Between Springtime And Summer Storm
The Christian Ministry in Latin America and the Caribbean, edited by Wilfred Scopes (World Council of Churches, 1962, 264 pp., paper, $3.90), is reviewed by George Gay, vice-president, Seminario Bíblico Latinoamericano, San José, Costa Rica.
The Division of World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches has sponsored surveys of theological education in the lands of the Younger Churches (India, Africa, the Middle East) and now in this book presents its report on Latin America. The late Bishop B. Foster Stockwell was chairman of the survey committee and its guiding genius until his sudden death three weeks after the completion of the trip.
The author dedicates the major portion of the book to statistical reports of all training institutions in every country of Latin America and the Caribbean. The most interesting part of the book, however, is the third section, in which the editor analyzes in summary fashion the problems facing the Latin American Church today. Dr. Scopes calls this period of church history “the springtime of the Evangelical movement in Latin America.” There is evidence of growth everywhere; there is great promise for the harvest; but, sad to say, all that blossoms in the springtime does not come to fruition. In fact, behind all that springtime beauty there are already discernible certain weaknesses that must be corrected before the summer storms break.
In order to advance the whole evangelical position in Latin America, the training given ministers must be improved in several important areas: (1) the responsibility of the seminaries and Bible schools to make the Bible’s message relevant in today’s world; (2) the raising of salaries for Latin American professors; (3) the sponsoring of indigenous theological literature; (4) the recruitment of Latin Americans for teaching positions; (5) the awakening of theological students to the reality of the world around them, especially in the expanding urban areas.
But improvement will not come by continuing the present trend to proliferation of small seminaries and Bible schools. Financial, academic, and spiritual factors should drive many of the present training schools to cooperative efforts. Dr. Scopes makes a strong plea for “union seminaries” employing a “hall system” in which each cooperating group would teach its own ecclesiology and, if necessary, provide a hostel for its own students.
The rapidity of the survey trip precluded a more profound analysis of the Latin American cultural atmosphere, but by and large the conclusions reached are sound ones. No executive of a mission or church working in Latin America can afford to be without this book.
Dr. Scopes practices what he preaches in his book. During a recent trip to Latin America (March and April, 1963) he was instrumental in the “birth” of two Associations of Theological Seminaries and Bible Schools, for Spanish America, something he had suggested on page 237!
GEORGE GAY
Master Of Dialogue
Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions, by Paul Tillich (Columbia University Press, 1963, 97 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by William W. Paul, professor of philosophy, Central College, Pella, Iowa.
Within the brief compass of these Columbia University Bampton Lectures for 1962 the reader may find the answer to three questions: (1) What is Paul Tillich’s apologetic for approaching world religions? (2) Can there be a meaningful dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity? (3) What is Tillich’s estimate of the challenge currently presented to all religions by such “quasi-religions” as nationalism, Communism, and liberal humanism? Although no religion is here discussed in detail and although nothing new is revealed about Tillich’s own theology, the lectures do provide thought-provoking answers to the above questions.
In apologetics Tillich continues to prove that he is a master of theological dialogue, of a philosophy of encounter. Like an Origen attempting to frame a Christian Gnosticism to meet the challenge of alternative faiths Tillich has used his great mind throughout this century to interact with men as diverse as Barth and Bultmann and with philosophical movements as far apart as naturalism and existentialism. Now, in these lectures, Tillich advocates what might be called a “post-missionary” conversation with world religions such as Buddhism. He reasons that although in some parts of the world the masses are still open to direct missionary approach, the educated must be met by a “dialogical-personal” method. To achieve any success this technique requires a willingness by both parties to the discussion to (1) “acknowledge the value of the other’s religious conviction (as based ultimately on a revelatory experience),” (2) represent their own religious basis with conviction, (3) presuppose a common ground to their dialogue and conflicts, and (4) maintain an openness to criticism from the other party to the discussion (p. 62).
Now readers may well quarrel with Tillich’s own “religious basis” or with his broad interpretation of “revelatory experience” (and here he invites dialogue rather than simple negation), but it does seem to this reviewer that we live in the kind of world which increasingly calls for Christian witness by the type of personal dialogue just outlined. Teaching by monologue or stirring emotions by mass evangelism cannot take the place of an encounter between persons in which one party to the conversation has received new being in Christ Jesus and is anxious by God’s Spirit to have others share in that reality. It is unfortunate that in these lectures Tillich restricts his attention to a theory of encounter rather than stressing (as is certainly possible within his own Christian theology) the personal transforming reality of the Christ.
