Page 5685 – Christianity Today (2024)

A friend in Philadelphia sent me a clipping from The Evening Bulletin of July 2. The clip announced a new book by seven prominent British Protestant theologians, The Myth of God Incarnate, edited by John Hick, professor of theology at Birmingham University. The review said that “the book discusses the related Christian tradition that Christ was also the son of God and concludes these early references were ‘essentially poetic language’.… There is nothing new about the central themes of this book. The history of Christianity includes various theological developments. The development is continuing. That the historical Jesus did not present himself as God incarnate is accepted by all.… Christian laymen today are not fully aware of it.” Hick said the book aimed “to enable [Christians] to maintain their faith in the light of modern scientific and philosophical developments.”

We could quote many such statements about Genesis. The myth story of creation is often referred to. Many people who have gone to Sunday School and church all their lives have never known that an intelligent person could believe that the early chapters of the Bible were history. I remember well the shocked outcry of a girl who heard that we believed Genesis to be fact. She had never been told that the Bible was God’s revealed truth to man rather than man’s search for God.

As a matter of fact, this is just where Fran and I met—in the midst of a similar conversation in 1932 at a Christian endeavor meeting in a Presbyterian church. The leader for the evening had joined the Unitarian Church but had come back to be on the program. His topic was “How I know the Bible is not the Word of God, and How I know Jesus is Not the Son of God.” Fran had just come back from his first year at college; I had just recently come to Germantown from Canada. We did not know each other. At opposite ends of the room two people jumped to their feet after the leader finished. Both started to speak at once. I was so astonished that there was anyone who believed anything, and who cared enough to speak about it, that I sat down and whispered to the girl next to me, “Who is that? I didn’t know there was anyone in this church who believed in the Bible.” The same thing happened when Fran heard my attempt to defend the Bible. His whispered request to find out who “that girl” was ended in an introduction. That night, as he drove me home for the first time in his model A Ford, we talked about the truth of Scripture.

So it is an old discussion. Why the shock now? Because of the unsuspecting layman. He does not know that he is being robbed. The Myth of God Incarnate denies that Jesus is truly God, the Second Person of the Trinity.

In Ephesians Paul writes, “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words: Whereby, when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) … Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:3–9). Put this with John 1:1–5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” In verse 10 John said, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” And Hebrews 1:1, 2, says, “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and by whom also he made the worlds.” The Creator and the Incarnate God are the same person.

The path from myth to myth is a natural one, since the creation is central in Genesis, John, and Hebrews. It tells us who God is and who the Son of God is. He was there in the beginning, before all else, and he made all that was made. Simple. Complete. He answers the tiny child’s first question about all that is around him, and the agonizing questions of the adult. The Creator. The first and the last. The beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega. The doctrines of creation and of the Trinity are inseparable. Paul warns believers of “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel for Satan himself transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed into the ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13–15). Paul started the chapter by reminding the Christians that there is danger of Satan corrupting their minds even as he beguiled Eve through his subtility. The clipping from Philadelphia arrived on our forty-second wedding anniversary. It seemed appropriate to look back over the myths of the myths and say, “This is where we came in.” We stand up once more to say that the Bible is true.

When Alexander Calder died last November at the age of seventy-eight, he had reached the peak of his career: he was still productive as an artist, a major American museum was holding a large exhibition of his work, and he was one of the most respected and loved of American sculptors. New York’s Whitney Museum, where fifty years of his work was being shown, flew its flag at half mast to honor this most unique man. I remember my own first discovery of his uniqueness through his work while visiting New York City.

On a suffocatingly hot day in Manhattan from seven floors up, I watched a downy soft seed gracefully drift through the canyons of soot-blackened brick buildings.

Later in the cool of early evening on the banks of the East River, I watched another seed drop onto the water and move with wind and current. Unlike the first seed that one seemed determined to find fertile ground. It seemed to have destiny.

The next morning I saw my first Calder mobile. His sculpture had the same spirit as that seed. The same delicacy of a point in space, responding to the elevator effects of updrafts, moving continuously, even tenaciously, was in Calder’s mobile sculpture.

In a memorial tribute to Calder Time magazine called him “the man who taught sculpture to move.” To me, he freed the sculptor from earthbound weight and stasis, much as Jackson Pollock freed painters from the brush and easel. Calder gave sculptors the chance to find their subjects in movement and space, and he brought the world of bright primary colors to sculpture through line and shape. His forms lacked the mass of traditional sculpture, but they gained breadth and scope by his use of space.

A tinkerer by nature, the bear-like man disdained power tools. He preferred to snip metal with shears and twist wire with pliers. He scorned critics who found symbolism in his sculpture. Calder was more involved with whimsy than sociological comment or religious expression. Yet, I think there was a deep satisfaction in the man, a oneness with his creator, that permitted him to play in the garden and deny the finality of death. He had a childlike freshness tempered with a satiric view of life.

Calder was the third generation of sculptors, but he departed from the academic style of his father and grandfather. He studied engineering before he went to art school, and when he did study art, his interest was in movement, action, and energy rather than appearance. The zoo, where he sketched, became his laboratory. These early studies later became his miniature circus.

Selden Rodman in his book Conversations With Artists recalls Calder saying that a vision of the celestial universe had started him off. Calder also said that “The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.”

A commentator said that Calder’s “genius seems to be, in part at least, that everything he attempts starts fresh, with the happy anticipation of a stimulating experiment brought to a successful conclusion.” His wife said that his work was his religion, that he tried to express in his mobiles the joy of living.

Calder uses the space and wind to create the movement of his mobiles. The movement of the wind calls up age-old references to God: the relationship of the breath God gave to Adam, the movement of the wind across the waters, and the rushing sound of the Spirit of God. Once assembled and turned loose in space, Calder’s creation is embraced by the élan of God but it is possible he achieved something beyond his intention, which happens with all artists.

Recently I stood motionless in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and watched a large white Calder mobile move softly above my head against the white space of the ceiling of the room: white shapes against white space responding to only the invisible stir of the indoors air. Set in motion by voices, by the movement of people, or by air conditioning, the mobile responds to the environment. It never rests. It continually changes, hypnotically reminding us that all things change.

A mobile’s continual movement brings stillness. Out of Calder’s rejection of weight and the static tradition of sculpture, a paradoxical solidity is formed. Just as seeds scattered in the wind find root, so do Calder’s delicate creations. His sculpture reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the sower.

Calder insisted that in abstract art the spectator had to bring more than half of the emotion to the work. Unlike representational art you aren’t locked in to a single meaning. Some people would find a treasure, others would not. Some seed would fall on stony ground, some among the thorns, some on good ground. Although Sandy Calder is dead his works continue to oscillate in the wind of God.

Bill Bristow is a painter and associate professor of art at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Anyone glancing at a list of the works of the now phenomenally popular J. R. R. Tolkien would think him a man of great energy and efficiency. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings alone run to several thousand words. Then he wrote several books of shorter tales, among them Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and Smith of Wootton Major. Add to that his significant contributions to the study of medieval literature, primarily his edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and his seminal essay “Beowulf and the Critics.” For more than thirty years he taught medieval languages and literature at Oxford, which only requires its professors to give thirty-six lectures a year. One year Tolkien gave 136 lectures, and over a ten-year period he averaged seventy-two a year. He kept up a full load of individual tutorials. And he also succeeded in reforming the syllabus of the English department at Oxford—a triumph of patience and politics.

Yet paradoxically Tolkien’s colleagues found him dilatory in scholarly productivity. And his friends, the best known being C. S. Lewis, thought him a procrastinator. At his death in 1973 Tolkien left a vast amount of unpublished material, among which was The Silmarillion, a mammoth work begun long before The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Well, that’s not quite accurate, as Humphrey Carpenter explains in the new and authorized biography, Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, $10). Tolkien had finished too many versions of The Silmarillion and did not know which one to publish.

The Oxford scholar had an obsession to revise and rewrite; nothing was ever quite perfect. And as a result he could never meet deadlines. Publishers and friends nudged, prodded, begged, and pushed him to work consistently and efficiently. They knew he was a man of immense imagination and intellect, but with higgledy-piggledy work habits. With a more singleminded attitude he might have published much more and become one of this century’s most prolific fiction writers. Without the needling of C. S. Lewis Tolkien might never have finished The Hobbit. Fortunately Christopher Tolkien does not share his father’s weakness. Thanks to his efforts we already have The Father Christmas Letters and Tolkien’s final translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo, all in one volume. His edited version of The Silmarillion is scheduled for American publication this fall (all from Houghton Mifflin).

Carpenter’s felicitously written biography reveals a brilliant though sometimes petty and jealous man. He was disciplined in his practice of Christianity and rigidly kept accounts of household expenses, even down to razor blades and postage stamps. Yet unable to keep his mind on a project until completion he resented Lewis’s ability to write quickly with few revisions needed. Lewis, for example, wrote and published his seven books for children, the Narnia series, in half the time it took Tolkien to plan and write The Lord of the Rings.

Carpenter is a model for other aspiring biographers. Tolkien’s personality, not Carpenter’s, dominates the book. In allowing Tolkien to, in a sense, tell his own story the reader is not only entertained and informed but admonished. Tolkien subtly reminds us that to whom much is given, much is required.

Kenneth Kantzer: A Biographical Sketch

In our last issue (August 26, p. 24) we announced that the Board of Directors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY has elected Kenneth Kantzer to be its next editor. He is to assume full editorial responsibility on the first of March. Our present editor Harold Lindsell, who has served in the position since 1968, will be retiring.

Like his two predecessors, Lindsell and the first editor Carl F. H. Henry, Kantzer comes to the post from a career in theological education. He has been a top administrator at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School since 1963. During that time the seminary, which is located near Deerfield, a northern suburb of Chicago, has grown from a student body of thirty-one to more than 700. In addition to serving as dean and vice-president of graduate studies he is also professor of biblical and systematic theology.

Prior to serving at Trinity Kantzer taught Bible at Wheaton College in another Chicago suburb for seventeen years. The sixty-year old theologian is a minister in the Evangelical Free Church, which has roots in Scandinavian pietism and is the denomination that operates Trinity. Before going to Wheaton College in 1946, Kantzer taught briefly at The King’s College and at Gordon College and Divinity School on the East Coast. He also served as a pastor while at Gordon.

Kantzer is a member of the American Theological Society, the American Academy of Religion, and the Evangelical Theological Society. He has been president of the latter and also served for many years as the book review editor of its journal.

Actively involved with promoting Christianity globally, Kantzer currently serves on the boards of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, and the Institute for Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem.

Published writings by the editor-elect include many articles in various periodicals and essays in several books. Of particular interest is the thirty-page chapter, “Unity and Diversity in Evangelical Faith,” in The Evangelicals edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge and recently reprinted by Baker Book House. He also has essays in Religions in a Changing World, Inspiration and Interpretation, The Word for This Century, and Jesus of Nazareth: Savior and Lord. He is the editor of a forthcoming volume, Evangelical Roots, to be published by Thomas Nelson as a tribute to the late Wilbur M. Smith. Smith was a colleague of Henry’s and Lindsell’s at Fuller Seminary before moving to Trinity where he served with Kantzer.

Kantzer earned a bachelor’s degree at Ashland College, in Ohio, the school of the Brethren Church, a small denomination with German pietist roots and Arminian leanings. His theological degrees are from Faith Theological Seminary, a Calvinist school that has close ties with the Bible Presbyterian Church. He has a master’s degree from Ohio State and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He engaged in post-doctoral studies at Göttingen and Basel universities in Europe.

The directors and staff of CHRISTIANITY TODAY look forward to Kenneth Kantzer’s coming. We are confident that our readers will appreciate him, too. As he said in his acceptance statement he comes “with a deep sense of dependence upon God and upon the prayers of God’s people.”

A Time Apart

Most Christians are either too busy or too unconcerned to care much about the solitary life. But the follower of Jesus must temporarily withdraw from the frenetic tempo of the world to pursue holiness. Everybody needs a change of pace. Even the deepest devotion of the Christian to the work of God must include time for solitude, time for refreshment of spirit, and time to regain spiritual vitality.

The Scripture speaks of Jesus’ attitude toward the busy life and his own need for a recess from the heavy demands on his time and energy: “He went up into a mountain apart to pray” (Matt. 14:23). The word “apart” indicates his need to get away from it all and to commune in secret with his Father. He was not deserting the battle nor was he lazy. He knew that what he was doing was an essential component of the normal Christian life. If he did it, and if he needed it, we need it too.

Some thoughts of Thomas Á Kempis in The Imitation of Christ are apt:

“Seek a convenient time to retire unto thy self, and mediate often upon God’s lovingkindness.

“Meddle not with curiosities; but read such things as may rather yield compunction to thy heart, than occupation to thy head.

“If thou wilt withdraw thyself from speaking vainly, and from gadding idly, and also from hearkening after novelties and rumours, thou shalt find leisure enough and suitable for meditation on good things.

“The greatest Saints avoided the society of men, when they could conveniently, and did rather choose to live to God, in secret.”

