The Problem of Freedom Within the Church
Light in the North: The Story of the Scottish Covenanters, by J. D. Douglas (Paternoster Press [London] and Eerdmans, 1964, 220 pp., 16s. and $3.75), is reviewed by John A. Mackay, president emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.
This book on the Scottish Covenanters of the seventeenth century is the sixth volume in a new series on the “Advance of Christianity through the Ages,” which is being edited by a distinguished professor of the University of Manchester, F. F. Bruce. Its author, J. D. Douglas, is a scholar of growing stature, a man classically Christian and intelligently evangelical, who is deeply concerned about the Lordship of Christ in Church and society today.
It is a striking fact in the life of mankind that personalities and struggles associated with small nations have often had decisive world significance in shaping human thought and political structures. We think of history’s debt to Palestine and Greece, to Denmark and Holland. Where the English-speaking world is concerned, and very especially the United States, an unspeakable debt is due to the small land of Scotland, and very especially to a tragic epoch in that country’s history during the seventeenth century. To a descriptive analysis of this epoch in Scottish history, and to the formulation of the theological and political significance of what happened, Dr. Douglas devotes his attention in Light in the North. And this he does in such a way that the past speaks to the present. With fine scholarship, in which he combines an objective study of the original sources with critical acumen, and a moving appreciation of the priceless contribution of the Covenanters to the cause of religious freedom with due cognizance of their weaknesses and extremism, the author confronts his readers with an array of events, personalities, and issues that have profound significance for our time.
Conflict was the keynote of that historic epoch in Scottish history lasting from 1638, when the National Covenant was signed, to 1689, when the Revolution Settlement was adopted and the persecution era came to an end. In twenty-three years of that period, according to the inscription on the Martyr’s Monument in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, “18,000 people of all classes, young and old and woman alike, had died for their faith or had been banished from their native land, some to Holland, some to plantations of the New World” (p. 114). All this happened as a consequence of violent encounters between kings and their people, between state and church, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, between episcopacy and Presbyterianism. Over against the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the doctrine of the divine right of bishops sounded the proclamation of “the Crown Rights of the Redeemer.” Jesus Christ was proclaimed Lord over the state, over the Church, and over life in its wholeness. The proclamation “God alone is Lord of the conscience,” which is permanently enshrined in the Westminster Confession of Faith, set in high relief the importance of the individual as a free man under God and prepared the way for true democracy.
The present reviewer finds himself in total agreement with the author of Light in the North in the importance he attaches to the personality and witness of Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford, who began his working life as a devoted rural minister and died as the principal of St. Andrew’s University, wrote two famous tomes. One of these is a classic of Christian mysticism known as Rutherford’s Letters; the other is a book on constitutional law called Lex Rex which bears this significant subtitle: The Law and the Prince, A Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People. Rutherford is the symbol, the veritable incarnation of the dynamic costly relation between piety and politics that marked the covenanting era. The inevitable relation between these two orders begins to take on fresh meaning today in a country like the United States where the problem of Christian responsibility in secular society, the question of equal rights for all citizens, and the issues between church and state are being raised afresh.
In stressing the contemporaneity as well as the historical significance of what the Covenanters stood for, Dr. Douglas draws attention to certain extremities that marred their witness. Even Rutherford believed that the state should not tolerate heresy but bring heretics to judgment. The logic of this contention would justify what happened to Servetus in Geneva; it would excuse the attitude of the Spanish state towards Protestants; it would provide a basis for McCarthyism. Another extremity sometimes sounded was the “divine right of the presbytery.” Presbyterian, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and other Christian confessions have all suffered from arrogance. In the ecumenical era when ecclesiastical traditions are being transcended in the name of the One Church, a potentially new extremism must be carefully watched. Let the Church in none of its expressions, local or ecumenical, presume to take the place of Christ and challenge thereby the “Crown Rights of the Redeemer.”
Here is a book which illumines the past and shows to what an extent the road to tomorrow leads through yesterday.
JOHN MACKAY
An Exacting Labor
The Theology of Jewish Christianity, by Jean Danielou, S. J. (Regnery, 1964, 446 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by John H. Skilton, professor of New Testament language and literature, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
This English edition of Daniélou’s scholarly work is more than a translation of the French edition of 1958. With special consideration for the needs of students, the author, working with the translator, has made significant modifications in the substance and arrangement of the text (p. ix).
In his highly demanding investigation, Daniélou endeavors to reconstruct a primitive Christian theology that made use of Jewish terminology—a theology to be placed in the period between the birth of Christ and the rise of Hellenistic theology in the works of the Apologists (p. 7). This theology “overlaps with the period generally known as that of the Apostolic Fathers, but its forms of thought and expression are not necessarily contemporary with theirs” (p. 10). The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic writings from Nag Hammadi has, in the author’s judgment, transformed the entire image of the early Church and has provided a “coherent setting” “which makes it possible in large measure to identify a great many elements in writings already familiar as belonging to a homogeneous body of thought which we may call the theology of Jewish Christianity” (p. 3). The “Jewish Christianity” with which Daniélou is concerned “should be understood to refer to the expression of Christianity in the thought-forms of Later Judaism” (p. 10).