This lack is particularly noticeable in Chapter 3: “A Christian-Buddhist Conversation.” Here Tillich compares the concept of the kingdom of God with that of Nirvana, seeks a correlation between the Christian view of participation and love and the Buddhist ideas of identity and compassion, and reworks the well-known contrast between their historical and non-historical types of interpretation of history. But Christ is not mentioned. Instead Tillich appeals to his own “transpersonal” concept of God as “being itself” plus some elements from “Christian mysticism” to establish contact with the Buddhist understanding of “absolute nothingness.” Clearly, in this chapter the “conversation” is between an ontologically minded Tillich and perhaps a philosopher like the Japanese Buddhist Takeuchi, author of “Buddhism and Existentialism: The Dialogue between Oriental and Occidental Thought” (Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich, Harper, 1959).
When Tillich does finally (Lecture 4) refer to Christ, it is His ontological rather than personal significance which is stressed. Christ symbolizes “the decisive self-manifestation in human history of the source and aim of all being,” and he achieved this as he “crucified the particular in himself for the sake of the universal” (pp. 79, 81). Such language is clearly consistent with the philosophical structure of Tillich’s theology, and he uses it to good advantage here. He sees in the Christ-event the basis from which Christianity must judge itself as a particular religion (cf. his “Protestant protest”) as well as a criterion for judging all other religions and the secular quasi-religions of our day. According to Tillich Christ did not come to establish a particular religion, although this happened historically, but to depict a religious attitude which both embraces and judges the various religious and secular spheres of life.
This thought leads Tillich to a logical but nonetheless startling conclusion. The day of attempting to make “converts” in the traditional sense must be replaced, says this master of dialogue, by a community of conversation in which each one will try to penetrate into the depth of his own religion while at the same time coming to see a “spiritual presence” in other religions and in the secularism which underlies Communism and nationalism. At this juncture it would seem that Tillich has been carried away by his desire to converse and has lost sight of the very Person who came not to condemn but that men might believe and be converted. Could it be that the author of these Columbia University lectures has failed to heed the second presupposition of his own apologetic: “to represent his own [a vital Christian?] religious basis with conviction”?
WILLIAM W. PAUL
Who Is The Greatest?
Why Christianity of All Religions?, by Hendrik Kraemer, translated by Hubert Hoskins (Westminster, 1962, 125 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Raymond B. Buker, Sr., professor of missions, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.
Why Christianity of all religions? Hendrik Kraemer’s answer: “Because of Christ.” The title of this book is a subtle way of asking which of the great religions of the world is the greatest. As a follower of Christ, Dr. Kraemer categorically asserts that the religion with Christ as Lord is the greatest. Many of us who study the great religions of the world have long felt as Dr. Kraemer has written in this book. We have wanted someone with the stature of Dr. Kraemer to say it.
The first 75 pages set an excellent background for the definite answer. Dr. Kraemer reduces the proposition to the usual “likenesses in all religions” and then by careful analysis refutes this shallow attitude. An example of this is his disapproval of Arnold Toynbee’s conclusions in this area. It is in this section that Dr. Kraemer refers in scorn to “this loose talk about the love of God.”
The discussions concerning the other great religions show much empathy, but the ultimate greatness of Christ in comparison with any other is steadfastly emphasized.
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:
★ The Challenge of the World Religions, by Georg F. Vicedom (Fortress, $3.50). Author stirs the Church’s sense of mission because he believes that Christianity’s future will be decided as it confronts the religions of Asia.
★ The Church and Its Ministry, by David Belgum (Prentice-Hall, $6.60). A solid study of the ministry of the Church in the wide areas of its pastoral concerns.
★ Tradition in the Early Church, by R. P. C. Hanson (Westminster, $5.75). A careful study of the abundant literature comprising the tradition of the first three centuries. Author attributes more “inspiration” to some rejected letters than to some canonical books.
Dr. Kraemer reiterates again and again that Christianity is similar to other religions by reason of its inherent human weaknesses. One wonders if he has not developed an unnecessary dichotomy between Christ and Christianity. It is like saying that water is not water because there is impurity in it.
The masterful case for the Christian religion in this book will satisfy the devout neoorthodox. At the same time conservative evangelicals will find much that sets forth their conviction of the preeminence of Christ.
