for “tongues” and which are against; on this kind of controversy among Bible-believers it is best to read books that take a variety of positions.

Two other books not only are on the Spirit but theologize on behalf of the emerging groups within Christianity that lay special claim to charismatic enduement. A New Pentecost? (Seabury) is by Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens, the best-known Catholic charismatic. The Spirit and the World (Hawthorn) is by James W Jones, a charismatic Episcopal minister who teaches in a state university religion department.

THE CHURCH The numerous practical studies of congregations and how to improve them usually have some exegetical basis even though that is not the emphasis. Three that are primarily practical but whose authors seek repeatedly to tie their contents to Scripture are Life in His Body by Gary Inrig (Harold Shaw), The Growing Local Church by Donald MacNair (Baker), and The Problem of Wineskins: Church Structure in a Technological Age by Howard Snyder (InterVarsity). The authors are from three distinct denominational traditions. It might interest the vast majority of our readers who are not in the widely publicized maxi-congregations to know that none of these authors is, either.

THE RETURN OF CHRIST If you want to read only one of the numerous books that appeared last year on the second coming of Christ and related events, make it When Is Jesus Coming Again? (Creation House), which contains six brief essays by writers with differing understandings of the relevant Scriptures, such as Hal Lindsey, Robert Gundry, and J. Barton Payne. As a bonus there is an annotated bibliography of scores of books for those of a mind to read more on the subject. The views represented in the Scofield Reference Bible and The Late Great Planet Earth are conveyed in Jesus the King Is Coming edited by Charles Feinberg (Moody), which contains messages given at a 1973 congress on prophecy, Biography of a Great Planet by Stanley Ellisen (Tyndale), which covers Bible prophecy in general, and Next Year in Jerusalem by Walter Price (Moody), which is not a prediction but a study of the relation of the State of Israel to Messiah’s return.

Views different from the above on such matters as the Church during the Tribulation and the meaning of the Millennium are presented in The Approaching Advent of Christ by Alexander Reese (Kregel), which is a reprint of an often cited 1937 book, The Tribulation People by Arthur Katterjohn (Creation House), The Incredible Cover-Up: The True Story of the Pre-Trib Rapture by Dave MacPherson (Logos), which attempts to refute the view by tracing historical roots rather than countering the exegetical arguments by which the view is defended, What, Where, and When Is the Millennium? by R. Bradley Jones (Baker), and Waiting For His Coming by Lewis Neilson (Mack Publishing).

Meanwhile, a well-known pastor and writer on prophecy, W. A. Criswell, wisely tells us What to Do Until Jesus Comes Back (Broadman).

APOLOGETICS Defenses of more or less traditional Christian doctrine in the face of contemporary (as well as perennial) challenges, aimed at the general reader rather than the theological specialist, include The Battle For Your Faith by Willard Aldrich (Multnomah), God, I Don’t Understand by Kenneth Boa (Victor), Christianity on Trial by Colin Chapman (Tyndale), The Untamed God by George Cornell (Harper & Row), How Can I Find You, God? by Marjorie Holmes (Doubleday), Fallacies of Unbelief by Arlie Hoover (Biblical Research Press), The Law and Essence of Love by Philip Ney (Pioneer Publishing [1900 Richmond Ave., Victoria, B.C., Canada]), The Gospel in a Pagan Society by Kenneth Prior (InterVarsity), and Man in the Maelstrom of Modern Thought by Douglas Vickers (Presbyterian and Reformed). Chapman, a minister in Egypt, and Ney, a psychiatrist, are the most comprehensive. Prior offers very worthwhile reflections on today’s scene in the light of Paul’s address on Mars Hill.

Especially valuable are three serious but not technical defenses of Christianity over against the challenges of modern secularism and ancient, revived paganism. They deal not so much with specific objections to doctrines as with the overall climate. They are The New Demons by Jacques Ellul (Seabury), Picking Up the Pieces by W. Fred Graham (Eerdmans), and Our Savage God: The Perverse Use of Eastern Thought by R. C. Zaehner (Sheed and Ward).

Two notable technical works on the classical arguments for the existence of God in which the arguments emerge somewhat better than has been customary in academia are Experience, Inference and God by John Shepherd (Barnes and Noble) and The CosmologicalArgument by William Rowe (Princeton). Another perennial topic, suffering received treatment also in Suffering by Dorothee Soelle (Fortress) and, with a new twist, God Suffers For Us by Jung Young Lee (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff). A related but popularly oriented book is Why Me? Why Mine? by Paul Andrus (Augsburg).

DENOMINATIONAL CONCERNS One of the hottest religious issues currently, focused in the denominations claiming apostolic succession for their leaders, is the role of women in the ministry. Two books of Episcopal origin but wider interest are The Ordination of Women: Pro and Con edited by Michael Hamilton and Nancy Montgomery (Morehouse-Barlow) and To Be a Priest: Perspectives on Vocation and Ordination edited by Robert Terwilliger and Urban Holmes III (Seabury).

Those interested in Roman Catholicism will welcome Documents of Vatican II edited by Austin Flannery (Eerdmans and four other publishers), which contains not only the sixteen council documents but also some fifty related post-conciliar pronouncements. Christian Truth by John Coventry (Paulist) and Why We Need the Pope by Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Abbey) are brief treatments of authority for Catholics. The Priesthood of Christ and His Ministers by Andre Feuillet (Doubleday) is an exegetical defense of a priestly class distinct from the priesthood of all believers.

The Basic Ideas of Calvinism by H. Henry Meeter (Baker), first issued in 1939, is now back in print. Meanwhile, writing from a different, putatively Reformed stance, John Fry bemoans The Trivilization of the United Presbyterian Church (Harper & Row). Another tradition is reflected upon in Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit by Albert Outler (Tidings).

Concern for Christian unity is evidenced in a treatment of one long-divisive issue, Baptism: A Pastoral Perspective by Eugene Brand (Augsburg), and in a prominent Anglican theologian’s considerable concessions to Rome, Christian Unity and Christian Diversity by John Macquarrie (Westminster).

ETHICS Of widest interest in this category in Living by Grace by William Hordern (Westminster), who contends that Protestants preach justification by grace through faith but in practice they live otherwise. The following books are for those with some knowledge of ethical theory: The Radical Imperative: From Theology to Social Ethics by John C. Bennett (Westminster), Can Ethics Be Christian? by James Gustafson (University of Chicago), Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics by Stanley Hauerwas (Trinity University), Love and Society: Essays in the Ethics of Paul Ramsey, edited by James Johnson and David Smith (Scholars Press), Honest to Man by Margaret Knight (Prometheus), Becoming Human: An Invitation to Christian Ethics by William E. May (Pflaum), and Gift and Call: Towards a Christian Theology of Morality by Enda McDonagh (Abbey).

A collection of essays to honor Henry Stob, longtime professor at Calvin Seminary, includes studies on topics in a variety of areas. Among the fifteen contributions by leading evangelical thinkers to God and the Good edited by Clifton Orlebeke and Lewis Smedes (Eerdmans) are studies of Pauline ethics, natural law, private property, evil, and robots.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY This large area of ethics always brings forth numerous books. Especially noteworthy ones written by evangelicals for general readership are: I Pledge You My Troth: A Christian View of Marriage, Family, Friendship by James Olthuis (Harper & Row), What Is a Family? by Edith Schaeffer (Revell), and The Right To Remarry by Dwight Hervey Small (Revell). All three break ground in reflecting upon the current difficulties in families, and they offer practical suggestions. Olthuis stresses mutual trust, Schaeffer primarily considers parent-child relationships and the joyful effort to make them work, and Small emphasizes the need for reading Scripture in terms of grace as well as law.

