Page 6009 – Christianity Today (2024)

Some years ago a good friend pointed out that the best writing in any given week will appear somewhere in the New Yorker. It is pretty hard to know how anyone can make such a sweeping statement with any finality or authority. Like saying that War and Peace is the greatest novel ever written—how many novels does a man have to read before he can make a statement like that? And yet the idea has grown on me that my friend might just be right. At any rate, the thing happened again: In an unsigned article under the “Talk of the Town” in the January 4 issue, there it was: the best thing written to date on the flight of Apollo 8. What will ever happen to that article, a superb parallel drawn between Apollo 8 and Christmas, of all things, with the constant counterpoint throughout of what we all experienced: “Some failure of private response.”

So it was with me: “some failure of private response.” I wasn’t big enough; my imagination had to be jacked up constantly. “This is really happening,” I kept saying. “It really did happen,” I could finally say, after what the New Yorker editorialist described as “apprehension, elation, incredulity, awe, relief, and pride.” What a time it all was, and yet content and meaning kept slipping away from me.

It is something like watching a clock. You can see the second hand sweeping, but unless the clock is a very big one you can hardly see the minute hand move, and you can never see the hour hand move at all. If something moves you can surely see it move, can’t you? Well, concentrate with everything you have and you won’t see the hour hand move; still, it moves.

With Apollo 8 something moved. I am not sure yet that I saw it move, but in one lifetime (my own), the day when the cow jumped over the moon (some joke that!) and the day when three men flew around the backside of the moon have both passed. So a thousand years in God’s sight are like “yesterday when it is passed.” And yesterday has already passed.

So we ponder its passing. Where did those three men come from? How do you make men like that? Education is big business now and there are all kinds of educational schemes, but have we learned how to develop characters like that? I couldn’t take my eyes off their pictures in Time (and the same picture appeared over and over in so many places), just those three men who had arrived at this point in time together. There were those three great faces marked by manliness and intelligence and courage. Think of the way they stood there before the flight, with their impressive simplicity and quietness. And all this was topped finally by the simple “Roger” by which they settled the decision to leave the orbit of the earth and literally “shoot for the moon.” Talk about an existential moment!

I have heard from many sources for a long time that the world is going to the dogs. Maybe so. But if it really is, then it has been at it for the last 10,000 years, so why hasn’t it made it yet? And with the dog-eat-dog of our own day, there are still those brave and dedicated men to think about, and behind them the tremendous visions of the last few years, and dreams turned into material, and pure math turned into tracks in the trackless skies, and a marvelous team effort of hundreds of brilliant experts, and a globe full of the right kinds of people who kept wishing them well, and a nameless writer in a supremely sophisticated magazine who caught it all and who, with his editor, believed that their kind of reader would appreciate it all in this sort of way. Ah, Pascal; the majesty and misery of man.

I am not foolish enough to try even to guess what the moon really is or what has been happening to it in all this. It is sad, in a way, to know what we now know, for the moon has always had a strange hold on men’s hearts. “The Moon and You” has taken a bad turn; that moon rhymes with soon and tune, and especially with croon and spoon, all seems so irrelevant now. What a strange travesty now that the soaring resources of the human spirit have apparently concluded for all of us that the moon is nothing more than a heavenly dustbin.

Meanwhile, to get back to earth, how did your own planet affect you as you looked at it from out there in the solar system? Like not much, I think. So “why should the spirit of mortal be proud,” and just what are your prides today? The Scriptures talked long ago about the nations as a “drop of a bucket,” and “the small dust of the balance.” Something for a little blotter or a slight breeze. Meanwhile they carry on a sad childish argument in Paris about chief seats and some girl someplace is crying her eyes out because she wasn’t chosen for a sorority. Cheerleading takes on a hollow sound, money clinks badly, all flesh is as grass. The planet earth looked lonely and cold, cut off, whirling through infinite space for what possible reasons. A penny in front of your eye can cut off your vision; a new vision from outer space can’t quite make out the pennies.

It’s just as well now to forget about conquering space. The builders of the tower of Babel fell into confusion because of a basic confusion; they thought they could build a tower to heaven. Missing the whole point of the wonder of God, not quite understanding the cosmic nonsense of what they proposed to do, they finally began to talk foolishness to one another. Men do not go up; God comes down. We do not presume on heaven; heaven condescends. No, even at the speed of light we shall hardly kick loose from our own solar system; the earth is almost out of sight already and we have only reached the moon. But maybe we are one up on the builders of Babel; we don’t expect to build to heaven (because we don’t believe in heaven anymore?), and that at least gives us a modest approach to Reality.

But could it be, could it possibly be, that men will learn afresh about wonder, and awe, and majesty, and eternity, and infinity, and learn for sure that even the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Him? Men could turn their marvelous resources in that direction—no dustbin there!

ADDISON H. LEITCH

If anything specific came forth from this month’s third National Mobilization for Peace in the nation’s capital, it was the apparent shift in emphasis from Viet Nam to “healing the wounds” war has caused within the nation. With the shape of the peace table resolved in Paris, the nation’s most conspicuous ecumenical peace movement—Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Viet Nam—lost most of its thunder. The result: a dramatic reshaping of its own raison d’etre.

As spokesmen tried to weld the woes of the home front—racial unrest, unheeded cries of the poor, moribund cities—to what they decried as an “immoral” political debacle in Viet Nam, a number of observers failed to see the catenation holding. But from ascendant rights leader Coretta King through Yale’s jail-bound William Sloane Coffin, Jr., they insisted on forging the links.

Energetic 34-year-old United Church of Christ minister Richard R. Fernandez—administrator of the group, which has a mailing list of 25,000—sought in vain an audience with President Richard M. Nixon. Instead, leaders settled for a forty-minute interview with top foreignpolicy aide Henry Kissinger. Lyndon Johnson hadn’t allowed them any contact with his staff the previous two years.

The bitterest note of all, however, was directed not toward the President nor toward the United States as “aggressor” in Viet Nam, as in previous years, but toward unspecified religious leaders who were ostentatious before the Justice Department turned its guns on Coffin and baby doctor Benjamin Spock but went into hiding when the trial came up.

“We are scandalized,” a position paper fumed, “by the failure of bishops and religious leaders to follow through their support for selective conscientious objection. With few exceptions, they have refused to testify in court for selective objectors, to marshal public opinion for the legislative changes they profess to desire, or even to visit objectors in prison.”

Fernandez said “it is understandable that churchmen do not want to come to the defense of those who have broken the law,” but intimated they were well aware the time would come when such a stand would be necessary.

Confrontation-prone parson Carl McIntire put it a lot more bluntly: “There is a great deal of fear and weakness in this ecumenical movement. The clergymen are afraid of the man in the pulpit and his reaction against this.” Keeping his cool, the separationist preacher tried to make the most of an open forum the peacemakers invited him to. After an hour of give-and-take on the meaning of “love thy enemy,” each side agreed only that the other person’s “love” was an unlovely “love.”

Mrs. King led an entourage of 500—mostly clerics and seminarians, though the group’s paid-up constituency is mostly lay—to the Justice Department steps.

She said she would not be satisfied with the old Johnson priorities of guns and butter. “I want it made explicitly clear,” she said, “I do not want guns—with or without butter.” She wants so to organize the black and white poor that there will be no political leader “who will have the temerity to offer us guns or butter.”

A different forum from Clergy and Laymen Concerned would have to be her choice for enlisting blacks to her cause, judging from the makeup of the group. Aside from a few showcase Negroes addressing workshops and an occasional one in the ranks, the anti-war effort was youthful, middle-class white. There was also a noticeable absence of members from the historic “peace churches.”

When several newsmen started picking away at often repeated allegations that make America the villain by sliding over Viet Cong hostilities, Washington Post religion writer William Mac-Kaye saved Fernandez from obvious discomfort when he injected, “Can’t we talk about something else?” Last year, a high-ranking State Department spokesman raked the same group over the coals for an imbalanced “documentary” entitled, In the Name of America, Stop! He claimed, among other things, that the book was a unilateral indictment of the United States, unsupported by objectivity.

Despite de-emphasis on the war itself, New York’s Rabbi Abraham Heschel said Nixon can with one word—“pardon”—do much to heal the rift in the nation. “Jail must not be the price” for expressing one’s conscience against the war, he said. With the Paris palaver stilling many of the guns of Viet Nam, amnesty and draft reform are becoming the major new war-related objectives of the peace movement.

Prayer Amendment No. 3

Since Madalyn Murray O’Hair knocked school devotional life into a tizzy, Presbyterian-Reformed Senator Everett M. Dirksen (R.-Ill.) has battled to let Americans demonstrate their faith on tax-supported property. Partially because of his uphill fight, Dirksen has become a hero among religious and political conservatives.

Early in his drive he joshed journalists that his plan for getting a prayer amendment passed was “simply devilish.” That session he came to within six votes of the two-thirds needed in the Senate to get the bill on the way to its next big hurdle.* He started again the first day of the next session with a streamlined version that never got past the Senate Judiciary Committee. For years, in the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Emanuel Celler (D.-N.Y.) has sat on a similar but stronger measure.

The Ninety-first Congress is now faced with the identical measure:

“Nothing contained in this Constitution shall abridge the right of persons lawfully assembled, in any public building which is supported in whole or in part through the expenditure of public funds, to participate in nondenominational prayer.”

It is doubtful that Dirksen can muster the required two-thirds head count. But more ominous to opposing legislators is a sleeping giant: the possibility of calling a constitutional convention. One by one, thirty-two of the required thirty-four states have called for one. There is some debate whether Congress would be obligated to call a convention even if the thirty-fourth state did approve. This way to amend the Constitution has never been employed, and many legislators fear its use.

Most feel Dirksen also fears it but will use its threat to force a second thought in Congress. Even many opponents of the bill, though they don’t think Congress will ever approve, know full well that if the grass roots gets a chance at it, it probably will stand a good chance of passing. Polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of Americans favor public-school devotional exercises.

Curve For ‘Vinegar Bend’

Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, one-time major-league pitcher, got a fast curve thrown at him in the first inning of his congressional career when the Federal Communications Commission served up a complete ban on cigarette advertising over radio and television.

Mizell is described by fellow churchmen at Faith Missionary Alliance Church near tobacco capital Winston-Salem as “Mr. Clean Living himself.” He is dead set against cigarette smoking—“I don’t smoke and I don’t want my boys to”—and until entering Congress last month was a Sunday-school teacher and deacon in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a denomination where smoking is strongly frowned upon and, in many churches, strongly denounced.

But Winston-Salem, whose very streets smell of freshly shredded tobacco, is no place for a congressman to be on the wrong side of this particular question.

Mizell’s approach is to attack the FCC for overextending its bounds, a theme most Southern fundamentalists will sympathize with. He is sponsoring legislation to “restrict the FCC or any other federal agency from prohibiting the advertising of any product that is legally produced and sold in the United States and its territories.”

Mizell feels the agency is arbitrarily taking on itself what only Congress should do. He said the FCC’s action is directed “toward a single industry with no recourse to that industry to defend itself.”

The Tarheel legislator filtertipped his announcement, however: “Requiring that warnings of the hazards of cigarette smoking be printed on packages and cartons of cigarettes is one thing, but to prohibit all advertising of cigarettes by administrative decree, to my way of thinking, exceeds the statutory powers of the FCC as provided by law.”

Although the ban would take away $244.4 million in advertising annually, other sponsors are eagerly standing in line and any network loss would probably be slight and temporary.

Government reports on the dangers of smoking, along with a convincing ad campaign to dissuade smokers from the habit, underline the health question.

Top foes of cigarette advertising—including Mormon, non-smoking Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah—have the precedent of many foreign nations to bolster their plea. Cigarette ads are restricted in one way or another from Israel to Iceland. France and England don’t permit ads on television. In Finland, the ad ration is one a night, and that after nine so children won’t get any ideas. Communist Czechoslovakia won’t allow any cigarette ads over radio or television, and in Ireland they are being phased out by 1971. Even the most optimistic reformers acknowledge it will be a hard fight to duplicate this in America. But they see the smoke clearing.

WILLIAM WILLOUGHBY

Interfaith Scaffold In Iraq

During the Mideast’s game of action and reaction between Israel and the Arabs, relations between U. S. Jews and Christians wax alternately hot and cold, depending on the most recent retaliatory attack.

When Israel all but destroyed Lebanon’s commercial air fleet, general Christian reaction was against the Jews (see January 31 issue, page 36). Now emotions and rhetoric have swung dramatically the other way, denouncing as “racist” and “barbarian” the hanging and public display of fourteen persons in Baghdad, among them nine Jews.

Pope Paul VI had pleaded in vain that the Iraqis would show mercy to those branded as traitors or spies. His was one of the more forceful denunciations of the hangings.

Numerous ranking churchmen issued condemnations, and some dispatched a message to President Nixon, asking him to go to the United Nations and criticize the action “with the same vigor with which we have condemned other acts of terrorism and reprisal in the Middle East.”

The President did not take the case to the international forum, but behind-the-scenes actions gained assurances from Israel that she would not act in reprisal against Iraq, and thus burst a badly strained situation.

One evangelical leader spoke out against the Iraq action. Dr. Harold John Ockenga, minister of Boston’s historic Park Street (Congregational) Church, said the Church should condemn Iraq if the executions were merely retaliatory. But he cautioned: “We have to find out if they really were spies. If they were, it is purely a matter for Iraq to handle and the churches should not interfere.”

Many American Jewish leaders, among them former U. N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, complained of general Christian lassitude over the seemingly endless blowups in the Bible lands. Goldberg, now president of the American Jewish Congress, also appealed for the United States to open its doors to Jews locked in Iraq if they are able to leave. He said “Iraq’s Jews have only one hope—that the outraged voice of the world’s conscience will persuade the Iraqi authorities to let them leave the country.”

CHRISTIANITY TODAY Beirut correspondent Lillian Harris Dean reports that Iraq’s ambassador to Britain, Kadhim Khalaf, denied that the hangings were anti-Jewish “since both Christians and Muslims also were among those condemned. Six Jews were among those acquitted.” And the chief rabbi of Iraq’s embattled Jews likewise followed the national party line. Arab newspapers gave full coverage to the Iraqi situation, though even some Arab governments were not overly enthusiastic in their backing. The fear was that Israel, by showing restraint in the face of advertising, would win the big propaganda struggle.

Although few question that the spy charges were trumped up against the Jews, the lot of Christians in Iraq since 1958 has also been less than sanguine. That year the few missionaries there were ordered out. Last month, all foreign teachers at the Jesuit Al Hikma University in Baghdad were expelled, as they had been before. The university was the only one in the country that that would admit Jews.

Estimates put the evangelical population in the nation of eight million at 300 to 500. These are in four small Arab Evangelical churches (Presbyterian) and a small Arab assembly at Basra. Baghdad, a city of one million, claims an Assyrian Evangelical Church as well as two small Armenian churches.

Little more than a decade ago there were some 200,000 Jews in Iraq, tracing their history back to the biblical days of the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar. Now there are only 2,000, and many of these have been jerked into prison or are under virtual house arrest, unable to leave the country. Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, ordinarily ready to extract at least a tooth for a tooth, held back, largely in fear for this remnant.

Directly related to the Iraq and Lebanon incidents was the closing—for the first time in 1,630 years—of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, believed to mark the burial site of Jesus. Over the protests of Patriarch Cyrillos of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Jewish government closed the shrine until Christian and Muslim leaders could convince some Arab women to call off a sit-in and hunger strike protesting Israeli occupation of Arab lands.

Ghana: No More Nkrumahs

Three years after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, a message read from Protestant pulpits throughout Ghana calls on Christians to discharge civic responsibilities as faithfully as they can at this crucial juncture in the nation’s history.

The country is cautiously returning to civilian rule, and the new constitution has glamorous promises. But Ghanians still nurse a deep-seated distrust of politicians. They remember corruption and loss of individual liberty under Nkrumah. They have experienced the bitter irony of being oppressed by the hero of their national liberation struggle, who “redeemed” them from the yoke of colonial oppression.

The pulpit message from the Christian Council of Ghana admits guilt: “One of the major reasons why the terrible evils of the Nkrumah regime were allowed to develop was that many of us Christians failed to stand up for justice and truth.”

The council attacks the attitude that politics is the devil’s playground and decent Christians should shun it. “God wants us to serve him in civic matters,” it says, and without political action Christians cannot effectively apply God’s will against such social evils as bad housing, unemployment, poverty, disease, drugs, and obscene films and literature.