RAYMOND B. BUKER, SR.
Identified, But How?
Identification: Human and Divine, by Kenneth J. Foreman (John Knox, 1963, 160 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Lewis B. Smedes, associate professor of Bible, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Our share in the reality of redemption depends on our identification with persons from whom we are in other real senses quite distinct. I am not Adam and I never lived in Paradise; but I am identified with Adam in his fall. I am a servant and not the Lord; but I am identified with Christ in both his cross and his resurrection. Christian devotion and theology is full of vague speech about these identifications. But it is far easier to talk about them in a fuzzy and indefinite way than to put our finger on their actual meaning. And when we do talk about them specifically, we are divided in our judgments as to what makes for a valid and acceptable identification.
Theological types can be distinguished according to their explanations of how we are identified with Adam and Christ. Take Adam and me, for instance. Am I identified with Adam in the mind of God, with Adam counted as my representative, so that when Adam fell his guilt was ascribed by God to me? Or am I identified with Adam in some real and physical sense, so that when Adam fell I was actually involved in his sin? Here you have the federal and the realistic type of theology distinguished by the way in which this identification is understood. Or, take the Church and Christ, a classic example. Is the Church identified with Christ as an extension of his incarnation on earth, as some Catholics understand it—and is the Church, then, identical with Christ in a genuine sense? Or is the Church identified with Christ’s cause and ministry, and thus identified with him only in that both are involved in God’s program of action? Is this identification one of essential participation or one of association? These are only two areas in which identification is at the heart of our share in biblical reality.
Dr. Foreman’s book is a clear-headed effort to distinguish between valid and invalid ways of understanding our identifications. His method is to set up a scheme of the different ways in which we think of identification with persons in ordinary experience. Then, examining the many biblical areas of identification, he tries to get at the type of identification each one actually is. He wants us to make distinctions and insists that our language of identification in theology must conform to our language of identification in ordinary speech. If it does not, we will not be making sense to anybody, profound and pious though we may sound. His judgments as to what kinds of identification between God and us, God and Christ, Christ and us, us and the Church, and so on, are valid depends on his own theological insights. At times the reader will not agree. But the reader is led with a steady hand and sure touch through the linguistic maze that we have made of the language of identification. We must make distinctions. And Dr. Foreman helps the reader in that most successfully.
LEWIN B. SMEDES
Invaluable Survey
Protestant Missions in Latin America, A Statistical Survey, edited by Clyde W. Taylor and Wade T. Coggins (Evangelical Foreign Missions Association [1405 G St., N.W., Washington 5, D. C.], 1961, 340 pp. plus box of 31 maps, $13.50), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, vice-president and professor of missions, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
This work is probably the most complete statistical survey of missionary endeavor in Latin America to be published in thirty years. The Interpretive Statistical Survey of the World Mission of the Christian Church was published in 1938. Since then the World Christian Handbook, published periodically by the World Dominion Press, has supplied some statistical information for world missionary endeavor.
This survey by Taylor and Coggins goes beyond anything done by the World Christian Handbook, although the authors acknowledge indebtedness to that work for some of the information. Apart from the bare statistical information, the thirty-one maps which form a part of this new work are invaluable to those interested in the location of mission stations and the penetration in depth by the number of boards laboring in a given area, and as a guide to unreached areas of Latin America.
The man-hours of labor which went into the work must have been great. One can only hope that some one will publish a similar survey for the other mission fields of the world.
HAROLD LINDSELL
Justice Within Love
The Justice of God in the Teaching of Jesus, by J. Arthur Baird (Westminster, 1963, 283 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
The pastor with an interest in contemporary theological debate will find here a hurried but useful opening survey of the post-Bultmannian reaction. All but the opening chapter of this book, however, is given over to the theme which Dr. Baird, associate professor in the Department of Religion at Wooster, expounds with many a fresh turn. But the underlying motif is a familiar neoorthodox refrain: God’s justice and wrath must be taken “seriously,” but love is the deepest core of the divine nature. It is this denial of the equal ultimacy of justice and love in the nature of God that cancels out much of the merit of the work.
In tracing Jesus’ “theological inheritance,” Baird tells us that in the Old Testament love is God’s “essential nature,” and that when justice refers to God’s nature “the emphasis is on its meaning as love” (pp. 42 ff.). The fierceness of consuming wrath is always set within God’s love and graciousness (p. 62).