Those who go away, return to find they can think clearer, work better, see plainer, and live for God more nobly. Why not try it?

As we expected, the Minister’s Workshop article by J. Grant Swank, Jr., provocatively entitled “Counseling Is a Waste of Time” (July 29 issue) evoked considerable response. Here are excerpts from some of the letters. We knew that many of our readers have had more positive experience in this area than Swank. It is noteworthy that some fault Swank for being too “directive” in his understanding of counseling while others charge him with not being “directive” enough.

The problem is that the kind of pastoral counseling we are doing does not produce fruit. The key in his article was the word “traditional.” May I suggest to Swank and others that they try directive biblical counseling. We use it on a daily basis and have seen many cures effected.

EDWARD E. GREY, SR.

Director of Counseling

Christian Broadcasting Network

Atlanta, Ga.

Our culture teaches us that in order to be successful in any pursuit, a person must learn the proper role. The successful helping relationship is characterized by the absence of role. For one who has not experienced this, it is well nigh impossible to imagine it. Emphasis on techniques and acting in the role of “pastoral counselor” work to destroy a helping relationship rather than facilitating it.

It is my opinion that “traditional pastoral counseling” is, in great part, an exercise in avoiding the deep, time-consuming human interactions, wherein people’s lives are changed—both pastor’s and parishioner’s.

ROGER SWANGO

Clinical Psychologist

Coldwater State Home

Coldwater, Mich.

During the first five years of my practice I would have eagerly echoed Swank’s comments. I grew weary of placing band-aids over wounds that could never heal unless radical surgery was performed. I was then confronted with the relevance and applicability of God’s Word to man’s problems … So, no longer do I perform counseling, but biblical counseling, participating with God in surgery.…

The Holy Spirit, as Paraclete, is the counselor; it is not my duty to produce insight, change, success, but the Holy Spirit’s. It is my duty under his leadership to direct people to God’s solutions, but the Holy Spirit must bring the truths to the person’s heart, just as in salvation.…

Counseling is not just talking or listening; it is the directing of persons to biblical solutions to their problems under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It is not idle talk, but purposeful, directive, pointed, loving confrontation from God’s Word as to our errors and biblically-based steps to correction.…

I don’t have to wrestle with another’s will; that’s the Holy Spirit’s job. I must simply and appropriately direct a person into biblical truth. Yes, it may be unrewarded effort, but I’m not to work based on reward, but on my love for the Lord and a willingness to fulfill his calling for my life.

DANIEL F. MAYER

Marriage and Family Counselor

Winston-Salem, N.C.

As pastors and preachers, we are expected to express the Word of God forcefully and convincingly, as the Scripture says, “to exhort and to teach.” All too often though, I am afraid that we transfer the same authoritarian concept from preaching into counseling. Swank seems to have the idea that pastoral counseling is giving advice. Only the most superficial pastoral counseling is advice giving, and any counselor who gives advice knows from the beginning the risk he runs that his ideas may be rejected.

Perhaps the most important rule of pastoral counseling is don’t give advice. If a person, on the basis of compassion or caring, thinks that giving advice is helping someone out of the morass of his troubles, he quickly learns that true help in counseling is to allow the counselee to come to an understanding of his needs and his ideas about those needs which in process brings him to decision.…

Any counseling relationship, no matter how superficial, can be structured by the counselor and if the counselor does not structure the relationship, the counselee will. It is essential for any healthy counseling process that the pastor be in control.… Too often the pastor does not delineate between his pastoral caring and his pastoral counseling responsibilities. Although it is appropriate to have a rather unstructured pastoral care situation, it is not appropriate to have an unstructured counseling relationship.

DONALD K. NORRIS

Jackson Ave. Evangelical Congregation

New Orleans, La.

Swank correctly points out some of the difficulties of pastoral counseling, but he does not seem to understand that those who need emotional help the most are often completely unable to act like a strong, stable individual, which is what the advice giver asks him to do. Counseling for the emotionally weak or unstable person must help him to make his own decisions (give himself advice), and then provide the necessary support so he can follow through. Giving advice usually results in a greater burden of guilt and despair for the person who is unable to act in the prescribed manner.

DORANCE D. CALHOUN

Brethren in Christ Church

Morrison, Ill.

Christian pastoral counseling is helping persons get a perspective on their problems, sort out their options, find the resources to meet their needs, and then decide what they are going to do about them. For me to tell them what to do makes me responsible for their action. For me to help them find what to do under God places the responsibility for their life’s decisions on them. They will then carry out what they choose to do. My primary task as counselor is to help them to see what the consequences of each of the options open to them are.

I, too, have spent hours helping persons struggle through the thorny problems of their lives. I have seen some count the cost of change and like the rich young ruler go away disappointed. But those who have struggled through to make significant commitments to solving their problems have been very much worth the time and effort I have put in.

JIMMY JOSEPH

Baptist Campus Minister

Middle Tennessee State University

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus through all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:14–21).

This is one of the noblest of apostolic prayers. Though offered in behalf of the Ephesian believers, to whom this letter was written, its petitions are timeless. “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul begins, reminding us that our prayers are to be addressed to God the Father. This we are to do in accordance with our Lord’s own words: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy might be full” (John 16:23, 24). Christ is the mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5), and, as Paul says in the preceding chapter of this letter, it is “through him [that] we … have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:18).

Do we know God as our loving heavenly Father? The question is not whether we believe in God with our minds—that is something different—but whether we know him well enough to pray to him as Paul did. There is only one way to be on the close terms with God that enable us to go to him as our Father, and that is through obedient faith in his Son, our Lord and Saviour.

Aside from an incidental use in the first sentence, the pronoun “I” is notably absent from this prayer. From beginning to end the prayer has to do with others. It is a very model of intercession, because in it Paul is seeking the highest spiritual blessings for his fellow believers. We have much to learn from Paul’s prayer life. It was intercessory (Rom. 1:9); it was unceasing (1 Thess. 1:2, 3; 5:17); it was unselfish (Phil. 1:3–5).

Let us look at a few of the requests Paul makes in this great prayer. Consider this petition: “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Here the Greek verb he uses for “dwell” is related to the noun translated “house.” It literally means “to make one’s home.” Think of it! Paul is actually asking God to grant that Christ himself will be at home in the hearts of believers. As A. T. Robertson said, “This is the ideal, but a deal of fixing would have to be done in our hearts for Christ.” Paul himself knew what it meant to have Christ as the permanent resident in his heart. Indeed, he could exclaim with joy, as he did in another of his letters, “Not I but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).

The practical realization of the stupendous fact of having Christ dwell in our hearts comes “by faith.” Surely one of our spiritual needs is for a more spacious view of faith and a fuller exercise of it. We know that salvation from sin and its penalty of hell is only through Christ. But there we so often stop. We accept our salvation by faith—and then try to live the Christian life by self-effort. Yet all the time God has far more in store for us through the love of Christ.

What that means Paul shows us in the paradoxes that climax this great prayer. G. K. Chesterton once defined paradox as “truth standing on its head to attract attention.” And here the apostle makes telling use of it. “That you,” he says, “being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.” Paul is speaking of the love of Christ for us—not our meager love for the Lord but Christ’s boundless love for us.

At this point the apostle soars into a fourth dimension. Length, breadth, and depth—these relate to three-dimensional space. Another dimension is incomprehensible to human intellect. Were we able to understand it, new realms would be opened to our finite minds. “Space,” said the French essayist Joubert, “is the stature of God.” But three dimensions are not enough for Paul to describe the love of Christ. So he adds what we may think of as a fourth one—“height”—and then makes the amazing and paradoxical request that believers may comprehend all these dimensions of love. He is actually praying that we may grasp the immeasurable.

In a very real sense all four dimensions of love are manifest in the cross of Jesus Christ. We find them implied in these beautiful Old Testament words: “As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him [here, like the upright beam of the cross set in the earth and reaching to the skies, are the two vertical dimensions—depth and height]. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us [here, like the crossbeam are the horizontal dimensions—length and breadth]” (Ps. 103:11, 12). Or consider the most familiar of New Testament texts, John 3:16. It contains, as Norman B. Harrison pointed out, Paul’s four dimensions: “God so loved the world [the breadth of God’s love] that he gave his only begotten Son [the length to which his love went] that whosoever believeth in him should not perish [the depth of his love] but have everlasting life [the glorious height of the love of Christ].” Yes, the love of Christ has opened up the new dimension of eternity for sinners.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of Heaven and let us in.

No wonder then, that Paul, caught up in the grandeur of his prayer, uses the sublime paradox—“to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Let us look at it again. Without question the love of Christ transcends knowledge. No human mind can fully understand it. That is why Paul said (1 Cor. 1:23) that “Christ crucified” is “foolishness to the Greeks” (the intellectuals of his time). But we Christians are not limited to understanding our Lord’s love with our minds. There is another kind of knowledge. As Pascal said, “The heart has reasons that the reason does not know.” For it is through the experience of our hearts that we know the boundless love of Christ.

Paul goes on to offer another petition that is also a paradox: “that you might be filled with all the fulness of God.” The thought is of a vessel filled to the brim. The vessel is the believer, and the fullness of God is the Lord Jesus Christ making his home in our hearts by his Spirit in his divine four-dimensional love. So, marvel of marvels, we may actually be filled to the utmost of our personal capacity with the all-sufficiency of God.

The ancient Greeks spoke of “piling Pelion on Ossa.” The myth was that the Titans wanted to climb up to heaven, so they took these two mountains of Thessaly and piled them one on the other. So Paul piles Pelion on Ossa as he concludes his prayer with an audacious doxology. As if his petitions are not enough, he dares to say that God “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” Having voiced his tremendous petitions for the utmost spiritual blessing of believers, he confidently affirms that God can do far, far more for us than anything we can ask or even think!

When you and I pray, what is it we are asking for? Suppose our prayers were analyzed with unsparing honesty. Would they show that within our hearts we are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, that we are seeking to know the love of Christ more fully? Or would they show that we are asking God largely for things—for material, not spiritual, blessing? In the stress of daily life and work our hearts tend to get set on things. But our Lord’s principle remains unchanged: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33). He did say, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). Yet we keep on asking for things, while all the time our Father has something more for us. He wants to fill us, as we have seen, to the very limit of our capacity with the love of Christ and with his own fullness.

L. P. Jacks once spoke of the “lost radiance of the Christian religion.” If any of us have lost that radiance, may not a reason be that our values in prayer need to be revised? It is not wrong to pray for things. God wants us to come to him with our practical needs. He has promised to supply every one of them. But he also wants us to prefer him to things.

Do we truly want to serve God? Then we must keep inviolate our daily appointments alone with him. “But,” we say, “I don’t always have time for prayer—not every day.” Yes, duties press upon us. There is a living to be made. There are family responsibilities. There are church services to attend. Social life takes time, as does needed recreation. But none of these—not even religious activity—can take the place of communion with God. The consistent maintenance, day in and day out, year in and year out, of our quiet time alone with God takes unremitting spiritual discipline. And it must be in our lives if we are to grow in grace and serve the Lord in obedient discipleship.

“Always,” said Amy Carmichael, “there is a spiritual secret at the heart of a great battle for righteousness.” For Christian disciples that secret may well be faithfulness in prayer that seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. If we would really use our privilege of prayer as Paul did—daily, always, unselfishly—who can measure what God would do in and through us!

Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in Thy Presence will avail to make!

What heavy burdens from our bosoms take!

What parched grounds refresh as with a shower!

We kneel, and all round us seems to lower;

We rise, and all, the distant and the near,

Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear;

We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power!

Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,

Or others-that we are not always strong-

That we are overborne with care-

That we should ever weak or heartless be,

Anxious or troubled-when with us is prayer,

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?

Richard Chenevix Trench

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

Wheaton College once turned down Clyde Kilby’s application for a teaching position because he didn’t have a Ph.D. That was in 1935. Three years later, after he finished his dissertation on Horace Walpole at New York University, he tried again. This time Wheaton hired him. Since that time Kilby has become an institution of his own, due not only to his verve as a teacher but also to his pioneering work on C. S. Lewis and friends. He talked with assistant editor Cheryl Forbes about some of his favorite topics, which can be summed up in a word-imagination. The following is an edited version of the conversation.

Question. Do evangelicals still fear the arts?

Answer. Yes. I like to tell the story of Jonathan Blanchard, the first president of Wheaton College, who thought novels were nothing but lies. Before I retired I taught nothing but novels. I’ve seen lives changed by them. Off and on over the years I’ve copied a sentence or two from the final exams of my students. Any preacher would be tickled to death to get the effect from a year’s preaching that I see in one semester course—in three months.