The council calls on educated Christians to inform themselves and other church members on local and national affairs and to try to see them in the light of God’s will; to promote public discussion on important issues; to join political parties and bring Christian influence and criticism to bear on their policies; and to oppose publicly unfair character attacks, misleading promises, and appeals to tribal feelings.

Educated Christians should also participate fully in government as individuals, the council says. “Honest and efficient government can bring great benefits—and bad government can cause great misery”; bribery and corruption will wither away only if Christians and others are in positions to counteract these evils. The church council also urges Christians to pray for the development of sound political life, and for the emergence of leaders of integrity and ability.

ODHIAMBO W. OKITE

Miscellany

After two robberies in two days and a plague of previous thefts, the rector of St. Mark’s in the Bouwerie (Episcopal) in New York City said he might be forced to close the historic church.… Twenty pieces of jewelry and other valuables valued at $30,000 were stolen from showcases at the Washington, D. C., Episcopal cathedral, but recov the 175,000 Greeks in Germany, and in other nations. Preacher Costas Vangis was halted at an Athens airport and had his passport confiscated. Evangelicals fear the Greek Orthodox Church, which supports the military, is pressing such controls.

Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries are restoring the leprosy center at Ban Me Thuot, South Viet Nam, which was heavily damaged in a Communist attack a year ago.

DEATHS

WINFRED E. GARRISON, 94, liberal leader in the Disciples of Christ; ecumenist, educator, theologian, and prolific author; leader in New Mexico statehood; president of three colleges; professor at the University of Chicago and dean of Disciples Divinity House; later religion chairman at the University of Houston; in Houston, three weeks after a heart attack.

LEONARD S. MEYER, 60, Christian Century staffer for thirty-seven years, most of them as business manager; in Chicago, of lung cancer and influenza.

SAM HERSCH, 62, general manager of Family Films, one of the biggest U. S. religious movie producers; in Hollywood, of a heart attack.

FRIEDRICH MULLER, 84, bishop of the Lutheran church in Transylvania, Rumania, which lost half of its membership under Communism; of a heart attack.

DOMINIQUE PIRE, 58, Belgian Dominican who won the 1958 Nobel Peace Prize for work with refugees from Eastern Europe; after surgery in a Louvain hospital.

JOHANNES P. VAN HEEST, 79, president of Holland’s Evangelical Lutheran Church when it merged with the “Restored” Lutheran church; in Amsterdam.

EDUARDO CHIVAMBO MONDLANE, 48, Presbyterian layman who led the underground against Portuguese rule in Mozambique with some U. S. church support; killed by a bomb blast in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Church Panorama

In President Nixon’s mailbox: A plea from Church Women United for action on the Kerner Commission proposals, a ban on police force against dissenters, putting farm workers under the NLRB, sending of 1 per cent of the gross national product to underdeveloped lands, freer trade, and lots more.… A less wide-ranging statement from Lutheran Church Women (LCA).… And notice from the National Council of Churches’ race director that the administration’s “apparent support” of delayed enforcement of school desegregation is inexcusable.

The Methodist higher-education division will continue to publish motive for the next three years, while making “every effort” to line up an ecumenical sponsor for the arty campus monthly.

A trust fund to back Anglican churches that want to stay outside the merger with the United Church of Canada has been set up in Winnipeg, reports the Anglican monthly. The paper’s former Editor A. Gordon Baker cites lay opposition and fears merger procedures will so compromise members of both churches that they will be forced “to seek a church home elsewhere.”

The Vatican denied reports that a major consistory for elevation of new cardinals was postponed indefinitely because some nominees declined the offer of a red hat in opposition to church policies.

Peru’s Catholic bishops coupled a call for sweeping changes in the nation’s ownership of farms and industry with a promise to reform operations on land owned by the church itself. They said that “Peruvian society lives in a state of sin because of the social, economic, cultural, and political injustices that burden the country.”

A Lutheran spokesman said South Africa’s plan to resettle two million of Natal’s blacks in the next several years could have dire consequences for the 600 Lutheran churches there.

Some 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are said to have fled Zambia after violent attacks from the ruling party over their refusal to join in politics.

Personalia

John A. T. Robinson, 50, Britain’s Honest to God Bishop of Woolwich, is resigning to become dean of Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he will run the chapel and administer theological students.

A Mexican government airliner this month carried from Cuba long-imprisoned Southern Baptist missionaries Herbert Caudill, 65, his son-in-law David Fite, 35, their wives, and two Fite children.

The Rev. Ian Paisley, Northern Ireland’s most militant Protestant, served notice he would run against Prime Minister Terence O’Neill for his seat in this month’s election. Paisley’s anti-Catholic crusaders are also putting up candidates to challenge other incumbent legislators.

For reasons that were not immediately clear, the Vatican reportedly shut down the “Center for Intercultural Documentation” in Cuernavaca, Mexico. A letter imposing the ban cited “many complaints” against “the unfortunate effects that the instruction given in the aforesaid center brings about.” The center, headed by Msgr. Ivan Illich, stressed courses in Latin American culture and included a highly regarded language school that drew both Catholic and Protestant missionaries.

Roman Catholic “progressives” hailed the Vatican’s selection of the Most Rev. Vincente Enrique y Tarancón as primate of Spain, but some say the primacy has little practical significance because real leadership is exercised by the national bishops’ council.

Dr. Clarence C. Walton, a prominent social scientist, will become the first lay head of the Catholic University of America. Walton, 53, is now a dean at Columbia and has also taught at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh.

A liturgical commission of the Church of England wants to set festival days for such thorns in Anglican flesh as George Fox, John and Charles Wesley, and John Bunyan.

A Negro clergyman from Chicago is a candidate for the presidency of the United Church of Christ. The Rev. Arthur D. Gray is expected to be a formidable opponent for the official nominee, the Rev. Robert V. Moss, Jr., president of Lancaster Theological Seminary.

Ecumenism is so well established and the current merger scene so touchy that the Consultation on Church Union is something of a sacred cow. But COCU delegates will converge on Atlanta in March for the annual negotiation fest with a bracing criticism behind them.

General Secretary C. Thomas Spitz, Jr., told the Lutheran Council in the U. S. A. meeting in New York this month that COCU has “moved even farther away from confessional commitment,” making it “increasingly difficult for Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox or any of the other historic confessional communities to participate.”

Even COCU’s 1966 agreement on the Apostles’ Creed “as a corporate act of praise and allegiance which binds it to the Apostolic Gospel” was a little weak to confessionally bound Lutherans. And last year, Spitz reported, this commitment was “considerably watered down.” A 1968 COCU resolution, he noted, “recognized (1) the historically conditioned character of the Creeds, (2) the corporate character of the Christian Creeds, (3) the principle that the Creeds are for the guidance of the members of the church and are to be used persuasively but not coercively.

“It was made quite clear that the Creed should not even be spoken in a public worship service if speaking it would give offense to any parties in the United Church. The Creed would, in effect, become simply a reference document to which it would not be possible to make or require any kind of responsible commitment. The Creed would not be used as any kind of standard of judgment.”

Since Spitz led the council’s first official observers to COCU, the words carry much sting. Not that Lutherans haven’t been saying such things for years. But Spitz is the first major U. S. church figure to indict the direction of the talks, aimed at creating a Protestant church with 25 million members.

The Lutherans’ theological caution is probably the chief reason why they were not invited to join COCU until several years after negotiations began. Many feared Lutheran presence then would brake the ecumenical express, perhaps even derail it.

Because Spitz’s remarks this month are about as representative a Lutheran consensus as you could get, there seems no possibility that any of America’s nine million Lutherans will join the united church. The 25 million Baptists form the other big Protestant group outside.

Besides the big ecumenical picture, the Lutheran Council itself is in the midst of some interesting interchurch days, though you never would have known it from its droning New York meeting. The council has an annual budget of $2.2 million and is slowly assuming more joint functions for the three big U. S. denominations. But almost everything is in suspended animation pending Missouri Synod’s July vote on fellowship with the American Lutheran Church. How do you cooperate with somebody you can’t even preach or take communion with?

But all the potential is there for a parallel to the National Council of Churches, and already a question is being raised on how the eighty local inter-Lutheran councils that have sprung up will relate to the older city councils of churches.

An LC committee headed by University of Michigan law Professor Paul Kauper filed a sweeping statement on “the changing social order” that had an NCC ring to it. (A socio-economic situation may be “so unjust that revolution, in a literal sense, is called for,” though most churchmen doubt the United States needs one.)

Another paragraph was snipped out and pasted on an official council condemnation of racism: “The need in today’s crisis is that the Church must become directly and corporately involved in the social struggle at all levels from the parish to the church body.”

But the day before, Spitz had told the council that mere money or political pressure—while often necessary—was not the Church’s most strategic social contribution. In fact, it may be “abdicating the unique purpose of its ministry—to lead men to the full stature of Christ.” He advocates the less dramatic job of educating the laity, which often disagrees with church leaders on such matters as race.

BYPASSING RELIGIOUS BOOKS

Pity the poor religious publisher. In these days of secular Christianity, some religious journals even give more review space to non-religious books than to religious ones.

Vice-president Werner Linz of the Roman Catholic book house Herder and Herder raised the gripe at the recent meeting of the Religious Publishers Group of the American Book Publishers Council.

During a day devoted to book reviewing, with many editors in attendance, Linz said the poor religious book coverage (as the most notable exception he cited CHRISTIANITY TODAY) may be unfair both to readers and to the publishers who give many advertising dollars to the magazines. He based his comments on a survey of six months’ worth of the major religious periodicals.

A Post-Pike Era?

Forced into a showdown choice between Bishop C. Kilmer Myers and his predecessor, James A. Pike, the Episcopal Diocese of California convention this month opted for Myers. Delegates overwhelmingly tabled a Pike-garnished measure that would have rapped Myers’s condemnation of Pike’s third marriage (see January 17 issue, page 42).

The hotly debated motion said Myers’s pastoral letter asking a pulpit ban on Pike cast doubt on the validity of “hundreds of marriages performed in this diocese after a judgment on the basis of spiritual death, including a good many marriages of the clergy.”

A week before the convention, Pike had charged in a thirteen-page memorandum that Myers had agreed to marry him and writer Diane Kennedy, and had even moved the date up a day to November 14 to fit his calendar. But fifteen days later Myers reneged, said Pike, then failed to answer later communications except to note that Pike’s second marriage was indeed “spiritually dead.”

After the Pike paper was released, Myers asked Presiding Bishop John Hines for advice, then declined further comment. During his convention keynote speech, with Pike seated on the platform as a courtesy, Myers spoke of “the pain that recent variances with my brother Jim have visited upon me.”

After the strong vote and a standing ovation, Myers vowed he would continue to apply the same “basic theological approach to the canonical problem of marriage and remarriage as established in this diocese for some years. I have always tried to be a pastor, and I include among my objects of concern Jim and Diane Pike.”

Earlier, Pike won a voice and vote in the convention despite his resigned and non-resident status. He said the 1966 convention that elected Myers had given him these privileges, even though the action was somehow omitted from the official minutes. Confusion remains over whether the action this year applies to future conventions.

Money was another concern at the meeting. Unpaid pledges from the 130 Episcopal churches in the San Francisco area jumped several hundred per cent over the previous year. This year’s $838,162 budget, down $75,000 from 1968’s, calls for the suspension of a century-old newspaper, slashbacks in foreign-missions and other financing for the denomination, and virtual elimination of the social-relations, education, and stewardship departments.

Conservatives attribute the crisis to offbeat inner-city programs and such controversial clergy as Pike. Youthful, vocal lay delegate Richard Phenneger, for one, believed relief would come if the denomination were less involved in politics, more in “evangelism and the ministry of Christ.” But liberals blame inflation, general disillusionment with the institutional church, and “revenge” motives of tight-fisted conservatives.

Whether Myers can bring unity to his troubled see remains to be seen. One thing is now sure: he has a wider base of support than Pike did as bishop. And as a top diocesan staffer put it, “Bishop Myers has at least last emerged from the long shadow of his predecessor; a post-Pike era has dawned.”

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

A Wing And A Prayer

National Airlines Captain Harry L. Davis is not among the flock of pilots whose airplanes have been hijacked to Cuba. But he came within a prayer of it.

Before the dramatic February 3 turnabout, 18-year-old Michael A. Peparo of Cold Spring, New York, fidgeted with a knife, demanding that the pilot fly him to Cuba. With the hippie-type youth was another, looking just as disturbed.

Davis, an Episcopal layman in Miami, recalled: “We felt after talking with this youth we could get to him psychologically because of his sensitive nature. We discussed his family background, school, and then got into religion. It came out he had been brought up in the Catholic Church and had been an altar boy.”

Sensing the boy’s trouble, Davis reasoned with him that Christ had “more trouble than anybody.… He was hounded and wound up on the cross crucified.” Davis several times asked the youth to meditate, seeking guidance.

Davis, who described himself as “sort of half agnostic” before getting interested in a Bible-study group for pilots, said, “For the better part of an hour I felt I ought to go back and pray with him.”

Finally, he followed the urging. “I walked right up to him, reached for his hand (still holding the knife) and said, ‘Let’s pray together.’ He pulled his hand away a couple of times, but I finally held on to it, and we prayed a short prayer. He broke into tears.”

Davis continued: “I believe this was the turning point. He didn’t surrender or anything then, but it was obvious that he was wavering from then on.” Davis, feigning a fuel shortage, landed in Miami, and the boy was taken into custody. In Miami, Davis expressed relief that the “disturbed boy” was in the hands of a man concerned for his welfare.

ADON TAFT

Family Of Man Fuss

New York’s annual Family of Man banquet has proved an easy way to raise $200,000 or so for the city Protestant council by giving an award to such big-name speakers as John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Lester Pearson, Lyndon Johnson, Jean Monnet, and (last year) to John D. Rockefeller III.

But technically the money went to the “Society for the Family of Man, Inc.,” which underwent a board reshuffle last summer and appears to be headed toward the sort of non-sectarian humanitarianism that publicity has always implied.

Now the city church council is suing to get $185,000 in gifts to the 1968 banquet, plus $100,000 in punitive damages, from twenty-two bluebloods including department-store magnate Wheelock Bingham (Macy’s). But in a countersuit the twenty-two defendants charge the church council has wrongly used Family of Man money for itself. Defendant Arthur Atha said “absorption” of funds by the council “was threatening to become an open scandal.”

Project Indignity

Edgar H. S. Chandler, 63, has all the right credentials: ecumenist, civil-rights leader, foe of the Viet Nam war. But that didn’t stop shouting students from nine Chicago seminaries from disrupting this month’s banquet honoring him upon retirement as chief executive of the area church federation.

Larry Rosser, 24, a graduate student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, took over the podium to run a question-and-answer session on Project Equality, the selective buying pact to aid fair employment which the protesters were supporting. With headline speaker W. A. Visser’t Hooft agog, Rosser even stood on the head table for a couple of minutes.

Chandler gamely joined a picket line outside but later admitted he “could have cried” over the banquet break-up. He now moves to a similar church-council post in quieter Worcester, Massachusetts.

SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN CLIFFHANGER

Southern Presbyterians, with most of the voting already tallied by mid-February on merger with the 377,000-member Reformed Church in America, were little closer to knowing the outcome than when they started. In fact, with St. Louis Presbytery not due to vote until days before the April General Assembly, it might go down to the wire.

A negative vote in only twenty of the seventy-seven presbyteries would kill the merger. With sixty-three of the regional bodies voting, seventeen were opposed-three short of defeat-with forty-six in favor.

With so many cross-currents in the RCA plan, the presbytery voting showed no simple conservative-liberal breakdown. Most spokesmen for the presbyteries not yet reporting were closemouthed about which way they thought the vote would go.

The merger plan gives southern dissidents a chance to leave the denomination with their property. But it also includes a more centralized version of property ownership, and shifts the margin for ecumenical merger from the present stringent three-fourths of presbyteries to two-thirds of “vote units” within presbyteries.

Other crucial Presbyterian votes are on permission for union synods and union presbyteries with northern Presbyterians. The latest vote was thirty-two for the synod unification, thirty-eight against. On the presbytery issue it was thirty-three for, thirty-seven against. In each case it takes thirty-nine “no” votes to kill.