This early theology, Daniélou holds, had limitations that detracted from its usefulness and led to its being supplanted (p. 4), but it was nevertheless essentially one with the orthodox theology of a later date. He finds that there is “little room to doubt that in all major features the Christian faith in its most archaic expression was even then what it always has been” (p. 408). His study leads to valuable reflections on the origin of Gnosticism (see pp. 159, 369). His position is that Gnosticism took over a Jewish-Christian gnosis and greatly changed it (p. 369).
The importance of Daniélou’s investigation and his conclusions should be manifest already, but it should be mentioned that in the course of his study he provides an enormous amount of information in convenient form. Whether or not one agrees with him completely in his opinions about sources and relationships, one can make use of the abundant materials he assembles and be grateful for his distinguished labor.
Reservation might be expressed about what the reviewer sees as too much readiness to find Essene influences (see, for example, pp. 341, 375). The author at times appears to be more concerned about relating elements in the Scriptures to extra-biblical materials than about recognizing or exhibiting the unity that binds them to other parts of the harmonious revelation that God has given in his Word. Satan in the Book of Job is held to be “not a fallen angel but a God-appointed Tempter” (p. 189), and connection is suggested with a tradition of a highly erroneous type. Different references to the Book of Life in Revelation are not adequately harmonized (pp. 197 f.). New Testament data regarding the resurrection and the ascension of Christ are left in seemingly unreconciled conflict (p. 250). The suggestion that the doctrine of the two yeserim may possibly be found in Paul (p. 358) seems to indicate a failure to grasp the real structure and system of the Pauline theology and to relate the part to the whole satisfactorily. The reference to Matthew 17:21 (p. 321) makes no mention of the grave textual problem affecting that verse.
These reservations and others that might be expressed should by no means obscure the value of the service Daniélou has performed in this very exacting investigation.
JOHN H. SKILTON
How They Did It In Corinth
The Corinthian Church: A Biblical Approach to Urban Culture, by William Baird (Abingdon, 1964, 224 pp., $4.75), is reviewed by S. Richey Kamm, professor of history and social science, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.
The decline of the Protestant church as a vital evangelical force in the urban communities of America has been well described by Gibson Winter in The Suburban Captivity of the Churches. William Baird has now taken up the task of showing that the first-century Christian Church demonstrated a different movement, namely, growth and increasing spiritual vitality in the urbanized society of the first century.
Baird attempts to show that Paul’s Corinthian letters, especially the first, reveal the practical and the spiritual insights that gave transforming vitality to the witness of these early believers in a pagan world. In brief, he makes it plain that it was Paul’s stress upon the faith of the Church in the historical and imminent Saviour that provided the motivating dynamic for the phenomenal growth and power of the early Church in spite of Hellenistic urbanism.
Five topics are covered: unity, morality, secularism, worship, and death. In each the author endeavors to show that Paul’s exposition of the message of Christ as applied to the problem under consideration provides the groundwork for a solution.
Professor Baird’s treatment of these timeless issues is fresh and invigorating. His familiarity with the original language of the New Testament and his knowledge of Hellenistic culture enable him to probe to the heart of such problems as unity and idol worship and to demonstrate how the elevation of Christ’s message of salvation challenges the believer to the unreserved acceptance of God’s grace as the primary motivation in Christian growth.
His comments on art in church architecture and form in church ritual are penetrating. His treatment of the phenomenon of “glossolalia” is timely and understanding. And his exposition of the place of the doctrine of the Resurrection in Paul’s preaching is rewarding.
One may have reservations concerning the offhand manner in which Baird occasionally engages in controversy with Paul over his treatment of some theme in the Corinthian letters. Such outcroppings of cavalierness, however, do not destroy the substantial impression that the author has found much new inspiration in his attempt to read the Corinthian letters through the comparative spectra of contemporary and Hellenistic culture.
This reader found the book to be a gold mine of information and insights while conducting a series of lessons for adults on the Corinthian letters.
S. RICHEY KAMM
He Should Have Said More
The Right to Silence: Privileged Communication and the Pastor, by William Harold Tiemann (John Knox, 1964, 160 pp., $4), is reviewed by Merlin W. Call, attorney-at-law, Pasadena, California.