Q. Summarize your view of imagination.

A. I can say it best negatively. There’s one verse repeated several times in the Old Testament, that is, every imagination in the heart of man is evil. I think evangelicals get a bit of Scripture like that in their heads and that’s what they go on. I don’t think you can do anything that’s worth a dime without imagination. The same is true with nature, another one of my favorite themes. Take the New Testament verse on nature waiting with groaning for the final redemption. We squeeze that verse dry and end up all wet in our thinking about nature. I tell my kids they must learn to use their eyes and ears, to gaze at nature and respond to it. It’s as if we go through life with our senses turned off, because we somehow think they’re evil. Of course, everybody has a problem in really seeing nature. But evangelicals should be more concerned than other people to correct it. The same is true with imagination. I don’t think you can go to the mission field, for example, without having imagined it. Imagination provides the willingness and possibility to get on the other side of the fence. Some people think it’s a sin to get in another person’s shoes. But for so much missionary work that’s what you’ve got to do—have real love and real sympathy, and imagination helps do it. I agree with Shelley when he said that imagination is the organ of moral truth. I taught the romantic period for many years and used to quote those things to my students. Matthew Arnold, too, has some great things to say about imagination and morality.

Q. Does teaching romantic literature naturally lead into the fantasy-writing Oxford Christians?

A. Yes. Lewis called himself a romantic. Nineteenth-century romanticism provides a base for the twentieth-century fantasy writers, even though some of them taught medieval literature.

Q. Let’s get back to the question of nature.

A. What I was trying to get at was that Christians of all people ought to have senses wide awake to what God has put here. The senses aren’t intrinsically evil, but are a powerful gift from God, and as with anything powerful liable to improper as well as proper use. Unfortunately Christians are often the last ones to really study nature. We’re the ones who ought to lead the way. I think we have this problem because we’re too busy taking care of God. We’re afraid of doing some hurt to him. We want to put him in our pockets and protect him. God doesn’t need that kind of protection. The end result is that all we tell people is no, no, no. That’s particularly dangerous with young people. Kids love people who give them ideas and make them think. But the powers that be, boards of trustees or church elders, sometimes squelch things. It just seems to me that evangelicals want to play it safe too often.

Q. You have manuscript papers of seven writers here in the Wade Collection—C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, Owen Barfield, George MacDonald, and G. K. Chesterton. How did you get interested in them?

A. I began to read Lewis about thirty years ago. Over the years I have read and reread him with increased appreciation. He always excites me. When you read a book by Lewis you have the feeling that you’ve got a hold of something almost bottomless. You can never reach the end of its meaning; the more you read, the more you find. It’s a quality shared by all great writers, and Lewis has it in abundance.

I got acquainted with Tolkien almost accidentally in 1964, and then in 1966 went over and spent the summer with him. Incidentally, that summer is the basis of my small book, Tolkien and the Silmarillion (Harold Shaw Publishers). I knew Mrs. Williams and her son quite well, but had never heard of her husband, Charles, until relatively recently, say fifteen years ago. Lewis led me to MacDonald and maybe to Williams; I don’t remember. Because I got acquainted with Lewis I began to meet some of his friends and colleagues. In 1964 I met Owen Barfield and we’ve been friends ever since. I never had any personal contact with Dorothy L. Sayers, and I must confess that I haven’t read as much of her as I should. We put her in our list eleven-and-a-half years ago when we started this thing. Barbara Reynolds, who is working on a biography of Sayers, has been doing research here at the Wade Collection for that book. Nearly forty years ago I read a bit of Chesterton. Orthodoxy greatly changed my thinking, as did The Everlasting Man.

Q. Do you think we’re in danger of overvaluing writers like Lewis and Tolkien?

A. No. We still undervalue them. Young people don’t, but then they’re not scared of them. Most young people take to fantasy writers like ducks to water. Older people are still leery of them, but young people get older, and the thing is shifting. As far as I know we now get no objections to what we teach at Wheaton. Twenty or thirty years ago that wasn’t the case; we got complaints about studying some modern British writers like D. H. Lawrence. I occasionally hear about conservative evangelical schools—not just colleges—who get complaints from parents on certain required reading. I heard of one grade school teacher at a Christian school who used the Narnia books in her class. A few parents went to the principal with the complaint that they didn’t want their children reading about witches. I’ve known students who were saved by reading the Narnia chronicles.

Q. How did the Wade Collection get started?

A. It began in a very small way in February, 1965. We had only a few books then. I gave the letters I had from Lewis—that might have been the first gift. CHRISTIANITY TODAY gave us a letter it received from Lewis. And we had some other manuscripts and papers. The class of 1966 had $2600 to spend for a school gift. They wanted to give the money to the Lewis collection, which it was then called. But there was one cynic on the committee who wondered how we could ever get any manuscripts out of England. Every committee needs one of those, if only to spur the others ahead. When I was in England in 1964 I had met a man who, it later turned out, had ten sonnets by Charles Williams, one per page. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. That was the first opportunity to get some manuscripts. I wrote him a long letter leading up to the main point, which was, “by the way, I don’t suppose you want to sell these sonnets. I have no idea what things are worth, but I’d make a guess at $75.” Then I added a postscript, and said, “I’ll just enclose my check, and you can tear it up if you think I’m insulting you.” He wrote back and said we could have the sonnets. So the next time the gift committee met the cynic was squelched. That was the first Williams purchase. We went along very slowly. We had no budget money from the college for the first five years. We’d get gifts now and then, like the money from that class. We had a volunteer librarian, and since I was teaching full time, I worked on the collection as a volunteer, too. The subsequent development is full of miracles, one on top of the other. A London publisher asked me to write a book about it, but I just couldn’t write it down, though I’ve kept a lot of records. And I kept diaries when I was in England. But there are too many people still living whom I couldn’t mention, and too many other complications, particularly with the Williams family. Recently we purchased 8,000 pages of Dorothy L. Sayers manuscripts—for $50,000. When this collection began we never dreamed that we’d have that kind of money.

Q. How many manuscript pages do you have?

A. We must have over 20,000 pages. We’re planning a catalogue of what we’ve got. It won’t be completely detailed with a full description of each manuscript. We’re planning to send it to as many libraries as we can and possibly to heads of English departments. We’ve always got some scholar or critic working in the collection. Nearly every book or study that comes out now on any of our writers mentions the collection. During one six-month period we had 864 visitors from thirty-two states and thirteen foreign countries.

Q. Why hasn’t Lewis produced a group of Lewisite followers the way other people like Francis Schaeffer or Bill Gothard have? Lewis hasn’t become a guru.

A. Lewis was very broad-minded, a non-program type of person. Other leaders have a kind of fixed program—and I’m not saying anything against that. But they have something specific they want to get across, some major point on which all their thinking hangs. Lewis was truly a liberal-minded individual—in all areas, that is, except for modern society. He opposed nearly everything modern. And I must say I find myself agreeing with him more and more.

Q. Describe Lewis.

A. Well, he smoked and drank a lot, which might upset some people. I think he was a saint deep down inside. He described himself as looking like a farmer. He had a loud, booming voice, a hearty laugh, and a red face. He could walk twenty-five miles during the day with a knapsack on his back.

Q. Is the “American Lady” of the letters still alive?

A. No. She died four years ago. Her name was Mary Willis Shelburne. To my knowledge her name’s never been published before. We kept it quiet at her request when I edited Letters to an American Lady. She lived in Washington, D. C., in fact. When she died she was nearly blind. I’ve got a huge stack of her correspondence. Eerdmans could never have published all the letters I had. And many of them were pretty repetitious. She had some favorite themes that recur over and over again. She was quite a troubled woman. Lewis understood her, though he’d never met her. He felt that nothing he said would do her any good, yet he thought God wanted him to write her. He always answered people who wrote to him about spiritual matters.

Q. Do you see an upsurge in liberal arts education?

A. No, just the opposite. Some years ago we had over 150 literature majors, then we dropped way off. Now we’re on a slow upswing again. I talked with the head of an English department at a secular university of 3,000 and she said they graduate only six or seven literature majors a year. That’s a definite trend as far as I can tell. I think it favors the Christian college, actually. Christian colleges are still willing to study English, they’re willing to study history, and music, and philosophy. Secular schools are getting more and more involved in vocational rather than liberal arts education. Some years ago we had secretarial science and home economics majors. Both died because students weren’t enrolling in the programs. Now I don’t have anything against those fields, but I don’t think that a private liberal arts college is the place to teach them. We’ve had to fight against an increasing number of majors. Everybody wants to do a little more and spread out a little thinner. The word has gotten around that it’s tough to find a job these days with just a liberal arts degree. That’s one of the most foolish things I’ve ever heard. You can learn to become almost anything there is to become in very short order if you’ve got any sense. We’ve got a mania around here for psychology and sociology, for example—and the thrust is vocational. Students aren’t taught to read the philosophy of psychology, or the writings of the founders of the field. Instead they’re taught to get ready to use psychology on people. We can run this thing into the ground.

Q. Why don’t more evangelical liberal arts colleges produce first rank literary or historical scholars?

A. I think Christian schools get mud-bound and lead our students without much imagination. We tend to steer them into what we call the active professions, like medicine or law. And then a lot of them go out to serve on the mission field.

The trouble with teaching at an evangelical school is that it’s hard to find time to publish. I’m opposed to the publish or perish syndrome that still exists in secular universities. It’s carried out badly. On the other hand, Christian colleges ought to encourage its professors to publish. A good teacher should always have plenty of ideas for articles and books, simply because they know the primary and secondary material so well. A teacher’s bound to run across gaps in knowledge or problems in understanding that he’d like to clear up with an article or two. Publishing ought to be a perfectly natural outgrowth of teaching. Wheaton gives too little attention to publishing.

In the final analysis I think the whole thing revolves around the word imagination. Anything you do requires some imagination, but when you get into the arts you’ve got to use imagination in a primary way. Charles Huttar put together a festschrift for me and called it Imagination and the Spirit. That was a perfect title. I’ve devoted my whole life to those two things, and the relation between them. Evangelicals don’t think about how imagination and the spirit relate. They’re so intent on preaching, knowing Bible lessons, and applying Christianity that I think they frequently lead people away from the truth. So far as I can judge they do more harm than good. I’ve been an advocate all these years for listening to what the spirit tells us about imagination.

Q. Is there a move among young people to accept the arts, or to consider the arts as the place to spend their lives, say as novelists or musicians or painters?

A. I always have to divide things up between Wheaton and other places, since I know Wheaton so well. I find quite a willingness to accept the arts, though we sometimes have trouble getting Kodon, the campus arts magazine, published. I think we’ve got a long way to go, though, before evangelicals can say they really accept the arts. You get pockets and times and seasons when the arts seem to interest more Christians, but then it wanes again. Right now I see a movement toward the arts. It’s nothing to shout about, but it’s steady. People are particularly interested in poetry right now.

As for students choosing careers in the arts, I’ve always encouraged that. But we still haven’t produced a first-rate artist. We’re getting closer to having good evangelical novelists. Poetry is steadily improving.

The quality of our students has also improved steadily over the years. And we’ve enlarged our vision. But we’re so eager to keep the faith that we’re still too timid when anything seems slightly off the beaten track. I hate cliches and I hate the beaten path. You keep to the straight and narrow path, but you also keep your eyes open. You look ahead or around you, and see this way and that. Most evangelicals don’t do that. They don’t know how. And our churches certainly aren’t telling us how. After so many years of attending fine evangelical churches, most of us know what a preacher will say before he speaks. I’d like to leave church with just one new idea each time. That’s vital for us all.

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

Yesterday we walked a woods, a grove

of tall green promises that played the wind

and chased the clouds, then bent their boughs and wove

a blessing from gold strands of sunlight, pinned

the shining garlands to our hair and smiled

as light drops fell to touch our faces with

the glory of the almost reconciled,

the story of a day unending, myth

retold by love with hope that prayers would stay

the sun, and crown the tallest promise king

with power to do our will. Yet God, thy way

is day and night, sun rain, storm calm, bird sing,

wind cry, sun fall, tears spent by garlands laid

to wreathe seed promises that grow in shade.

Here are twenty-five “how-to” books published since our first such list was prepared (See September 10, 1976, issue, p. 20). Literally hundreds of books appear each year that are intended to provide practical help for Christian living and ministering. Naturally what is new and helpful to one reader may be tried and proven (negatively or positively) to another. There is no claim that this selection is the best of the lot; indeed, given the nature of how-to books, what’s best depends very much on who’s using them. What I have tried to do is mention some books that I think will be of practical assistance to those of our readers who are seeking help in the areas under consideration.

BEGINNING Tens of thousands have become Christians through the preaching of Billy Graham. His basic message is once again available in book form in How to be Born Again (Word). It is being widely publicized and one hopes that its message is taken to heart by many who have not previously come to know the grace of God that brings salvation.

CONTINUING Even as physical birth is only a starting point, so the new Christian needs to grow. Every word in the title of Richard Peace’s Pilgrimage: A Workbook on Christian Growth (Acton House) is significant. We are to be pilgrims, but too many Christians soon become settlers. Although there is plenty of text, Peace gives us a workbook with various devices to force serious interaction. We are to be Christian not merely in doctrine, but also in ethics, not merely in our relationship to the living Lord, but also to our fellow believers and our fellow humans. And Christians are to grow, not just up to a point from which we level off as in physical growth; our whole Christian lives are to be characterized by spiritual growth.

It is paradoxical that in a society where there is so much selfishness and boasting there is a wave of books both secular and Christian on improving one’s self-image or self-esteem. However, it was our Lord who told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Failure in the former is yoked with failure in the latter. Hence a book like Cecil Osborne’s The Art of Learning to Love Yourself (Zondervan).

