The Mission of God: An Introduction to a Theology of Mission, by George F. Vicedom, translated by Gilbert A. Thiele and Dennis Hilgendorf (Concordia, 1965, 156 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, associate editor,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
Theologians have done little or nothing to develop a theology of mission. This lacuna is being filled as more and more attention is given the subject and especially as missionary leaders and strategists apply themselves to discussing it. Vicedom is head of the Neuendettelsau Missionary Society in Bavaria and is known as a scholar and missionary strategist. He has produced a small but competent work and has made a contribution that is essentially within the tradition of orthodoxy.
Vicedom starts with the conviction that the “whole purpose of the Bible is the rescue of mankind and therefore mission work.” Missionary endeavor has its source in the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is the Lord of the endeavor, the One who gives the orders, the Owner, the One who takes care of things. Thus it is always God’s mission. The Church is not “called on to decide whether she will carry on the mission or not. She can only decide for herself whether she wants to be the church.”
The author opens up the vexing question of divergent viewpoints, such as that of Zinzendorf and the pietists over against Warneck, who wanted “to free the mission from pietistic narrowness which had interpreted the Kingdom-of-God idea as being individualistic and thus wanted to win only those who had been called to the Kingdom.” “And the American missions believed the Kingdom of God was to be realized through social service.” Since most faith missionary agencies hold to the pietistic emphasis of completing the body of Christ by the addition of individuals until the Church is complete, there will be considerable disagreement with Vicedom at this point.
Vicedom affirms that the “relationship between God and mankind was disturbed by the fall.” The goal and content of the missio Dei is “to restore him [man] to fellowship with God and to liberate him from sin.” The Bible speaks of a devil who misleads men and turns them into rebels. The works of the devil must be destroyed. “To this we must cling even at the risk of being ridiculed as fundamentalistic.… One who does not take these facts into consideration is unfit to carry out the assignment.”
The Kingdom of God is more than the sum total of the converted, and it cannot have concrete earthly forms. It is “ushered in by God alone by means of the proclamation of the Word and the dispensation of the sacraments.” The ultimate realization of the Kingdom comes through the return of Christ. Meanwhile God has given men a universal call to salvation. Not all will respond to this call. Therefore some will be lost. God works through the agency of the Church, which carries forward his plan of salvation until he comes.
In the outworking of God’s salvation plan, he is the Sender and the Church is the sent. The sent stands under the will of the Sender. God himself does mission work. He sent his Son, and the Father and the Son sent the Holy Ghost. All of the people of God are called to his service. Missionary work is performed through the apostolate, “the service of [which] office can also be performed by others.” Thus, although there are no apostles today, the service of the office remains. Elders and bishops are watchmen in the Church, not the foundation. Christ is this. Building upon the proper foundation, the apostolate “between the two comings … is called to the task of bringing all men to salvation in Jesus Christ.” Men are called to discipleship and thus to fulfillment of the functions of the apostolate in witness. The Church is to “missionize,” not “Christianize.”
In a very interesting section, Vicedom works over the question of the missionary goal—whether we are to win individuals or nations. whether man can be won in isolation from his environment, and whether the term “the nations” in the New Testament is rightly understood. He concludes that the Church has a responsibility for all men; the goal is winning and gathering them into the Church of Christ, even though “only a portion of mankind will accept.” He discusses ably the step-by-step development theory, the evangelistic method of winning men, and problems of secularization that have arisen from the use of such means as medicine and education. He concludes with emphasis on the Church as a suffering agent doing the will of God.
The author’s essential position is biblical and sound. He has brought biblical data as well as knowledge of key theologians to bear upon his task. His general thesis will stand scrutiny, although there will be disagreements about incidental matters. His statement, “There is a demonism of piety.… as we have experienced in the Pentecostal movement, even the gift of the Holy Ghost can be demonized,” must be questioned. His observation that “unbelievers and unbaptized do not have a share in this body [of Christ]” would leave the dying thief who was redeemed at Calvary on the outside. On the whole, however, this book is “must” reading for theologians, missionary leaders, and seminary students.
The Eggs Were Too Small
Two Worlds or None: Rediscovering Mission in the 20th Century, by William J. Danker (Concordia, 1964, 311 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by H. Leo Eddleman, president, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana.
William J. Danker here makes a worthwhile effort to “get missions moving again.” While many theological leaders are bogged down in such issues as ecumenicism, authoritarianism, and institutionalism, Dr. Danker compels us to think about the most vital issue of all: If all Christians win people to Christ at the rate I do, where will the population stand in regard to the Kingdom of God in another forty years? Arising from the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, Dr. Danker’s work elicits this foreword statement by R. Pierce Beaver of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, “One of the most encouraging developments in the total mission of Christ’s Church, as I see it personally, is the emergence of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod from denominational isolation and its steadily increasing engagement with others in the common task without loss of its distinctive principles.”
Dr. Danker, who is both a linguist and a scholar, writes out of a sense of desperation. He is troubled by what he calls “a disturbing loss of nerve on the part of missionaries, who see the Christian forces in retreat before the population explosion, before nationalism, and particularly before what Adlai Stevenson has termed ‘the revolution of rising expectations.’ Gone is the mood of certainty, conquest, and victory that characterized what Kenneth Scott Latourette has called ‘the great century’ in missions, the 19th.” From New Guinea with its Stone Age natives to Japan with its advanced technicians Dr. Danker traveled, and he reports his impressions of what missions are accomplishing and wherein they are failing.