The subject of this treatise is the scope of the minister’s duty to disclose in legal proceedings the contents of confidential communications made to or by him in his role as a clergyman. Tiemann’s brief exposition is a most ambitious effort to consider several aspects of this subject: the legal history, especially under English common law; the ecclesiastical history, including the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, the Lutheran, and the Reformed churches’ attitudes; the present rules and uncertainties existing under the statutes and court decisions of the fifty states of this country and in federal courts under federal law, and even some possible constitutional questions; the factors to be considered in deciding what the laws on the subject should be; and, briefly, some suggestions about the conduct of ministers in situations in which the state would require disclosure.
The book reads easily and contains interesting observations on the theological significance of repentance and confession. Its appendices include reference to the current statutes in each state on privileged communications to clergymen, and its notes provide the reader with good references for additional enlightenment. For good measure the author includes an appendix on the remotely related subject of when communications on church matters are “privileged” under the laws of libel and slander. (“Privilege” in matters of libel refers to situations in which an otherwise defamatory statement may be made without the usual legal responsibility. This exemption from liability should be distinguished from the right to or “privilege” of “silence” discussed in the book, which is a freedom, under evidentiary and procedural rules, from being required to testify in court about a communication between the witness and another person.)
The book should be most helpful in stimulating needed reflection on the various aspects of the problem, but limitations of space apparently precluded a sharper delineation of the two aspects of the problem with most immediate relevance:
1. How should legislatures and courts balance the desirability of preserving the confidence of confession and counseling with the desirability of encouraging a free flow of information in the courtroom as a means to effective justice? This question must be considered from the viewpoint of the legislator and an effective system of justice and not only from the viewpoint of the minister. It must be recognized that from the legislator’s perspective similar questions of social policy may be involved in other counseling situations, including those of psychologists and psychiatrists, and that sound legislative policy requires application of right principles in a consistent manner.
2. How does the minister conduct himself when he finds his theological and ministerial judgments at war with the requirements of the state to disclose information? It seems difficult to answer this question except by applying to it the standards of a comprehensive philosophy of church and state and of the Christian’s obligation to the state, giving due regard to Romans 13 and First Peter 2. The author does not articulate such a philosophy. It is surely too easy an answer that whenever the minister’s judgment conflicts with the order of the state, he is free to ignore the state’s injunction in the name of purity of the faith. This is particularly true in matters (including that of when the minister should violate the state’s order to disclose communications made to him) wherein one must rely upon a line of human reasoning from scriptural principles, rather than upon more direct biblical authority, to sustain his judgment.
Moreover, assuming the rightness of a conclusion to resist disclosure in a particular case, the suggestion that the minister’s refusal to testify, after taking an oath “to tell … the whole truth …,” may be justified on the ground that “a formal oath in court ought not to bind a person to commit a sin” might be improved: should he not attempt to qualify his oath at the time it is administered rather than dismiss its integrity as a formality? Difficult decisions of Christian conscience should not find their solutions in oaths lightly assumed or lightly broken.
MERLIN W. CALL
Still Normative
The Athanasian Creed, by J. N. D. Kelly (Harper and Row, 1965, 140 pp., $3), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
In these Paddock Lectures delivered at the General Theological Seminary, New York, the principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, provides a noteworthy study of the origin and significance of the Athanasian Creed. The presentation sets the study in an atmosphere both ecclesiastically relevant and theologically exciting.
Although Principal Kelly supports the now widely held view that the exposition was not the work of Athanasius, he regards it nonetheless as one of the most splendid legacies of the patristic age. He traces the debate over its origin and assesses that debate. His verdict is that the Quicunque (as the creed is designated from its opening word) is an original exposition summarizing orthodox doctrine for instructional purposes; that it arose in south Gaul; that it reflects Augustinian elements but is even more indebted to the school of Lérins, and was probably composed late in the fifth century, possibly at the instigation of Caesarius.
What significance has the creed for our own day? In some measure Kelly sympathizes with those who are made uneasy by “the confident dogmatism with which the creed lays down the law, in considerable detail, about the inner life of the Godhead, and also by the way in which it appears to identify saving faith with a series of theological propositions”; and above all, by its assumption that eternal destiny is suspended on adhesion to “the detail of a highly technical, man-made formulary” (p. 125).
Although the author thinks these features undoubtedly limit the practical usefulness of the creed, he stresses its “immense positive value” for those who look “beyond externals.” We are told that “no other official document or creed sets forth, so incisively and with such majestic clarity, the profound theology implicit in the New Testament affirmation that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.’ And the distinctions it firmly draws are surely of lasting validity if Christianity is true at all.” If that be so, one would expect from Professor Kelly a closer correlation of practical usefulness and lasting validity than we seem to be offered. The technicality of language is no doubt a contemporary obstacle, but this ought to summon Christians to fuller understanding and to an effort to preserve the truth in simpler form.