Criteria for Curricula

Caught up in the push to build a total church program of education, pastors have sometimes been caught with their educational slip showing. Ministerial training courses have not always helped them tool up for their teaching tasks. Pressed by program demands, pastors look desperately about for some help in selecting curricular resources for classes, courses, and programs. Some rely on the recommendations of denominational leaders. Others put themselves on the mercy of the advertisem*nts.

Not a few pastors have grown dissatisfied with standard materials available from publishing houses and have cranked up the mimeograph machine to produce their own. Many of these are woefully inadequate, consisting of little more than rehashed homilies. The lessons are neither educationally nor theologically sound. Other men keep shopping around for materials, changing curricular horses in midstream, ending up with a wide array of quarterlies, teacher’s guides, and visual aids for their bewildered teachers.

What guidelines can pastors use in selecting instructional tools for teaching the Bible? A practical starting point would be to become familiar with material currently in use in the classroom. It is safe to say that many pastors do not know what their laymen are teaching. A bookseller told of a minister who phoned in an order for Sunday-school materials. When asked to identify the publisher, the minister replied, “I can’t say for sure, but the junior material has a blue cover!” Recently a pastor told me that upon assuming the leadership of a church he found one class studying material published by a sect, unaware of what it was. Teachers may be teaching things that border on heresy simply because they are untrained and unsupervised.

Most churches have discovered that use of the material of one publishing company throughout all age levels gives continuity. Adaptations can be made to meet particular needs. No one teacher, however, should be allowed to dictate what he will or will not teach on a regular basis.

Pastors can also become familiar with curricular structure. Considerable innovation is going on at all levels, and a little awareness of curriculum scope and design is in order.

There are three basic types of Sunday-school literature: uniform lesson series, department or group graded lessons, and closely graded lessons. In the uniform series the same Bible content is taught at every level. An adaptation of this is the thematic development of content so that each level studies the same theme, but a variety of biblical material is used. Departmentally graded materials provide a two-or three-year cycle of materials with a different theme for each department. In closely graded materials, a one-year cycle is used with a single theme for each age or grade level.

Various attempts have been made to change curricula from the traditional quarterly basis. The United Church Curriculum, to cite an example, provides for two five-month semesters and a ten-week summer term. This corresponds with the public-school term and allows promotion at the end of the second semester. Other publishing houses may well follow that plan in the future, but for now the quarterly system prevails among both the interdenominational independents and most denominational systems.

The real excitement in curriculum development is taking place within the content itself. The impact of Piaget, Brunner, and Skinner is being felt in educational theory, and a closer link is being established with the theological disciplines. Beginning with the Faith and Life Curriculum of the United Presbyterians in the fifties, a radical departure from traditionalism took place in curriculum development. Material was organized along theological lines. This was followed by the Seabury Series with its clusters of existential questions. Up to now curricular innovation has been rather unilateral, but the 1960 Curriculum Project, recently completed by sixteen cooperating denominations, has begun to color the approaches to curricular development among large segments of American Christianity. The trend is definitely away from direct study of the Scriptures as the basic diet of Sunday schools. This may well be the greatest tragedy of our time.

A long hard look at content is in order to determine the theological, psychological, and pedagogical soundness of curricular materials. How is the Bible included in the curriculum? Is a high view of the Scriptures maintained? Are extrabiblical materials used wisely? Are essential doctrines emphasized and are the lessons doctrinally accurate? Do the lessons fit the age level? Do the materials emphasize the discovery of truth and not just the transmission of truth? How are pupil books or materials used? Are adequate aids available to the teacher for building a lesson plan?

How the material relates the learner to life is tremendously important. What attitudes are fostered toward God, the church, man, and society? Is a narrow provincialism toward one particular Christian life-stance fostered, or is there a recognition that fundamental faith may express itself in genuine Christian liberty? Does the material tend to emphasize one particular socio-economic level to the exclusion of others? Is a paternalistic spirit fostered toward all who are “different”?

The primacy of the home as the first teacher of values and character must not be overlooked. Does the curriculum relate to the home and enlist its cooperation? At this point pastors may want to supplement the courses with other materials that deal with the problems of teen-agers and the home.

When a pastor is satisfied that the materials selected are sound, the larger part of his problem still remains: what to do about the untrained teacher. In the hands of incompetent teachers, the finest curricular materials are like precision tools in the hands of children. Unless something specific is done to help the worker use the tools, little is gained. The Southern Baptists and the Bible Baptists, to cite notable examples, are working on the problem. Regular teachers’ meetings (“We meet every week because we teach every week”) help teachers meet the challenges of the classroom.—EDWARD L. HAYES, associate professor of Christian education, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado

Pontius Pilate, by Paul L. Maier (Doubleday, 1968, 370 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Ralph Earle, professor of New Testament, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

During the present decade, interest in Pilate has been revived by the discovery of the first inscription bearing his name. It was found at Caesarea by an Italian archaeological expedition in the summer of 1961. This book, therefore, is particularly welcome, especially since there have been almost no scholarly studies of Pilate in English.

The author, son of the late Dr. Walter A. Maier of “Lutheran Hour” fame, has done a magnificent job. The book is called a biographical novel. But it differs from most volumes in this category by being solidly documented. Evidence is cited from Greek, Roman, or Jewish writers for almost every point in the story. One feels he is reading factual history. And interest is heightened by the fascinating literary style. Here is one professor of history (Western Michigan University) who makes that subject really live—and at least one reviewer found it hard to put the book down and go to bed!

Maier’s exhaustive investigation of Pilate’s life in its historical setting has led him to propose several departures from traditionally accepted views. In the first place, he thinks that the title “procurator” as applied to Pontius Pilate by Josephus and Tacitus is an anachronism. The correct term is that found on the Caesarean inscription—“prefect.” This is what the governors of Judea were called during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. Maier comments: “The New Testament very accurately refrains from calling Pilate procurator, using the Greek for governor instead.”

His most innovative idea is his insistence that Christ was crucified in A.D. 33, not 30. Although there have been scholarly proponents of the later date, the majority opinion in recent years has favored the earlier one. But this made it necessary to say that “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” (Luke 3:1) involved a coregency of Tiberius with Augustus. Maier gives evidence that this was not so; for instance, “coinage in the Tiberian era dates his reign only from the death of Augustus.” He places the crucifixion on April 3 of the year 33.

A third deduction is that Pilate was not the wretch portrayed by a vitriolic Philo but a governor who wanted to be fair. Here, as always, Maier examines the evidence carefully.

As a New Testament teacher whose second love is history, I found Pontius Pilate tremendously rewarding reading, and I was pleased to note that this is the first in a projected series of documented historical novels by this author, I shall await succeeding volumes with eager interest.

Foundation For A Social Ethic

The Just War, by Paul Ramsey (Scribner, 1968, 554 pp., $12.50), is reviewed by Paul B. Henry, research assistant to Congressman John B. Anderson, Washington, D. C.

Paul Ramsey’s The Just War is more than a treatise on the just-war doctrine itself. It is a collection of essays dealing with a broad spectrum of problems relating to the responsible use of politicomilitary power in a nuclear age.

One of Ramsey’s basic themes is that contemporary ethicists have been so concerned with abstract notions of justice that they have failed to recognize that some sort of concrete order is a condition of justice. In response to the quasi-revolutionary theologues who address themselves to the “new man” suddenly “come of age,” Ramsey insists that modern man has in fact regressed to the illusions of past political Utopians: “If there is anything more eighteenth century than the nineteenth it is the mid-twentieth century man in the illusions with which he hopes to operate in politics.”

Ramsey calls for the demythologization of politics and for a return to an essentially Augustinian perspective. “We live in Two Cities, and not in the one world of the City of Man under construction. This puts politics in its place, and frees men for clear-sighted participation in it. Absolutely related to the Absolute, we should be content to be relatively involved in the relative.”

Using such a vantage point for his own political analysis Ramsey examines various church pronouncements on social order ranging from the papal encyclical Pacem in terris to the NCC’s “Appeal to the Churches Concerning Vietnam.” Although he upholds the rights and obligations of the Church to develop political doctrine, he objects to those who seek to transform such doctrine into definitive policy in the name of the Church.

Several essays examine the limits of nuclear war, the particular problems of guerrilla warfare, and the implications of the “aggressor-defender” war hypothesis in relation to the traditional guidelines of the just-war doctrine. An essay on selective conscientious objection to military service provides a superb analysis of recent court decisions on this matter while at the same time bemoaning the American psyche that has willingly accepted as the valid measure of religious belief “the place that the belief occupies in the life of the objector” rather than “the character of the truths believed.” In a “Farewell to Christian Realism,” Ramsey gives his thoughts on the decline of Christian realism as the dominant political philosophy in contemporary American Protestantism.

Several weaknesses make themselves apparent in this volume. First, the book is a compendium of essays and lectures, many of which have been previously published. As a result continuity between chapters is sometimes lacking, and repetition is sometimes quite obvious. Second, Ramsey’s style often becomes labored deadening the impact of what he has to say.

But despite these relatively minor weaknesses, this volume commends itself to all concerned with the problems of Christian social ethics. Many theological conservatives will find themselves in agreement with Ramsey’s criticisms of the activist clergy. But even more, they will find a foundation upon which a more responsible social ethic can be based. Perhaps Ramsey will stimulate some enterprising evangelical scholar to seek to fill that need.

Controversy In New Zealand

God in the New World, by Lloyd Geering (Hodder and Stoughton, 189 pp., 25s.) and Layman’s Answer by E. M. Blaiklock (Hodder and Stoughton, 1968, 160 pp., 21s.), are reviewed by Everett F. Harrison, senior professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

These two volumes are the fruit of the controversy that has been rocking the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. Lloyd Geering, the principal of Knox Theological College, Dunedin, is the man who provoked the tension. Geering holds that scientific conclusions about our universe should be allowed to judge and to alter our views of the Bible and the Christian faith. His book is frank, even blunt, and it serves to draw the lines of debate sharply. There is no special revelation of God, though “God-talk” should be retained lest we fall into the idolatry of humanism. The incarnation is abandoned as mythological, as is the bodily resurrection of Christ, the ascension, and the miracles. Also set aside are petitionary prayer and the hope of heaven. We are counseled to think in terms of a religionless Christianity, one that centers in man and this world, thus avoiding the dangers of mythology and other-worldliness. Geering is pessimistic about the Church as presently constituted: “It is destined to die, and we must let it die. For only then can there be a resurrection of the community of faith in a form relevant to the new world.”

Blaiklock, professor of classics at Auckland University, registers some telling points against his opponent. He demands proof for the allegation that whereas Israel tended to forsake mythology in favor of history, the New Testament writers were influenced by a Judaism that had recently succumbed to mythology from surrounding nations. With reference to the New Testament writings he points out that “those preoccupied with diminishing the historical value of the accounts are prone to push forward the dates [of the documents] to the latest possible time.” This opens the door to questions about the accuracy of those accounts. As to the use made of the documents, he comments, “It never ceases to amaze a Classicist how methods of criticism will be accepted in New Testament studies which would be dismissed as naive or ridiculous if applied to any other ancient document.” He quotes J. B. Phillips’s testimony that after he had read scores of myths in Greek and Latin, he was unable to detect any evidence of myth-making at work in the Gospels.

The idea of theology for a new world may seem challenging to restless minds, but past attempts to make Christianity acceptable to the contemporary outlook by excision or modification or revealed truth have not proved effective. Man remains the same, and his spiritual needs can be met only in terms of the Gospel of Christ.

Answers To Today’S Errors

The Letters of John, by J. W. Roberts (R. W. Sweet, 1968, 182 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Roger Mills, minister, Church of Christ, Bowie, Maryland.

This second volume in the new “Living Word Commentary” covers the three epistles of John. Dr. Roberts, professor of Greek and New Testament at Abilene Christian College, draws readily upon old reliables such as Westcott, Plummer, and “The International Critical Commentary,” as well as more recent studies by Dodd, Barclay, and Stott.

One of the most helpful parts of the book is a discussion of false teachers and Gnosticism that sheds light on some of the points John makes in the epistles. This analysis of early Gnosticism also uncovers the roots of errors taught today in certain cults and isms—the Bible meets today’s errors as well as yesteryear’s.

The letters are well outlined, and paralled scriptural passages are included to enlarge the subject under discussion. Difficulties (such as 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin,” in contrast with 1 John 3:6, “No one who abides in him sins,” and 1 John 5:16, “mortal sin”) are reasonably explained. A note on the term “only begotten Son” as used in the King James Version of First John 4:9 is especially helpful.

Dr. Roberts’s emphasis on the original language clarifies the meaning of many words. His book will not serve as a supply of “snappy” sermon illustrations. Rather, it is excellent source material for serious teaching of John’s epistles.

Book Briefs

Dictionary of the Council, ed. by J. Deretz and A. Nocent (Corpus, 1968, 506 pp., $12.50). A useful guide to the contents of the sixteen official texts promulgated by Vatican Council II. In alphabetical order, it takes up every area, idea, and topic mentioned in the documents and gives the relevant texts from the decrees.

Voice Under Every Palm, by Jane Reed and Jim Grant (Zondervan, 1968, 150 pp., $3.95). The heartwarming story behind the building of ELWA, Africa’s first missionary radio station.

Is It, or Isn’t It?, by E. M. Blaiklock and D. A. Blaiklock (Zondervan, 1968, 83 pp., $2.95). A classics scholar and a medical doctor (who are father and son) join forces to produce this vigorous apologetic for the Christian faith.

The Testament of Jesus According to John 17, by Ernst Käsemann (Fortress, 1968, 87 pp., $3.50). An extremely novel approach to the fourth Gospel that contends that John emphasizes Jesus’ deity at the expense of his humanity. Concludes that John’s Gospel was received into the canon by mistake.

Christ, the Theme of the Bible, by Norman Geisler (Moody, 1968, 128 pp., $2.95). A devotional study that sees Christ as the thematic unity of the whole span of scriptural revelation.

Expository Sermons on the Book of Daniel, by W. A. Criswell (Zondervan, 1968, 123 pp., $3.95). The president of the Southern Baptist Convention offers a series of sermons confirming the historicity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel.

Witnessing Laymen Make Living Churches, by Claxton Monro and William S. Taegel (Word, 1968, 203 pp., $4.95). The story of an effective program of lay evangelism established in some churches in Houston, and a statement of the biblical basis for such a program.

Luther’s Works, Volume 29, ed. by Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen (Concordia, 1968, 266 pp., $6). A valuable addition to the American edition of Luther’s works.

Bald Is Good For Business

A policeman on duty last month outside the South African Embassy in London was guilty of disorderly conduct. The facts are beyond dispute. When the building was attacked by a mob and sundry missiles were hurled his way, he threw them back. The whole basis of mobbish behavior was thus undermined, and Communist agitators were understandably grieved by this inexcusable breach of etiquette.

It reminded me of the views of one Erving Goffman, described as a sociologist, as reported recently in Time. “All rational human beings,” says he, in the sort of opener that maddens me, “share … a desire for public order.” The major sin of “social unpredictability” is committed when someone walks coatless through a downpour, eliciting from all “a startled and uneasy response.” He’s got a point. Even the new HEW secretary, Robert Finch, has bowed to public opinion and, according to an alleged friend, “puts on clothes just to keep from being arrested.”

It has ever been thus; one need think only of Burns, Dostoevsky, and all who have succumbed to the impulse to throw eggs into electric fans in public places. Nonconformity is seldom truly appreciated. Biblical and patristic parallels could be adduced, but a first-term Eutychus can’t be too careful. The percipient Pepys can be cited, though. “While we were talking,” he wrote, “came by several poor creatures carried by, by constables, for being at a conventicle.… I would to God they would either conform, or be more wise, and not be catched.”

But catched assuredly will be those guilty of offenses which cannot be hid. Like long hair. Declared a Fifth Avenue barber: “People don’t trust a guy with a lot of hair when they’re doing serious business.” Maybe his commercial instinct was talking; it’s hard to get a guy sold on an idea when his living depends on a flat rejection of it.

Just over a year ago a judge sent a fourteen-year-old boy to a detention center for “psychiatric examination to discover why he will not conform.” The youngster’s heinous crime consisted of a refusal to get his hair cut when commanded by his school principal. Fortunately the shaggy one’s dad resented this brand of harassment, and to avoid further legal action he sent his son to school in England. To my knowl edge he has not yet formally applied for political asylum.