Jesus spiritualized hell (“a geography of hell … is not Christian”) (p. 227). The doctrine of eternal punishment is rejected (p. 230) for that of conditional immortality as more compatible with the author’s representations of God’s love and wrath (p. 234). While Jesus “viewed his death in one sense as the taking upon himself of the wrath of God” (p. 250), yet “an incarnational understanding of the atonement” as disclosing a Cross in the eternal nature of God best explains Jesus’ sufferings: he died not to appease God’s wrath toward sinners but to reveal God’s love (p. 251).
The author usually succeeds in making his meaning clear, however inadequate evangelically. But a closing paragraph is profoundly ambiguous: “One thing more must be said. Jesus must not be left on the cross.…” The author goes on to speak of resurrection in terms of “the vertical life of the Spirit” and “his abiding presence.” That sort of theological twist seems to make the “forty days” of “many infallible proofs” a pathetic illusion.
CARL F. H. HENRY
No Longer The Christ
Jesus and The Gospel, by Ernest Cadman Colwell (Oxford, 1963, 73 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Lorman Petersen, professor of New Testament, Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois.
When Ernest Colwell takes up his pen or mounts the lecture platform, most scholars read or listen. He has been president of Southern California School of Theology since 1957 and before that was president of the University of Chicago, dean of its Divinity School, and vice-president of Emory University.
This well-written little volume containing the Cole Lectures for 1962, delivered by Colwell at Vanderbilt University, hits hard at those who separate completely the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith. He writes as a historian—and he is a capable one—rather than as a theologian. “These lectures,” he writes in the Preface, “are written by an historian who is a Christian, not a Biblical theologian.… I believe that God has been and is active in human history in making Himself known and apprehensible. I believe He does this through people’s words and deeds. Since this is true, the study of history will lead to a knowledge of God.… And finally, I believe that the decisive event in the revelation of God was Jesus of Nazareth.” This is saying much more than many New Testament scholars and theologians are saying today, and it sets the tone of the book. His objective, he says, is to “bring historian and theologian close to mutual understanding and to effective cooperation in the service of the Church.”
He opens the first lecture with a statement of his view of history. Both historian and theologian will be interested in his seven points about history, the fourth of which reads, “Historians believe that historical fact is objective fact” (p. 9). His view of history in this day of myth and symbol is something that has needed saying for some time. He emphasizes that it is not scholarly disgrace to believe that “Jesus said,” and that the faith of the early Christians stood or fell with the sober facts of a story. In stating these views he confesses that he has changed some of the opinions held in his “anti-theological youth.”
This reviewer felt “let down” while reading Chapter III, “The Revelation in Jesus.” The anticipation that the Jesus of history would be presented as God Incarnate was not fulfilled. Instead, Jesus only proclaims God as a humble Sovereign who does not climb down steps to reach the poor. Colwell reprimands those who today “make Jesus over in the image of their God,” just as the Gospel writers are supposed to have done. Jesus was a humble carpenter’s son, but his people wanted him to be a Messiah of divinity and glory. Similarly some today “require of him that at his return he come to us with the power and the glory with which he did not come to Israel” (p. 51). The chapter ends with this significant passage: “It is time to stop using the language of royalty for Jesus. Messiah was an inappropriate title in the days of his flesh; it is doubly inappropriate now. If by God’s kingship we mean that His mercy knew no limits, let’s call Him ‘The Merciful’ rather than ‘The Great King’ ” (p. 57). We are elated over Colwell’s significant criticism of the present-day dichotomy between faith and history—we only wish he had gone further, and stated that Jesus is not only a revelation of God but is himself God and Saviour.
The fourth lecture is splendid, almost devotional reading. Here Colwell exhibits his keen insight into modern Christian life. While he believes the words of Jesus do not comprise an economic blueprint for our day, he says that Jesus saw the nature of man with 20–20 vision. Jesus knew man can be seduced by money. “In our country,” says Colwell, “this is illustrated by the fact that the advertisers have triumphed over us.” Jesus pushed aside both asceticism and extreme wealth and speaks of the rich as handicapped in the race for the Kingdom. Yet Colwell believes the Gospel is more than the social gospel. “The Christian voice and action should vigorously support the realizable Utopias of our generation: the elimination of hunger, the elimination of disease, the elimination of ignorance, and the elimination of the low subsistence level that breeds all three. But after these victories, what? The triumph over covetousness, over materialism as the end of all human achievement—this will be the last victory. It is still to be won in Russia and China; still to be won in America” (p. 73).