Indeed, Kelly defends the creed as “entirely correct in the way it approaches” the truths of the triune Godhead and the Incarnation by its initial affirmation that Christian faith “consists in worshipping the divine Trinity” (and hence is more than intellectual assent). Moreover he locates the true significance of the damnatory clauses “in the reminder they give of the awful responsibility of making the right decision in matters of fundamental belief.” What remains unclear in Kelly’s evaluation, however, is the precise role of intellectual assent to revealed truths in saving faith.
With Kelly’s conclusion (and perhaps in view of additional considerations also) the reviewer is in full accord: “For these reasons the Quicunque deserves to retain its place among the normative formulations of Christendom” (p. 126).
CARL F. H. HENRY
How Far Apart?
Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection, by Hans Küng (Nelson, 1964, 332 pp., $7), is reviewed by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, professor of church history and historical theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
It is perhaps surprising that so interesting and challenging a work as this was not made available earlier in English. The original German edition was published in 1957, and its importance was recognized from the outset by both Protestants and Roman Catholics. Fortunately, the work has not been outmoded by recent developments, and it has now at last found an English form along with the humorous letter by Barth and a new preface by the author.
The purpose of the book is to compare Barth’s teaching on justification with Roman Catholic doctrine, not for the reviving of controversy but in the hope that the area of disagreement is less than supposed (even by Barth himself). To this end Küng divides the work into two parts. The first is a competent exposition of Barth’s position in Church Dogmatics, IV/1. The second is a statement of what Küng takes to be the real Roman Catholic teaching on the great themes of sin, grace, declaring righteous, the work of Christ, faith, and the divine glory.
The conclusions are surprising, since Küng does not think there are decisive differences in this area. This is not because Barth has compromised the Reformation doctrine, nor because Küng is deliberately straining his own church’s teaching. It is because, he thinks, there has been widespread misunderstanding of the Roman Catholic view. Roman Catholicism, too, believes that “Sacred Scripture has an absolute precedence” (p. 111). It cannot seriously differ when Barth “defines grace as the free personal favour of God” (p. 203). It acknowledges that justification means a “declaring just” (p. 213). It fully endorses the truth that “faith is actually trust” (p. 253), that “the sinner is justified through faith alone,” that this justifying faith “is a living faith” (p. 256), and that “justification through living faith is in no sense justification through faith and works” (pp. 256 f.). The cooperation that it teaches implies “no synergism in which God and man pull on the same rope” (p. 265). “Everything comes from God.… God’s glory is not belittled” (ibid.).
How does Küng support these conclusions, which, if correct, suggest that Barth’s criticism, and indeed the Reformation protest and the Roman Catholic counter-protest, have all been a disastrous misunderstanding? First, he musters all the evidence he ran from his authorities. Secondly, he applies a rule of relativizing to all polemical Roman Catholic works that might seem to teach to the contrary. Thirdly, he argues that the apparently difficult statements of Trent are a rebuttal of Lutheran extremes, not a comprehensive exposition (pp. 105 ff.). Fourthly, he relies on the thesis that “the implicit content of theology is always far fuller and richer than a specific formulation,” so that Roman Catholicism, too, regards any given definitions, not as frozen formulas, but as a living gift of the Spirit (pp. 102 f.). This means that parts of the truth may be obscured when the spotlight is elsewhere, but obscured truths are still part of the whole, and may be brought to light again later.
The humorous tone of Barth’s letter suggests that he himself is not entirely convinced that his own reading of Roman Catholicism is wrong and Küng’s correct. As he asks, “How do you explain the fact that all this could remain hidden for so long, and from so many, both outside and inside the church?” (pp. xx f.). To this question we might add two or three more. Why did Trent meet one extreme with another, instead of giving the full and balanced presentation? Again, is it really possible to hold to other Roman Catholic doctrines (e.g., on the pope or Mary) within a genuinely biblical view of justification (cf. Küng’s own admission that is there a “dark shadow” on Barth’s doctrine!—p. 278)? Finally, is there not still a basic divergence over the true sense in which justification is also a making righteous, as illustrated specifically in Küng’s weak discussion of the sense in which Roman Catholicism accepts the simul iustus et peccator?
Yet one would not wish to close on a destructive note. Here is great learning, with which far too few Protestant theologians are adequately equipped to interact. Here is a dogmatic wrestling with dogmatics, and with Barth the dogmatician, that exposes the hollowness of so much that passes for theology today. Here is a fresh presentation, even within Roman Catholicism, that is not content to echo the old definitions but is ready to submit the great themes to fresh biblical and historical examination. Perhaps the author’s hopes are too high and his expositions too naive; but he does at least open the way to a new and more amicable and promising discussion in which a substantial place is already found for the basic concerns of the Reformation.
G. W. BROMILEY
With The Common Touch
Preaching from John’s Gospel, by Kyle M. Yates (Broadman, 1964, 181 pp., $3.25), is reviewed by Paul S. Rees, vice-president at large, World Vision, Pasadena, California.