The best is yet to be. An English friend whom I consulted on the matter solemnly assured me that the boy would be safe with them so long as he does not try to go to church.

Ins And Outs

I just finished Harold O. J. Brown’s statement on the complexities of the Christianity-establishment issue (Jan. 31). His arguments were extremely convincing. I find myself greatly encouraged by the high level of insight in his well-stated position. But as I read, one question continued to pose an obstacle to my full embracing of his views.…

Dr. Brown’s essential concern is to avoid “domesticating” the Church by a too close identification with the “outs” who want “in.” However, it seems to me that the truly radical questions are not those of social position, but rather of the issues proposed by those who speak from the positions. If the “outs” are out because their issues are God’s issues, and God is “out,” then what could be more “domesticated” than to remain silent?

Aptos, Calif.

Tense Of Forgiveness

The article on priestly absolution (Jan. 31) was totally one-sided.…

In regard to Matthew 16:16–19, Oscar Cullmann in Peter presents at least equal evidence as did Mantey, and Cullmann came to a different conclusion than did Mantey. Cullmann also found references in the writings of the early Church to Peter.

No matter how the tense of the verbs in Matthew 16:19 are translated, the fact remains that God’s will for the forgiveness of sins is done on earth and is valid in heaven.

Arcadia, Ind.

Those Membership Rules

I have one comment on Norman L. Geisler’s article, “Let’s Drop Unbiblical Rules for Church Membership” (Jan. 31). It is “Amen!” EUGENE LINCOLNThe Sabbath Sentinel

Berrien Springs, Mich.

I’m going to make it a point this week to scrounge you up a new subscriber, to replace one of the many you’ll surely lose as a result of your bombshell on looser standards of church membership.

Too many of us have assumed that Luke’s point in the Council of Jerusalem narrative was to assure us Peter didn’t act like a pope.

Assoc. General Secretary

The Pennsylvania State

Sabbath School Association

Harrisburg, Pa.

I don’t know how to explain … my disgust at that appalling and tasteless article by Mr. Geisler.…

He seems to believe that membership in the church is equivalent to membership in the kingdom of God. There are many people who though they belong to the church will never even see the kingdom of God.…

The real church is a part of that great truth witnessed to by Peter: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The ones who follow Jesus and base their entire hope, faith, and action upon this assertion are the only and complete manifestation of the church.… So Mr. Geisler can fill the church he belongs to with whatever unregenerates, social drinkers, and harlots that he wishes to, but he has no power to square-dance or waltz them into the true church or the kingdom of God—because it is a spiritual building open only to the qualified.

Philpot, Ky.

Toward Christian Revolution

The editorial, “A Better Way to Confront Poverty?” (Jan. 31) left this reader with much to be desired. It seemed to discourage, for example, the use of government grants as a means of doing good works. The Church can use TV, radio, the press, and other “secular” sources but not available government funds? The government is making funds and other resources available for our cities. The Church should somehow seek to use these means in the propagation of the Gospel. The editorial also seemed to indicate the Church shouldn’t try to usher in social revolution. I’m not for social without Christian revolution but where is the true evangelical penetration as it existed when Wesley’s Gospel resulted in social reforms and a social revolution?.… The many existing problems of society statistically are concentrated in our urban areas. If evangelicals fail to take the Christian social ethic seriously, as America’s cities go, so goes America.

Wenham, Mass.

Decision In Denver

Words cannot express how deeply moved I was at John Montgomery’s stirring call to arms (Current Religious Thought, Jan. 17). He has expressed the deep forebodings that many of us have had for years. Truly, the Missouri Synod faces her hour of decision at Denver, and those still loyal to her historic doctrinal position had better speak and act now or forever save their breath.

Grace Lutheran Church

Victoria, Tex.

Please give equal time to this view of a silver jubilarian: Missouri is returning to the position of its official standard, the Lutheran Confessions, after having been narrower than these in some respects.

Mount Calvary Lutheran Church

Lake Arrowhead, Calif.

Montgomery might also have mentioned among his examples illustrating “unionistic indifferentism” … that Oswald Hoffmann, “Lutheran Hour” speaker is chairman of the forthcoming United States Congress of Evangelism (of which Billy Graham is honorary chairman) and that Missouri Synod pastors often pray together with other non-Missouri pastors. Such would never have happened in the good old days for which Montgomery longs.

New Haven, Conn.

Inner-City Mission

In “The Inner City: An Evangelical EyeOpener” (Jan. 3), you gave a summary of the work of evangelicals in the inner city.

We appreciate the reference to the work of the American Sunday-School Union. However, while the inner-city ministry of American Sunday-School Union is relatively new to the 150-year old missionary society itself, it is important to note that we have had missionaries in the city of Philadelphia for more than five years.…

Today there are four missionaries serving in Philadelphia, including two Negroes, a Korean, and a white man.

Executive Vice-President

American Sunday-School Union

Philadelphia, Pa.

Every evangelical finds himself confronted with the danger of slipping into the ever-hardening attitude of the Pharisee while every theological liberal is confronted with the dangers inherent in the “doctrine” of the Sadducees. These dangers, present in all generations, are perhaps greater today than ever before, as the lines between “conservatives” and “modernists” are being drawn more clearly.

Of the Pharisees our Lord said, “In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Matt. 15:9), while to the Sadducees, questioning him about the resurrection of the dead, his reply was, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29).

Evangelicals need very much to be warned of the dangers of pharisaism, with its legalism and its negative approach to the Christian faith, and I will write on this another time. For now I am thinking of the growing evidence that many in the major demoninations who hold positions of great power are not far removed from the Sadducees of our Lord’s time.

The chief characteristic of the Sadducees was a type of religious rationalism that denied the realm of the supernatural with its angels and spirits and wholly rejected the doctrine of the resurrection. As has been said by such men as Machen, “Eliminate the supernatural and the miraculous and there is no such thing as Christianity.” How we need to stress this today.

Without the supernatural there is no such thing as the virgin birth, the miracles, the atonement, the resurrection, or prayer. Indeed, eliminate the supernatural and there can be no God, no incarnation of God in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and, of course, no Holy Spirit.

In other words, the minute one begins to tamper with God’s supernatural being and his manifestations in supernatural and miraculous ways, he is tampering with the foundational realities of the Christian faith.

The advances made by science stagger the imagination. The Apollo 8 triumph, for instance, has added another dimension to the marvels of modern scientific achievement. But never let us presume to conform God to the limitations of human achievement, for man discovers only what God has created and the laws of the universe that are a part of that creation.

The growing tendency to eliminate the supernatural, or the miraculous, in connection with the Christian faith is one that cannot be countenanced by those who hold to the nature and validity of that faith. Our faith is based, not on man-made dogmas and opinions, but on a divine revelation, supernatural in its nature and miraculous in its effect.

Wherever the natural is substituted for the supernatural or the miraculous nature of the work of the Holy Spirit held in question, effective Christian witness dies. Tragically, we see death in many areas of the Church, because there are those who limit God by their own limitations while they talk and work in terms compatible with those of the secularists and materialists.

The current pressure to secularize the Church is the result of a confusion over both its nature and its message. The need is not to make the Church popular with the world but to show the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives, and the miracles that take place in the life of one who has had this experience with the living Christ.

Believing neither in the actuality of the Holy Spirit as a Person nor in the supernatural effect he has in the lives of those who have gone through the supernatural experience of being “bom again” (a biblical term that is very unwelcome among many modern Sadducees), many are projecting an image of the Church that is tied to man rather than to God, and to secular activities without reference to this miraculous change.

The modern Sadducee considers himself a realist, in tune with the world and committed to the discoveries and advances of science. The Christian is indeed a realist, but he knows that his faith is based in a supernatural person and that this destiny has no reference to, nor can it be affected by, anything man can do.

I have recently studied intensively the records of the early Church as found in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul, James, Peter, and John. The Church began in unlikely soil and was confronted by overwhelming obstacles, but not once did the Apostles seek to identify it with the existing social order. It was a supernatural organism existing in a naturalistic world. Its members expected and experienced multiplied evidences of the miraculous character of their faith—faith that changed men and revolutionized the social order, not by secular activism but by the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Church and individual Christians lose their effectiveness as they go the way of the secularist. They also lose the warmth and the light that characterize persons and groups who have had an encounter with Christ.

As was true in our Lord’s day, so today the Church is suffering from those who “know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.” To a tragic number of “Christians” the Bible is a closed book. Regarding it as no longer relevant to this scientific age, they close their minds to its supernatural message and the miraculous effect it has on those who take it as spiritual food and divine wisdom. Furthermore, never having experienced the power of God in their own lives, they ignore its availability for themselves and for those to whom they minister.

Recently, at a student conference dominated by men with a new concept of the mission and message of the Church, a student complained that during two days there had not been one prayer. From the leader he received this reply: “I am sorry that you have not been praying. Everything we do is prayer—cleaning your teeth or any other activity.”

What price secularization!

The Church—and individual Christians—need to rediscover that we are dealing with a supernatural God. Let him speak: “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it a chaos, he formed it to be inhabited!): I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:18).

The view of this world from the Apollo 8 capsule was an awesome and thrilling sight to behold. Let the Sadducee stop and remember that we are dealing with the Creator of the universe, the magnitude and complexity of which staggers the mind. This should certainly bring us to our knees in worship.

L. NELSON BELL

“Only the more rugged mortals should attempt to keep up with current literature.” In these words George Ade has pretty well expressed the feeling of those confronted with the vast harvest of books in any one of several fields. But though trying to keep up with today’s tremendous publishing pace may require great stamina, it is a rewarding pursuit.

A review of this past year’s religious publications reveals a number of significant trends: (1) the heavy volume of new books; (2) the increasing difficulty in distinguishing some “religious” books from purely secular volumes; (3) the continuing preoccupation with ecumenicity; (4) the rising popularity of the new morality; and (5) the growing body of material dealing with the nature, authority, and mission of the Church. Evangelicals will want to take special notice of these trends, for they reveal a situation in the Church that evokes concern, and point to opportunities for those determined to proclaim and maintain the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The great number of books being sold is itself an opportunity for evangelicals to consider. Last year in the United States approximately 20,000 new books were published. In 1966 Americans spent $2,295,000,000 on books. This impressive figure shows that despite competition from television and various other forms of recreation, many Americans are filling their leisure hours with reading. Yet less than 10 per cent of the books Americans bought were religious.

The heavy demand for books is not confined to America or to the English-speaking world. Increasing literacy throughout the world and advances in translation have resulted in a wider market for books all over the globe. And this means that there is now a larger market than ever before for the proclamation of the Gospel through the printed page. Evangelicals must supply this market with books that are sound in theology, thorough and interesting in content, and competent in literary style. Herman Melville once said, “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” Certainly Christians have a mighty theme to write about. The opportunities for propagating this theme in a myriad of places and a variety of tongues through books may never be greater.

A second factor worthy of note is the growing difficulty in defining a “religious” book. It is only natural that the increasingly hazy distinction between religious and secular in the speculations of the theologians would be reflected in the world of books. Increasing preoccupation with social and political issues has yielded a crop of “religious” books that do not make a distinctively religious contribution.

This phenomenon holds out a twofold challenge to evangelicals. First it issues a call to action in the realm of social issues. Social concern is a legitimate outgrowth of the Christian Gospel. Evangelicals hold that a change in individual hearts through Jesus Christ will lead to change in society and answers to the social problems that confront us. It is time for us to show by our actions that this is so; in the name of Jesus Christ we must give of ourselves to meet both the spiritual and the physical needs of our neighbors. At the same time evangelicals must clearly articulate—verbally and in print—a biblical theology that rejects and refutes “religionless Christianity.” We deal not with an anonymous Christ who confronts men in the structures of society but with Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose again and calls men to repent and become citizens of the kingdom of heaven through a personal relationship with himself.

A third characteristic of religious publishing today is the great stress on ecumenicity. Although there are signs that the good ship Oikumene may be entering rough waters (see, for example, page 38 of the February 14 issue), many books on the subject continue to appear. And there is a new openness between Roman Catholics and Protestants; houses that in the past published only Protestant writers are now publishing works by Roman Catholics and Catholic houses are publishing Protestant works.

Ecumenical concern is also an area of opportunity and challenge for evangelicals. The biblical idea of unity must be clearly articulated and its practical outworkings investigated. And we must not only define Christian unity but also demonstrate it in our relationships with others of like precious faith. The prevailing mood of dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants should call forth the best efforts of evangelical scholarship. As Dr. Bromiley says elsewhere in this issue, the increasing quality of Roman Catholic publications challenges evangelical Protestants “to address themselves to the task of producing a comparable body of historical and theological writings—partly in harmony, partly in dialogue, and partly still in tension, with their Roman Catholic counterparts.”

Other popular areas of discussion during the past year have been the new morality and situation ethics. The weight of popular opinion is on the side of those who deny the necessity or authority of moral absolutes. Some more thoughtful advocates of this view still espouse a high view of morality, but others affirm a freedom that amounts to little more than total license. Although evangelicals must face the real problems raised by this teaching, it is important also that they expose its shaky biblical foundations and faulty logical superstructure.

A fifth trend in religious publication is the Church’s self-examination. Perhaps as never before, churchmen are raising questions about its nature, its mission, and its authority. There is a continuing disenchantment with the institutional church and a growing tendency to see the mission of the Church in purely social categories. But the most basic question at present is that of authority in the Church. Many Protestants have been delighted to see Roman Catholics questioning authority within their church and have acclaimed it as the beginning of a new reformation. But this is not the case. The Reformation of the 1500s was founded upon the authority of Scripture. Today’s reformation is in many instances a rebellion against all authority, including the authority of the Bible. Evangelicals are confronted with the responsibility of affirming the supreme authority of Scripture. Then on this foundation a doctrine of the Church and its mission can be built.

The world of books reflects faithfully the serious problems and errors confronting the Church. But where there are problems there are also opportunities—opportunities for proclaiming the truth of God’s Word through the effective use of the printed page, the powerful affirmation in spoken word, and the faithful witness of consistent Christian lives.

A rash of fatal accidents has afflicted the missionary aviation enterprise. Five accidents claimed seventeen lives in three months.

This series of tragedies calls attention to the question whether single-engine planes are adequate for missionary use. Thus far, missionary aviation has used them exclusively. But a special committee of the United Christian Missionary Society (Disciples), which lost three missionaries in an October crash, now recommends that the replacement be a twin-engine craft. The committee included two missionary pilots.

Cost has undoubtedly discouraged the use of multiengine planes. But many experts in missionary aviation also doubt their desirability on principle. They contend that planes with more than one engine are so much more complex in both maintenance and operation that remote and rugged areas safety may actually be reduced.

One group of evangelicals has been convinced otherwise and has for several years been struggling to build and win certification for a twin-engine plane especially suited to missionary service. The creators of Evangel 4500 may be a bit ahead of their time, but missionary aviation is bound to profit from their experience.

January, February, Et Cetera

If February has sped by faster than other months, it’s not really the fault of shorter days; there are simply fewer of them. But even months luxuriously long (remember January?) never seem to provide enough days for everything demanding attention. And with spring not far behind, those who face special demands on time—ministers, for example—may begin to feel like Henry Reed’s soldier, who sat in class mourning that japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,

And to-day we have naming of parts.

Some people respond cavalierly to fleet-footed time:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying.

Others wonder about the value of trying at all if

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more.

Such futility follows the disintegration of a life not properly timed to itself, to others, or to God. More than 300 days remain in 1969, and each one begins the rest of life. Each of those beginnings requires a rethinking of that day’s priorities and a recognition of that day’s potential, a requirement best fulfilled in reflection. The Psalmist wrote, “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; fret not.…”

Gun Control And Crime Prevention

The President’s diligent efforts to halt the crime wave in the nation’s capital will be helped measurably if the Congress enacts strong gun-control legislation.

As soon as control of guns is mentioned, fanatics point to constitutional guarantees of the right to bear arms. Need we remind them that this right can be nullified, as was the 18th Amendment? But the choice is not limited to guns or no guns. Restrictive legislation that would keep guns—particularly hand guns, which figure so prominently in bank and store robberies and personal stickups—away from criminal elements is the better solution. There is no valid reason why the sale of hand guns should not be limited on a national basis to persons who have secured a permit and whose guns and fingerprints will be on file with law-enforcement agencies. Nor is there any reason why the use of a hand gun in the commission or attempted commission of a crime should not constitute prima facie evidence of guilt. And surely the possession of a hand gun without a permit should be punishable by a jail sentence.