Fundamental to continued Christian growth is the persistent, personal study of God’s Word. Better Bible Study (Regal) by A. Berkeley and Alveira M. Mickelsen is a good elementary introduction to the principles and practice of interpreting the Scriptures.

THE FAMILY Last year’s selection of practical books led off with what we considered a pathfinder on explicit sex techniques within a Christian context. Sure enough, others are travelling down the path. But Intended for Pleasure: Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage (Revell) is not a pale imitation. The authors, Ed and Gaye Wheat, have long had a popular cassette series on the subject and some of their work was incorporated into last year’s book, The Act of Marriage by the LaHayes. Tim LaHaye in turn writes an appreciative foreword to this book. Until something better comes along, one or both of these books should be in every couple’s library.

Sex is not all there is to marriage, and even singles can utilize Open Heart, Open Home (Cook) by Karen Burton Mains. The dust-jacket caption is, in this instance, apt: “how to find joy through sharing your home with others.”

There are so many books (and speakers) telling parents how to raise darling children that I hesitate to mention any. (What would be interesting is a study of the progeny of such authors, or even better. finding out from kids how they cope with “expert” parents.) With apologies for raising guilt-levels still further—things that seem so neat on the printed page turn out so messy in real life—I mention two books: Happily Ever After (Word) by Joy Wilt is, despite its cute title, a very down to earth book on loving children toward maturity. Sample chapter titles: “Mommy, I’m Bored!” and “Talking About You-Know-What” (Clue: go back two paragraphs). It is not as stuffy as its title, but psychiatrist Paul Meier’s Christian Child-Rearing and Personality Development (Baker) does not have a style quite to my taste. Nevertheless I’m sure it can be of help to many parents. Finally in this category I call attention to a book about a very specific, very important, but all too often defective practice: How to Have Family Prayers (Zondervan) by Rosalind Rinker.

THE CONGREGATION Individuals and families are not perfect, so naturally congregations aren’t either. But if the willingness of authors to write, publishers to publish, and the public to buy is any indication, many Christians feel that their congregational life falls far too short of the biblical ideal for comfort. If you are tired of drifting along, and challenged by hearing of vital congregations that really exist elsewhere, here are four books to look into. Survival Tactics in the Parish (Abingdon) by Lyle Schaller might seem too negative. It’s not. Schaller, who has visited more than four thousand congregations in the past twenty years, has a winsome way of giving very practical suggestions for understanding and handling problems that many writers barely mention.

If you missed the first wave of “church growth” books, or if they seemed too unrealistic for your situation, style, or system, take a look at Vision and Strategy for Church Growth (Moody) by Waldo Werning, a Lutheran. (I mention his denomination because it is not usually associated with the church growth emphasis.)

Local Church Planning Manual (Judson) by Richard Rusbuldt, Richard Gladden, and Norman Green, Jr. is very much a workbook with numerous forms adaptable by all types of congregations. It may be too complicated, so don’t consider it unless you are serious about improving your congregation and have learned that life, especially when it involves interpersonal relations, is complex.

For a systematic overview of the subject based on the classroom notes of a veteran seminary professor see Getting the Church on Target (Moody) by Lloyd Perry.

LEADING Ted Engstrom, executive vice-president of World Vision, has prepared two books, the second along with his colleague Edward Dayton, which can be of great value not only to leaders of congregations but in other kinds of organizations as well: The Making of a Christian Leader (Zondervan) and The Art of Management for Christian Leaders (Word). Reading books like these can’t make you a leader, but they can certainly help you be a better one.

COMMUNICATING How Can I Get Them to Listen? (Zondervan) by James Engel is an introductory manual on constructing questionnaires and other ways of obtaining meaningful data on how best to reach a target audience with a Christian message. It has a secondary value for those who will not use it professionally. All of us are bombarded with statistically supported claims; this book can help us be a little discriminating as to which claims we believe.

Another academic specialist in communication, Emory Griffin, writes more for the “common man” in The Mind Changers: The Art of Christian Persuasion(Tyndale). Winning people to Christ and winning believers to Christlikeness is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit, but the more we know of the ways that our God-given mind-changing mechanisms work, the better persuaders we can be.

PREACHING Here’s a short book for the preacher who feels he should read something but can’t spare the time to pore through a tome. A Guide to Biblical Preaching (Abingdon) by James W. Cox is both comprehensive and concise. It is packed with specific helps.

WRITING Robert Walker, Janice Franzen, and Helen Kidd have compiled and edited The Successful Writers and Editors Guidebook (Creation House). Fully eighty-five chapters by almost as many writers cover almost every aspect of the subject. Names and addresses of potential publishers are included, all of whom, I dare say, would join me in urging would-be writers to digest some of the information in this or similar manuals before rushing to the post office with their handiwork. Publishers are always looking for good and appropriate submissions. (Note well both adjectives as well as the adverb.)

EVANGELIZING Christians seem to be divided between those for whom personal evangelism comes easily and those for whom it comes hard, if at all. The former write books for the latter, which often reinforces the division. But maybe one or more of these will prove to be an exception. His Guide to Evangelism (InterVarsity) consists of eighteen articles first published in His, a magazine for college Christians. The principles are applicable off-campus as well. Redeemed? Say So! (Harper & Row) is by a dentist, Robert Plekker, rather than by a professional minister. I Believe in Evangelism (Eerdmans) by David Watson, a Church of England pastor, treats both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject in a very balanced and readable manner.

COUNSELING Lawrence Crabb, Jr. has a doctorate in psychology and a private counseling practice. But he doesn’t believe that counseling is just for professionals. His book, Effective Biblical Counseling (Zondervan) is aptly described as “a model for helping caring Christians become capable counselors.” His approach is a good balance between those who would leave it all to the professional and those who seem to deny any validity to the counseling profession.

More specifically aimed at the pastor who wants to take this aspect of his ministry seriously is H. Norman Wright’s Premarital Counseling (Moody). He outlines a multi-session approach complete with details on available aids and how to use them.

SERVING This category is last not because it is least. It may be least in the amount of attention it has received in the past few decades compared to other practical topics, but the book I have selected amply demonstrates that it is a subject of enormous importance for the biblical writers. I call attention to Ronald Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study (InterVarsity), despite disagreements with some of his exegesis and reservations about the practicality of some of his suggestions. If one does not like Sider’s approach, then the challenge is: come up with a better one. He marshalls too much Scripture for the question to be ignored by those who own Christ as Lord. Almost everyone who will read these lines is rich by the world’s standards even though few people think of themselves as rich. The Bible has a lot to say about riches and about the stewardship of wealth by those who are believers.

The other books that I have mentioned have basically been concerned with effectively sharing the riches that we have in Christ, something harder to do than at first appears. Sider’s book is about sharing our riches for Christ’s sake and for most of us this is harder still. But for all of the tasks to which God calls us we have his promise: “God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

Commitment, like people, comes in a variety of sizes and colors. A look at recent books about this subject shows the varied approaches toward a fuller life of fellowship with Jesus Christ. Each focuses on some aspect of the deeper life. A few take the over-all approach of bringing life into harmony primarily in our relationships with other people. Another group keys in on Bible study as a way to pull the doctrines together in a harmonious understanding of the Christian life. Some work at an integration of popular psychology with Christian doctrine. A fourth group says, “I have to start with me. Once I’ve got me clear, I can broaden my world.” But whatever the approach, they all aim the reader toward a fuller commitment to Jesus Christ.

Getting It Together With Other People

Perhaps it’s cynicism or middle age, but I’m always dubious about a book that carries a subtitle like William Clemmons’s Discovering the Depths (Broadman)—“Guidance in Spiritual Growth.” That sounds as though the author had finally found the key that unlocks a life of spiritual victory-happiness-maturity-growth. I’m usually very disappointed. But I read it anyway—and I like being wrong about first impressions. Clemmons’s book isn’t the answer to anything, but it offers guidance for personal growth. At the end of each chapter he includes a helpful section called “Meditation Exercises.” Usually when I read books of this type I skip over that part, but Clemmons planned the exercises so well that I read them all.

This book really is about depth in our Christian living, about our responsibilities and our commitment. A lot of religious authors today attempt to integrate the findings of Jung, Rollo May, et al., into their theological positions. Clemmons does it as well as anyone I’ve read. He writes so clearly I almost wanted to ask, “How can you keep it that simple and yet have so much content?” Clemmons is a man with a lot to say. He writes in a challenging, exciting way. I hope this book finds broad coverage; it deserves it.

Unless during the last decade you have stayed away from evangelical writing, particularly the renewal movement, you already know the name of Bruce Larson, former editor of “Faith at Work.” I found The Relational Revolution by Bruce Larson (Word) hard to review. I like Larson; I like his communicative style; and I could probably give him a favorable review if he wrote a book about how to change light bulbs in the church narthex. If you’ve read any of Larson’s books in the past five years you’ve already gleaned a lot of what his present book is about. That’s not a negative comment. The book is not merely a rehash. His previous books have been delightful reading, but they were like buds promising flower. The Relational Revolution is Larson in full bloom. Larson is person-centered. He’s concrete. He writes on a level where most of us live. When I read Bruce Larson it’s like sitting across the room from him and listening to him talk to me. Yet, he doesn’t write theories or tell us what the Church ought to be, could be, should be, or might be. He tells us what it is—and how it grows stronger when people open themselves to other people. Larson, along with writers like Keith Miller and Lloyd Ogilvie, places the emphasis on person-to-person theology rather than abstract ideas. Such words as risk, vulnerable, and listening appear again and again. And these are key concepts. Even when Larson includes theological material he sets it in the context of the current changes in society. It’s a fine book.

When you look at James Mahoney’s Journey Into Usefulness (Broadman) you get into another realm of spiritual growth. He emphasizes God’s will and how it works in our Christian experience—at least that’s what the dust jacket claims. He devotes a lot of space to the gifts of the Spirit. It’s good to see a non-charismatic write positively about the gifts. Most of the books I’ve read have either defended or denied the charismatic gifts. Once an author stated his position, he had told you the whole story. Mahoney, however, tries to straddle the two extremes. He points out that the spiritual gifts are given to Christians for service. He urges readers to discover their gifts—a trend—and then use them.

You might disagree with his classifications of the gifts (as I did in places) but he does a fine job comparing the list from Romans 12 and First Corinthians and then explaining them in light of Christian service today. He calls this “an attempt to provide a spiritual apprenticeship for those who wish to find and follow God’s will.”

Another trend is to live a simpler life, to get back to basics. If that’s your direction, B. Otto Wheeler’s God Can Work Through You (Judson Press) might be worth reading. If you’re just getting started on this road, Wheeler could be helpful. His chapter titles are excellent—the best part of the book.

Pulling It Together From the Bible

Several of the books are really Bible studies. Rick Yohn’s Beyond Spiritual Gifts (Tyndale House) might easily be called “The Fruit of the Spirit.” It’s a rather well-done exposition of Galatians 5:22–23. Yohn’s previous book was Discover Your Spiritual Gifts—which he reminds us of at least eight times. Yohn says, “Only within the past two years have I begun to focus on my real need: character development. The effectiveness of my gifts had increased, but not the maturity of my character.” Yohn’s style disarms the reader. His anecdotes throw you into the core of a passage. He’s not a writer who inserts a story because it’s time for another illustration; the stories actually carry much of the material forward. Yohn writes with clarity and candor. Two chapters stood out for me: “How Can I Love?,” which defines love as doing what is good, and his chapter on joy, which had just the right touch. He deals with a great many believers who see Christianity in negatives (such as no smoking, drinking, attending movies, card playing). He offers a positive, warm, well-written corrective to people who harp on those peripheral issues. It’s the best popular book I’ve read on the fruit of the Spirit.

On the theme of Bible study there’s Fred L. Fisher’s The Sermon on the Mount (Broadman). Don’t let the unimaginative title fool you. This book is anything but ordinary. Fisher writes a sensible book, which is scholarly enough to deal with crucial issues but which avoids being pedantic. Fisher presents a readable and helpful book on the Sermon on the Mount. For a solidly biblical, nontechnical study of Matthew 5; 6; 7, and comparisons with Luke 6, this is the best I’ve seen in recent popular literature. As the author says in his preface, his purpose in writing another book on the Sermon on the Mount was two-fold: many of the best treatments are out of print; and most treatments are either too technical or so practical they ignore the richness of scholarly contributions. Well, Fisher, your book fulfills your purposes.

Studying the same portion of Matthew, Warren W. Wiersbe offers Live Like a King (Moody). Wiersbe writes well. He’s an able theologian who can dig out the meaning of words and phrases and explain them in non-technical ways. He states in the beginning that these chapters were originally a series of sermons he preached during the summer of 1975. Wiersbe says that the Sermon on the Mount has present and future implications, though he concentrates on the present. Wiersbe can’t be faulted in explaining his text or illustrating from Scripture. For every point, a scriptural illustration follows from Abraham, David, or Paul. And that’s my problem with the book. The subtitle “Making the Beatitudes work in daily life” to me means that an author takes us from the first century into the difficulties of twentieth-century living. His principles are right, but I want to see how these truths apply to daily life. He never really grapples with that.