Kyle Yates is an author-scholar who wears his scholarship lightly and who writes, as he preaches, with the common touch. Scholars tend to address scholars, thereby limiting their circle of readers. Yates speaks to the journeyman preacher, the busy Sunday school teacher, the inquiring layman.
These twenty-five chapters carry the reader consecutively through the twenty-one chapters of the Fourth Gospel. The method is that of running exposition, with only minimal attempt at close exegesis. The quotations, aptly but sparingly used, scarcely reflect the immense background literature with which the author is acquainted. Practical applications break through again and again.
Although no effort was made to organize the material in homiletical form, the author provides numerous sermon suggestions and homiletical embryos.
A writer must be interpreted in terms of his purpose. Yates has taken seriously the evangelistic purpose of the Fourth Gospel: “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Like the original author, the present commentator aims at inducing and enriching faith in history’s one Person whom to reject is death and to receive is life.
PAUL S. REES
Best Treatment
The Two Kingdoms: Ecclesiology in Carolingian Political Thought, by Karl F. Morrison (Princeton University, 1964, 297 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, professor of history, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.
This book is a brief study of the relation of the Carolingian monarchs to the medieval Church. Professor Morrison studies his subject largely in context of the position assumed by Hincmar of Rheims. In studying the question, which assumed a new importance after the coronation of Charlemagne in A.D. 800, Morrison not only brings into focus the relation of Charlemagne and his successors to the Church in France and the papacy in Rome, but also gives an excellent description of Hincmar’s concept of the structure of ecclesiastical authority. For Hincmar the authority of the Church resided in the bishops collectively, not in the papacy in Rome. Morrison then argues that the conciliarist position is basic for the understanding of the relation between the Frankish monarchs and the clergy.
This isn’t the kind of book that the average minister would find useful in the preparation of sermons, but a close study of it will throw a great deal of light on the whole area of church-state relations. Morrison makes it quite clear that the theory and practice of the ninth-century monarchs and popes was not that of Innocent III or the Council of Trent. For all those who wish to gain a clearer understanding of ninth-century France and the Church of the day, this book will be excellent. It is the best treatment of this subject which has come to the attention of this reviewer.
C. GREGG SINGER
The Gospel Also Heals
The Healing of Persons, by Paul Tournier (Harper and Row, 1963, 300 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by L. Nelson Bell, executive editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
Many Christians have close personal friends in the medical profession to whom they wish on occasion to give something with genuine Christian implications. The Healing of Persons is such a gift.
Dr. Tournier, a well-known Swiss physician and psychiatrist, is first of all an articulate Christian. In addition, he knows how to write so as to hold the attention of the reader.
The fascination of this book lies in the unending stories of patients who have been healed by a combination of professional skill and simple introduction to the Great Physician. The complete lack of pietism and preachments will impress the non-Christian reader. Furthermore, physicians will see in the author’s patients the problems with which they find themselves confronted every day. And laymen can find equal delight in this book because a glossary makes clear the meaning of technical words. There is also an index which makes it possible to look up subjects discussed in detail in connection with individual cases.
The author was a Christian before meeting Dr. Frank Buchman, founder of the Oxford Group, and in gratitude for the help he received he dedicated this volume to Dr. Buchman. But Dr. Tournier makes it clear that he dissociated himself from the movement after it changed both its name and its character.
Probably the outstanding impression given by this book is the depth of the author’s spiritual experience and convictions and his ability to bring to his patients a new dimension, a spiritual one, so that physical and spiritual healing become a reality, a new and transforming experience.
L. NELSON BELL
The Play And The Church
Drama and Imagery in English Medieval Churches, by M. D. Anderson (Cambridge, 1964, 248 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by Nicholas Wolterstorff, associate professor of philosophy, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The author of this engrossing book aims to uncover the relation that existed between drama and liturgical imagery in medieval England. She observes that scholars have for the most part concentrated on one or the other of these two areas and have only seldom tried to trace interconnections. This “strip-cultivation,” as she calls it, has enormously enriched our understanding of both medieval drama and the imagery of medieval churches. It is the thesis of this book, however, that considerable further enrichment will result from a study in the interactions of these two prominent forms of medieval art. “If we use the powerful tools of modern specialisation to isolate one aspect of medieval culture from the rest, scholars may learn more about its technical structure, but the common reader will become like the child who finds a dull pebble in his pocket in place of something he remembers as a jewel.”
What the book reveals and establishes beyond a doubt is the unity of drama and liturgical imagery in medieval England. This is to be expected, of course, since both art forms were almost exclusively under the sponsorship or guidance of the Church—the aim of the Church in both cases being the education of the laity in the truths and history of the Christian faith. It is one thing, however, to believe that there must be such unity; it is quite another thing actually to see the unity in rich detail. This is what we have here: the tracing of parallels, of a variety of sorts, between medieval English plays and the imagery of the English churches.