Some conservative colleges may wish to adopt the text, Creating a Successful Christian Marriage by Cleveland McDonald (Baker), but indicative of his rigidity is his seeming endorsem*nt of the view that divorce is never permissible.

More than marriage is in view in Paul Jewett’s controversial study, Man as Male and Female (Eerdmans). His arguments are worth considering even by those who cannot accept his conclusions or methodology.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ETHICS Three notable books by evangelicals are Toward a Biblical View of Civil Government by Robert Culver (Moody), which is a major study of all the pertinent biblical teachings and examples; The Unraveling of America by Stephen Monsma (InterVarsity), a professor at Calvin College and member of his state’s legislature; and Vision and Betrayal in America by John B. Anderson (Word), a prominent member of the nation’s legislature. Anderson acknowledges considerable assistance from Paul Henry, a colleague of Monsma’s at Calvin and the author of the 1974 book Politics For Evangelicals (Judson). These non-technical books are much more worth reading than the many pouring off the presses specifically aimed at the Bicentennial market.

A useful selection of writings representing a variety of so-called theologies (hope, revolution, development, liberation, black) concerned with the poor was compiled by Alistair Kee for A Reader in Political Theology (Westminster). For advanced students, specific positions are advocated in books such as Post-Theistic Thinking: The Marxist-Christian Dialogue in Radical Perspective by Thomas Dean (Temple University), which argues that only an atheistic understanding of Christianity can really interact with Marxism. Why Dean wants to call a view that leaves out God “Christian” is perplexing, but the book can be used by theists to show the futility of dialogue with Marxists. Also of interest are The Transfiguration of Politics by Paul Lehmann (Harper & Row), Liberation, Revolution, and Freedom: Theological Perspectives edited by Thomas McFadden (Seabury), and Theology in Red, White, and Black by Benjamin Reist (Westminster), the “red” representing native Americans rather than Marxists.

On the more immediate, less political need for helping the poor, see, among others, Bread For the World by Arthur Simon (Eerdmans or Paulist) and What Do You Say to a Hungry World? by W. Stanley Mooneyham of World Vision (Word).

Although the important book Contours of a Christian Philosophy: An Introduction to Herman Dooyeweerd’s Thought by L. Kalsbeek (Wedge) could be mentioned in a number of categories, Dooyeweerdism is probably having its greatest impact among North American Christians in the area of political and economic philosphy, especially through a number of organizations based in Toronto.

A major aspect of social relations is law, yet surprisingly little has been written from a Christian perspective on legal philosophy or ethics. A brief work that whets the appetite for more is The Law Above the Law by polymath John Warwick Montgomery (Bethany Fellowship). Christian lawyers, let us hear from you!

One has come to expect almost anything from Catholic priests. Polygamy Reconsidered by Eugene Hillman (Orbis) challenges historic Christian teaching especially with reference to African practice. Binding With Briars by Richard Ginder (Prentice-Hall) is by one who claims to be an orthodox Catholic and who edited a major periodical for his fellow priests for twenty-four years. However, on virtually all matters sexual he parts company with biblical teaching as customarily understood.

From another perspective, psychiatrist Charles Socarides, without appealing to dogma, finds much to fault in the current public alteration of longstanding sexual norms in Beyond Sexual Freedom (Quadrangle).

MEDICAL ETHICS This burgeoning field was highlighted by the publication of Bibliography of Bioethics: Volume One edited by LeRoy Walters (Gale Research Co.) with 800 entries for items that first appeared in one year, 1973. Publication is to be annual. Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life: A Philosophical View by Baruch Brody (MIT Press) is probably the most significant recent contribution on that controversial topic. Paul Ramsey examines The Ethics of Fetal Research (Yale) and John Dedek gives a textbook overview of Contemporary Medical Ethics (Sheed and Ward).

WAR AND PEACE The extreme political activity of war always calls forth some books. From last year’s offerings consider War and Christian Ethics, a collection of readings covering the whole period of Christian history and even before, edited by Arthur Holmes (Baker); Perfect Love and War: A Dialogue on Christian Holiness and the Issues of War and Peace edited by Paul Hostetler (Evangel Press) and reflecting the differences on this question within the Holiness family; Peace: On Not Leaving It to the Pacifists edited by Gerald Pedersen (Fortress); and No King But Caesar? A Catholic Lawyer Looks at Christian Violence by William Durland (Herald Press).

BUSINESS ETHICS Recent revelations of wickedness in high corporate places should stir more examinations of this long neglected area. Not only top officials but low-level employees need to grapple with ethical and unethical decision (or their knowledge of them), and preachers and teachers have traditionally given very little help to Christians in business. For a starter see Ethics For Executives by Samuel Southard (Nelson).

CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE Some titles that not only theologians but also lovers of literature should know about are The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story by John Dominic Crossan (Argus), The Drama of Salvation by Rosemary Haughton (Seabury), Narrative Elements and Religious Meaning by Wesley Kort (Fortress), Passion and the Passion: Sex and Religion in Modern Literature by Francis Kunkel (Westminster), Speaking in Parables by Sallie TeSelle (Fortress), and Religion as Story edited by James Wiggins (Harper & Row).

Slightly different is an analysis of the scripts (literature of a sort) of one of the most popular television shows, God, Man, and Archie Bunker by Spencer Marsh (Harper & Row).

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY Nine Christian historians, six of them professors at Calvin College, reflect on the Christian approach to history, both in theory and as it has been practiced, in a major collection of essays, A Christian View of History? edited by George Marsden and Frank Roberts (Eerdmans). Also, Bethany Fellowship has reprinted John Warwick Montgomery’s The Shape of the Past: A Christian Response to Secular Philosophies of History.

CHRISTIANITY AND PSYCHOLOGY The numerous books on practical aspects of psychological counseling at least implicitly deal with the theological issues of the relations and conflicts between the Bible and psychology. Two books by evangelicals that treat the question on a non-specialist level are Faith, Psychology, and Christian Maturity by Millard Sall (Zondervan) and Basic Principles of Biblical Counseling by Lawrence Crabb, Jr. (Zondervan). A different approach is used by Vernon Grant in a work reflecting upon religious issues from the perspective of a psychiatrist, The Roots of Religious Doubt and the Search for Security (Seabury).

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE There is a sustained apologetic literature aimed at showing that prevailing theories regarding evolution do not adequately account for the facts of nature and that the Bible’s explanations, literally interpreted, are preferable. See for example Remember Thy Creator by C. Richard Culp (Baker), The Creation Explanation: A Scientific Alternative to Evolution (Harold Shaw), and The Troubled Waters of Evolution by Henry Morris (Creation-Life). Also, eight technical articles are collected by Donald Patten for A Symposium on Creation, Volume Five (Baker).

MODERN THEOLOGY There is a tendency to confuse the study of theology with the study of theologians and theological schools. God, his nature, his relations with man, and how we find out about him—that is what theology is about. However, an acquaintance with differing theological approaches can sometimes help one wrestling with the questions of theology for oneself.