The Christian Life: Issues and Answers and A Handbook for Followers of Jesus are designed for Bible study. The Christian Life by Gary Maeder and Don Williams (Regal) is a topical Bible in outline form. Maeder and Williams attempt to give all views on such subjects as immersion and infant baptism. Their section on evangelism is balanced and there’s a good chapter on church and the state; in that particular chapter I wish they had said more. They deal with such current topics as Satan, drugs, sex, and the baptism of the Spirit. In each of these chapters the authors offer a moderate view. It’s an interesting book. The difference between this and other books of the genre is the topics themselves. These men obviously listen to theological and social issues that the older books didn’t touch. For a good starting Bible study using the topical method, I’d recommend it.

If I were going to subtitle the contents of A Handbook for Followers of Jesus by Winkie Pratney (Bethany Fellowship) I’d call it “a systematic theology for new Christians.” Pratney attempts to present a full picture of theology, beginning with the sin-salvation-growth scheme. For those with limited knowledge of the Christian faith, this book could be helpful. Three features stood out. First, it’s written without a lot of theological jargon. Second, Pratney attempts to deal with the real questions people are asking instead of what theologically-trained minds know a person ought to ask, though readers might find his answers a bit simplistic and authoritarian. But to his credit Pratney certainly grapples with current issues such as sex, revolution, and the occult. Third, his chapters are short, crisply written, and don’t muddle the reader with details or side issues. Young adults should find this appealing.

Putting the Psyche Together

Several books in the psychological-pastoral field deal with a variety of topics from positive thinking to loneliness. A generation ago Norman Vincent Peale’s book on positive thinking appeared. He followed with books in a similar vein, some with even similar titles. His latest is The Positive Principle Today (Prentice Hall). No one surpasses Peale in the religious-self-help book category. He’s a communicator of the first rank. His forcefulness and optimism impress you. How could anyone not like Peale’s style (even if you disagree with his content)? He’d be worth reading if he wrote on the “Patterns of Pigmy Migration in Zaire.” You may not like his operating principles but he hooks you like an Alka-seltzer commercial. For some people he’s not religious enough; others denounce him as putting self-hypnosis and self-help ahead of Jesus Christ. But whatever your attitudes toward Peale’s approach, his writings sparkle and the message keeps coming out that “with God in your life, everything is possible.”

This book, Peale says in his foreword, is written because people got the positive principle operating and then hit snags. They wrote and asked, “How do I keep it going?” That’s what Peale writes about: how to keep the positive principle working, or as the subtitle says, “How to Renew and Sustain the Power of Positive Thinking.” What prevents tagging his illustrations and principles as Pollyanish is that they have a ring of authenticity. He documents his stories with names and events of well-known people. Although all the stories say essentially the same thing (“I failed, then took hold of myself, surrendered to God, began to think positively and then I succeeded”), they never get trite or boring when told by Peale.

In the tradition of Peale, Schuller, et al., Dale E. Galloway has written You Can Win Through Love (Harvest House). The type-face distracts with sections of each page printed in capital letters. It looks as though almost every word were written for emphasis so that nothing really sounds emphasized; it gives the book an amateurish look. Yet, there’s some fine material here. His sections on self-love are extremely well done. Galloway’s stories are nearly all happily-ever-after types, leaving the impression that love not only wins, but problems dissipate as the music of life swells to a grand crescendo. Yet life seldom works out so perfectly. Despite this, the book is good and practical.

With a title like Feelings! Where They Come From and How to Handle Them (by Joan Jacobs, Tyndale), how could you lose? Yet I’m not sure this is really a winner. Jacobs’s definition of feelings seems to stretch from emotions to attitudes, as in chapter five where she discusses feelings about the Bible. Chapter six rambles and could have enhanced the book by its omission. Yet there are helpful things, too. In past years we’ve had so much intellectual theology and many have retreated from talking about emotions in the evangelical vein. Jacobs writes unashamedly about feelings and emphasizes their positive value as tools for growing in the faith. She deals lightly, but helpfully, with making feelings respectable. She explains that negative feelings aren’t sinful and that feelings can work toward our wholeness as persons.

I’m not sure Creath Davis always gives you the how in his How To Win (Zondervan), but he does provide a lot of insight. This may be more than you wanted to know in one book about counseling. But it’s useful as a kind of popular self-help reference book. He deals with a wide range of topics: alcoholism, singleness, money, in-laws, old age, and death. Davis doesn’t give glib answers for every situation; and he doesn’t bore you with clarifications and lengthy explanations either. He writes compassionately. For example, in dealing with divorce he says, “It must be emphasized that to fail in a particular aspect of one’s life, such as marriage, does not mean you are a failure as a person. You are not a failure! You failed at being married.” Devotees of pop psychology with a Christian emphasis, buy a copy.

Pick up a copy of Jay Kesler’s The Strong Weak People (Victor Books). You might mumble to yourself, “Adult Sunday school literature.” (The publisher states on the inside front cover that a leader’s guide is available.) But don’t put it down immediately. At least look through this book, written “for those to whom perfection comes slowly.” One of Kesler’s major thrusts is stated near the beginning: “I began to wonder who started the lie that Christians have to succeed all the time.… This technique may be good strategy for sales motivation meetings but it seems to have done great harm to the church.” I admit that most of Kesler’s illustrations have the sweet smell of success about them—but it’s still a neat little book well worth reading. He tries to get beyond simplistic answers to complicated life problems. His easy-flowing, anecdotal style catches you. Don’t let the light touch fool you; he’s got something to say.

If you don’t want to concentrate on the weak and strong, then try the joy trip. Stanley Collins’s Joy All the Way (Regal) tells us how to find and keep real joy. It troubled me that Collins never really defines joy in a way that I could grasp. He dealt with every possible phase of the subject, describing and dissecting but never quite explaining it. He implies that joy is the stellar quality of a charismatic leader, which at least makes me raise an eyebrow. I gulped when I read, “Joy is the common, universal experience of all who come to Christ, whatever their age, ethnic background, or standing in society.” The universal experience? I wondered if Collins doesn’t confuse joy with love, commitment, or zeal. Or perhaps he subsumes all of them under joy. He’s unclear. And he’s a bit dogmatic when he says that “The only destroyer of joy is sin.” However, Collins writes with a style that communicates joy. He says at the beginning of the book that he wants a positive presentation. That he has—perhaps too positive. He’s never dull, and I think some people will find genuine help.

Paris Reidhead’s Beyond Believing (Bethany Fellowship), talks about five great imperatives: the great command, call commitment, leading, and judgment. His title and text tell us that believing isn’t the whole story. Reidhead hits his topics head on, illustrates them well, states his challenge clearly, and then stops. The brevity of the book makes this a helpful challenge toward full commitment.

I dislike books that reprint newspaper or magazine columns. Yet Kenneth L. Wilson’s All Things Considered (Christian Herald) hooked me. Wilson is perceptive, clever, and seems to use so many of the common events of life to bring deeper understanding. For instance, have you wondered why Jesus said we’re the salt of the earth and not the sugar? And the humor? He slips it in slyly. When he writes about witnessing he says, “I am sure that once in a while someone emphasizes that witnessing is not all talk, but from what I have seen and heard, it must be only once in a while.”

William E. Hulme wrote Creative Loneliness (Augsburg) after the death of his oldest daughter. It’s a reflective book on how to handle loneliness, and it emphasizes our need for God and for people. The author works from the premise that all of us experience loneliness. He handles his material well, citing reasons for self-isolation and its consequences. One of his finest sections deals with “Taking Risks to Meet Your Own Needs.” At times you might think the author tried to write a book about everything anyone in the whole world would ever need or want to know about loneliness. He’s not advocating or telling us how to bear our loneliness, but suggests ways to make our loneliness creative. He writes, “We have called loneliness a problem—and it is. But it is also an opportunity. Through exploring this problem we have discussed the entire scope of opportunity for human fulfillment.”

Putting Me Together

Norman Wright’s Improving Your Self Image (Harvest House) started out like fourteen other pop-psychology-with-a-little-religion-added-for-flavor-books. But Wright does a good job in defining words, especially self image, a term that seems to float around today as freely as inferiority complex did a quarter of a century ago. But wait—it’s more than a ho hum kind of book. The second half provides a good guide on understanding and improving one’s self-perception. What’s more, Wright works from a distinctively Christian perspective which is so often absent in many religious books that bow at the shrine of behavioral science.

Halfway through You Count—You Really Do! by William A. Miller (Augsburg), I wanted to write a letter to the author. Mentally I composed one that read, “Mr. Miller, I like your material. Just today I heard a sermon, lasting thirty-two minutes, telling how ‘I’ comes after giving myself to God and others; that ‘I’ am nothing; that the sooner the Christian knows this, the easier it is to follow Christ. I’m glad for your book. Sincerely.” Two chapters stood out for me. After asking why some people have poor self-images, Miller asserts that the only valid answer is, “Because that is what they want.” Disagree? Turn to page fifty-nine and find out why. The other chapter is on how to accept imperfection. A gem. The book’s worth buying for that chapter alone. If you’re really trying to bolster your own self-esteem, I’d recommend this one.

Tired of all those titles that say “Here’s how to make it as a Christian”? Erin W. Lutzer’s Failure: The Backdoor To Success (Moody Press) tries a different approach. He suggests, “Perhaps we need to. Only because we’ve sinned can we truly experience God’s grace.” In one section where the author discusses detours that many people feel irreparably ruin their lives, he writes, “Sometimes we get the impression that the will of God is like an egg, a heavenly Humpty-Dumpty. Presumably, God expects us to do a balancing act as we walk an invisible tightrope. One mistake—or, at the most, two—and no one, not even God, can put Humpty-Dumpty together again.” Lutzer doesn’t negate the significance of sin, but he does point out God’s continued forgiveness and adds “We must remember that God is never finished with any who repents.” This positive book offers help toward building a healthy self-image, as well as encouragement for those who’ve failed and think life’s pretty well finished for them. Really worth reading.

Anthony A. Hoekema tries a reverse procedure in The Christian Looks at Himself (Eerdmans). He begins with the theological aspects of self-image and concludes the book with the psychological view. His book is less experiential than the others and written largely from a theological stance. He has several excellent chapters showing that though we are sinners we aren’t worthless. His chapter on the “old nature” verses the “new nature” is interesting even though you may disagree with his position. And I suspect that even more theological-minded folks will disagree with his position on Romans 7. Hoekema claims the Bible teaches us to have positive images of ourselves and to see ourselves primarily as new creatures in Christ rather than as impotent and depraved sinners. Although I believe strongly in the positive self-image concept, I’m not so sure that one can find it so explicitly in the Bible as Hoekema asserts. The last several chapters center on how I can get it together and how I can help others get it together for positive self-images and for joyful lives in Jesus Christ. Hoekema is not dull reading and uses more biblical support for his assertions than anything I’ve read. Most of the other available material is lightweight theology and overweight experience. So if you want something heavily documented from the Bible, here’s a book to buy.

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

One hopes that the phenomenon of Alex Haley’s search for his roots will encourage Christians generally to be more interested in their forebears in the faith. Before mentioning books by topic, I want to highlight ten notable titles representing different kinds of books and varied stances. These books belong in all theological libraries as well as major college and public libraries.

Far and away the most significant book in this area to appear since the last survey was prepared (see September 10, 1976, issue, p. 30) is Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity edited by Tim Dowley (Eerdmans). If you only have one church history book in your personal library, this should be it. No other survey so attractively combines accuracy and readability with an abundance of well-chosen illustrations. It will please both those who already like to read about the past and those who never knew how interesting it could be. The format of this volume—short chapters with numerous pictures, maps, charts, and brief sidebars mixed in—makes this a book that will invite browsing at odd moments by the whole family, as well as deliberate reading or using for reference.

One branch of the Reformation is depicted in large brown-and-white photographs in From Luther to 1580: A Pictorial Account by Erwin Weber (Concordia).

Zwingli by G.R. Potter (Cambridge) is a major biography of a Reformer second in significance only to Calvin and Luther but who has not received nearly the same attention.

Naturally an author who attempts to cover the whole field, as does Paul Johnson, former editor of The New Statesman, a British weekly, in A History of Christianity (Atheneum) can be faulted for leaving out much that others rightly consider important. But unlike many surveys Johnson’s is quite readable. His perspective leads him to focus more on the conflicts within the institutional church and to sympathize more with “progressives” (Pelagius rather than Augustine). Nevertheless this is a useful volume for those who already know something about the subject.

Not a history of something, but rather reflections on what history is all about is the volume God, History, and Historians: Modern Christian Views of History edited by Carl Thomas McIntire (Oxford). Twenty-two selections, more of them from theologians than from professional historians, are grouped under three headings, “The Meaning of History,” “The Nature of History and Culture,” and “Historians and Historical Study.”