The author aims at something considerably more ambitious, however, than merely tracing these parallels between drama and imagery. She wants also to establish that there was some direct interaction between these two forms of medieval art, and then to use the one form to illumine dark corners in the other. Though she does not neglect the use of plays to illumine mysterious bits of imagery, the author is especially interested in the use of imagery to illuminate the staging, costumes, properties, and other aspects of medieval drama. Of necessity, this is largely educated guesswork. We have no records telling us that the craftsmen of some church or their clerical supervisors were guided by some play performance in their designs, rather than by some text or illuminated manuscript. And the widespread destruction of play manuscripts and imagery during the Reformation led to the disappearance of vast amounts of possible evidence. Still, the author shows, beyond a reasonable doubt in my judgment, that the designers of the churches were often guided by their memory of some play performance. Thus with varying degrees of assurance we can guess at the appearance of a medieval play performance from the carvings and glass and paintings of the churches.
The book is organized around the history of drama. For each stage in the development of the English drama, the author discusses the parallels and likely interactions between drama and church imagery. There is no attempt to trace the stylistic history of these two arts. Rather, the author concentrates her attention on the iconographical features of the imagery and on the corresponding features of the dramas.
A book such as this irresistibly leads one to compare the place of the artist in medieval society with his place in contemporary society. The medieval artist was of course a craftsman, whereas we have come to regard “artist” and “craftsman” as contraries. For the most part, the medieval artist-craftsman executed designs or instructions given to him by some supervising cleric or suggested to him by tradition. And the aim of the whole artistic enterprise was also controlled—namely, to instruct the people in Christian truths and biblical history. The Renaissance notion that the artist should be as original and free from tradition as possible was still in the future; and the Romantic idea that the public owes the artist something but that the artist is wholly free and unfettered by obligations was even further in the future. Obviously the art of the Christian Church when the laity is educated should be different from what it was when the laity was illiterate. Yet I think there is something healthy and enviable in the relation of the medieval artist to his church and his society.
The author of this book does not engage in any such large-scale reflections on the proper place of the artist in society. What she does do, with vivid detail and lucid style, is convey a rich sense of how the dramatist and the visual artist jointly helped achieve the aims of the medieval Church.
NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF
Tribute To Luther
Martin Luther: A Biographical Study, by John M. Todd (Newman, 1964, 290 pp., $5.75), is reviewed by William A. Mueller, professor of church history, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Since the eminent Catholic Church historian Joseph Lortz published his two-volume work Die Reformation in Deutschland in 1941, a new epoch has begun in the attitude of Catholic historiography toward the Reformation. The book under discussion, written by a historically trained Catholic layman and publisher, is evidence of the new trend. In five well-knit parts the author analyzes and describes the childhood, school, and university experiences of Martin Luther, his parental background, Luther as a doctor and preacher, and finally Luther as a public figure and the new world that emerged from his efforts.
Todd is fair in his criticism of Luther’s opponents and judicious in discerning the gravamina of the Reformers, and he tries to come to grips with the ultimate concern of Luther’s theology and piety. He takes issue with Monsignor Ronald Knox, who in his work Enthusiasm tried to interpret Luther as a Schwaermer. Contrary to Knox, Todd avows that the Wittenberg Reformer “did not believe in a private revelation to himself, or in the arrival of some special dispensation, over and above what is to be expected at all times throughout the life of the Church. He believed in the Gospel and all the articles of the early creeds, and in a covenant between man and God, which had a personal relevance to every man. He had reformulated this relevance in Pauline terms” (p. 204).
Protestant scholars like Ficker, Vogelsang, or Erich Seeberg might differ with Todd’s blanket statement on Luther’s acceptance of the ancient creeds; yet basically Luther was a conservative in these matters.
The author astutely outlines the salient features of Luther’s terrific struggle for a gracious God. The Reformer’s thoughts, we are told, after the Wartburg exile, “led him more strongly than ever into his existential personal theology” (p. 203). The papal Curia, both before and after Worms, seemed unable to discern the deeper religious intentions of the Wittenberg monk. The papal bull Exsurge Domine of 1520 was “contradictory, lacking in clarity, and incidentally far less effective than it might have been” (p. 166). The people who prepared this papal bull against Luther “reflected the manoeuvring of individuals for their own personal reputation, and an indifference to truth whether factual or theological” (p. 165).
Like Lortz Mr. Todd evinces a high appreciation for Luther’s Bible translation. The latter’s “verbal felicity and its accuracy are a permanent witness to the calibre of Luther’s religion, to the thoroughness of his studies in the previous fifteen years, and to the power of his intellect” (p. 206). The followers of Denifle take notice, please! Luther rediscovered the human values of the heart of the Gospel as well as its divine and saving impact. The Reformer must not be seen exclusively in terms of an austere theology of justification, “but a return to the New Testament themes of the Fatherhood of God, the sending of the Son, and the Son’s message of forgiveness and love for all men” (p. 276).