The tiresome argument that gun-control laws won’t stop criminals from getting and using weapons will remain unconvincing and unprovable until gun control is tried and shown to be ineffective. The right to bear arms need not be infringed for decent citizens, and present constitutional guarantees need not be repealed.

Christian citizens have a high stake in the prevention of homicides, so many of which are caused by hand guns. They should make their opinions known to their congressmen, and thus help to counteract powerful lobbyists who oppose control of these deadly weapons.

Cashing In On Credit

As more and more people rely on credit, interest rates become increasingly a matter of ethics. To draw an absolute line separating the exorbitant from the reasonable is not possible, of course. But who can doubt that innumerable people have been robbed ragged by loan sharks? We can legitimately disagree as to what is a proper rate of interest—say between 5 and 10 per cent. Surely, however, to charge 24 to 36 per cent or more per year is to take unfair advantage of the borrower. If the risk is that high, it ought not to be assumed. Indeed, the impulse buyer whose credit status is risky should not be able to buy on time.

The Old Testament considered loans among the Israelites to be entirely within the framework of charity and neighborliness and ruled out interest charges altogether. The Israelites, however, consistently violated this command. Some Jews even gave their children as sureties. The prophets regularly indicted the money lenders for their wretched practices. Jesus approved of the principle of investment to earn a return, but issued some of his sharpest criticism against those who exploited their neighbors. We are especially concerned over those most liable to be victims—the poor and the uneducated.

Mr. Nixon And The Vatican

A persistent rumor that circulated around Washington after the advent of the new administration was that President Nixon might appoint an American ambassador to the Vatican. The rumor gained strength when it was announced that the President’s European trip would include an audience with Pope Paul VI.

We do not wish to complain about something that is imagined rather than real—unless the rumor was a trial balloon. But this country has enough problems without getting into a hassle over sending an official representative to the so-called Holy See. Increasing numbers of Roman Catholics are challenging the ecclesiastical authority claimed by the Vatican. What good reason is there for a pluralistic society to confer diplomatic dignity upon a religious organization that owns a 109-acre tract of real estate and on this minuscule basis claims political sovereignty?

Latent antipathies could lead to an overt Catholic-Protestant confrontation, as the campaign of the Rev. Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland shows only too well. To appoint an ambassador to the Vatican would badly weaken, if not jeopardize, President Nixon’s “forward together” theme.

Waging War On The Weed

We may be catching our last glimpses of beautiful Marlboro country. That specimen of masculinity who has worn a hole in his shoe walking a mile for a Camel may be able to sit down and rest permanently. Salems may be taken not only out of the country but off the tube.

If the Federal Communications Commission has its way, cigarette manufacturers are down to their last pack in radio and television advertising. In a 6-to-1 decision the FCC has proposed a ban on cigarette commercials. “We are faced,” its statement says, “with a most serious, unique danger to public health.… In the case of such a threat, the authority to act is really the duty to act.”

But the final decision is in the hands of Congress. An act forbidding the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission (which proposed a similar ban last year) to regulate cigarette advertising expires July 1, and unless Congress renews this law, both agencies will be free to carry out the ban. Congress now finds itself in a touchy situation. On the one hand are the clear facts pointing to cigarettes as a menace to public health; on the other hand is the powerful influence of cigarette producers, who spend $244 million a year on television and radio advertising.

Some opponents of the ban claim the FCC has overextended its boundaries (see news, p. 47); they see the action as an entering wedge to government control of all advertising. Yet the FCC has stated clearly that it has no intention “to proceed against any other product commercials.” Its unique action in this case is in full accord with its commission to regulate television and radio broadcasting in the public interest. This bold move is a means of dealing with a clear threat to public health.

It is an indictment of the Church that a government agency has taken the leadership in this vital issue. Strange indeed that in this matter of life and death the voice of the Church has been pitifully weak, if not silent. Churchmen often gather in smoke-filled rooms to draft resolutions protesting the useless waste of life in Viet Nam, only to ignore completely smoking’s heavy contribution to 75,000 deaths a year in the United States—more than twice the number of Americans killed to date in the entire Viet Nam conflict. Here is an opportunity for the clergy to speak out—by example and in action—on an issue directly related to human welfare. In fact, Christians should be leading the way—after all, it’s what’s up front that counts.

Evangelism In The Air

An encouraging number of American evangelicals are realizing anew the urgency of working together for evangelism. This is seen, for example, in the enthusiasm being shown toward the U. S. Congress on Evangelism, scheduled for Minneapolis September 8–14. More and more Christian people sense the great potential of corporate planning in the perennial battle to win men to the Saviour. We hope that each denomination holding a convention this year will see fit to give evangelism priority status. Adequate consideration of the topic is certainly a pressing matter.

Evangelism Under The Southern Cross

Billy Graham’s health prevented him from fully carrying out evangelistic commitments in New Zealand and Australia a year ago. Now he has returned to make good his promise to conduct mass campaigns in both countries. He and his team will hold meetings in Auckland February 27-March 2, in Dunedin March 9, and in Melbourne March 14–23.

No one can dictate how the Spirit of God should work, nor is it possible to predict the manner in which he chooses to do so. Yet the desperate need for a spiritual awakening around the world is obvious. God has done it before and can certainly do it again. And if a fire is lighted in Australia, we can pray that Graham will bring some of the same fire back to New York City’s Madison Square Garden in June.

The Therapy Of Lent

Some Christians dismiss Lent as a legalistic accretion to the Christian calendar. They feel that if something is worth doing, or doing without, then the practice should not be limited to forty days in the year.

To be sure, if one approaches Lent out of a sense of duty or obligation, the spiritual effectiveness of the exercise will be diminished. If on the other hand the Christian sees the approach of Easter as a reminder to think more seriously of his behavior, then Lent can be something more than cottage cheese and hot cross buns.

The therapy of Lent can be physical and mental as well as spiritual. Most of us eat too much and meditate too little. At the very least, Lent is a good time to begin correcting the imbalance.

Ending Campus Chaos

The dreary tale of illegal student and non-student occupation of university properties has been repeated on the campus of the University of Chicago. May we recommend that any student who engages in this pastime be expelled at once; that any non-student be arrested and sentenced to jail; that no other institution admit any student who has been expelled for such activity unless he post a $10,000 good-conduct bond guaranteeing that he won’t repeat his indiscretion. Such measures might enable academia to return to the pursuit of knowledge and encourage the use of processes created to bring about peaceful change rather than strong-arm tactics.

Liberating Women

Another “sex barrier” fell this month when Diane Crump made her debut as a jockey at Hialeah Park. Think what this means. Housewives can at last find exciting and creative fulfillment at the local track—provided they can keep their weight down. Can’t you just see our young mother quickly bundling off the kids to school so she can iron her silks in time for the first race?

Among other things, the Civil Rights Act sought to guarantee equal opportunity regardless of sex. This seems a laudable enough objective, but one that common sense tells us has its limitations. Let’s face the fact that there are jobs for which women can theoretically “qualify” but which they cannot reasonably perform as well as men—and vice versa. To pressure employers to give people work for which they by nature are ill equipped to handle only introduces confusion. Blurring God-given distinctions between male and female will ultimately add to the despair of both.

Inclusive But Exclusive

Christianity is at the same time the most inclusive and the most exclusive religion in the world. John 3:16, one of the most familiar verses in the Bible, makes it clear that it was God’s love for the world—all mankind—that motivated him to send Christ to the cross. No man is beyond the boundaries of God’s love; there is no respect of persons with him (Acts 10:34). He does not regard one man more highly than another on the basis of ethnic origin, economic status, or even moral behavior. Those who are the least likely objects of God’s affection—the publicans, the harlots, the sinners, the “lost”—Jesus came to seek and to save (Luke 19:10). We are reminded that it was “while we were yet sinners” that God demonstrated his love by sending his Son in our behalf (Rom 5:8).

The Scriptures make it clear that any man who responds in faith and obedience to the person of Christ will know the forgiveness and life God offers to all. Jesus said, “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Both Peter and Paul stated that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21; Rom. 10:13). No one is excluded from this invitation.

On the other hand, the Christian faith is radically exclusive. The man who comes to God must come on God’s terms—he must come through Jesus Christ. The same verse that speaks of God’s love for the world limits eternal life to “whosoever believeth in him” (John 3:16). Jesus said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Repeatedly Jesus indicated that one’s attitude toward him determines one’s relationship to God. (e.g. John 5:30–47; 8:42–47). John states that “whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” (1 John 2:23), and “he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12). Peter proclaimed, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

It may seem narrow and unloving to speak of the exclusiveness of Christianity. But is it unloving to warn a man who is in danger? Dare we deceive needy men by distorting the truth of God to accommodate their vanity? If we really love men we must faithfully confront them with the truth—that there is no way to God that bypasses Jesus Christ, no approach to the Father that avoids the Son. To offer any other hope is to deceive and to destroy.

The narrow way that leads to life is open to all; but it is narrow, and a man can set foot on it only through Jesus Christ.

The almost overwhelming flow of religious books continues to pour forth from the publishers. It appears that 1969 will be another banner year, certainly insofar as quantity is concerned. The following list is prepared from information provided by the publishers and is intended to give the reader an overview of the religious publishing field as well as to call his attention to individual volumes that may be of particular interest to him.

Topics that have been in the spotlight during the past year—ecumenics, social issues, situation ethics, the nature and authority and mission of the Church, the historical roots of the Gospels—continue to be priority items.

Evangelical readers will be delighted at the prospect of further works from such outstanding writers as S. Barton Babbage, G. C. Berkouwer, F. F. Bruce, Vernon Grounds, Carl F. H. Henry, J. W. Montgomery, Leon Morris, Bernard Ramm, Francis Schaeffer, J. R. W. Stott, and Cornelius Van Til.

Although we will be able to judge the quality of this year’s crop only as the books begin to appear, we have indicated with an asterisk the volumes that publishers consider their most significant religious publications.

AESTHETICS, ARCHITECTURE, MUSICCONCORDIA: Organ Handbook by H. Klotz and Christian Art in Africa and Asia by A. Lehmann. FUNK AND WAGNALLS: *Churches of the Holy Land by G. Bushnell, O.F.M. HARPER & ROW: Environmental Man by W. Kuhns. HERALD: The Mennonite Hymnal. JOHN KNOX: The Now Generation by D. Benson. MACMILLAN: The Two Hands of God by A. Watts and The Anthem in England and America by E. Weinandt and R. Young. PRINCETON: Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins by A. Grabar. WORD: Seekers after Mature Faith by E. G. Hinson and In Search of Balance by V. M. Kott.

APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCEABINGDON: Openings for Marxist-Christian Dialogue edited by T. Ogletree, and Science, Secularization, and God by K. Cauthen. BAKER: Conflict and Harmony in Science and the Bible by J. Sears and Therefore Stand by W. Smith. BETHANY: Twentieth Century Prophecy: Jean Dixon, Edgar Cayce by the Christian Research Institute. BRUCE: Future of Man by E. Bianchi. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: *The Religious Significance of Atheism by A. MacIntyre and P. Ricoeur. CORPUS: The Reasonableness of Faith by D. Allen and Responsibility in Modern Religious Ethics by A. Jonsen. EERDMANS: Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World by D. Sayers. GOOD NEWS: *Conquest of Inner Space by L. Dolphin, Jr. HARPER & ROW: Evolution: The Theory of Teilhard De Chardin by B. Delfgaauw, Identity and Difference by M. Heidegger, A Place to Stand by E. Trueblood. HARVARD: Early German Philosophy by Beck and Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources by P. Courcelle. HERDER AND HERDER: Love Alone by H. Urs von Balthasar, Faith and Reflection by H. Dumery and Hearers of the Word by K. Rahner. INTER-VARSITY: *Death in the City by F. Schaeffer, Philosophy and the Christian Faith by C. Brown, and Runaway World by M. Green. JOHN KNOX: Fifty Key Words in Philosophy by K. Ward. MCGILL UNIVERSITY: Standing and Understanding by S. Frost. MACMILLAN: A Search for God in Time and Memory by J. Dunne, The Historian and the Believer by V. Harvey, and On Death and Dying by E. Ross. MOODY: Protestant Christian Evidences by B. Ramm. OXFORD: New Essays on Religious Language edited by D. M. High. PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED: Organic Evolution and the Christian Faith by J. B. Davidheiser, Education in the Truth by N. De Jong, Christian Theory of Knowledge by C. Van Til, and Zen-Existentialism by L. S. Chang. SCRIBNER: Integral Humanism by J. Maritain and Existence and Love by W. A. Sadler, Jr. SHEED AND WARD: The Death in Every Now by R. Ochs, S.J., Christian Anthropocentrism by J. Metz, and Logic: The Art of Inference and Prediction by D. Kane, O.P. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Religious and Anti-Religious Thought in Russia by G. Kline, Philosophy by K. Jaspers. WORLD: Humanism and Christianity by M. D’Arcy. ZONDERVAN: The Faith of a Scientist by G. Glegg, Where Is History Going? by J. W. Montgomery, and The Vacuum of Unbelief by S. B. Babbage.

ARCHAEOLOGY BAKER: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible by C. Pfeiffer (revised reprint), Babylon and the Bible by G. Larue, and *Baker’s Pictorial Introduction to Biblical Archaeology by B. Boyd. KNOPF: Historical Archaeology by I. Hume. WORD: An Archaeologist Looks at the Gospel by J. Kelso.

BIBLE COMMENTARIES, DICTIONARIES and TRANSLATIONSABINGDON: Young Readers Dictionary of the Bible. BAKER: Exposition of Daniel by H. Leupold. BEACON HILL: *Beacon Bible Commentary, Volume I. BROADMAN: The Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume I: Genesis and Exodus, and Volume VIII: Matthew and Mark. CORPUS: Dictionary of the Council, edited by J. Deretz and A. Nocent. EERDMANS: *Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume VI by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, Obadiah: A Critical Exegetical Commentary by J. D. W. Watts, and Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume III edited by C. Carter. FORTRESS, HERDER AND HERDER: Taizé Picture Bible, adapted from the Jerusalem Bible. HERDER AND HERDER: New Testament for Spiritual Reading edited by J. L. McKenzie. MACMILLAN: Four Prophets by J. B. Phillips. MOODY: Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah by G. Luck. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: *Translating for King James edited by Ward Allen. ZONDERVAN: *The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Atlas by E. M. Blaiklock et al.

BIBLICAL STUDIES, GENERALABINGDON: If Man Is To Live by B. Currin, The Bible and History edited by W. Barclay, and Taking The Bible Seriously by L. Keck. AUGSBURG: In Search of Ultimates by W. Streng, The Bible Speaks Again by the Dutch Reformed Church, and Creation, Fall, and Flood by T. Fretheim. BRUCE: Questions about Jesus by J. Hichl. CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE: The Lord’s Prayer: The Living Word by R. Snowden. CONCORDIA: Earth with Heaven by R. Kaemmerer. EERDMANS: New Testament Development of the Old Testament by F. F. Bruce. HERDER AND HERDER: On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus by J. Martin. SCRIBNER: The Growth of the Biblical Tradition by K. Koch. WESTMINSTER: The King and the Kingdom by W. Barclay. WORD: The Bible, the Supernatural and the Jews by M. Phillips. ZONDERVAN: The Bible—the Living Word of Revelation by M. Tenney et al., Holy Bible: The New Berkeley Version (revision), and All the Trades and Occupations of the Bible by H. Lockyer.

BIBLICAL STUDIES, OLD TESTAMENTABINGDON: Amos and Isaiah: Prophets of the Word of God by J. Ward. CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE: A Man Just Like Us by H. Fife. DOUBLEDAY: Jews, Justice and Judaism by R. St. John and The Worship of Israel: A Re-assessment by W. Harrelson. EERDMANS: The Prophet of Israel by H. Ellison and Proverbs—Isaiah 39 by A. Cundall. FORTRESS: Luther and the Old Testament by H. Bomkamm and The Theology of the Book of Ruth by R. Hals. HARPER & ROW: Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament by T. Gaster. HARVARD: *From Shadow to Promise by J. Preus. JOHN KNOX: Tradition for Crisis by W. Brueggemann and A Guide to the Prophets by S. Winward. JUDSON: Contemporary Old Testament Theologians by R. Laurin. LOIZEAUX: *The Prophecies of Daniel by L. Strauss. MOODY: An Introduction to Old Testament Prophets by H. Freeman, The End Times by H. Hoyt, The Jew and Modern Israel by M. Lindberg, and Prophecy of Ezekiel by C. Feinberg. PAULIST: Bibletime Series by M. Bouhys. SHEED AND WARD: Path to Freedom: Christian Experiences and the Bible by J. Corbon. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: A Rigid Scrutiny: Critical Essays on the Old Testament by I. Engnell. WESTMINSTER: Isaiah 40–66, A Commentary by C. Westermann. WORD: Psychology in the Psalms by M. Inch.