Five notable titles are specifically related to Christianity in North America. Robert Handy offers A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada (Oxford). It is the first of a projected twenty-volume series, the “Oxford History of the Christian Church” edited by Henry and Owen Chadwick. Handy is to be highly commended for treating Canada as well as the U.S. Such an approach allows for greater perspective and raises questions about why some facets are similar and others different. Many, perhaps most, conservative Protestant and Orthodox bodies maintain close contacts across the border.

One page sketches of 425 influential religious leaders, all now dead, are in Dictionary of American Religious Biography by Henry Warner Bowden (Greenwood). By his selections, the author has been far more representative of the diversity in American religion than surveyors have traditionally been.

It is a pleasure to welcome the appearance of the first volume in a projected multi-volume posthumously published series, Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada: Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and Eastern Orthodox by Arthur Carl Piepkorn (Harper & Row). This volume is both the most comprehensive, most accurate, and the fairest treatment of the scores of religious denominations (apart from Anglicans) who are led by bishops claiming to be in succession to the apostles. If you want information on such a body, whether large like the Roman Catholic Church or small like the Estonian Orthodox Church or unusual like one of the three divisions of the Liberal Catholic Church, this is the book to consult. Six more volumes are projected for the series.

Most of the founding fathers of the American republic were not orthodox Christians, contrary to widely held views on the popular level. The Enlightenment in America by Henry May (Oxford) is a major study of how the ideas of men like Locke, Hume, Voltaire, and Rousseau came to have a profound effect in various ways in the Revolutionary age. May properly treats the Enlightenment as a religion even though its proponents then, like secularists of our day, did not usually so define themselves.

Evangelical Christianity recovered from the onslaught of rationalism at the beginning of the nation, but a century later a similar threat emerged and this time, so far, has proved to be more successful in capturing control of the older Protestant (and more recently Catholic) institutions. Trying to stem the institutional loss, unsuccessfully, were such men as William Bell Riley and J. Gresham Machen. They and five others are the subjects of more sympathetic scholarly essays than one is accustomed to—Voices of American Fundamentalism by C. Allyn Russell (Westminster).

Before looking at books by topic we mention two books for travellers who wish to combine their sightseeing with increasing their knowledge of the Christian past. America’s Religious Treasures by Marion Rawson Vuilleumier (Harper & Row) describes more than 800 sites of religious significance, arranged by states. Europe on Purpose: The Christian Traveler’s Guide by Robert Baylis (Pilgrimage Press [2398 Telegraph, Berkeley, Cal. 94704]) is an inexpensive “must” for anyone going to Europe. In addition to the descriptions of sites, there is also a capsule history of the church in Europe and a section with practical advice on the mechanics of travel—such as air fares, hotels and hostels, guidebooks.

GENERAL Most history books can readily be classified within one period of time and one geographical area, but in addition to some of those mentioned above as “Notables” there are a few others that roam beyond normal boundaries, and so we group them together here.

Man Through the Ages by John Bowie (Atheneum) is an overview of world history in less than 300 pages that can serve as a useful background for studying the Church’s past. How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer (Revell) is one prominent evangelical thinker’s interpretive account of change in Western society generally.

The Creeds of Christendom with a History and Critical Notes (three volumes) by Philip Schaff is now available in a soft-cover reprint edition (Baker). It was originally prepared in 1877.

The Catholic Encyclopedia by Robert Broderick (Nelson) can be added to reference collections for consultation along with other volumes when seeking short definitions of Catholic terms. Don’t look for balance in such entries as “Lutheranism.”

Christianity and the arts can be studied in three ways. Sacred Discontent: The Bible and Western Tradition by Herbert Schneidau (University of California) with reference to the Bible’s impact on literature; The History of Our Lord As Exemplified in Works of Art by Mrs. Jameson and Lady Eastlake (two volumes, Gale Research) is a reprint of a nineteenth-century work (no color illustrations) that traces the history of art in depicting other biblical scenes besides events in the life of Christ; Holy Places of Christendom by Stewart Perowne (Oxford) has color photographs of historic churches, monasteries, and the like from around the world.

Particular topics or aspects of Christianity through the ages are treated in Committed Communities by Charles Mellis (William Carey) on the role of disciplined groups in world evangelism, Christian Holiness in Scripture, in History, and in Life by George Allen Turner (Beacon Hill) on the doctrine of entire sanctification, Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective by John Connery (Loyola University of Chicago) on the history of a stance widely shared by conservative Protestants, Christians at Prayer edited by John Gallen (Notre Dame), Women and Religion: A Feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought edited by Elizabeth Clark and Herbert Richardson (Harper & Row), and Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary by Marina Warner (Knopf), a widely publicized book that we mention because it is unreliable as a history of the role of Mary.

Finally we mention in this section Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History by Langdon Gilkey (Seabury), a major contribution by an American theologian, and Encounter with Erikson: Historical Interpretation and Religious Biography edited by Donald Capps, et al. (Scholars) with essays on the use of psychology in studying the past.

THE EARLY CHURCH Full publication by Harper & Row later this year of the Gnostic documents discovered at Nag Hammadi will spark renewed interest in this ancient heresy. Two books can be informative for laymen, especially to help make some sense behind the apparently nonsensical Gnostic speculations, but they must be used with caution: The Laughing Saviour by John Dart (Harper & Row) and The Gnostics by Jacques Lacarriere (Dutton).

A History of Christian Thought from Apostolic Times to Saint Augustine (Exposition) is a scholarly survey by John Willis, a Jesuit who teaches history at Boston College and was once a Congregationalist minister. Three specialized studies to note are: Origen and the Jews by Nicholas de Lange (Cambridge), Three Monophysite Christologies by Roberta Chesnut (Oxford), and The Way to Nicea by Bernard Lonergan (Westminster), translated from Latin.

For very helpful background to biblical times and the early church see The Atlas of Early Man by Jacquetta Hawkes (St. Martin’s).

THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH Unlike last year there are no general surveys to mention; however, there were several works of broad interest. Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion by Jonathan Sumption (Rowman and Littlefield) reviews the large amount and variety of travelling that took place during what is sometimes thought a static time. The same publisher offers a short, penetrating essay by Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?

A leading authority’s lectures on church-state relations in the East were published as The Byzantine Theocracy by Steven Runciman (Cambridge). The West was featured in several essays in honor of C.R. Cheney, Church and Government in the Middle Ages, edited by Christopher Brooke et al. (Cambridge). East and West are both treated in a major study by Deno John Geanakoplos, Interaction of the “Sibling” Byzantine and Western Cultures in the Middle Ages and Italian Renaissance (Yale).

What is a year without a book on St. Francis? Anthony Mockler in Francis of Assisi: The Wandering Years (Dutton) focuses on the impact of environment on Francis rather than vice versa. In the process he offers explanations of long standing paradoxes.

A comprehensive account of the period is provided by Malcolm Lambert in Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus (Holmes and Meier). Protestant libraries in particular should be interested in this well-documented book that includes helpful maps.

Students of monasticism will welcome Medieval Monasticism: A Select Bibliography by Giles Constable (University of Toronto [33 E. Tupper St., Buffalo, N.Y. 14203]).

Six specialized studies to note: The Exclusion of Women from the Priesthood by Ida Raming (Scarecrow), an investigation of the pertinent canon law, The Bible in Early English Literature by David Fowler (University of Washington), Tamers of Death: The History of the Alexian Brothers from 1300 to 1789 by Christopher Kauffman (Seabury), Thomas Aquinas by Frederick Copleston (Barnes & Noble), Simoniacal Entry into Religious Life from 1000 to 1260: A Social, Economic, and Legal Study by Joseph Lynch (Ohio State University), and The Spirituality of Western Christendom edited by E. Rozanne Elder (Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University).

THE MODERN CHURCH For our purposes this period starts about 1500. Because there are so many books, separate categories for the major geographical areas follow this general section. Warren Wiersbe, pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, offers two major historical approaches to preaching. Walking With the Giants (Baker) has sketches of nineteen British and American preachers, plus bibliographies for studying about preaching as well as helps for preachers. Treasury of the World’s Great Sermons (Kregel) ranges beyond Anglo-Saxondom to include 123 sermons selected from two earlier ten-volume collections. Both of these volumes belong in libraries that serve preachers.

A worldwide survey of the Lutheran movement is conveniently available in The Lutheran Church Past and Presentedited by Vilmos Vajta (Augsburg). Reflections on its principal confessions are in Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional Writings by Eric Gritsch and Robert Jenson (Fortress). Specialists should know of Action and Person: Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther by Michael Baylor (Brill).

A very useful survey is available in Introduction to the Reformed Tradition by John Leith (John Knox). Both the Vajta and Leith volumes should be available in every theological library. Worthwhile essays within the conservative Reformed tradition (which is somewhat slighted by Leith) were published in Soli Deo Gloria edited by R.C. Sproul (Presbyterian and Reformed), in honor of John Gerstner; Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin edited by David Holwerda (Baker), in honor of John Bratt; and The Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times by Graham Harrison et al. (Westminster Conference [75 High St., Huntingdon, Cambs., England]). A country-by-country overview of much conservative Reformed activity is provided in The World Survey of Reformed Missions, Third Edition (Reformed Ecumenical Synod [1677 Gentian Dr. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49508]). Better understanding of Calvin is conveyed in Calvin and Classical Philosophy by Charles Partee (Brill).

Baptists in general are represented by a brief, popular overview, The Baptist Heritage by Edward Cole (Cook). Reflections on Methodism’s ministry over the centuries are in Informed Ministry by Egon Gerdes (Institute for Methodist Studies [2121 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, Ill. 60201]). The same institute also prepared A Checklist of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies, 1970–1975. The Exclusive branch of a movement much smaller than those previously mentioned, the Plymouth Brethren, is the subject of Backgrounds to Dispensationalism by Clarence Bass (Baker, reprint). The influence of Dispensationalism has spread far beyond the small movement that first promoted it. Bass is critical but his documentation allows others to check for themselves. A rather different kind of widespread influence has resulted from the Society of Jesus. For a sympathetic overview see An Introduction to Jesuit Life: The Constitutions and History Through 435 Years by Thomas Clancy (Institute of Jesuit Sources [3700 W. Pine Blvd., St. Louis, Mo. 63108]).

The fastest growing and most widespread Christian movement in our century is undoubtedly the pentecostal-charismatic movement (or is it movements?). Besides innumerable first-person testimonies there were several studies for those who want a better understanding of what’s going on. Giving somewhat more emphasis to the Protestant expression is The New Charismatics: The Origins, Development, and Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism by Richard Quebedeaux (Doubleday). Several viewpoints are represented by essays in Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism edited by Russell Spittler (Baker). Robert Culpepper, a Baptist missionary to Japan, attempts a dispassionate, largely theological approach in Evaluating the Charismatic Movement (Judson). A popular autobiography of one of the best-known globe travelling Pentecostals is A Man Called Mr. Pentecost by David du Plessis (Logos). Franker than the usual autobiography is The C.M. Ward Story (New Leaf) by an Assemblies of God leader. Also more revealing than one is accustomed to is Oral: The Warm, Intimate, Unauthorized Portrait of a Man of God, on Oral Roberts by Wayne Robinson (Acton), a former vice-president in Roberts’s organization. Although laudatory, two popular biographies of one of the best-known women in the charismatic movement reveal more of her shortcomings than used to be the case in this genre. Daughter of Destiny: Kathryn Kuhlman, Her Story by Jamie Buckingham (Logos) is longer and more “official” than Kathryn Kuhlman by Helen Hosier (Revell).

Almost half of those attending the recent huge charismatic gathering in Kansas City were Roman Catholics. For background on this movement see Catholic Pentecostalism by René Laurentin (Doubleday), Catholic Pentecostals Now edited by J. Kerkhofs (Alba), Which Way for Catholic Pentecostals? by J. Massyngberde Ford (Harper & Row), and Sounds of Wonder: Speaking in Tongues in the Catholic Tradition by Eddie Ensley (Paulist). The last-named is a popular survey of precursors ever since the early church.

No other modern movements call forth as much writing as the charismatics. The Nuns by Marcelle Bernstein (Lippincott) is a journalistic account on the variety of nuns around the world. Jesus, the Living Bread edited by James Talley (Logos) is an illustrated account of the international Catholic eucharistic congress held last year in Philadelphia. A famous speculative theologian is the subject of a biography by Mary Lukas and Ellen Lukas, Teilhard: The Man, the Priest, the Scientist (Doubleday). Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre by Yves Congar (Our Sunday Visitor) is about a man who shows that Catholicism, like so much of Protestantism before it, is able to be very tolerant of radical innovators in its midst but not nearly so tolerant of those who wish to keep believing and practicing as they always have.

A very interesting reflection on continental European theology in this century (with far too few references to English-speaking theologians) is offered by one of the leading conservative dogmaticians in A Half Century of Theology by G.C. Berkouwer (Eerdmans).

In a popular vein, Gerald Strober gives us a close-up glimpse of one of the world’s best-known Christians in Graham: A Day in Billy’s Life (Doubleday). The same author tells young people about Billy Graham: His Life and Faith (Word). Finally an informative personal account of missionary radio is given by Philip Booth in Slim Fingers (Christian Literature Crusade).