WILLIAM A. MUELLER
From Chant To Belief
Understanding the Nicene Creed, by George W. Forell (Fortress, 1965, 122 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Lewis B. Smedes, associate professor of Bible, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
This is a tidy package of sound doctrine for everyman. The book is not about the Nicene Creed—don’t let the title fool you. It is a neat and sometimes clever defense of the faith that the creed proclaims. Forell is not trying to educate scholars of ancient church history. Rather, he aims to confront people who chant the creed in the numinous setting of the liturgy with the challenge of belief or unbelief. To him the creed of the Church has something terribly important to say to people of the twentieth century, just as it did to people of the fourth. And his book is simply an account of what that something is. The reader is bound to understand it. The big question he faces is whether he will believe it.
Forell does his work well. His style, in the C. S. Lewis tradition, is unaffected and crystal clear. His analogies are novel; and what is more, they are good ones. He is a professor at Iowa State University. It is reassuring to an evangelical to know that a writer with his convictions and obvious talent is teaching religion there.
LEWIS B. SMEDES
Paganism And Israel
The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, by Yehezkel Kaufmann, translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg (University of Chicago, 1963, 486 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by H. L. Ellison, senior tutor, Moorlands Bible College, Dawlish, England.
Dr. Kaufmann was born in Russia in 1889 and died in Israel in 1963. He received both a traditional Jewish and a modern humanistic education. After the first World War he emigrated to Palestine. Despite his outstanding talents, he did not receive adequate recognition until he became professor of the Bible at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1949, a post he held for eight years. The lack of recognition was due partly to his rationalism in the eyes of the orthodox Jewish scholars and his eccentricity of view in the eyes of the liberal ones, and partly to the manner in which he expressed himself.
Even though he was Jewry’s leading Old Testament scholar, he remained virtually unknown to Western scholars because his main works were written in Hebrew. Apart from the present abridged translation, only a monograph on the conquest of Canaan has appeared in English. The Religion of Israel is an abridgment of the first seven volumes of an eight-volume History of Israelite Religion, which appeared between 1937 and 1956 and is his most important work. The translator shows every sign of having done both translation and abridgment competently, but the reviewer is incapable of judging whether full justice to the original has been done.
The first two chapters deal with the pagan religion that surrounded Israel as it is described by the Bible and as it was in fact. Kaufmann argues that the biblical language can be explained only by ignorance of the spirit of paganism, but it may equally well be due to the prophetic outlook of its writers. The third chapter shows conclusively that the biblical religion is not one struggling out of polytheism and reaching out to monotheism. The fourth chapter is an interesting but not entirely successful attempt to show that the popular religion, with all its faults, was essentially different from that of Israel’s pagan neighbors.
The five chapters of the second part are an attempt to justify this position by a study of Israel’s religion down to the exile. The author accepts much of the critical position but makes the Priestly narrative and code very much earlier than Deuteronomy, which he dates just before the time of Josiah. His views on the early date of P have already had an influence on some writers, and his minimizing of the pagan element in the popular religion of Israel fits in with some modern tendencies. I cannot doubt, however, that he has gone too far in his denial of the corruption of popular religion.
The third part deals with the canonical prophets from Amos to Ezekiel. Little here is novel, but in his treatment of Hosea he betrays the basic weakness of his view of popular religion. He has to divide Hosea in two and assign the first three chapters to the reign of Ahab, so as to make the Baalization of Israel’s religion merely a passing phase in the official circles round Ahab.
This is the type of book with which few, if any, will agree completely, but which cannot fail to stimulate the reader with an adequate background. It should, however, be shunned by those unfamiliar with standard higher criticism, the more so because it can be properly understood only as a reaction against this criticism. There is no bibliography in this shortened version, and the impression is given that Kaufmann paid little attention to post-Wellhausen critical views. This may, however, be due to the wide-scale omission of critical discussion on many key points.
H. L. ELLISON
Variations On A Theme
Remember, I Am Coming Soon, edited by Gilbert W. Kirby (Victory Press, 1964, 96 pp., 9s. 6d.), is reviewed by J. G. Norman, minister, George Road Baptist Church, Birmingham, England.
The secretary of the Evangelical Alliance has edited a symposium by well-known evangelical ministers on the Second Advent. According to the introduction, the book is intended “to emphasize the fact of our Lord’s coming and its practical implications.” The contributors have deliberately abstained from expressing particular interpretations of the doctrine.