An introductory overview of a dozen competing theologies (such as neo-orthodoxy, process, and hope) that commendably includes “conservative theology” as one of the live options, something rarely done in such surveys, is The Happy Science by Ralph Chambers (United Church Observer [85 St. Clair Ave. E., Toronto, Ont. M4T 1M8]). The author is a prominent United Church of Canada theologian.

René Marlé briefly surveys a number of contemporary theologies and finds they are too quick to cut off Christianity from its historical roots in Identifying Christianity (Abbey).

A variety of theologians (including Küng, Teilhard, and Moltmann) speak for themselves in a collection of essays edited by Michael Ryan, The Contemporary Explosion of Theology (Scarecrow). Testimonies from a diverse group of religious thinkers (Georgia Harkness, Frederick Sontag, Helmut Thielicke, and others) were gathered by Claude Frazier for What Faith Has Meant to Me (Westminster).

Studies of prominent theologies include A Dissent on Bonhoeffer by David Hopper (Westminster), which claims he has been misunderstood; What Is Process Theology? by Robert Mellert (Paulist), on Whitehead and his influence; and Mounier and Maritain: A French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World by Joseph Amato (University of Alabama).

COLLECTIONS A number of religious thinkers were honored by publishers who thought selections from their previous writings worth compiling. Since we now have Theological Investigations: Volume XIII consisting of articles by Karl Rahner (Seabury), we can be thankful for A Rahner Reader edited by Gerald McCool (Seabury) with topically arranged selections from the multivolume collection and from separately published books as well.

Another leading Catholic theologian, Bernard Lonergan, now has A Second Collection (Westminster).

Other collections are The Restless Quest by Julian Hartt (Pilgrim Press), The Experiment Hope by Jürgen Moltmann (Fortress), Canterbury Pilgrim by Michael Ramsey (Seabury), and Seeking a Faith For a New Age by Henry Nelson Weman (Sacrecrow).

PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY Gone are the days when Protestants or secularists, whether traditional or innovative, could disregard Roman Catholic thought. It now shows considerable unpredictability. For theological libraries and for scholars interested in fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion and theology, the following volumes by Catholic thinkers are worth considering: Exercises in Religious Understanding by David Burrell (Notre Dame), The Winter Name of God by James Carroll (Sheed and Ward), A Processive World View For Pragmatic Christians by Joseph Culliton (Philosophical Library), Beyond the New Theism by Germain Grisez (Notre Dame), Darkness and Light: The Analysis of Doctrinal Statements by Garth Hallett (Paulist), Faith Under Scrutiny by Tibor Horvath (Fides), Understanding Religious Convictions by James McClendon, Jr., and James M. Smith (Notre Dame), The Way of the Word: The Beginning and Establishment of Christian Understanding by John Meagher (Seabury), Man Without Tears: Soundings for a Christian Anthropology by Christopher Mooney (Harper & Row), The Case Against Dogma by Gerald O’Collins (Paulist), Opportunities For Faith: Elements of a Modern Spirituality by Karl Rahner (Seabury), The Mystery of Man: An Anthropologic Study by Owen Sharkey (Franklin), and Blessed Rage For Order: The New Pluralism in Theology by David Tracy (Seabury). Meagher’s book will also be of special interest to New Testament scholars, since he examines the canonical writings to discern the beginnings of theologizing. The books by Grisez, McClendon and Smith, Rahner, and Tracy are also especially noteworthy.

Protestant (to use the word loosely) approaches to philosophical theology from the theological side include: The Foolishness of God by John Austin Baker (John Knox), Christ in a Pluralistic Age by John B. Cobb, Jr. (Westminster), Fantasy and the Human Spirit by John Charles Cooper (Seabury), Ecclesial Man: A Social Phenomenology of Faith and Reality by Edward Farley (Fortress), Mystery and Meaning: Personal Logic and the Language of Religion by Douglas Fox (Westminster), Ascending Flame, Descending Dove: An Essay on Creative Transcendence by Roger Hazelton (Westminster), To Speak of God by Urban Holmes, III (Seabury), The Search For God by Hans Schwarz (Augsburg), and Christ in Context: Divine Purpose and Human Possibility by Eugene TeSelle (Fortress).

From the more philosophical side of the philosophy of religion, the following books are worth noting, some of them by secularists: A Vast Bundle of Opportunities by Kenneth Barnes (Crane, Russak), Reason and Belief by Brand Blanshard (Yale), The Problem of Religious Language by M. J. Charlesworth (Prentice-Hall), The Logic of God: Theology and Verification edited by Malcolm Diamond and Thomas Litzenburg, Jr. (Bobbs-Merrril), Phenomenology and Religion by Henry Dumery (University of California), Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer (Seabury), Legitimation of Belief by Ernest Gellner (Cambridge), Meaning by Michael Polanyi and Harry Prosch (University of Chicago), and Logic and Transcendence by Frithjof Schuon (Harper & Row). Blanshard, Gadamer, Gellner, and Polanyi and Prosch are especially significant for Christian apologetics, both in raising questions and in suggesting, not always intentionally, ways in which the questions can be answered.

By far the most significant book published in the area of New Testament studies during 1975 was the volume marking a fresh start of the long acclaimed International Critical Commentary series: The Epistle to the Romans, Volume One (on chapters 1–8) by C. E. B. Cranfield (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). The very appearance of a new volume in this prestigious series is noteworthy; but when the volume is a replacement of the long standard commentary by Sanday and Headlam, first published in 1895, and is by so distinguished and judicious a commentator as Cranfield, the event is doubly important. It would be difficult to praise this new commentary too highly. To those who know the older series and the work of Sanday and Headlam, it is sufficient to say that it not only updates their work and maintains the high standard of the best of the series but is double the size of the commentary it replaces while being a model of lucid brevity. If you have studied any Greek at all—or if you have a pastor or a friend who has—this is the book to buy. It is pure gold! (For more comments see my lengthy review of this book, scheduled to appear in this periodical soon.)

WORKBOOKS An unusual number of aids to serious Bible study were published last year. Perhaps the most creative and generally useful is Pauline Parallels by Fred O. Francis and J. Paul Sampley (Fortress or Scholars Press), which prints each letter of Paul (excluding the Pastorals) side by side with passages from the other letters that use similar language, images, literary forms, or (occasionally) contrasting ideas. Also included are references to pertinent passages in Acts, the Pastorals, and elsewhere in the Old and the New Testament. Hence the student has at his fingertips a wealth of information that is normally contained only in marginal references in his Bible or in the small print of learned commentaries. This handbook will doubtless be used in many classrooms in colleges and seminaries, but it will also be of use to any serious student of the Pauline corpus. The Horizontal Line Synopsis of the Gospels by Reuben J. Swanson (Western North Carolina Press [Box 29, Dillsboro, N.C. 28725]) offers the traditional gospel parallels in a form that enables the reader to note more quickly and easily the similarities and differences among the four Gospels. The text used is the RSV, as is the case in Pauline Parallels. H. E. D. Sparks’s The Johannine Synopsis of the Gospels (Harper & Row) supplements his earlier Synopsis of the Four Gospels (1964) by following the order of the Fourth Gospel. This second volume should be added to theological libraries but really adds little or nothing to Swanson.