CONTINENTAL EUROPE Besides Zwingli and From Luther to 1580, mentioned in the introduction, there were a few other titles from the Reformation period. Women of the Reformation: From Spain to Scandinavia by Roland Bainton (Augsburg) is a sequel to his two earlier volumes on women in France and England and in Germany and Italy. Sketches of twenty-nine women are presented.

Renaissance Rome: 1500–1559 by Peter Partner (University of California) is especially interesting because it seeks the explanation of how the city’s artistic creativity and urban renewal coexisted with the religious and political upheaval.

Two specialized studies: Mysticism and the Early South German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement, 1525–1531 by Werner Packull (Herald Press) and Domesticating the Clergy: The Inception of the Reformation in Strasbourg, 1522–1524 by William Stafford (Scholars). Numbers six through nine of the Sixteenth Century Bibliography series appeared, of which Annotated Bibliography of Luther Studies, 1967–1976 by Jack Bigane and Kenneth Hagen would be of widest interest (Center for Reformation Research [6477 San Bonita Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63105]).

An interesting postscript to the Reformation is a readable and reliable account of the return in 1689 of the Waldenses to their homeland by Walter Utt, Home to Our Valleys! (Pacific Press [1350 Villa St., Mountain View, Cal. 94042]).

Christianity in Russia is the subject of several studies. Of more scholarly interest are Russian Mystics by Sergius Bolshakoff (Cistercian Publications [1749 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, Mich. 49008]) and The Great Revival: The Russian Church Under German Occupation by Wassilij Alexeev and Theofanis Stavrou (Burgess). For a proper background on the present plight of Soviet Protestants a good history of the pre-Communist period is The Meek and the Mighty: The Emergence of the Evangelical Movement in Russia by Hans Brandenburg (Oxford). Popular, reliable narratives of the present scene are in Young Christians in Russia by Michael Bourdeaux and Katharine Murray (Bethany Fellowship) and A Song in Siberia by Anita and Peter Deyneka, Jr. (Cook). Contemporary documents from within the country are translated and compiled in Religious Liberty in the Soviet Union edited by Michael Bourdeaux et al. (Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism [Keston, Kent, England]).

From Soviet tyranny we turn to a tyranny that is past but whose repercussions are still very much with us. Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? Reflections on the Holocaust edited by Eva Fleischner (KTAV) contains the papers given at an international symposium; Christian attitudes to Jews, before and after the Nazis, are a major theme. Nazism and the Pastors by James Zabel (Scholars) is a study of the ideas of some of the pro-Hitler (the majority) Protestants. A leading Catholic ethicist was a medic in the German army during the war. His memoirs of that time are published as Embattled Witness by Bernard Häring (Seabury). (The massive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eberhard Bethge is now in a Harper & Row paperback.)

THE BRITISH ISLES A distinctive format is used by Edward Hindson, editor of Introduction to Puritan Theology (Baker). An essay on each of twelve divisions of systematic theology is selected from the writings of twelve prominent Puritans.

Much of English religious history could be gleaned from this past year’s output of specialized studies: Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age: A Survey of Printed Sources by Peter Milward (University of Nebraska). The Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans, and the Two Tables, 1620–1670 by J. Sears McGee (Yale), Reason, Ridicule, and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England, 1660–1750 by John Redwood (Harvard), Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture, 1780–1850 by Thomas Walter Laqueur (Yale), and The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians by Ian Bradley (Macmillan).

Scholarly studies of individuals who have been involved with Christianity in the British Isles in a variety of ways include: William Blake: A New Kind of Man by Michael Davis (University of California), C.H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament by F.W. Dillistone (Eerdmans), Oliver Plunkett: His Life and Letters by Tomás Ó Fiaich and Desmond Forristal (Our Sunday Visitor), Ian Ramsey: To Speak Responsibly of God by Jerry Gill (Allen and Unwin), John Charles Ryle: Evangelical Bishop by Peter Toon and Michael Smout (Reiner), and Wesley in the Christian Tradition edited by Kenneth Rowe (Scarecrow). Here is also the place to commend Banner of Truth for reprinting the Letters of George Whitefield for the Period 1734–1742.

Regrettably, the biggest continuing religious story from the British Isles in our time concerns the conflict in Northern Ireland. Among the many titles in this area, university libraries should consider The Protestants of Ulster by Geoffrey Bell (Urizen), Northern Ireland: The Orange State by Michael Farrell (Urizen), Children in Conflict by Morris Fraser (Basic Books), and the Origins of Ulster Unionism by Peter Gibbon (Rowman and Littlefield).

NORTH AMERICA: GENERAL In addition to the five notable titles on the United States and Canada mentioned at the beginning of this survey, there were a few titles treating some aspect of American religion from earlier to more recent times. (Separate categories for twentieth-century America and for the earlier centuries follow.)

The most general was a revised edition of Historical Atlas of Religion in America by Edwin Scott Gaustad (Harper & Row). The revision is major enough that libraries will need to acquire this edition. It should be a collateral resource for any course in American religious history.

Also wide in scope is Denominationalism edited by Russell Richey (Abingdon). The ten essays look at what is a key distinctive of North American religion as compared to Latin America and Europe where one “church” usually dominates in any given place and the dissenters are divided into several small “sects” or as compared to Asia and Africa where, generally speaking, all Christian groups are small with none dominating.

Libraries will want The Howard University Bibliography of African and Afro-American Religious Studies compiled by Ethel Williams and Clifton Brown (Scholarly Resources [1508 Pennsylvania Ave., Wilmington, Del. 19806]). A valuable feature is the indication of libraries where the more than 13,000 entries can be found.

Of more popular interest is Major Black Religious Leaders, 1755–1940 by Henry Young (Abingdon). Twelve men are introduced. Five well-known white men are the subjects of Profiles of Revival Leaders by W. Glyn Evans (Broadman).

The Bicentennial saw a large number of books of celebration. Here is a list of some of the ones more given to reflection and minus illustrations. Three collections of essays that deserve wide circulation: An Almost Chosen People: The Moral Aspirations of Americans edited by Walter Nicgorski and Ronald Weber (Notre Dame), The American Religious Experiment: Piety and Practicality edited by Clyde Manschreck and Barbara Brown Zikmund (Chicago Theological Seminary), and A Nation Under God? edited by C.E. Gallivan (Word). Seven titles by single authors: The Old Religion in the Brave New World: Reflections on the Relation Between Christendom and the Republic by Sidney Mead (University of California) by one of the foremost American church historians, Without Help or Hindrance: Religious Identity in American Culture by Eldon Ernst (Westminster), Religion and the American: The Search for Freedom Under God by Christopher Mooney (Westminster), Day Dawns in Fire: America’s Quest for Meaning by Merrill Abbey (Fortress), The Political Pulpit by Roderick Hart (Purdue University), on American civic piety, and two titles from Broadman on the impact of religion in American life: Nationhood and Kingdom by James E. Wood, Jr., and Faith, Stars, and Stripes by Ronald Tonks and Charles W. Deweese.

One of the more significant books on American religion focuses on the ideas and practice of missions, both within the country and in other lands. Eleven papers by missiologists are in American Missions in Bicentennial Perspective edited by R. Pierce Beaver (William Carey).

Sometimes denominational histories are of interest to outsiders. If you have ever wondered about the origins and nature of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), which seems like a rather strange name for a world-wide fellowship, then see A Brief History of the Church of God Reformation Movement by John W.V. Smith (Warner Press). If you want to have a detailed account of one of the more vigorous of the smaller branches of Methodism, see Conscience and Commitment: The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America by Ira F. McLeister and Roy S. Nicholson (Wesley Press [Marion, Ind. 46952]). This is an enlarged edition bringing the story down to the 1968 merger into the Wesleyan Church from the group’s origins in 1843 because of strong anti-slavery sentiments. Another branch of Methodism very much affected by slavery is surveyed in Dark Salvation: The Story of Methodism as It Developed Among Blacks in America by Harry Richardson (Anchor).

Topical essays rather than chronological narratives are presented in Baptists and the American Experience edited by James E. Wood, Jr. (Judson). A more specialized story is told in Mission to America: A Century and a Quarter of Southern Baptist Home Missions by Arthur Rutledge (Broadman).

Now back in print is an important aid to the study of Presbyterianism: The Presbyterian Enterprise edited by Maurice Armstrong, Lefferts Loetscher, and Charles Anderson (Westminster). Libraries building black studies collections will want The Rise and Decline of the Program of Education for Black Presbyterians … 1865–1970 by Inez Moore Parker (Trinity University).

NORTH AMERICA: BEFORE TWENTIETH CENTURY Kenneth Clark’s renowned television series, “Civilisation,” should have increased our awareness of the importance of architecture in understanding the past. A splendid collection of photographs by John de Visser of early church buildings from coast to coast in what is now the United States and Canada has been published as Pioneer Churches (Norton) with text by Harold Kalman. “Pioneer” refers to being among the earliest (extant) in its region or of its denomination. A valuable collateral reference for any course in North American religious history.

The most massive biography this past year was Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography by Thomas R. Ryan (Our Sunday Visitor). It needs to be in all major libraries; its nearly 900 pages will serve as a sourcebook for future studies of this extraordinarily complex and controversial convert to Catholicism.

Other biographies: Benjamin Wisner Bacon: Pioneer in American Biblical Criticism and Frank Chamberlain Porter: Pioneer in American Biblical Interpretation both by Roy Harrisville (Scholars), Jonathan Edwards the Younger by Robert Ferm (Eerdmans), Wheat Flour Messiah: Eric Jansson of Bishop Hill by Paul Elmen (Southern Illinois University) on the Swedish-born founder of a utopian community in Illinois, Richard Mather of Dorchester by B.R. Burg (University Press of Kentucky), on a first-generation Puritan leader who was father of Increase and grandfather of Cotton, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, by Donna Hill (Doubleday), a lengthy, documented narrative by a believing descendant of Mormon pioneers who provides useful insights while sidestepping crucial questions, and Benjamin West: The Context of His Life’s Work with Particular Attention to Paintings with Religious Subject Matter by John Dillenberger (Trinity University). For more than fifty years prior to his death, West lived and worked in England but managed to continue to be thought of as American.

The first two (out of seven) parts of Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana, completed in 1700, are now available in a far more accurate edition than ever before, edited by Kenneth Murdock and published by Harvard, the college over which Cotton’s father, Increase, had presided. This is obviously an essential tool for the study of New England Puritanism. Other studies, undertaken from a more distant vantage, include: Puritan New England edited by Alden Vaughan and Francis Bremer (St. Martin’s), containing twenty essays published in scholarly journals since 1960, Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath in Early America by Winton Solberg (Harvard), Valley of Discord: Church and Society along the Connecticut River, 1636–1725 by Paul Lucas (University Press of New England), God’s Messengers: Religious Leadership in Colonial New England, 1700–1750 by J. William T. Youngs, Jr. (Johns Hopkins), What Must I Do To Be Saved? The Great Awakening in Colonial America by J.M. Bumsted and John Van de Wetering (Dryden), and Moby-Dick and Calvinism: A World Dismantled by T. Walter Herbert, Jr. (Rutgers).

The various religious traditions of German-speaking immigrants are as fascinating as are those of the English-speaking ones to whom more attention has been given. It could be argued that the original English vision for the kingdom of God has been modified along German-American lines, and vice versa. Five books to note: Continental Pietism and Early American Christianity edited by F. Ernest Stoeffler (Eerdmans) has essays on pietism in seven denominational expressions. The Brethren in the New Nation edited by Roger Sappington and The Old Brethren by James Lehman (both Brethren Press) are in-depth looks at the movement now divided into Church of the Brethren, “Grace” Brethren, and other branches; the former collects documents illustrating the period from 1785 to 1865, the latter is an informal reconstruction of what it was like to be among the “Dunker” Brethren in the 1840’s. The Pennsylvania Dutch by William Parsons (Twayne) is about the earlier German settlers and their descendants, both from the Lutheran and Reformed churches as well as from the smaller bodies including the “Plain Folk.” (German immigrants after 1835 had a basically different development.) ‘Twas Seeding Time by John Ruth (Herald Press) is an informal account of how Mennonites were affected by the American war for independence.

Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution by Catherine Albanese (Temple University) is an important contribution.

Four studies of frontier religion: Religion in Antebellum Kentucky by John Boles (University Press of Kentucky), Road to Augusta by Joe Burton (Broadman), on the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, Equality on the Oregon Frontier: Jason Lee and the Methodist Mission, 1834–43 by Robert Loewenberg (University of Washington), and Massacre at Mountain Meadows by William Wise (Crowell) on the murder of a party of some 120 persons in Utah in 1857 for which one Mormon was tried and executed. The author tries to make a case that Mormon leaders were involved and that the massacre was a logical expression of their views.