BIBLICAL STUDIES, NEW TESTAMENTABINGDON: The Deeds of Christ by H. Bosley, Mark the Evangelist by W. Marxsen, and Interpreting the Gospels by R. Briggs. AUGSBURG: Handbook to the New Testament by C. Westermann. BEACON HILL: That Ye Sin Not by N. Mink. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS: The New Testament Church by E. Ferguson. BROADMAN: The Practical Message of James by H. Colson and Studies in the Epistle of James by A. Robertson (reprint). CONCORDIA: The Books of the New Testament by H. Mayer. CORPUS: I Saw a New Earth: An Introduction to the Visions of the Apocalypse by P. Minear. EERDMANS: Jesus and the Twelve by R. Meye and Studies in the Fourth Gospel by L. Morris. FORTRESS: What Can We Know About Jesus? by Bornkamm, Hahn, and Lohff and The Beginnings of Christology by W. Marxsen. HARPER & ROW: An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament by H. Conzelmann and The New Testament Speaks by Barker, Lane, and Michaels. HERALD: The Christian Way by J. Miller. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: Is It I, Lord? by Uleyn. INTER-VARSITY: Philippians by B. Boyd. JUDSON: Paul and Philippians by J. Berkeley. KREGEL: Behold, He Cometh! by H. Hoeksema. PRENTICE-HALL: The New Testament Themes for Contemporary Man by R. Ryan, C.S.J. REVELL: Hidden Meaning in the New Testament by R. Ward. SCRIBNER: Saint Paul by C. Buck and G. Taylor. SHEED AND WARD: The Gospel Parables by E. Armstrong. TYNDALE: Contemporary Commentaries (Mark) by R. Wolff and Greatest Life Ever Lived and Promises of Jesus, both by K. Taylor. WESTMINSTER: According to John—The New Look at the Fourth Gospel by A. M. Hunter. WORD: *The Children’s New Testament translated by G. Ledyard and The Hope of Glory by M. Loane. ZONDERVAN: Plain Talk on John by M. Gutzke, John the Baptist by M. Loane, and Jesus—Human and Divine by H. McDonald.

BIOGRAPHYEERDMANS: Captive to the Word (Martin Luther) by A. S. Wood. HARPER & ROW: The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by M. Bosanquet. HARVARD: Coleridge and Christian Doctrine by Barth. HERDER AND HERDER: Pentecost Comes to Central Park by R. York. JUDSON: Axling, A Christian Presence in Japan by L. Hine. REVELL: I Remember, I Remember by L. Glenn with C. Smith. SCRIBNER: Erasmus of Christendom by R. Bainton. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist, 1837–1899 by J. Findlay, Jr. WARNER: Giants Along My Path by D. Oldham. WORD: God Owns My Business by S. Tam, as told to Ken Anderson, and The Gutter and the Ghetto by D. Wilkerson. WORLD: Richelieu by D. P. O’Connell. ZONDERVAN: M. R. DeHaan—The Country Doctor Who Went Global by J. Adair, Not Made for Defeat—The Authorized Biography of Oswald J. Smith by D. Hall, and By Life or by Death (Viet Nam martyrs) by J. Hefley.

CHURCH HISTORYABINGDON: Preaching in American History edited by D. Holland. AUGSBURG: The Lutheran Free Church by E. Fevold. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Peter in Rome: The Literary, Liturgical, and Archaeological Evidence by D. O’Connor. CORPUS: The Church as Enemy: Anticlericalism in Nineteenth Century French Literature by J. Moody. DOUBLEDAY: The Last Years of the Church by D. Poling. EERDMANS: The Early Christian Church by H. Chadwick. FORTRESS: Jewish Christianity by H. Schoeps, Patterns of the Reformation by G. Rupp, and Luther’s Works, Volume 42. HARCOURT, BRACE AND WORLD: The Counter Reformation by A. G. Dickens. HARPER & ROW: The Catholic Reformation by J. Olin. HERDER AND HERDER: The Reformation in Germany by J. Lortz. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: Pre-Columbian American Religions by Krickeberg and The Roman Catholic Church by McKenzie. JOHN KNOX: The Churchmanship of St. Cyprian by G. S. M. Walker. JUDSON: Baptist Successionism by W. M. Patterson. MACMILLAN: The Oxford Conspirators by M. O’Connell. MOODY: MBI—The Story of Moody Bible Institute by G. Getz. OXFORD: The Story of the General Theological Seminary by P. M. Dawley and The First Christian Century: Certainties and Uncertainties by S. Sandmel. PRINCETON: Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300–1140 by K. Morrison. SEABURY: Can’t You Hear Me Calling?, by L. Carter. STANFORD: The Fathers of the Latin Church by H. von Campenhausen, translated by Manfred Hoffman. YALE: Development of Christian Doctrine by J. Pelikan.

DEVOTIONALABINGDON: Daily Readings from the Works of Leslie D. Weatherhead edited by F. Cumbers, The Person I Am by G. Asquith, and Trails and Turnpikes by C. Price. AUGSBURG: Safe in His Arms by H. Wislöff. BAKER: Devotions for Children by M. Larson, We Need You Here Lord: Prayers from the City by A. Blackwood, and A Very Present Help by D. Elliot. BEACON HILL: Lift Up Thine Eyes, a compilation from Come Ye Apart. BETHANY FELLOWSHIP: Reigning with Christ by F. J. Huegel. BROADMAN: The Faces of God by S. Schreiner. CONCORDIA: Hosanna in the Whirlwind by O. P. Kretzmann, and God Is No Island by O. Hoffmann. FORTRESS: Uncovered Feelings by H. Brokering. INTER-VARSITY: Ten Great Freedoms by E. Lange, The Greatness of Christ by J. Paterson, This Morning With God, Volume II edited by Carol Adeney. JOHN KNOX: Moving the Earth—for a Song by M. Gaillard, JUDSON: The Cross in Hymns by F. Rest, My Window World by E. Whitehouse, and Faithlifters by J. Lavender. KREGEL: Fully Furnished. The Christian Worker’s Equipment by F. Marsh and The Structural Principles of the Bible by F. Marsh. LIPPINCOTT: So Who’s Afraid of Birthdays? by Anna B. Mow and Prayers to Pray Wherever You Are by J. Struchen. LOIZEAUX: Living Wisely: A Devotional Study of the First Epistle to the Corinthians by J. Blair and Sins of Saints by H. Lockyer. MOODY: Spiritual Maturity by J. Sanders. PAULIST: That Man in You by L. Evely and Before the Deluge by S. Moore and A. Hurt. REVELL: Eight Keys to Happiness by W. Hamby and Trustful Living by C. Holtermann. TYNDALE: When You Pray by H. Lindsell, and Words Fitly Spoken by D. G. Barnhouse. WARNER: Devotions You Can Lead by R. Swisher and God in My Family by D. Haskin. WORD: Sprint for the Sun by L. D. Young, A Man Talks With God and Earth, Moon, and Beyond both by B. Parrott. ZONDERVAN: Sourcebook for Mothers by E. Doan, New Every Morning by P. Howard, God Still Speaks to Women Today by Eugenia Price, and Guidance by God by J. H. Jauncey.

DRAMA, FICTION, POETRYAUGSBURG: What Did Jesus Do? and Chancel Dramas for Lent by W. A. Poovey. BEACON HILL: Going on Seventeen by M. F. Boggs and Joy in the Morning by K. B. Peck. BROADMAN: Drama for Fun by C. McGee, Ironing Board Altars by M. A. Bohrs, and Return to Heroism by R. A. Johns. CONCORDIA: Never Underestimate the Little Woman by C. Start. EERDMANS: “Contemporary Writers in Christian Perspective” series—Marianne Moore, by Sister Therese. Spender, MacNeice, Day-Lewis by D. Stanford, C. S. Lewis by P. Kreeft, and Evelyn Waugh by P. Doyle. FORTRESS: Dark Side of the Moon by P. Naylor. HARPER & ROW: The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Stone and Other Fables by M. Boyd and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven by G. Freeman. HERALD: The Outside World by L. E. Bender. Night Preacher by L. Vernon, and Lucy Winchester by C. C. Kauffman. KNOPF: In the House of the Lord by R. Flynn. LIPPINCOTT: New Moon Rising by Eugenia Price. MACMILLAN: False Gods, Real Men by D. Berrigan. MOODY: Lost City by C. E. Gruhn and Then I Am Strong by F. Arnold. REVELL: Favorite Christian Poems compiled by D. T. Kauffman. WARNER: Egermeier’s Bible Story Book (a new revision) by E. Egermeier and A. Hall. WORD: No Man in Eden by H. L. Myra. WORLD: Are You Sure You Love Me? by L. W. May. ZONDERVAN: Beside Still Waters by P. Michael and The Fragmented, The Empty, The Love by P. Bard.

ECUMENICS, INTER-FAITH DIALOGUEABINGDON: John Wesley’s Letter to a Roman Catholic edited by M. Hurley, S.J. and Methodism’s Destiny in an Ecumenical Age edited by Paul M. Minus Jr. AUGSBURG, PAULIST: *Luther: Right or Wrong? by H. J. McSorley, C.S.P. and Church in Fellowship, Volume II by P. E. Hoffman and H. Meyer. BROADMAN: Meet the American Catholic by P. Scharper. BRUCE: Forms of Christian Life by F. Schlosser. FUNK AND WAGNALLS: Men of Dialogue: Martin Buber and Albrecht Goes edited by E. W. Rollins and H. Zohn. HARPER & ROW: Phenomenology of Religion by J. Bettis and Attitudes Toward Other Religions by O. Thomas. JOHN KNOX: Power Without Glory: A Study in Ecumenical Politics by I. Henderson. MACMILLAN: The Christian-Marxist Dialogue by P. Oestreicher. PAULIST: Dare to Reconcile by J. O. Nelson. SHEED AND WARD: The One Bread by M. Thurian and Reconciliation: The Function of the Church by E. C. Bianchi. ZONDEVAN: Ecumenicity, Evangelicals and Rome by J. W. Montgomery.

ETHICAL, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, CULTURAL STUDIESABINGDON: Young People and Their Culture by R. Snyder, The Church and the New Generation by C. E. Mowry, Black Power and Christian Responsibility by C. F. Sleeper, The Young Adult Generation by A. J. Moore, and The Dialogue Gap by T. J. Mullen. AUGSBURG: Modern War and the Christian by R. Moellering. BAKER: Make Up Your Minds! Challenges for Young Christians by J. D. Baumann and Who’s Out of Focus by D. R. Seagren. BEACON HILL: Pilgrim’s Progress, a paraphrase by J. K. Grider, Share My Discoveries by K. Johnson and We Also Build by E. Lewis. BROADMAN: One Plus One Equals One by K. Arvin, Persons in Crises by R. Hudson, and Christian Communicator’s Handbook by F. A. Craig. BRUCE: The Gospel According to Madison Avenue by R. Hutchinson, Quality of Life by C. P. Kindregan, and New Morality or No Morality edited by R. Campbell. CONCORDIA: Ethics and Social Responsibility in Business by H. Gram, Crime in American Society by R. Knudten, and Power Structures and the Church by D. Schuller. CORPUS: Nonviolent Direct Action: American Cases—Social-Psychological Analyses edited by A. P. Hare and H. H. Blumberg and *Controversy: The Birth Control Debate 1958–1968 by A. Valsecchi. DOUBLEDAY: Catholic Education Faces Its Future by N. G. McCluskey, S.J., TheAbortion Decision by D. Granfreld, O.S.B., and Catholics and Divorce by R. G. Carey. EERDMANS: They Dare to Hope: Student Protest and Christian Response by F. Pearson and Black Reflections on White Power by S. Tucker. FORTRESS: God’s Basic Law by K. Hennig and Children—Choice or Chance by K. Wrage. GOOD NEWS: Sex Through the Looking Glass by L. Dolphin Jr. and C. E. Gallivan. HARPER & ROW: College Ruined Our Daughter by W. Shrader and The Search for a Usable Future by M. Marty. HERALD: The Church and the Single Person by F. Bontrager, World Hunger by C. F. Bishop, Soldiers of Compassion by U. A. Bender, and The Problem of Nationalist in Church-State Relationships by J. E. Wood Jr. HERDER AND HERDER: Lovers in Marriage by L. Evely and From Faith to Fantasy by W. Kuhns. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: Politics of the Gospel by Paupert. JOHN KNOX: War and Moral Discourse by R. B. Potter, Freedom City by L. Howell, *The Liberated Zone by J. P. Brown, and Disturbed About Man by B. E. Mays. JUDSON: The Black Vanguard by R. Brisbane, Cybernetics and People by C. Hall, and *Ashes for Breakfast by T. J. Holmes. KNOPF: The Divine Order by H. B. Parkes. LIPPINCOTT: Christian Ethics by D. H. C. Read. MACMILLAN: A Punishment for Peace by P. Berrigan, The Catholic Case for Contraception by D. Callahan, On Not Leaving It to the Snake by H. Cox, *The Delta Ministry by B. Hilton. MOODY: Christian Etiquette by D. Martin and Come for Coffee by M. Wise. OXFORD: College Talks by H. F. Lowry, edited by J. R. Blackwood and Religion and Social Conflict edited by R. Lee and M. E. Marty. PAULIST: Catholicism U. S. A. by G. H. Tavard, A.A. and Catholic Pentecostals by K. and D. Ranaghan. PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED: Commission versus Creation by F. N. Lee and Communism and the Reality of the Moral Law by J. Bales. REVELL: We’re Holding Your Son by G. R. McLean and God’s Turf by B. Combs. SCRIBNERS: The Religious Experience of Mankind by N. Smart and The Judgment of the Dead by S. G. F. Brandon. SEABURY: *Violence: Reflections from A Christian Perspective by J. Ellul, Civil Disobedience and the Christian by D. B. Stevick, and Black Theology and Black Power by J. H. Cone. SHEED AND WARD: “Move Over”: Students, Politics, Religion by F. Carling and Alienation, Atheism and Religious Revolution by T. F. O’Dea. TYNDALE: *Birth Control and The Christian, a symposium by the Christian Medical Society. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Myths and Symbols: Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade edited by J. M. Kitagawa, and *The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion by M. Eliade. WESTMINSTER: China—Yellow Peril? Red Hope? by C. R. Hensman and Theology and the Church in the University by J. Hartt. VANDERBILT: Controversy in the Twenties edited by W. B. Gatewood Jr. WARNER: Cry Over Me by J. Testerman. WORD: Seven Who Fought by W. Crook and The Cutting Edge compiled by H. C. Brown Jr. WORLD: Still Hungry in America, text by R. Coles and All to the Good: A Guide to Christian Ethics by R. B. and H. D. McLaren. ZONDERVAN: The God-Players by E. Jabay, The Compulsive Christian by D. Mason, Love in Action by W. Becker, The Urban Crisis by D. McKenna et al., The Lord Is My Shepherd But … by B. Jurgensen, The Vacuum of Unbelief by S. B. Babbage, Where Is History Going? by J. W. Montgomery, Guiding Teenagers to Maturity by J. H. Waterink, Learning for Loving by J. Burton, and Purple Violet-Squish by D. Wilkerson.

LITURGY, WORSHIPABINGDON: Bless This Mess and Other Prayers by J. Carr and I. Sorley, Prayer and the Living Christ by F. S. Wuellner, Look at Us, Lord! by R. M. Haven, Liturgies in a Time When Cities Burn by K. Watkins, and Reality and Prayer by J. B. Magee. BRUCE: Prayer and the Creative Christian by D. J. Foran. HARPER & ROW: The Centering Moment by H. Thurman. SEABURY: Word and Action edited by J. Kirby.