Budding students of New Testament Greek will all rush out and order copies of An Analysis of the Greek New Testament, Volume One: Matthew-Acts by Max Zerwick and Mary Grosvenor (Rome: Pontifical Institute Press), a translation and adaptation in English of a work hitherto available only in Latin. Here the student has the meaning of words, the identification of forms, and brief grammatical comments on the text, as well as references to the standard grammars and commentaries, in the order in which the words and expressions occur in the individual New Testament writings; the student is thereby saved the time of looking up each word in a pocket lexicon or using an analytical lexicon for especially difficult forms. Purists will not approve of an aid such as this, which can, admittedly, become a substitute for necessary hard work in learning a language; but I will certainly recommend it to my students. The new edition of Sakae Kubo’s A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Zondervan), which offers only lexical information following the same general format, is also to be warmly recommended to students, especially those who have learned their paradigms well. Those who have no knowledge of Greek at all will find the Layman’s English-Greek Concordance by James Gall (Baker), a reprint of a work more than a hundred years old, a little easier to use than the similar Englishman’s Greek Concordance. It also contains a basic glossary of Greek terms, but this should be checked with more recent lexicons that incorporate up-to-date findings.

FOUNDATIONS New Testament Foundations: A Guide For Christian Students, Volume One: The Four Gospels by Ralph P. Martin (Eerdmans) is intended as a supplement to the standard introductions to the New Testament by Guthrie and Kummel. With an emphasis upon recent scholarship, it deals with the literary form “gospel” and with trends of current study. It presents historical and literary background of the New Testament period and gives a brief introduction to each Gospel, emphasizing its theology. Already known for two volumes of introduction to the epistles, Mennonite scholar D. Edmond Hiebert now contributes An Introduction to the New Testament, Volume One: The Gospels and Acts (Moody).

Of interest to the more advanced student will be Charles Talbert’s Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the Genre of Luke-Acts (Scholars Press), which traces suggested parallels between and within Luke and Acts, significant theological motifs, possible literary models from the Greco-Roman world, and the like. Not least of the valuable features of this important monograph is the low price, typical of books published by Scholars Press! A work that complements the material contained in Talbert’s work is my own A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Eerdmans). Suffice it to say that the book has been gratifyingly commended by reputable scholars.

A helpful guide to interpretive principles influencing the New Testament authors in their handling of the Old Testament and also Jewish hermeneutics of the same period is Richard Longenecker’s latest work Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Eerdmans). Once again Longenecker shows himself to be the master of his materials and leads the way in making an important evangelical contribution to contemporary biblical scholarship. In Kerygma and Comedy in the New Testament (Fortress), Dan O. Via, Jr., employs the literary category of comedy for interpreting death and resurrection in Paul and Mark’s passion narrative.

JESUS AND THE GOSPELS The book in this general category that will have an appeal to almost everybody is Jesus: The Man Who Lives by Malcolm Muggeridge (Harper & Row), though few if any readers will agree with everything he says. Here is a book, beautifully illustrated from classical Christian art and drawing its inspiration from a wide variety of literary sources, in addition to the Gospels, to wake up sleepy believers and to interest men and women outside the faith. Those who have followed the author’s pilgrimage for some years will be glad to see him clearly within the fold. The Child Jesus by Adey Horton (Dial) gathers paintings on the early years with commentary on the influence of non-canonical sources for Christian beliefs in areas where the Gospels say very little.

Of a very different nature and much more technical, but also bound to have a wide appeal because of its subject matter, is Jesus and the Spirit by James D. G. Dunn (Westminster). The author is a Scottish theologian who has specialized in pneumatology for some years. Dunn’s book should be studied by charismatics, anti-charismatics, and simply unhyphenated Christians alike.

Two other books in this area should be of wide general interest, the first of them more popular and the second decidedly technical: The Difficult Sayings of Jesus by William Neil (Eerdmans) and Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Tradition by Robert Banks (Cambridge). The first is a commentary on some of the more important sayings of our Lord that have been often misunderstood or that seem to be difficult for the ordinary Bible reader to understand; one hopes the author will issue a sequel, since his selection by no means exhausts the list. Banks’s study, originally a Cambridge doctoral dissertation, is a magnificent work dealing with the problem of “law” vs. “freedom,” authority, and structure in the context of our Lord’s teaching. His work will be important for the area of systematic theology as well as for biblical studies.

Parables Told by Jesus (Alba) is a non-technical introduction to the subject by Wilfrid J. Harrington, a Roman Catholic scholar who has the ability to communicate the results of contemporary research in extremely readable language. Of a more academic orientation is The Parables of the Triple Tradition by Charles E. Carlston (Fortress), which deals with representative parables and will be primarily of interest to teachers and more advanced students. The Jesus of the Parables by Charles W. F. Smith (Pilgrim), first issued in 1948, has now been updated and revised.

Three important works on the Gospel of John appeared last year: The Gospel of John and Judaism by C. K. Barrett (Fortress), presenting reflections of the subject subsequent to his well-known commentary published in 1955; D. George Vanderlip, Christianity According to John (Westminster), an exposition of the author’s conception of the major motifs of the evangelist’s message; and J. Painter, John: Witness and Theologian (London: SPCK), a revision of a doctoral dissertation written under Barrett. On Mark, the professor of New Testament at Strasbourg, Etienne Trocme, has written The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark (Westminster), a discussion of the sources that he thinks the author used in writing his Gospel. And on Matthew, there are The Passion Narrative According to Matthew by Donald P. Senior (Gembloux, Belgium: Editions Duculot, for Leuven University Press), a redactional study by an American Catholic scholar, and Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom by Jack Dean Kingsbury (Fortress).

Focusing on the place of the Lord in the Kerygma is Graham N. Stanton’s Jesus of Nazareth in New Testament Preaching (Cambridge), a Society of New Testament Studies monograph by a younger evangelical scholar. Also beginning with the Gospels but moving quickly into the realms of historical and systematic theology—how else could one write more than 500 pages on the subject?—is The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament by John McHugh (Doubleday), a very learned and orthodox Roman Catholic. Reading this book will be an eye-opener for all Protestants and liberal Roman Catholics. In much smaller compass but of major significance is Der Sohn Gottes by Martin Hengel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr), an attempt to show that the title “Son of God” applied to Jesus by Paul had its origin in a Jewish context, not in a pagan-hellenistic one, as some scholars have alleged. Ordinary Christians have always supposed this, but it is nice to hear it from the lips of a famous German scholar! Finally, a work written in honor of Hans Conzelmann of Gottingen, that contains essays in French, English, and German is Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie edited by Gerhard Strecker (J. C. B. Mohr); among others, the essay by E. Earle Ellis, “New Directions in Form Criticism,” which challenges some of the major assumptions of contemporary scholarship, will be of broad general interest. Advanced students will also want to consult Resurrection and the Message of Easter by Xavier Leon-Dufour (Holt, Rinehart and Winston).

PAUL Last year brought a harvest of good books on Pauline theology. One of the finest was the translation of Dutch theologian Hermann Ridderbos’s Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Eerdmans), which is bound to be a standard textbook, in conservative circles at least, for many years to come. Other important contributions to the understanding of Paul’s theology include Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority by John Howard Schutz (Cambridge), who combines New Testament exegesis with modern sociological insights in an attempt to come to grips with the apostle’s understanding of the nature of his own authority in the church as an apostle of Jesus Christ; Paul, Libertine or Legalist? by James Drane (SPCK), a Manchester graduate under F. F. Bruce, who suggests that Paul’s missionary stance led him to vary his approach to ethical and theological problems and that the result is the appearance of inconsistency; and a very welcome reprint of an important but heretofore out-of-print study by R. N. Longenecker, Paul, Apostle of Liberty (Baker). Newness of Life: A Study in the Thought of Paul by Richard E. Howard (Baker or Beacon Hill) is an exposition of Pauline anthropology by a Nazarene scholar.