Following the Civil War, fervor for helping blacks waned, especially in the face of rapid urbanization and industrialization. See Immigrants and Religion in Urban America edited by Randall Miller (Temple University), The Philadelphia Quakers in the Industrial Age, 1865–1920 by Philip Benjamin (Temple University), Salvation in the Slums: Evangelical Social Work, 1965–1920 by Norris Magnuson (Scarecrow), and Knights of the Golden Rule: The Intellectual as Christian Social Reformer in the 1890s by Peter Frederick (University Press of Kentucky).

NORTH AMERICA: TWENTIETH-CENTURY Martin Marty argues in A Nation of Behavers (University of Chicago) that our religious groupings (such as mainline, evangelicalism and fundamentalism, ethnic) are better described in terms of how the people in them behave than what they say they believe. More formal social scientific studies include The American Catholic: A Social Portrait by Andrew Greeley (Basic; see the same author’s Communal Catholic: A Personal Manifesto [Seabury] for his pungent distinctions between institutional and communal Catholicism), Symbol and Conquest: Public Ritual and Drama in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Ronald Grimes (Cornell), Sunday Morning: Aspects of Urban Ritual by Michael Ducey (Free Press) based on four white, middle-class churches in a Chicago neighborhood, Out of the Cloister by Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh (University of Texas) on the changes in orders of nuns, The Growth Crisis in the American Church: A Presbyterian Case Study by Foster Shannon (William Carey), and The Church Emerging: A U.S. Lutheran Case Study edited by John Reumann (Fortress).

Religion and politics is calling forth numerous books aimed at the general public. Among them we mention: The Man From Plains: The Mind and Spirit of Jimmy Carter by David Kucharsky (Harper & Row), The Religion of President Carter by Niels Nielsen, Jr. (Nelson), Rebirth in Washington: The Christian Impact in the Nation’s Capital by Wallace Henley (Good News), and Religion at the Polls by Albert Menendez (Westminster). In the latter several campaigns, not just the most recent, are investigated.

Two autobiographies of prominent religious figures are Thus Far on My Journey by E. Raymond Wilson (Friends United Press), long-time secretary of the Quaker lobby on Capitol Hill, and A Canterbury Tale by John Cogley (Seabury), prominent Catholic journalist who became an Episcopalian near the end of his life.

Studies of early twentieth century Protestants included R.A. Torrey: Apostle of Certainty by Roger Martin (Sword of the Lord), The Significance of J. Gresham Machen Today by Paul Woolley (Presbyterian and Reformed) and Ordained of the Lord: H.A. Ironside by E. Schuyler English (Loizeaux).

Three somewhat different forms of evangelical activity are surveyed on a popular level in The Faith Healer by Eve Simson (Concordia), on the wide-ranging phenomenon under that name, Moody Bible Institute: God’s Power in Action by Dorothy Martin (Moody), and Flames of Freedom by Erwin Lutzer (Moody), on a Saskatchewan-launched awakening in our decade. The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge (Baker) is a slightly enlarged and revised edition of a book first issued in 1975 and that gives a good overview, with numerous references for further reading, of a movement that is more in the news of late.

From Mars Hill to Manhattan by George Papaioannou (Light and Life) is a study of Greek Orthodoxy in America especially as related to its longtime archbishop, later patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras. The Days of Our Pilgrimage by Paul Westphal Thomas and Paul William Thomas (Wesley Press) is a history of the Pilgrim Holiness Church from 1897 until it helped form the Wesleyan Church in 1968.

The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod has been much in the news of late. Preus of Missouri and the Great Lutheran Civil War by James E. Adams (Harper & Row) is an outside journalist’s attempt at fair reporting and analysis that is useful but hardly the last word. No Room in the Brotherhood: The Preus-Otten Purge of Missouri by Frederick Danker (Clayton [Box 9258, St. Louis, Mo. 63117]) is a long account by an insider from the perspective of what appears to be the losing side organizationally, while Anatomy of an Explosion: Missouri in Lutheran Perspective by Kurt Marquart (Concordia Theological Seminary [Ft. Wayne, Ind. 46825]) is by someone on the winning side. Exodus From Concordia (Concordia Seminary [St. Louis, Mo. 63105]) is the official report by the school’s trustees. It was in protest of their actions that the majority of the faculty and students withdrew in 1974.

John Gordon Melton has compiled a list of more than 1,200 groups in A Directory of Religious Bodies in the United States (Garland) including twenty-three kinds of Mormons, a dozen branches of Episcopalians, and seven kinds of black Jews.

LATIN AMERICA The Lost Paradise by Philip Caraman (Seabury) is about an oft-studied seventeenth-century Jesuit republic in what is now Paraguay. Pentecostalism in Colombia by Cornelia Butler Flora (Fairleigh Dickenson University) is a scholarly study of the non-trinitarian United Pentecostal Church and its rapid growth. Theology of the Crossroads in Contemporary Latin America by Orlando Costas (Humanities Press) is a major interaction by an evangelical with much of the recent theological and ethical discussion in Latin American Protestantism.

AFRICA Besides the previously mentioned and fundamental Howard University Bibliography of African and Afro-American Religious Studies we call attention to God’s Higher Ways by Clarence Duff (Presbyterian and Reformed) on the Orthodox Presbyterian work in the troubled land of Ethiopia, Church Growth in Burundi by Donald Hohensee (William Carey), Church Planting in Uganda: A Comparative Study by Gailyn Van Rheenen (William Carey), Uganda: Fire and Blood by Elain Murray Stone (Logos), on severe persecution in that land during the 1880’s, I Love Idi Amin by Festo Kivengere (Revell), on severe persecution in the same country now, and African Christianity by Adrian Hastings (Seabury), a brief overview of the common issues around the continent.

ASIA-PACIFIC For all three “third world continents” there are many more interesting testimonies available, usually about missionaries, sometimes about nationals, than we have room to mention. Studies on specialized topics that should be of somewhat wider interest include: The Deep Sea Canoe: The Story of Third World Missionaries in the South Pacific by Alan Tippett (William Carey), The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings Which Followed by William Blair and Bruce Hunt (Banner of Truth), Hewn From the Rock: Origins and Traditions of the Church in Sydney by Marcus Loane (Anglican Information Office [507 Kent St., Sydney 2000 Australia]), and Light in the Far East by Edward Fischer (Seabury), on Catholic Archbishop Harold Henry’s forty-two years in Korea.

Also for those interested in the church in Asia and the Pacific, see The Kalimantan Kenyah: A Study of Tribal Conversion by William Conley (Presbyterian and Reformed), a scholarly study of an Indonesian tribe, Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three Nineteenth-Century American Missionaries in East Shantung by Irwin Hyatt, Jr. (Harvard), an account of widely differing reponses to life in northeast China, When Blood Flows, the Heart Grows Softer by Jeanette Lockerbie (Tyndale) on Christianity in the tragic land of Cambodia, Evangelical Awakenings in the South Seas by J. Edwin Orr (Bethany Fellowship), fourth in a series of five books and misleadingly titled since islands such as Madagascar and Indonesia are included as is Australia, and Crucial Issues in Bangladesh by Peter McNee (William Carey).

Finally theological reflection growing out of historical experience characterizes the essays compiled by Roy Sano in The Theologies of Asian American and Pacific Peoples (Asian Center for Theology and Strategies [1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley, Cal. 94709]).

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

Two Tragedies In Two Weeks

The father is a Christian leader.

The son is in his mid-teens, a wholesome boy emerging into young manhood. And most importantly, he is a Christian, largely through his parents’ influence. He spent the past month at a Christian camp.

Last week the father had a phone call from the camp director. “I have bad news for you. Your son drowned this afternoon. He was in a canoe …”

The father wept.

The father is a Christian leader.

The son is in his mid-teens, a wholesome boy emerging into young manhood. And most importantly, he is a Christian, largely through his parents’ influence. He spent the past month at a Christian camp.

This week he arrived home. “I have bad news for you,” his father said. “You know that your mother and I haven’t been getting along very well. So I’m divorcing her.… She wants to stay together, but …”

The son wept.

EUTYCHUS VIII

Surpassing Coverage

James Hefley’s coverage of the Southern Baptist Convention (“Southern Baptists: Tension and Togetherness, July 29) surpassed by far that appearing in any of the half dozen or so state Baptist publications I read.… He is quite correct in stating that “inerrancy is still a live issue” in the SBC, and I hope it will remain so for as long as the Convention exists.

WORTH C. GRANT

President

Southern Baptists for Bible Translation

Washington, D.C.

Viewing Inerrancy

Since the recent critique of my article on inerrancy by John Warwick Montgomery (Current Religious Thought, “Whither Biblical Inerrancy?”, July 29) could lead to misunderstanding regarding my position, I would like to take this opportunity to restate my adherence to the historic view of inerrancy. My purpose was not to “redefine” the doctrine but rather to apply it to historical research, particularly in the Gospels. I am certain that Montgomery would not claim that in the Gospels we have the exact words of Jesus. For one thing, he spoke in Aramaic rather than Greek; for another the evangelists differ in their quotes. We do, however, have the exact teaching of Jesus, and this comes through the inspired interpretation of his teaching by the evangelists. For a further clarification of my position, I would like to point to my article, “The Evangelical and Tradition Criticism,” in the forthcoming The New Testament Student: Critical Issues, ed. by John H. Skilton.

GRANT R. OSBORNE

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Ill.

Montgomery scores Norman Geisler by suggesting that the “concrete facts” of history, science, and law are more useful to a correct view of scriptural inerrancy than philosophy. I think Montgomery forgets a point made by one of the best apologists of this century. C. S. Lewis warns us that the only problem with trying to rely solely on facts is that they must be interpreted … What, for example, nature “teaches” is a function of the philosophy brought to her, and of course the same holds true for history and law. That is why controversies continue to rage in the academy as well as the courts. Facts are our building blocks; we get nowhere without them. But philosophy is prior because we cannot build to any extent without a structure and primary because it determines the direction we go with those facts. Attending to philosophy does not affect whether we rely on facts or on philosophy but it does affect the consistency and soundness of that philosophy.

TERRI WILLIAMS

Portland, Ore.

While there can be no objection to any reasoned discussion of the inerrancy question, Montgomery exceeds the boundaries of reason and Christian charity in his assertions that evangelicalism might gain rather than lose from a division over this issue, and that the progressives are the lukewarm who can only be spewed out of Christ’s mouth.… Most of us out here in the greater evangelical community have everything to lose if the cooperative base we have so carefully won over the past thirty years is destroyed by senseless polemic war.… The argument from Christ’s supposed view of Scripture to comprehensive biblical literalism is a very slender mainstay for Montgomery’s polemics, and even if valid would not make one’s view of Scripture a fundamental and divisive doctrine. On Montgomery’s logic, C. S. Lewis must be held to reject the lordship of Christ because of his refusal to embrace Montgomery’s inerrancy position—“If he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.” One doesn’t have to fit very many names of prominent evangelical or orthodox Christians into Montgomery’s formula to get ludicrous results—and potentially tragic results if any of us really begin to disfellowship one another on this basis.

JAMES A. HEDSTROM

Madison, Tenn.

What a pity, what a solemn pity to see the philosopher-prince John Warwick Montgomery throw himself on his own sword in an unnecessary and futile defense of biblical inerrancy. If evangelicals are delighted, with good cause, to the application of scientific criticism to the Book of Mormon, knowing that the truth about that volume will set many Mormons free, then, to be consistent, we will be equally as delighted by the application of scientific criticism to the Bible—for precisely the same reason: the truth sets people free. Montgomery blusters like a man who has something to hide or who, himself, may be hiding. In the end, it will not be the sealing wax around our hermeneutics that saves us, but the compelling ring of truth in the kerygma, redacted or not, that continues unceasingly to move and transform us. After all, it is the Gospel, not our defense of it, that is the “power of God unto salvation.”

GARY STARKEY

Beulah Missionary Church

Elkhart, Ind.

On The List

I am writing in reference to the July 29 news story, “Graham and the Press: New Look at Ledgers.” The article concerned stories Mary Bishop and I wrote for The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer about the World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund, a heretofore unpublicized arm of the Graham ministry. Your article dealing with reaction to the Observer’s revelation of this fund’s existence would have been more complete if the list you printed of groups receiving money from World Evangelism had included the group that ranks number three in terms of gifts from World Evangelism, namely, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

ROBERT HODIERNE

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Washington Bureau

Washington, D.C.

• You are correct that, as a non-profit corporation, CHRISTIANITY TODAY received substantial contributions from 1972 to 1974 toward its ministry.—ED.

Throw Out The Band Aids

Dr. Richard Strauss’ article, “The Family Church: Any Place for Singles?” (July 29) is typical of a growing band-aid philosophy in the church regarding divorce. We apply more energy and time in smoothing over the sin of divorce in our congregations than we do in stressing the biblical precepts that would prevent its occurring. We are alarmed at the increasing emphasis being placed on making divorced persons feel “comfortable,” loved, and accepted, and the decreasing exposition of the Word, instructing each of us to seek restoration of relationships marred and broken by sin. We dare not presume to help troubled divorced persons establish a “close relationship with the Lord” if we have failed to urge repentance and reconciliation prior to the marriage break.

DOUGLAS AND ROSE MARY FONCREE

Jackson, Miss.