The result is four essays that provide “variations on a theme.” They will no doubt be quite inoffensive to the great majority of evangelical Christians. But will they be anything more? Do they take us very far? The danger in a book of this kind is that it simply tells us the things that we know, leaving unanswered the questions that really perplex us. The present book does not entirely avoid this danger; but nevertheless its publication is timely, if only to remind evangelicals of the practical importance of the doctrine. In the reviewer’s experience, many Christians, when the Second Coming is mentioned, are really interested only in prognostications of the future; their interest evaporates when the ethical and spiritual implications are brought out. It is to be hoped that such a fate will not befall this book, for it follows the New Testament in being more interested in discovering the effect on Christian living than in unraveling future events. Besides stating very strongly the certain fact of our Lord’s return, the writers underline what should be its effect upon Christians in their daily life and witness. A certain amount of overlapping is inevitable, but this serves to give a welcome stress to the main point.
There are some useful word-studies in the first two essays, a broad survey of the doctrine in Scripture in the third, and a suitable and effective challenge to service in the last. In addition to Mr. Kirby, the editor, the contributors are R. Peter Johnston, A. Skevington Wood, J. A. Caiger, and Leith Samuel—names that for many in Britain are sufficient commendation.
J. G. NORMAN
Book Briefs
This People Israel: The Meaning of Jewish Existence, by Leo Baeck (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 403 pp., $9.50). A scholarly, informative, highly liberal interpretation that sees the continued existence of the Jewish people as a progressive revelation of God and a deepening of the covenant that the Jews are said to have made with God. It seems to have escaped Baeck that, according to the Old Testament, the Jews did not make a covenant with God: God made a covenant with the Jews.
A Minister’s Obstacles, enlarged, revised edition, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Revell, 1964, 192 pp., $2.95). Worth reprinting because it’s worth reading. First published in 1946, it discusses the pitfalls and problems of the ministry.
Graham Taylor: Pioneer for Social Justice 1851–1938, by Louise C. Wade (University of Chicago, 1964, 268 pp., $7.50).
Meaning and Truth in Religion, by William A. Christian (Princeton University, 1964, 273 pp., $6). An extended essay in the area of the philosophy of religion that seeks, on the basis of inclusive religious phenomena, to discover norms by which the truth or untruth of religious claims may be determined.
Metaphysics and Religious Language, by Frank B. Dilley (Columbia University, 1964, 173 pp., $4). Dr. Dilley undertakes to explain the nature of philosophical disagreements: they are neither semantic nor psychiatric; they are deeper than factual because metaphysics is based on a sort of, religious faith. In an excellent exposition of the difficulties of various schools of thought, the author tries to avoid excluding or deciding for any view. He succeeds quite well, except perhaps in his discussion of religious symbolism.
Poverty on a Small Planet: A Christian Looks at Living Standards, by Edward Rogers (Macmillan, 1965, 127 pp., §2.95). Rogers argues that for the first time poverty can be eliminated the world over.
Paperbacks
The Secular City, by Harvey Cox (Macmillan, 1965, 276 pp., $1.45). A secularization of Christianity in which it is held that God may so reveal himself in the future, as he did once to Moses, that a new name for him may then be in order. A thoroughgoing reduction of biblical revelation to historicism.
Who Is My Neighbor?: Christian Compassion in the Welfare Society, by Paul Peachey (Faith and Life, 1964, 44 pp., $.75). An analysis of Mennonite thought and practice in such areas as welfare for all, the nature of the welfare society, and the Christian task in the welfare society. Provocative.
26 Years on the Losing Side, by Conrad Jensen (American Tract Society, 1964, 83 pp., $.85). A retired policeman tells what he has seen in New York’s notorious Twenty-third Precinct and pleads for a return to Christian foundations. As the title suggests, the author sees the real solution to society’s crime and immorality in that religious area that lies beyond the area of law and its enforcement.
European Background and History of Evangelical Free Church [of America] Foreign Missions, by H. Wilbert Norton (Christian Service Foundation, 1964, 297 pp., $1.95). Revised edition; first published in 1959.
Prophecy and the Church, by Oswald T. Allis (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1964, 339 pp., $3). An examination of the claim of dispensationalists that the Christian Church is a mystery parenthesis that interrupts the fulfillment to Israel of the Kingdom prophecies of the Old Testament.
Crowded to Christ, by L. E. Maxwell (Eerdmans, 1964, 354 pp., $2.25). A book that knifes Christians to practice in their lives what they believe and confess in their hearts. First printed in 1950, the book was widely received and many times reprinted.
Changing Patterns in Christian Education, by Marshall C. Dendy (John Knox. 1965, 96 pp., $1.50). Lectures on the educational views of Calvin and Knox, particularly as they are said to bear on the Covenant Life Curriculum produced by the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) and the Reformed Church in America. Although cast within the terms of the Covenant, the author’s Arminianism shows.