Here is an insight which should cause all of us to pause and reflect, especially in the light of these words of Colwell: “In my county, there are half as many automobiles as people, even including babies. In other words, every person in Los Angeles county can ride in the front seat of an automobile at the same time. Four-door cars will soon be useless” (p. 71).
LORMAN PETERSEN
Crisis World-Around
Christianity and World Revolution, edited by Edwin H. Rian (Harper & Row, 1963, 237 pp., $4), is reviewed by James Daane, editorial associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
The modern thing about the modern world is that for the first time in history the whole world is undergoing revolution. Much of the old is going under, and many new and strange things are emerging. This constitutes a judgment and a challenge to every world view, Christianity included.
In this book sixteen men present as many lectures assessing the world situation in the light of the Christian faith, and probe this faith to find relevant truth for such a world-time as this.
Most of the lectures are competent and penetrating, meeting the intent of the editor. Some few are good, but could have been written long ago.
Originally given as lectures at Biblical Seminary in New York City, located near the United Nations Building, the essays deal with five major themes. Four essays analyze The Power Struggle; two, The Rapprochement Between Science and Religion; two, The Relation Of Psychiatry and Religion; two, Communication; four, World Christianity; and the last two search for A Theology For the Nuclear Age. Among the sixteen contributors are J. Pelikan, C. F. H. Henry, J. Haroutunian, L. Newbigin, E. Cailliet, A. Cordier, W. A. Nielsen, R. Howe, and R. Shaull.
This is a book any minister, and many laymen, could enjoy and read with considerable profit. It should indeed be read by anyone who doubts that the world is in universal revolution—and, strange thing, so many people can, and do, live in our time of worldwide crisis without being aware of it.
JAMES DAANE
A Fine Miscellany
Good News, by J. B. Phillips (Geoffrey Bles, 1963, 210 pp., 12s. 6d.; Macmillan, $2.95), is reviewed by Frank Colquhoun, Canon Residentiary and Precentor of Southwark Cathedral, London, England.
The subtitle of this book is “Thoughts of God and Man,” a phrase which is broad enough to cover almost anything and perhaps is intended to indicate that the book does not profess to deal with any one particular theme. It is in fact a miscellany, consisting of various articles, sermons, and broadcast talks not previously published in book form.
In an introductory chapter J. B. Phillips explains the meaning of the word “Gospel” and protests the way in which it is commonly distorted and debased. “In Christian circles we must see that what purports to be the Christian Gospel is always, and in the best sense, Good News,” he writes. “A great many people repudiate what has been put before them as the Christian Gospel: they have never been able to see how good is the true Good News.”
The major part of the book consists of short extracts from the New Testament (in the author’s own familiar translation) with appropriate comments and notes. These would serve admirably for daily devotional reading, and doubtless this was their original purpose. These readings are grouped under the headings The Purpose of God, Faith, Hope, and Love.
The latter part of the book deals with the Christian year and shows the relevance of the great festivals, from Christmas to Ascension Day, to the life of the ordinary Christian. These short articles are excellent examples of popular apologetics and reveal the author’s gift of expounding the profound mysteries of the Gospel in simple, down-to-earth language.
FRANK COLQUHOUN
Good Team
Interpreting Religion, by Donald Walhout (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 481 pp., $9), is reviewed by Arthur Holmes, associate professor and director of philosophy, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.
This is a distinctively Christian textbook, written by the professor of philosophy and religion of Rockford College (Ill.), addressed to students who think seriously about religion. Its method is neither apologetic nor theological, but rather philosophical: “The analysis and interpretation of some of the intellectual questions” which arise (p. 1), as these are handled by contemporary writers who treat religion seriously and sympathetically. The work is organized into three parts: religion generally, theistic religion, and Christian thought. Topics range from traditional problems like faith and reason, religion and science, evil, the nature of man and the reality of God, to recent questions like religious language, and to theological matters like revelation and ecumenism.