Faith and Human Reason is the title of an investigation of Paul’s method of preaching as illustrated by the Thessalonian letters and Acts 17:2–4 by Dieter Werner Kemmler (Leiden: E. J. Brill), a young German scholar who presented this creative study as a thesis at Cambridge University under C. F. D. Moule before going out to Africa as a missionary. He points out that Paul in no way depreciated human reason but rather was concerned to anchor the Gospel in the minds of his hearers, and he offers a valuable examination of the key New Testament terms related to reason. His study is important not only for biblical theology but also for systematic theology.

A. van Roon presents a massive defense of The Authenticity of Ephesians (Brill), which will be welcomed by conservative Christians but will also have to be seriously considered by all scholars concerned with the study of Paul. Despite its rather high cost—about $40 for 450 pages—it is a very important book that should be in all institutional libraries. Rather more esoteric is Elaine H. Pagels’s The Gnostic Paul (Fortress), which looks at how key passages of the Pauline corpus were interpreted by the Valentinian Gnostics. Pagels concludes that, contrary to the suggestions of some scholars, Paul neither writes to refute Gnosticism nor adopts Gnostic terminology; rather, the second-century Gnostics adopted his terminology to expound their peculiar doctrines.

Although it is intended as a commentary for laymen, J. C. O’Neill’s decidedly eccentric intepretation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Penguin) will be primarily of interest to scholars—one would expect historians of theological curiosities. O’Neill excises more than 60 per cent of the letter, which he regards as the product of many editorial hands, by what most critics will regard as the most arbitrary methods of textual criticism, and he expounds Paul’s theology in hyper-Pelagian terms. Fortunate for the reputation and usefulness of the Pelican New Testament Commentary, the editor excluded this work from the series.

COMMENTARIES The number of commentaries and guides to the study of individual biblical books appearing on publishers’ lists boggles the mind. Most of these works are disappointingly superficial, offering the Bible student pious thoughts that often have little to do with the text supposedly underlying the comments and that often fail to go beyond what the thoughtful reader could produce for himself, if he had any literary gift at all. There are exceptions. Certainly the most provocative commentary published this past year was J. Massyngberde Ford’s contribution to the Anchor Bible series, Revelation (Doubleday). She argues that the author, or at least the recipient of the revelations, was not John the beloved disciple but rather John the Baptist; hence the book provides a link between the Old and New Testaments. It is not likely that many people will accept the author’s thesis, but the scholarship with which she marshalls her case and the insights she offers into the message of the book should not therefore be ignored. More down to earth is the equally scholarly work by G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Attic), the respected British Baptist leader who now resides in the United States and who has made it his life’s work to study New Testament apocalyptic. Two additional expositions of the Apocalypse that are helpful for the novice are I Saw Heaven Opened: The Message of Revelation by Michael Wilco*ck (InterVarsity) and The Revelation to John by J. W. Roberts (Sweet).

Two important but contrasting commentaries of major proportion are William Hendriksen’s The Gospel of Mark (Baker) and Hans Conzelmann’s First Corinthians (Fortress). Biblical expositors will enthusiastically embrace Hendriksen for giving them just the right balance between technical exegesis and pastoral concern. Although the volume is priced a little higher than earlier volumes in his series, it is still a bargain at $14.95 for 700 pages. Conzelmann’s work, another translation from German for the Hermeneia series, succeeds in turning one of the most exciting letters ever written into a very dull document. I challenge anyone to read, for example, his comments on Paul’s great love chapter (1 Cor. 13) and then tell me he was enlightened.

Homiletically oriented works abound. Among the finest of this genre is the first volume of a projected five-volume commentary on The Gospel of John by James Montgomery Boice (Zondervan), who seems to be walking in the footsteps of Donald Grey Barnhouse in more ways than one. Chapters one through four are covered. The indefatigable D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones continues his exposition of Romans with 450 pages on thirteen verses of the eighth chapter in Romans: The Sons of God (Zondervan) and expounds Ephesians 5:18–6:9 under the title Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home, and Work (Baker). Anyone who has never been exposed to the ministry of this prince of preachers should complete his education by reading one of these books; those who are disciples will already have purchased copies. Among a host of other books in this genre are H. L. Eddleman, An Exegetical and Practical Commentary on Acts (Books of Life [Box 1647, Dallas, Texas 75221]); John F. Walvoord, Matthew: Thy Kingdom Come (Moody); Arnold Bittlinger, Letter of Joy (Bethany Fellowship), on Philippians; Leonard Griffith, Ephesians: A Positive Affirmation (Word); George Allen Turner, The New and Living Way (Bethany Fellowship), on Hebrews; and William Greathouse, Romans (Beacon Hill), in the Beacon Bible Expositions series.

BACKGROUND Two books seeking to introduce students to the literature and history of this era are The History and Literature of the Palestinian Jews From Cyrus to Herod by W. Stewart McCullough (University of Toronto) and Introduction to the Intertestamental Period by Raymond F. Surburg (Concordia). Both cover roughly the same material, though McCullough is heavier on the historical side while Surburg stresses the literature of the period, extending his coverage to writings that are not strictly Palestinian. The format and price make Surburg a more useful student’s text, but McCullough’s book is a little more scholarly and carefully written.

The prolific Judaic scholar and professor at Brown University, Jacob Neusner, produced yet another study that will be of value to all Bible students. His Early Rabbinic Judaism (Brill and Abingdon) brings together a collection of essays published elsewhere (plus a new one on “The Meaning of Oral Torah”) in a form that makes them more readily accessible. The same author’s First Century Judaism in Crisis (Abingdon) is on the foundation of Judaism as we know it today in the wake of the Christian “defection” and the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

A useful technical collection of Post Biblical Jewish Studies by Geza Vermes, well known for his study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was issued by Brill. An extremely helpful work is The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools For Study by Joseph Fitzmyer (Scholars Press).

The other side of New Testament background is the subject of a major reference work, Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Classical World by Michael Avi Yonah and Israel Shatzman (Harper & Row). Some 2,300 entries cover the whole of Greek and Roman culture.

POTPOURRI Very important for the history of exegesis is a book by Horton Harris, a New Zealand evangelical who resides in Cambridge, England, on The Tübingen School (Oxford), that small but extremely influential band of nineteenth-century scholars who gathered around Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) and whose ghosts have continued to haunt contemporary New Testament scholarship. Harris’s work, together with his definitive earlier study of David Friedrich Strauss and His Theology (1973), should be required reading for all theological students and their professors.

The title of Jack T. Sanders’s book, Ethics in the New Testament (Fortress), might lead someone to expect some positive guidance about applying New Testament principles to contemporary personal and social ethical issues, but he would be mistaken. What relevance, in the author’s view, do the ethical teachings of the New Testament have for today? Answer: Not much. The author refers to his conclusions as “overwhelmingly negative,” and I am afraid that this phrase will apply equally to the reaction of the majority of his readers.

A major study of Worship in the Early Church by Fuller Seminary professor Ralph Martin (Eerdmans) is now available in a slightly revised edition.