MISSIONS, EVANGELISM, CHURCH OUTREACHABINGDON: A Church Truly Catholic by J. K. Mathews, Include Me Out! by C. Morris, and The Theology of the Christian Mission edited by G. H. Anderson. AUGSBURG: Anutu Conquers New Guinea by A. C. Frerichs. BAKER: The Little General: The Story of J. T. Bach by T. Watkins, Jr. BEACON HILL: Christ’s Evangelistic Imperatives by E. S. Colaw, and Entering the Kingdom by G. F. Owen. BETHANY: *Current Mission Trends compiled by M. Mardock. BROADMAN: The New Times by A. McClellan. CONCORDIA: The Holy Infection by P. Bretscher. EERDMANS: The Spread of Christianity: A Bibliography by K. S. Latourette, Church Growth in Sierra Leone by G. W. Olson, Understanding Church Growth by D. McGavran, Repaid A Hundredfold by C. Leonard, Our Guilty Silence by J. R. W. Stott, Post-Christianity in Africa by G. C. Oosthuizen, and Jesus and His Nice Church by E. J. Richter. FORTRESS: Reviving the Local Church by D. Ernsberger and The Renewal of Preaching by D. J. Randolph. GOOD NEWS: Where the Action Is by D. Hillis. HARPER & ROW: Hammered as Gold by D. Howard. HERALD: Learning to Understand the Mission of the Church by E. Waltner and Evangelization and Social Responsibility by V. C. Grounds. JOHN KNOX: The Quality of Mercy by J. Steensma. JUDSON: The Reconciling Community by O. Tibbetts. MOODY: Footsteps to Freedom by L. Keidel and Beyond Combat by J. M. Hutchens. PAULIST: Modern Mission Dialogue: Theory and Practice edited by Pro Mundi Vita. REVELL: Dry Bones Can Live Again by R. E. Coleman and How In the World? by C. E. Johnson. WARNER: Go Man, Go, by F. Gardner, Carroll Dale Scores Again by D. Harman and C. Dale, and The Total Life by M. Crimm. WORD: House by the Bow Tree by R. Seamands, Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution by P. Rees, Doctor in An Old World by H. Raley, Christianity in Communist China by G. Patterson, Struggle For Integrity by W. Knight, and Neither Black Nor White by D. Shipley. WORLD: Take It to the People by H. E. Mumma. ZONDERVAN: By Life or by Death by J. C. Hefley and Heartcry for Revival by S. Olford.

PASTORAL THEOLOGYABINGDON: Stability Amid Change by G. Harkness, Pastoral Authority in Personal Relationships by S. Southard, Ferment in the Ministry by S. Hiltner, The Multiple Staff Ministry by M. T. Judy, and The Impact of the Future by L. E. Schaller. BEACON HILL: Making Prayer Dynamic by G. Cove. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS: *Preaching to Modern Man by F. Pack and P. Meador, Jr. BROADMAN: When He Calls Me by W. W. Warmath and Has God Called You? by H. Barnette. BRUCE: The Priesthood in Crisis by J. J. Blomjous, Contemporary Pastoral Counseling by E. Weitzel, The Priest as Manager by J. Deegan Jr., and Authority and Institution by James Drain. EERDMANS: The Contemporary Preacher and His Task by D. W. Yohn. FORTRESS: Ministering to Prisoners and Their Families by Kandle and Cassler and Counseling the Childless Couple by Bassett. HERALD: *Meditations for the Newly Married by J. Drescher, After High School—What? by A. Beechy, and several additions to the “Hospital Pamphlet Series.” JOHN KNOX: In Quest of a Ministry by J. P. Love. JUDSON: Strategic Planning for Church Organizations by R. Broholm, The Deacon in a Changing Church by Thomas, and The Pastor Deals with Crucial Human Situations by Oates and Lester. KREGEL: Last Words of Saints and Sinners: The Art of Dying by H. Lockyer. MACMILLAN: A Church Without Priests? by J. Duquesne. PAULIST: Priesthood and Ministry by R. J. Bastian and A Handbookfor Lectors by W. M. Carr. PRENTICE-HALL: Introduction to Religious Counseling: A Christian Humanistic Approach by R. P. Vaughan, S.J. REVELL: Kindlings by I. Macpherson and Man, Have I Got Problems by D. Wilkerson. SEABURY: Up From Grief by V. Kreis and A. Pattie and Demands on Ministry Today by G. W. Barrett. SHEED AND WARD: *Religious Values in Counseling and Psychotherapy by C. A. Curran and The In-Between: Evolution in Christian Faith by M. McMahon and P. A. Campbell. WARNER: Marriage in Perspective by H. Streeter. WORD: The Centrality of Preaching in the Total Task of the Ministry by J. Killinger. WORLD: Creative Churchmanship by D. W. Bartow and Church Politics by K. R. Bridston. ZONDERVAN: The Challenge of the Church by S. M. Lockridge.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATIONABINGDON: Cycles and Renewal by W. M. Ramsey, Christian Education in Local Methodist Churches by J. Q. Schisler, and Christian Word Book by J. S. Hendricks et al. BETHANY FELLOWSHIP: Happy Moments with God by M. Anderson. BROADMAN: Leading Dynamic Bible Study by R. A. Pierce. BRUCE: The Human Dimension of Catechetics by A. McBride, For Adult Catholics Only by T. W. Guzi, S.J. and Living, Loving Generation by D. and R. Lucey. CONCORDIA: Power Beyond Words by Johamann. HAWTHORN: The Fourth R: What Can Be Taught About Religion in the Public Schools. HERDER AND HERDER: Faith and Spiritual Life by Y. Congar. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: To Build a Church by Morse. INTER-VARSITY: Encounter with Books edited by Harish Merchant. JUDSON: Knowing the Living God by R. Hazelton and Discussion Starters for Young People, Series Two by A. Billups. PEGASUS: *The Politics of Religious Conflict: Church and State in America by R. Morgan and Religion, The State and the Schools by J. M. Swomley Jr. WARNER: “Foundations” series on church-school administration and teaching pre-elementary, elementary, youth, and adults. WORD: Biblical Sunday School Commentary, 1970.

SERMONSABINGDON: The Journey That Men Make by J. Armstrong, We Dream—We Climb by D. N. Franklin and The Wind of the Spirit by J. S. Stewart. AUGSBURG: The Call of Lent by J. G. Manz and What Did Jesus Do? by W. A. Poovey. BAKER: 150 Brief Sermon Outlines edited by C. Zylstra and 600 Sermon Illustrations by W. J. Hart. BEACON HILL: The Rich Treasures in Life by D. M. Parish. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS: The King and His Kingdom by R. Lemmons. CONCORDIA: The Bitter Road by J. H. Baumgaertner. FORTRESS: How Modern Should Theology Be? by H. Thielicke. JUDSON: Dialogue Preaching by Thompson and Bennett. KREGEL: Easy-to-Use Sermon Outlines, Revival Sermon Outlines, and Evangelistic Sermon Outlines, all by C. R. Wood. REVELL: Where Now Is Thy God? by J. W. Hamilton and Sermons for Today edited by A. H. Chappie. E. J. WORD: God’s Everlasting “Yes” by I. T. Jones and The Spirit in Conflict by W. Warmath. WORLD: A Word in Its Season by A. H. Silver. ZONDERVAN: Preaching at the Palace by W. A. Criswell, Simple Sermons on Heaven, Hell and Judgment by W. H. Ford, The Preeminence of Christ by J. H. Gwynne, and Last Things by H. L. Eddleman et al.

THEOLOGYABINGDON: Contours of Faith by J. Dillinberger, His End Up by V. Eller, Perspectives on Death by L. O. Mills, *Sense and Nonsense in Religion by S. H. Stenson and Contemporary Continental Theologians by S. P. Schilling. AUGSBURG: A New Look at the Apostles’ Creed by G. Rein, Berdyaev’s Philosophy of Hope by C. S. Calian, and Interpreting Luther’s Legacy by F. W. Meuser and S. D. Schneider. BAKER: Tongues, Healing and You! by D. W. Hillis. BEACON HILL: Personal Renewal Through Christian Conversion by W. C. Mavis and Mother Goose’s Gospel by E. Wells. BROADMAN: The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Thought by D. M. Roark, Why I Preach that the Bible Is Literally True by W. A. Criswell, The Second Cross by J. M. Carter, Faith that Works by B. J. Chitwood, and Signs of the Second Coming by R. G. Witty. BRUCE: Spectrum of Catholic Attitudes edited by R. Campbell, Understanding the New Theology by Cooney, O.S.B., and Contemporary Protestant Thought by P. J. Curtis. CORPUS: The New Obedience: Kierkegaard on Imitating Christ by B. R. Dewey, The Church in the Theology of Karl Barth by C. O’Grady, and Man Yearning for Grace: Luther’s Early Spiritual Teachings by J. Wicks. DOUBLEDAY: The Crisis of Faith by F. Sontag. EERDMANS: Life in One’s Stride: Dietrich Bonhoeffer by K. Hamilton, The Creative Theology of P. T. Forsyth edited by S. Mikolaski, The Sacraments by G. C. Berkouwer, The Problems of Religious Authority (essays by E. J. Carnell) edited by R. Nash, All Things Made New by L. Smedes, and Henry James, Sr., and the Religion of Community by D. W. Hoover. FORTRESS: Theological Ethics Volume II: Politics by H. Thielicke, An Exodus Theology by G. Wingren, and Sacra Doctrina by P. E. Persson. HARPER & ROW: Faith and Understanding by R. Bultmann, Religion and Change by D. Edwards, An Apology for Wonder by S. Keen, What Is Religion by P. Tillich, and Do We Need the Church? by R. McBrien. HARVARD: St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Odyssey of a Soul by R. J. O’Connell, S.J. and King Alfred’s Version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies by T. A. Carnicelli. HERALD: We Believe by P. Erb. HERDER AND HERDER: Man’s Condition by W. C. Shepherd and Kerygma and Dogma by K. Rahner and K. Lehmann, JOHN KNOX: Bench Marks by J. Farkas, Sören Kierkegaard by R. L. Perkins, Alfred North Whitehead by N. Pittenger, and Christian Doctrine by S. C. Guthrie Jr. LIPPINCOTT: The Promise of Kierkegaard by K. Hamilton, The Promise of Buber by L. Streiker, and The Promise of Bultmann by N. Perrin. MACMILLAN: Christus Victor by G. Aulén, New Theology No. 6 by M. E. Marty and D. G. Peerman, and Mahayana Buddhism by B. L. Suzuki. MOODY: Existentialism and Christian Belief by M. D. Hunnex, *Faith at the Frontiers by C. F. H. Henry, and Law and Grace by A J. McClain. OXFORD: The Christian New Morality: A Biblical Study of Situation Ethics by O. S. Barr and The Knowledge of Things Hoped For: The Sense of Theological Discourse by R. W. Jenson. PAULIST: New Ways in Theology by J. S. Weiland, Do You Believe in God? by K. Rahner, and A New Approach to Faith and Doctrine by G. Baum. PEGASUS: Christianity and Paradox by R. W. Hepburn. PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED: Warfield’s Shorter Works edited by J. Meeter. SCRIBNER: Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective by G. Kaufman and Religion, Revolution, and the Future by J. Moltmann. SCRIPTURE PRESS: *The Bible and Tomorrow’s News by C. C. Ryrie. SEABURY: History as Myth: The Import for Contemporary Theology by W. T. Stevenson and Death by M. McC. Gatch. SHEED AND WARD: Is Original Sin in Scripture? by H. Haag and God and Man by E. Schillebeeckx. STANFORD: Theology and Meaning: A Critique of Metatheological Skepticism by R. S. Heimbeck. WARNER: A Responding People by G. Newberry and The Soul Under Siege by J. E. Massey. WESTMINSTER: The Whole Man, A Study in Christian Anthropology by R. G. Smith, The Church Is Not Expendable by G. B. Noyce, and Theology and the Kingdom of God by W. Pannenberg. WORD: Jesus and the Kingdom (reprint) by G. E. Ladd. WORLD: Morality Without Law by W. F. Ewbank. ZONDERVAN: Fundamentals of the Faith edited by C. F. H. Henry, Systematic Theology by J. O. Buswell III, The Devil—Our Adversary by J. D. Pentecost, and Beliefs That Are Basic by H. Shannon.

The past year was a publishing record-breaker, especially for significant works in English on the Old Testament. The 118 titles to be mentioned here far outshine the sixty-one selected as worthy of note during 1967. Those that are marked with an * reflect a high view of the Scriptures. Here they all are, then (including a few of last year’s that came in too late for mention then), arranged in five categories. The twenty chosen as the year’s best are numbered.

Reference Tools

1. For sheer usefulness, especially for Americans who find it difficult to keep abreast of British publications, the nod for a reference work must go to G. W. Anderson’s editing of the 1957–66 annual book lists of the Society for Old Testament Study, in A Decade of Bible Bibliography (Blackwell, 1967). Each year’s books are divided into twelve categories, and there is an index of authors. Harvard Library’s six-volume Catalog of Hebrew Books shows the catalog cards for its 40,000 books in Hebrew (especially rabbinics). Three specialized Bible dictionaries appears in 1968: W. Duckat’s Beggar to King: All the Occupations of Biblical Times (Doubleday), and H. H. Rowley’s handy Dictionary of Bible Personal Names and Dictionary of Bible Themes (Basic Books). Harper & Row’s Illustrated Family Encyclopedia of the Living Bible has fourteen volumes.

Biblical Setting

2. The year’s best work on HISTORICAL BACKGROUND was K. Katz, et al., From the Beginning: Archaeology and Art in the Israel Museum (Morrow). With attractive design and sixty-four full-color plates, it depicts this institution’s progress since its founding in 1963 and includes a survey of artifacts from the early Stone Age to the Crusades. Also on historical background were: L. Keylock’s translation of Egypt and the Bible (Fortress), by P. Montet; and Letters from Mesopotamia (University of Chicago, 1967), by L. Oppenheim, mirroring official and private life from Sargon in 2300 to Persian times. Old Babylonian Letters and Economic History, by W. F. Leemans (Brill), presents other such documents, plus additions to the author’s 1960 volume on foreign trade in Babylon. Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings of E. A. Speiser (University of Pennsylvania, 1967), edited by J. J. Finkelstein and M. Greenberg, offers thirty-six of Speiser’s articles plus a complete biography of 152 articles he wrote. Pertaining to a later period are J. B. Peckham’s The Development of the Late Phoenician Scripts (Harvard), covering the eighth to first centuries B.C.; and S. K. Eddy’s The King Is Dead (University of Nebraska), on the resistance to Hellenism that appeared in the former Persian Empire from 334 to 31 B.C., much being due to native theologies of kingship.

3. A third book of the top twenty represents more distinctively BIBLICAL BACKGROUND: Y. Aharoni and M. AviYona, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 176 pages, but, would you believe, 262 maps—especially of battles and also of commerce and economic resources—plus pictures, translations of ancient sources, and chronology! The narrative attempts to be objective but generally neglects conservative views. From a more Bible-trusting approach are M. T. Gilbertson, *Uncovering Bible Times: A Study in Biblical Archeology (Augsburg), and. J. L. Kelso, *Archeology and the Ancient Testament (Zondervan), twenty-seven chapters covering Adam to Malachi. As an illustrated archaeological history comes A. Jirku’s The World of the Bible (World).

4. Selected as best for specific BIBLICAL HISTORY is P. R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration (Westminster), with thorough documentation of sixth-century B.C. Hebrew thought. Though under literary sources for the exile he includes much that evangelical scholars would place elsewhere (e.g., P, the Deuteronomic history, and Second—but not Third—Isaiah), Ackroyd’s opening up of one of the less appreciated Old Testament periods is welcome. A paperback by B. Rendtorff, Men of the Old Testament (Fortress), traces out history through the lives of such figures as Abram, Moses, and Joshua, at least as far as the oral sources about them were understood in later times. Other publications, in historical order, include: a translation of A. Parrot, Abraham and His Times (Fortress), holding to JEDP but also asserting that Genesis is “anchored in history”; the first three volumes in J. Rhymer’s series, “The Bible in History”—(1) Abraham, Loved by God, (2) Isaac and Jacob, God’s Chosen Ones, and (3) Moses and Joshua (Hastings), all by Henri Gaubert and all readable and well illustrated; H. Rolston, Personalities Around David (John Knox), twenty-four of them, plus David himself; E. W. Heaton, The Hebrew Kingdoms (Oxford, Volume III of the “New Clarendon Bible”); and Jacob Myers, The World of the Restoration (Prentice-Hall, “Backgrounds to the Bible” series), down to Alexander, with commendable archaeological notes.