Walhout’s stated position is that of a Protestant, conciliatory in matters of doctrinal difference. “… little purpose is served either by haphazard convictions coupled with gushy openness or by adamant convictions coupled with belligerent broadsides. To couple firm convictions with appreciative openness may be as difficult a thing as it is rare. But there is this possibility also: that the two obligations, as necessary supplements to each other, may each be strengthened by their very tension” (p. 442). These words, written of the Christian attitude to non-Christian religions, represent the author’s attitude throughout the book. His own loyalty to historic Christianity, conservatively interpreted, is apparent throughout. Yet he shows a discriminating appreciation of the contributions of writers like Niebuhr and Hordern.
The book combines source readings (approximately 60 per cent) with the author’s own text (40 per cent), an independent development of a continuous line of thought. With this composition, it has the advantages of both the traditional textbook and the anthology. Selections are drawn both from familiar writers, such as Otto, Gilson, Tillich, Brightman, and Hartshorne, and from those less frequently included, like John C. Bennett, C. S. Lewis, and Hendrik Kraemer. Evangelicalism is well represented by men like Clark, Carnell, Ramm, and Packer. It is encouraging to see a textbook with this perspective prepared with the competence of a man like Walhout, and produced by publishers like Prentice-Hall.
ARTHUR HOLMES
All In All: Good
The Divine Comforter, by J. Dwight Pentecost (Revell, 1963, 256 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Robert Preus, professor of systematic theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
Professor Pentecost of Dallas Theological Seminary offers a sane, clear, biblical presentation of the work of the Holy Spirit. Such a study is particularly important today, when there is much perversion or ignoring of the work of the Holy Spirit among Christians. The author’s discussions of the Spirit as revealer of divine truth and of the activity of the Spirit in the Old Testament and prior to Pentecost are particularly well done. He also offers a valuable chapter showing that the baptism of the Spirit is something which has already taken place on Pentecost.
This reviewer, however, must voice his hearty dissent with the author’s interpretation of John 3:5, that Jesus here is speaking of something more than baptism. According to the Greek text, our Lord is not referring to two separate activities, a cleansing by water and another of the Holy Spirit. Rather, he is speaking of one act of rebirth through water and the Spirit (no definite article precedes either word). Those who believe in baptismal regeneration, that is, that the Spirit of God regenerates us through baptism, will part company with Professor Pentecost.
One might also wish that the author had said more about the Spirit’s activity in working faith in the individual and in bestowing faith as a gift of God (1 Cor. 12:3; Eph. 2:8, 9).
All in all, however, this thorough study should increase the Christian’s appreciation of the manifold activity of the Spirit of God in his life; and this, I believe, is the principal aim of the book.
ROBERT PREUS
God Plus Three
History: Written and Lived, by Paul Weiss (Southern Illinois University Press, 1962, 245 pp., $5.85), is reviewed by John Warwick Montgomery, chairman, Department of History, Waterloo Lutheran University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
The task of a philosopher of history is to bring man’s past experiences out of what William James once described as the essence of babyhood: “blooming, buzzing confusion.” Weiss, a professor of philosophy at Yale, believes that God must be posited in order for history to have meaning, for “only He is broad enough, persistent enough, powerful enough to endow the past with sufficient existence to enable it properly to be” (p. 222). However, the God of Weiss is by no means the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; rather, taking his cue from Aristotle, Lucretius, Scheler, and Whitehead, Weiss uses the term “God” to refer to “a being superior to anything in this space-time world, but which is not absolutely perfect, not necessarily the creator of any substances, not necessarily concerned with man’s salvation” (ibid.). Indeed, as we learn from the author’s other works, seven of which, together with the present volume, set out his general philosophy, Weiss’s “God” is but one of four ultimate, irreducible, mutually related modes or dimensions of being (the other three are Actuality, Ideality or Possibility, and Existence).
As W. N. Clarke well noted in his comments on Weiss’s Modes of Being, the Weissian system “leaves untouched the … fundamental and, for a metaphysician, unavoidable problem of the ultimate origin or source of existence and the ultimate principle of unity of this whole with its four irreducible modes” (Yale Review, Sept., 1958). Moreover, since Weiss regards systematic philosophy much as Barth, Tillich, and Bultmann regard systematic theology—as a circular enterprise in which epistemology grounds ontology and ontology grounds epistemology—his total system, to use Morris Weitz’s expression, lacks “testability” (Ethics, Oct., 1961).
As I have tried to show in my Shape of the Past, the meaning of history (which is, after all, a special case of the meaning of life) can be discovered only if man has in fact received an objectively reliable Revelation originating from outside the blooming, buzzing, confused human situation. Without the scriptural revelation of God in Jesus Christ, Professor Weiss is as much in the dark as to the meaning of the past as were his philosophical predecessors.
JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY
Book Briefs
The Coming Explosion in Latin America, by Gerald Clark (McKay, 1962, 436 pp., $6.75). Although he tends to underestimate the strength and cleverness of Communism in troubled Latin America, Clark brings a journalist’s sharp eye and graphic pen to play on the social ills there. Unless we find ways jointly to reduce poverty, illiteracy, political violence, and economic feudalism, says Clark, the hemisphere will explode. The need is urgent. Coordinator Teodoro Moscoso, of the Alliance for Progress, keeps a sign prominently displayed on his office wall: “Please be brief. We are 25 years late.” Major weakness: emphasis on political means for remedy to people’s ills, with no mention of Protestantism at all.
Church Growth in the High Andes, by Keith E. Hamilton (Lucknow [order from Institute of Church Growth, Northwest Christian College, Eugene, Oregon], 1962, 146 pp., $2). Growth of the evangelical churches of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru.
A Lonely Minority, by Edward Wakin (Morrow, 1963, 178 pp., $4.50). The story of Egypt’s Copts—a minority, a church, a community; the present descendents of the race that ruled the Nile Valley 2,000 years ago, who consider themselves the “true Egyptians” and the “true Christians.”
The Jewish-Christian Argument: A History of Theologies in Conflict, by Hans Joachim Schoeps, translated by David E. Green (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963, 208 pp., $5). The basic conflict between Christianity and Judaism in both its earlier and later forms, presented from a Jewish viewpoint by a Jewish author.
The Necessary Conditions for a Free Society, edited by Felix Morley (Van Nostrand, 1963, 239 pp., $5.95). Papers delivered (and later revised) by thirteen men gathered in conference in Princeton, New Jersey, who discussed the prerequisites of a free society and raised the question whether political freedom derives ultimately from Jesus Christ.
Air Force Chaplains 1947–1960, by Daniel B. Jorgensen (Office, Chief of Air Force Chaplains, 1962, 432 pp., $3.50). The story of the development and activities of the Air Force chaplaincy during the period indicated. Inexpensively priced.
The Gospel in a Strange, New World, by Theodore O. Wedel (Westminster, 1963, 141 pp., $3.75). A very readable, often perceptive discussion of that problem currently of wide concern: communication.
Many Witnesses, One Lord, by William Barclay (Westminster, 1963, 128 pp., $2.50). On the thesis that there is no one standardized religious experience and no single interpretation of the Christian faith, the author shows what the Gospel meant to Paul, James, John, and others, and what their peculiar witness to the Gospel can mean for us.
The Church: Papal Teachings, selected by the Benedictine monks of Solesmes (Daughters of St. Paul [50 St. Paul’s Ave., Boston, Mass.], 1962, 928 pp., $9). Four hundred pronouncements chronologically arranged, beginning with Benedict XIV, 1740–58. Excellent for the student of Roman Catholic thought.
Paperbacks
Social Change in Latin America Today: Its Implications for United States Policy, by six authors (Vintage Books, 1960, 254 pp., $1.45). Essays prepared not by tourists, nor political observers, but by anthropologists and sociologists. They are therefore replete with valuable insights into the idiosyncracies of the Latin character and the problems of the Latin society. Not only required for would-be Hispanicists, but factful and readable as well.
South Wind Red: Our Hemispheric Crisis, by Philip A. Ray (Regnery, 1962, 242 pp., $2). A former undersecretary of commerce, after a five-month tour of Latin America, points out the alarming upsurge of Communism and offers an economic solution.
Mexico and the Caribbean and South America, by Lewis Hanke (Van Nostrand, 1959, 192 pp. each, $1.25 each). Volumes I and II of a series “Modern Latin America: Continent in Ferment,” by one of the nation’s top authorities on the area. With unfailing insight Hanke has culled and stated the most significant facts about each country. An extra bonus, filling half of each book, is the collection of essays and excerpts from other authors. An “A” to Dr. Hanke on every score. Best handbooks yet available.
The Latin American Churches and the Ecumenical Movement, by John A. Mackay (The Committee on Cooperation in Latin America [475 Riverside Drive, New York 27], 1963, 34 pp., $25). A distinguished ecumenist insists that to be truly ecumenical is to be strongly missionary and traces the development of the ecumenical idea in Latin American Protestantism.