Jesus und Paulus is a collection of essays written in honor of W. G. Kümmel, the present dean of German New Testament scholars, and is edited by E. Earle Ellis and Erich Grässer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht). Essays in English are by C. K. Barrett (on Mark 11:15–17), F. F. Bruce (Gal. 1:11–2:15), C. E. B. Cranfield (Rom. 9:30–33), N. A. Dahl (Eph. 3:18), M. D. Hooker (Phil. 2:6–11), H. C. Kee (Mark 11–16), B. M. Metzger (the “Nazareth” inscription), and C. F. D. Moule (Mark).

Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults is a four-volume festschrift for Morton Smith of Columbia University, edited by Jacob Neusner (Brill); it contains numerous important essays that shed light—or, in a few cases, cast darkness—on the New Testament. The contributions I found to be the most helpful were Max Wilcox’s on the speeches in Acts, E. E. Ellis’s on Paul and his opponents, and S. E. Johnson’s on early Christianity in Asia Minor. Much lighter weight in every way is a volume in honor of Christopher Evans of London University entitled What About the New Testament?, edited by Morna Hooker and Colin Hickling (SCM). It at least makes plain the fact that old-fashioned liberal theology has not quite died out, though it also contains one very solid essay by an evangelical.

Donald Guthrie provides an account of the New Testament writings from Acts to Revelation in terms that young Christians of high school age and older will appreciate in The Apostles (Zondervan), a sequel to Jesus the Messiah.

Finally, to conclude on a note that touches the crucial issue in the study of the New Testament, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans) is the testimony of an eminent scholar who gives good reasons for continuing to believe in the traditional Christian view of what happened on the third day following the crucifixion of our Lord.

Two books to which special attention should be called both reject many popular notions, in the one case those of scholars and in the other those of the laity. Both are written with some critical presuppositions that conservatives may consider debatable, but neither is dependent for its thesis on such secondary matters.

In Anthropology of the Old Testament (Fortress) Heidelberg scholar Hans W. Wolff has given us the first major treatment of the subject from an Old Testament perspective. Anthropology is one area where there exists, to be perfectly frank, a world of distance between evangelical scholars (who will welcome this volume) and the popularizing practitioners whose seminars and books have created a pop theology cum psychology for the person in the pew. Part I (The Being of Man) defines words like soul, flesh, and spirit, Part II (The Time of Man) discusses the life of man and its cycles, while Part III (The World of Man) sets man in his sociological relationships. This should be required reading for every pastor.

A second volume comes from a young Harvard scholar, Paul D. Hanson, and is entitled The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Fortress). Scholars are used to thinking of apocalyptic as a late, intertestamental movement, sharply divergent in outlook and teaching from the earlier prophetic literature. In a day when contemporary apocalyptic movements are on the rise (by no means limited to Hal Lindsey and Christian apocalyptic), Hanson has taken a fresh look at the roots of Jewish apocalyptic, particularly its views of the end time. His basic conclusion will challenge generations of scholarly output: both prophetic and apocalyptic writings share the essential vision of a restoration of Yahweh’s people in a glorified Zion. The roots of this vision are to be found in the continuity carried through into exile from the pre-exilic prophets and not in some foreign import taken over in the Persian period. Some interesting critical conclusions about Isaiah, together with careful studies of Zechariah 9–14, form the subject matter of this important and challenging study.

HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND ITS NEIGHBORS. The most comprehensive of the new historical studies is Siegfried Herrmann’s A History of Israel (Fortress). Herrmann, a student of Albrecht Alt, builds on the work of both M. Noth and J. Bright but reflects the views of neither. His attitude toward early Israel will appear to many to be skeptical. Though at points Herrmann has given the material a fresh treatment, the book does not command the interest of Bright’s prose, nor do the author’s conclusions command more frequent assent. It is, nevertheless, an able assessment of an old subject, and we welcome its appearance in English.

Sure to be provocative and controversial is the suggested etymology for “Philistine” given by Allen H. Jones in Bronze Age Civilization: The Philistines and the Danites (Public Affairs Press). The author, who teaches English literature, apparently with more than a dash of classics and ancient history thrown in, finds the elusive identification in the Greek phyloi (tribes) and the Ionian hearth goddess Histie. The rest of the book traces the origins of various Sea Peoples, particularly the so-called Danites, through various linguistic, lengendary, and archaeological strata. If Jones turns out to be right, this is probably the most important book of the year, though at present I would like to see far more evidence for the shift from phil– to phyl– in his etymology.

Less speculative but clearly breaking new ground is a dissertation entitled Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.E. by Morton Cogan (Scholars Press). Cogan contends for a new understanding of Assyrian policy regarding the religion of conquered peoples: not unless and until the area was incorporated into the Assyrian empire (as with Northern Israel in 721) was Assyrian religion imposed. Native deities were recognized, with the argument that these gods had abandoned their own peoples. The reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah are then seen again as distinctly religious, the idolatrous propensities of Ahaz and Manasseh are voluntary in nature, and the blame attributed to Manasseh by the book of Kings for the fall of Judah is vindicated.

Samaritans and Jews by the British scholar R. J. Coggins (John Knox) focuses on the origin of the breach between Jews and Samaritans. He argues that neither the traditional view (which traced schism between the two groups back to the eighth century) nor the more recent opinion (which dates the division after the time of Ezra) is correct. Rather, Coggins suggests, the two groups probably grew apart gradually over the years between the third century B.C. and the beginning of the Christian era, with no one event playing a decisive part in the separation. This is a very important book for scholars, though it is written in a fairly non-technical way and can be used with profit by any serious student of the Bible.

An overall view of the various aspects of Israelite life from King Saul to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. is provided by Andre Chouraqui in The People and Faith of the Bible (University of Massachusetts).

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES An important study that goes well beyond the available researches of James Barr without resorting to that scholar’s propensity for rejecting everything in sight is Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Simon J. DeVries (Eerdmans). Words for “day” and “today” and the various expressions pointing to the “day of Yahweh” are examined from a perspective informed not only by word studies (thereby sidestepping Barr’s criticism) but by the full range of investigation into the history of ideas. With the nature of time an important current and biblical theme, DeVries’s contribution should find a wide audience.

Another dissertation that explores philosophical as well as linguistic concepts in the Bible is Mary K. Wakeman’s God’s Battle With the Monster (Brill). Following a comparative survey of Near Eastern myths, Wakeman examines both sea and earth monsters in the Old Testament and the nature of their destruction at the hands of God. Her conclusions affect our understanding of myth and anti-myth as reflected in the Bible, together with our vision of the nature of a victorious God.

Drawing on Ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and mythical materials, Karen R. Joines connects serpents, seraphim, sex, and cult in a fascinating study entitled Serpent Symbolism in the Old Testament (Haddonfield House). Suggestions that the serpent motif loomed much larger in the history of the Southern Kingdom than allowed by our texts are intriguing, but much of the evidence remains somewhat conjectural.

Fatherhood and Motherhood in Israelite and Judean Piety by P. A. H. deBoer (Brill) concludes that God is really more “Eternal Parent” than Father. His evidence is clear enough up to a point; very few biblical scholars would argue with the metaphorical presentation of God in motherly as well as fatherly terms. But deBoer finds mother-goddess mythology in a good many unlikely figures, including Eve (originally a representation of mother earth) and Deborah (a Lady of Battle) as well as in the familiar and forbidden Asherah.