Introductory

5. On GENERAL INTRODUCTION, a landmark volume, since it includes a full discussion of inspiration, canon, and also text, is N. L. Geisler and W. E. Nix, *A General Introduction to the Bible (Moody). Significantly, it distinguishes between the twofold canonization of the Old Testament law and prophets and its threefold categorization into Law, Prophets and Writing. It is comprehensive on the modern versions, both foreign and English. Among new English versions, one must note R. S. Hanson, The Psalms in Modern Speech (Fortress), negative in its critical introductions but interesting in its attempt to preserve Hebrew meter and to encourage readings by cantors and choirs; and K. Taylor, *Living Lessons of Life and Love (Tyndale), a paraphrase of Ruth, Esther, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Another title related to general introduction is the reissue, now in paperback and with a slightly changed title, of H. F. Vos, editor, *Can I Trust the Bible? (Moody), nine chapters by eight evangelical scholars on such topics as science, text, canon, and historicity.

6. The year’s top selection on TEXT alone is S. Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford), supplementary to, but by no means a replacement of, H. B. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (reprinted by Ktav in 1968). Jellicoe’s is the first major post-Qumran study of the ancient versions and is perhaps the most important Old Testament book of the year. After surveying modern editions and the scholarly situation, it presents a much needed book-by-book analysis of the entire Greek Old Testament. More specialized are the works of J. D. Shenkel, Chronology and Recensional Development in the Greek Text of Kings (Harvard); and J. D. Purvis, The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (Harvard), in which he proposes a late second-century B.C. origin for the Samaritans as a distinct sect, as shown by comparing their Pentateuchal text with those at Qumran. Not to be slighted are Ktav’s reprints of J. W. Etheridge, The Targum of Onkelos (1862); S. Frensdorff, Massora Magna (1876); and E. Levita, Massoreth Ha-Mas-soreth, with the Introduction of Jacob Ben Chayyim to the Rabbinic Bible of 1525.

7. In the area of comprehensive SURVEY AND SPECIAL INTRODUCTION, 1968’s outstanding volume is unquestionably G. Fohrer’s Introduction to the Old Testament (Abingdon), which includes a significant discussion of literary form (Formgeschichte) before each major part: history, poetry, wisdom, and prophecy. The criticism is radical (e.g., Chronicles “completely distorts the history of the monarchy”), but the bibliographies are superb. Less ambitious critical surveys, all Roman Catholic, include: J. Jensen’s paperback, God’s Word to Israel (Allyn and Bacon); G. A. Larue, Old Testament Life and Literature (Allyn and Bacon), a textbook in beautiful format and “without strong theological bias”; N. Lohfink, Christian Meaning of the Old Testament (Bruce), stressing its enduring “inerrant” aspects as opposed to its more “marginal” matters; How Does the Christian Confront the Old Testament?, by P. Benoit et al. (Paulist; Volume 30 of “Concilium: Theology in the Age of Renewal”), with nine articles by Catholic scholars, mostly European, and seven more on the sacred writings of other religions; and Wellsprings of Scripture (Sheed and Ward), by J. M. Ford, a survey that brings out the types of biblical literature.

8. The year’s leading SPECIAL AREA INTRODUCTION is unquestionably H. E. Freeman, *An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets (Moody), with 133 pages on prophetism, followed by book introductions that react well with critical problems and take up such issues as Hosea’s marriage (literal), Isaiah 7:14 and Daniel 9:25 (specifically Messianic), Joel-Obadiah (ninth century), and Daniel’s seventieth week (futurist). Other particularized studies are: M. H. Segal, The Pentateuch: Its Composition and Its Authorship and Other Biblical Studies (Oxford), anti-Wellhausen but still with post-Mosaica; E. W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Fortress, 1967), on trends since 1900, with the conclusion that it must be a seventh-century product based on earlier traditions; and W. H. Whybray, The Succession Narrative: A Study of Second Samuel 9–20, First Kings 1–2 (Allenson), in which the public events are held to be historical, but the private, imaginative—a historical novel, for political purposes, based on the wisdom movement, with Egyptian influence.

9. Whybray thus serves to introduce FORM CRITICISM: that never-never land of Old Testament study: not that the study of literary forms as related to the Bible may not be helpful—witness Kitchen’s and Kline’s defense of Deuteronomy, because of its second-millennium covenant form—but that most of today’s proliferating Formgeschichte seems aimed at creating new alternatives to the Bible’s own teachings about its composition and validity. If then a ninth in the year’s top twenty books be assigned to this area, it would be Koch’s general study, The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method (Scribner), with definitions and examples, embracing oral traditions and the characteristics of Hebrew poetry. Specific studies include: R. Clements, Abraham and David, Genesis 15 and Its Meaning for Israelite Tradition (Allenson, 1967), which explains Genesis 15 as the result of successive warpings by cultic transmission, political propaganda, and priestly reconstruction; E. Nielsen, The Ten Commandmentsin New Perspective (also Allenson), with a similar traditio-historical approach; G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Wilderness (Abingdon), which explains how the “murmuring motif” must have arisen out of conflicts between the divided kingdoms of Israel; L. Bronner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha (Brill), which sees these as wonder tales designed to expose the inadequacy of Baal worship; and, really the granddaddy of Formgeschichte, H. Gunkel’s The Psalms, A Form Critical Introduction (Fortress, 1967), old (1930), but the first time in English for this basic study of the Gattung, or form.

10. A particularly fruitful area in 1968 has been SURVEY OF THE PROPHETS, with top billing going to S. J. Schultz, *The Prophets Speak (Harper & Row). Based on the “unreconstructed (by negative criticism) text” of the Old Testament, it first defines the prophetic movement and its themes and then takes up the individual prophets. See also: J. C. Reid, *We Spoke for God (Eerdmans, 1967), vivid first-person retellings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and six of the Minor Prophets (but not Ezekiel, Daniel, or Zechariah?), a companion volume to his We Knew Jesus; H. Staach, Prophetic Voices of the Bible (World), the personalities and messages of the Minor Prophets; S. Winward, A Guide to the Prophets (Hodder and Stoughton; due for release in the United States by John Knox in 1969), their historical settings and their teachings applied to today; G. von Rad, The Message of the Prophets (SCM, from the German of 1967), a simplified version of part of Volume II of his 1966 Old Testament Theology; and the new edition of R. B. Y. Scott, The Relevance of the Prophets (Macmillan), completely updated after twenty years.

Commentaries

11–12. Two of 1968’s top Old Testament books belong with WHOLE BIBLE commentaries. As anticipated last year, the Old Testament portion of *The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, edited by C. W. Carter (Eerdmans), is now out, at least Volumes I (Parts 1, Pentateuch, and 2, Historical) and II (Poetry). With ASV text and double-column notes for each paragraph, it is a tool for the minister or teacher. Also, with the appearance of Volume II (Historical Books), the *Beacon Bible Commentary (Beacon Hill) is now almost complete, lacking only the first volume. Evangelical Calvinists will find little to consider theologically distasteful in either of these major commentary sets. The same cannot be said, however, for I. Asimov (a science and science-fiction writer), Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Volume I, Old Testament (Doubleday), with its outmoded chronology, dependence on JEDP and the Anchor Bible, and discoveries of residual polytheism (e.g., in Gen. 3:22 and 11:7). Nor can it be said of R. E. Brown, J. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy, editors, The Jerome Bible Commentary (Prentice-Hall), by fifty Roman Catholic professors of the United States and Canada, with their “assured results of literary and historical criticism” (e.g., JEDP).

13. Among commentaries on the PENTATEUCH, attention focuses on F. D. Kidner’s *Genesis in the new “Tyndale Old Testament Commentary” (Inter-Varsity). The warden of Tyndale House here maintains the unity of Genesis as opposed to “rival traditions competing for credence”; and, while some may question his suggestion of the book’s final editing under Samuel (rather than Moses) or his noncommittal attitude toward evolution, all will here recognize 224 pages of solid evangelical interpretation. Leviticus and Numbers, by N. H. Snaith, first volume in the new edition of the “Century Bible” (Nelson of London, 1967), on the other hand, is just as obviously JEDP, à la Noth or Von Rad, but with helpful rabbinic references. R. Clements, God’s Chosen People: Deuteronomy, A Commentary (SCM) has a topical arrangement, with stress upon theology, history, and the canon.

14. Top rank among the HISTORICAL BOOKS likewise goes to Tyndale, *Judges-Ruth (Inter-Varsity), by A. E. Cundall and L. Morris, respectively. Emphasis falls on exegesis, with critical questions generally limited to the introductions and footnotes. Judges is seen as complementary, not contradictory, to Joshua and as dependent upon a Mosaic Pentateuch. Ruth has a verse-by-verse treatment, with its Davidic date and place in the canon well presented. Three paperback series are these: (a) from England, the “Scripture Union Bible Study Books” (Eerdmans), popular paraphrases for daily reading; in Joshua-Second Samuel, H. L. Ellison assumes considerable freedom on the order of events and in First KingsSecond Chronicles, I. H. Marshall designates the latter’s figures as “incredible”; but J. S. Wright, *Ezra-Job, maintains Scripture’s full validity; (b) the “Bible SelfStudy Series” (Moody) presents practical lessons with maps and charts, with I. L. Jensen serving as reviser for *Joshua, *Judges and Ruth, *First and Second Samuel, *First Kings with Chronicles, and *Second Kings with Chronicles; and (c), in the “Shield Bible Study Series” (Baker), R. G. Turnbull, *The Book of Nehemiah, is primarily homiletical and topical. A more ambitious series, designed as a family resource, is the new “Concordia Commentary,” a seven-year, twenty-seven-volume project, with RSV text and an easy-reading narrative commentary, on paragraphs. R. Gehrke, First and Second Samuel (Concordia), which is one of the three initial volumes in the series, speaks on the one hand of verbal inspiration but on the other of “stories” and “varying traditions … shaped by a later temple liturgy.”

15. In 1966, M. Dahood’s first volume of the Anchor Bible Psalms won a top listing on the POETIC BOOKS, and again in 1968 his contribution, Psalms, II:50–100 (Doubleday), ranks as one of the leading twenty, again for its effective use of parallel Ugaritic data. Other commentaries and interpretations of the poetic books include: H. Kent’s paperback, *Job Our Contemporary (Eerdmans), with existential relevance, but a little harsh on Elihu; P. S. Sanders, editor, Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Book of Job: A Collection of Critical Essays, ten essays dating from Peake in 1905 through Toynbee’s myths and philosophy in 1934 to recent studies; R. Guardini, *The Wisdom of the Psalms (Regnery), with comments on thirteen selected psalms, exhibiting a German Catholic’s concern for liturgy; and I. L. Jensen, *Psalms (Moody, “Bible Self-Study”) and H. L. Ellison, The Psalms (Eerdmans, “Scripture Union Bible Study”).

16–17. It’s rare to get two solid, evangelical commentaries on the same Old Testament book in one year, but 1968 did, in the category of PROPHETS: H. C. Leupold’s * Exposition of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39 (Baker) follows the format of his previous “Expositions”—detailed notes on each paragraph—and the late E. J. Young’s *The Book of Isaiah, Volume II (Eerdmans), covering chapters 18–39, continues this pilot publication in the “New International Commentary on the Old Testament,” with a similar approach. In fact, this was something of an Isaiah year, among the also-rans being: J. L. McKenzie, Second Isaiah (Doubleday, “Anchor Bible”), on chapters 34; 35; 40–66, and with a liberal perspective (he states, for example, that the idea of the Suffering Servant as a historical figure in the future “is defended by no one today except in a few fundamentalist circles”); F. W. Bennett, * Christian Living from Isaiah (Baker), practical, with 7:14 and 9:6 firmly Messianic; C. T. Francisco, Isaiah (Baker, “Shield Series”); J. L. Green, God Reigns: Expository Studies in the Prophecy of Isaiah (Broadman); I. L. Jensen, *Isaiah-Jeremiah (Moody, “Bible Self-Study”), and P. H. Kelley, Judgment and Redemption in Isaiah (Broadman). Other commentaries on the prophets were: N. Habel, Jeremiah and Lamentations (“Concordia Commentary”); W. Brueggemann, Tradition for Crisis: A Study in Hosea (John Knox), in which Hosea is seen as an interpreter of the Mosaic covenant (with post-Mosaic modifications) rather than as an innovator; J. K. Howard, * Among the Prophets: Amos (Pickering and Inglis, 1967; Baker, 1968), background and a commentary with practical relevance; and T. M. Bennett, The Book of Micah (Baker).

Teachings

18. In the area of WORDS, a first-of-its-kind volume is J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford). Employing Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian, and Ugaritic, Barr traces out lexigraphical history and degrees of agreement. In the same category are P. Ackroyd and B. Lindars, editors, Words and Meanings: Essays Presented to David Winton Thomas (Cambridge), fifteen of them, including B. Albrektson on the syntax of Exodus 3:14 and O. Eissfeldt on Old Testament renamings; and B. Hartman, et al., Hebraische Wortforschung [word investigation] in Honor of Walter Baumgartner (Brill, 1967, Vetus Testamentum Supplement XVI), including G. R. Driver on Hebrew hom*onyms and two studies on “believe” in Genesis 15:6.

19. On matters of more extensive INTERPRETATION, the recommendation goes to J. J. Davis, *Biblical Numerology (Baker), who recognizes the abuse of this subject by cranks and proceeds to classify and define principles for interpreting numbers: only the 7 shows any degree of symbolic use, in Scripture, he says. Also appearing in 1968 were: J. P. Lewis, *A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Brill), more of an anthology than an evaluation; M. G. Kline, *By Oath Consigned (Eerdmans), on circumcision as an ordeal sign; evangelist C. E. Autrey’s paperback, * Renewals Before Pentecost (Broadman); H. M. Orlinsky, The So-Called ‘Servant of the Lord’ and ‘Suffering Servant’ in Second Isaiah (the title speaks for itself) and, with N. H. Snaith, Isaiah 40–60: A Study of the Teachings of the Second Isaiah and its Consequences (Brill, 1967, together forming Vetus Testamentum Supplement XIV), the “Servant” being originally only Jehoiachin’s exiles; H. J. Van Dijk, Ezekiel’s Prophecy on Tyre (Pontifical Biblical Institute), on its unfulfilled predictions; and O. Plöger, Theocracy and Eschatology (John Knox), explaining by radical criticism how the prophetic spirit came to be lost in Maccabean (Daniel) apocalyptic.

20. Finally, in the broader field of THEOLOGY, the year’s twentieth choice book is C. J. Vos, *Women in Old Testament Worship (Judels and Brinkman, Holland), which proposes that, except for the priesthood, women participated equally with men and suggests (?) that they may serve as teaching ministers today. Other important studies include: J. S. Chesnut, The Old Testament Understanding of God (Westminster), a nontechnical work that defines the covenant as “man’s making an agreement with his God” (!) and finds Christology in the Old Testament “only by a strained exegesis”; R. C. Dentan, The Knowledge of God in Ancient Israel (Seabury), an unoriginal survey of the Old Testament’s central idea that God acts in history; W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (Doubleday), a historical analysis of these two contrasting faiths; E. M. Baxter, The Beginnings of Our Religion (Judson), unreconstructed liberalism that fails to find much difference between the two; R. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Ktav, 1967), similar, hypothesizing considerable polytheism in the Old Testament; R. S. Kluger, Satan in the Old Testament (Northwestern University, 1967), with a stress on Jungian psychology, and presupposing that the spiritual equals the mythological; J. Plastaras, Creation and Covenant (Bruce), on creation and other doctrinal themes in Genesis-Exodus (the Bible is considered primarily Israel’s religious literature, though with something important to say today); J. Jocz, The Covenant (Eerdmans), in which a systematic theologian finds the critically reconstructed covenant doctrine as the key to revelation and to the unity of Scripture; H. H. Rowley, Worship in Ancient Israel (Fortress, 1967), which includes the temple, sacrifice, prophets, and psalmody, all with excellent documentation; and N. W. Porteous, Living the Mystery (Blackwell, 1967), a reprint of twelve articles (1948–67) on God’s maintaining the Jewish community by his presence, as men obey him.

In the field of Old Testament, at least, 1968 was a “year for the books”!