A boon to all future students of Old Testament theology, especially those trying to understand the intricacies of the subject as set forth by W. Eichrodt and G. von Rad, comes in the published dissertation (Oxford) of D. G. Spriggs, Two Old Testament Theologies (SCM). Rather than just a critique of the two, Spriggs’s work is an attempt to determine the real nature of that elusive discipline, Old Testament theology. His conclusion: von Rad is closer to the mark than Eichrodt, whose methodology, Spriggs feels, implies a lack of objectivity. It is, nevertheless, an appreciative statement and should help the ongoing task of the discipline.

An outstanding introduction has been expanded and updated to take into account developments since it was first published in 1972: Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate, revised edition, by Gerhard Hasel (Eerdmans). Also, Baker has reissued John Bright’s valuable book The Authority of the Old Testament in paperback. This is still the best contemporary introduction to the subject.

PENTATEUCH John J. Davis, a professor at Grace Seminary, has added yet another archaeologically based study of biblical history with his Paradise to Prison: Studies in Genesis (Baker). Those who know his other work will expect, and find, copious documentation, continual reference to Ancient Near Eastern backgrounds, and fairly straightforward acceptance of quite traditional conservative viewpoints. His statement that “perhaps the most impressive evidence for the earlier date of the patriarchal period is archaeological” is especially interesting in light of John Van Seters’s latest work, Abraham in History and Tradition (Yale). In more than three hundred pages, the iconoclastic Toronto don concludes that the Abraham story is essentially tradition rather than history. So-called archaeological proofs are his favorite target. Time-honored parallels between the patriarchal period and the second millennium are examined and found wanting, with giants like W. F. Albright, N. Glueck, and E. A. Speiser supposedly falling at every turn. When Van Seters is finished with the archaeologists, he takes on the literary critics, especially those who, following H. Gunkel and M. Noth, argued for a long oral tradition or tradition history. The result: Abraham is largely the product of the Yahwist, a story teller who wrote during, and reflects conditions of, the exilic period (yes, you read that correctly), with the Priestly Document a literary supplement from a later time. An “E” source for the Pentateuch is doubted, and the idea of oral tradition preserving earlier legends is dismissed as unappealing! Although the tendency of most scholars is to put down Van Seters’s arguments as a case of classic overkill (his thesis is so radical that it lacks the “ring of truth”), he is a careful critic and has called into question many of the assumptions so comfortably woven into a book like Davis’s.

A major German work has been translated, Elias Auerbach’s Moses (Wayne State University). The book is something of a curiosity, for the author, an Israeli physician and historian, begins with radical criticism as his touchstone and ends with a Moses as tall and magnificent as any figure created by Cecil B. DeMille. Much that surrounds the figure of the great lawgiver falls to the critic’s sword; Moses himself not only survives but becomes “one of the greatest geniuses to whom the world has given birth.” More popular and lavishly illustrated works are Moses, the Lawgiver by Thomas Keneally (Harper & Row), based on the six-part CBS television series, and Moses: The Man and His Vision by David Daiches (Praeger).

Three other books in this area are worthy of mention. Deuteronomy by J. A. Thompson (InterVarsity) is a welcome addition to the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series, a major project of evangelical scholarship. Genesis by W. Gunther Platt (Union of American Hebrew Congregations) is the first volume of a series on the Pentateuch entitled The Torah: A Modern Commentary. The liberal views of Reform Judaism are expressed. The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions by Walter Breuggemann and Hans Walter Wolff (John Knox) contains essays on the Pentateuch that combine common critical views with a profession of submission to the Word of God.

HISTORICAL BOOKS Certainly the most polished offering in this category is Edward E Campbell’s Ruth (Doubleday) in the Anchor Bible series. Campbell writes with grace and humor (even refusing to his advisors the usual exoneration from responsibility for errors—“they should have corrected me!”), a fact that does nothing to obscure and much to illuminate the message of Ruth. The book is seen as a historical novelette, composed with great skill and developing a theology of God as the omnipresent moving force in history. As is customary with the later volumes in this series, a full archaeological and philological commentary accompanies the text.

A work of equally careful research, but without any of the style of Campbell’s treatise, is Distressing Days of the Judges (Zondervan) by Leon Wood. He is a capable scholar, and predictably conservative in all his conclusions. In this volume he has given us a wealth of supporting data to illuminate the period in question: it is to be regretted that the work does not capture the spirit of the age as well as it transmits the details. A small book, completely lacking the scholarly apparatus given by Wood but strong in the areas where he is weak, is John Hunter’s Judges and a Permissive Society (Zondervan). Hunter, an English educator, presents a series of sermons on the theme of permissiveness (bad) and discipline (good), based on the stories in the book of Judges.

Francis A. Schaeffer continues to direct his attention toward more biblical exposition with Joshua and the Flow of History (InterVarsity). No attempt is made to fill in exegetical details, and the result is a kind of running expositional comment on the text, rising occasionally to the heights of keen insight for which the author is justly famous in his more philosophical work. In Elijah Speaks Today (Abingdon) G. Gerald Harrop thoughtfully and sometimes provokingly sets the Elijah stories (in some of which he sees little historical value) into a variety of contemporary preaching situations. And to round out the fare, we have a volume from Clayton Publishing House, the publishing arm of the “exiled” Missouri Synod Lutherans. Walter Wifall’s The Court History of Israel is a short commentary on the books of Kings, showing some good philological and archaeological insights but really too brief to capture the theology that the author wanted to convey.

PROPHETIC BOOKS No major commentaries appeared in 1975, but several important studies, at least one of which is primarily for the lay reader, are on the list. Jeremiah: Spokesman Out of Time (Pilgrim) is the product of William L. Holladay’s rich repository of original and scholarly study. Building on the idea of Jeremiah as a second Moses and dating the prophet to the days of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 1:2 gives the date of the prophet’s birth, not coll!), Holladay carries the reader back into Jeremiah’s time and the prophet forward into our day with a facility that many a technical scholar will envy.

Four books for scholars follow. The Norwegian scholar A. S. Kapelrud, in a study entitled The Message of the Prophet Zephaniah (Oslo: University Press), examines the man and his message. Zephaniah is seen as colored in his preaching by cultic terminology (the terms and their transmission are examined in detail) but not himself a cultic prophet. The section on message and themes is outstanding, capturing the tones of that gloomy yet hopeful figure with sensitivity and care. Ezekiel Among the Prophets (SCM), an important background on a suggestion of W. Zimmerli that there are similarities between Ezekiel and the pre-classical prophets Elijah and Elisha. Equally stimulating but of more specialized interest is the 1973 dissertation of Jack R. Lundbom entitled Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric (Scholars Press). Under the inspiration of Professor Holladay and the late James Muilenburg, Lundbom turned from consideration of the style and content to the rhetorical structure of the prophet. His finding that two devices (inclusio and chiasmus) control the poetry is carefully documented. Prophecy and Tradition by R. E. Clements (John Knox) briefly examines the relationships between the prophets and other aspects of Israel’s religious heritage.

More popular expositions, often in small paperback form, continue to appear. With the completion of his study of Hosea, Prophet of a Broken Home (Eastbourne, Sussex: The Prophetic Witness), British businessman-turned-lecturer Frederick A. Tatford rounds out his slender twelve-volume series on the Minor Prophets. The author is well informed and writes with clarity and insight, relating the prophets to contemporary concerns without losing the original life-setting. Hosea and His Message by Roy L. Honeycutt (Broadman) and Hosea: Prophet of God’s Love by T. Miles Bennett (Baker) represent the work of Southern Baptist scholars and are written as simple study aids. From InterVarsity comes Jeremiah, Meet the 20th Century, a study guide written by James W. Sire, the editor of that press.

WISDOM AND POETRY No major works in this field were published in 1975, though several interesting and helpful small volumes appeared. Psalms 73–150 by Derek Kidner (InterVarsity) completes the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary on Psalms, begun in 1974. This is a good place to begin your library on Psalms. Also published in 1975 was Psalms, by Robert Alden, the first of a three-volume commentary in the more popular-level Everyman’s Bible Commentary (Moody). In treating the first fifty psalms, Alden concentrates on themes, structure, and simple explanations of linguistic anomalies. Similarly devoid of critical concerns is Erik Routley’s Exploring the Psalms (Westminster), a slender paperback capturing the teaching of various psalms under the headings suffering, victory, covenant, praise, pilgrimage, royalty, nature, wisdom, and so forth. While none of these three books is a true technical commentary, each one demonstrates its author’s ability with his sources and translates the material into a form that will be of service to many.

A sensitively illustrated volume on the Song of Solomon by artist Dhimitri Zonia, Arise My Love (Concordia), celebrates the tenderness and mystery of courtship and love. With the drawings is printed the text of the King James Version in a volume that immediately suggests itself as an appropriate Valentine’s Day gift (for those among us who honor such mundane customs). Two similar books, but without illustrations, are Song of Love by Mike Gemme (Victor), a loose, contemporary paraphrase, and Lessons For Lovers in the Song of Solomon by Bob Dryburgh (Keats), a commentary.

The great profusion of literature on wisdom seems to have abated. A single offering entitled Israel’s Wisdom: Learn and Live by L. D. Johnson (Broadman) is a laymen’s introduction Although simple in format, this little book is full of useful reliable information and is recommended for study groups of beginning students.

TEXT AND LANGUAGE Leading the way in this category is a massive study by the late Israeli scholar E. Y. Kutscher entitled The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (Brill). In a volume marked by a lifetime of scholarship, as well as a lordly price, Kutscher concludes that the Qumran scroll (I Q Isaa) reflects a later textual type than the thousand-year-younger Massoretic Text (MT) and is, in fact, descended from a text “identical (or at least very similar) to that of the Massoretic Text,” while the converse is improbable. In a day when popular theories about the Scrolls still tend toward the spectacular, this kind of solid study needs all the more to be done.

Another fine textual study is The Greek Chronicles by London Bible College professor Leslie C. Allen (two volumes, Brill). Volume One explains the methodology used, while Volume Two presents the results of a comparison between the various Septuagint manuscripts and the Massoretic Text, concluding that corrections need to be made from both sides.

Bringing new linguistic theory of deep and surface grammar to the subject of Hebrew, Francis Y. Andersen’s The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew (The Hague: Mouton) will appeal to a limited audience despite the ground-breaking technique employed. More traditional is the second volume of a classic joint dissertation by Frank M. Cross and D. Noel Freedman entitled Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Scholars Press). These studies have deeply influenced scholarly opinion regarding the dating and character of passages like Exodus 15; Genesis 49, and Deuteronomy 33, and the appearance of the completed edition is welcome.

A couple of additional tools for learning Hebrew come in the reissue of the small paperback Hebrew-English Lexicon (Shocken) for students. A beginner’s manual, Biblical Hebrew by H. E. Finley and C. D. Isbell (Beacon Hill), adds yet another to a growing list of introductory grammars.

INTRODUCTION In the tradition of German scholarship associated with names like M. Noth, A. Weiser, and O. Eissfeldt comes a somewhat more elementary volume by Otto Kaiser, Introduction to the Old Testament (Augsburg). The book is designed for “students, teachers and ministers,” for all of whom it is a most readable compilation. Kaiser has some questions about certain standard reconstructions of Israel’s history and religion, and he feels that traditio-historical research needs again to be balanced by literary criticism, but other than that there is no great new ground broken. For the student wanting a contemporary German critical viewpoint but a bit afraid of Eissfeldt’s bulk, this is the book to consult.

Beginnings in the Old Testament (Moody) by Howard E Vos is a kind of narrative introduction to the material of the Bible, with some study questions for use at the end of each chapter. Much more a teachers’ manual, and designed for the public-school classroom, is Teaching the Old Testament in English Classes edited by James S. Ackerman et al (Indiana University English Curriculum Study Series). Intended to be a complete guide, this book gives a fairly standard critical reconstruction of historical and literary considerations, to which are added questions for class discussion, a bibliography for school library acquisition (a real attempt has been made to include conservative works), and a section on backgrounds. Inasmuch as the literature in this field is growing rapidly, teachers and interested parents should conduct a rather careful study when school boards are considering selection.

MISCELLANEOUS The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible comes closer to completion with the appearance of six volumes: The Book of Judges by James D. Martin, The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Lamentations: The Five Scrolls by Wesley Fuerst, The Book of Job by Norman Habel, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 by A. S. Herbert, The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 26–52 by Ernest Nicholson, and The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah by John D. W. Watts.

A remarkable series began to appear with the publication in book form by Zondervan of the first three of ten volumes of The Doorway Papers by Arthur C. Custance. The papers were first published separately over many years, and now several are brought together in each volume. Noah’s Three Sons has parts dealing with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the names in Genesis 10, the curse of Canaan, and a summary chapter developing a “Christian” view of history. No reader will question the inventive and stimulating nature of the author’s thought, but some of his conclusions seem so speculative as to be incredible. All world history is to be understood by examining the different contributions of the three distinct (culturally and racially as well as linguistically) groups emanating from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The Hamites (and their Canaanite descendants) were black, but also red, yellow, and brown. And it is from these Hamitic people that “almost everything basic to World Civilization” comes, including Eskimo igloos, Amazon enema syringes, Sumerian (they were black too) drinking straws, Chinese rockets, and Minoan indoor plumbing! Genesis and Early Man reconsiders primarily matters of physical anthropology with a liberal dose of cultural consideration as well. Custance, whose Ph.D. is in anthropology, ranges widely through a dozen different fields (including biblical studies, Semitic philology, and geology) with a sweep reminiscent of Immanuel Velikovsky. But it is difficult, despite the wealth of material presented, to escape the feeling that we are being led down a garden path to a never-never land where things are as we wish they were rather than as they are. Man in Adam and in Christ includes papers on “image” and “likeness” as used in Genesis 1:26, the subconscious and forgiveness of sins, the difference between “sin” and “sins,” and the two species of hom*o sapiens.

It is fitting that this survey be drawn to a close with reference to two books honoring one of the greatest Old Testament scholars. William Foxwell Albright, A Twentieth-Century Genius (Two Continents) is an appreciative tribute to the late dean of American biblical archaeologists, largely from the pen of his former assistant and pupil Leona Glidden Running. Great biography in the tradition of James Boswell it is not, being rather a kind of running commentary on Albright’s life. But for those whose earliest memories of Old Testament studies were tied up with every move and pronouncement of the great Hopkins scholar, the commentary supplied by Running (and supplemented by Noel Freedman) will evoke a good bit of nostalgia. Unity and Diversity edited by Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts (Johns Hopkins) contains eleven papers presented at a symposium in Albright’s honor. The papers, many of them by Albright’s students, testify to his ability to stimulate others to inquiry into and synthesis of data from the ancient Near East.