I was amazed at his account of a Christian service, including prayer, hymn singing, and Bible exposition, held in a Muslim home in Beirut; the doors were opened because of the gratitude of a Muslim for missionaries who had surgically treated the paralyzed limb of his eldest son. A quarter of a century ago not even medical missions opened the door very effectively to a Muslim home, though when one gave of himself Muslims were never without gratitude. Dr. Danker’s attendance at the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches made possible his graphic description of the vast chasm between the poverty-stricken and the rich in India.
The emphasis of this book upon the need for foreign missions to give attention to such mundane matters as how to raise chickens that can lay eggs larger than the meager results attained by pullets, and how to produce beds on which a Westerner can sleep without sleeping pills, illustrates a trend that socialism has forced modern missionary statesmen to consider. Man has a body as well as a soul. Dr. Danker admits that many at New Delhi had very bad consciences for complaining about accommodations that “would have seemed the height of luxury to most of the population of India.”
Typical of the book are the conclusions in the chapter “Race against Time,” Though missionaries entered New Guinea only in 1948, people by the hundreds now attend services in small out-stations. Five to seven hundred people inside or outside large grass-thatched churches is not uncommon. The slow metamorphosis of Christianity from a “foreign missionary movement” into multiplying congregations and mushrooming memberships has caused the missionary statesman to decide that the Word and “the sacraments” are entrusted by God to the local congregations and that the missionary has no right to withhold them. The New Guinea church is a people’s church, and part of the recommended revision of strategy in this book is that Christianity become increasingly a lay movement once again. One sizable congregation knows only one melody but has composed words for fifteen different hymns, all adapted to this one tune. As many as thirty evangelists may accompany one leader as they use Cessnas to cover a large area in a short time.
The people’s church in New Guinea is a mission to the total man, involving the church deeply with the people’s economic, physical, and educational welfare. The missionary may open a trade store with axes and spades from Germany, cloth from Japan, soap and canned goods from Australia, and many other items available at reasonable prices. He may give out seeds and then buy back the vegetables which the nationals have raised. The clamor for more education is increasing. To some it is “the key to the white man’s cargo.” To others it opens the door wider to an understanding of the Good Talk (the Gospel). Outdoor bush clinics have patients lying around the fire while nurses and missionaries’ Wives give first aid and basic care and refer more complicated cases to the doctor. The Enga church, for example, maintains a highly articulate gospel message while avoiding the Greek philosophy that exalts the view of the soul and minimizes the needs of the body. Like Hebrews, the Engas know they have bodies and think concretely rather than abstractly. Although the Engas do not thank anybody for what is done, their preacher is often heard to say how much better things are since the missionaries came.
Noting the success with which various Christian bodies work together when thrown together on the front lines against the common enemy, Dr. Danker pleads for flexibility of strategy and makes out one of the best cases for intensifying missions this reviewer has seen.
H. LEO EDDLEMAN
Bridge Between East And West
The Demands of Freedom, by Helmut Gollwitzer (Harper and Row, 1965, 176 pp., $3), is reviewed by Harold B. Kuhn, professor of philosophy of religion, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.
The National Socialist era in Germany, like the pagan era in Rome, produced both martyrs and confessors. Among the latter can rightly be named the eminent professor of theology at the Free University in West Berlin, Dr. Helmut Gollwitzer. His volume might well have been published earlier; much of the contents was made public in addresses a number of years ago.
Several themes underlie the main body of the work, which lies between a biographical sketch of the author written by Paul Oestreicher and the closing section, made up of “The Gollwitzer Affair in Basel” and the addresses published in the Zürcher Woche by Gollwitzer and Hromádka. Outstanding among these themes are: the responsibility of the Christian to “be different” from his non-Christian social counterparts; the limitations that historical circumstances place upon freedom; the inevitability of man’s freedom-predicament; the permanence of the changed face of Europe east of the Oder-Neisse line; the qualitative difference between atomic (nuclear) warfare and conventional warfare; and the need for a Church that can and does bridge the gulf between East and West.
To develop these constitutes a large order, and the volume undertakes exactly this. The author accepts as given the position that the Church must proclaim to all who will hear that even the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is “an act of sin, despair, faithlessness and disobedience.” Thus far, Gollwitzer is a pacifist—a tactical one at least. He sees possible nuclear conflict within the larger context of creation. That is to say, the destruction it would bring would defy God’s Creatorhood and ruin the arena in which God has placed man.
Among the many commendable features of the work, it seems to this reviewer that Professor Gollwitzer’s analysis of Marxism in Chapter IV deserves a wide and most careful reading; it is perceptive and context-creating. His analysis of the East-West situation, while somewhat different from that to which our press has accustomed us, is of a type to produce penitence rather than arrogance within the Church in the West.
From the economic point of view, Dr. Gollwitzer may not fully understand the differences between conventional “European capitalism” and the “people’s capitalism” which we have developed in the United States. This limitation we can certainly overlook, in the light of his overall appreciation of the approvablc and expandable values of the West. This reviewer, in reading The Demands of Freedom, marked more than a score of passages for careful rereading. He would urge other readers to note, particularly, pages 65, 70, 86, 87, 90, 91, 106, 110, 111, and 138–40.
The final section, dealing with Gollwitzer’s non-appointment to the post formerly occupied by Karl Barth in Basel, is of less general interest than the article by Josef Hromádka and Gollwitzer’s word in reply to it. Many of us are less certain than the author of the creativeness of Hromádka’s “prophetic” role in Czechoslovakia. Culture-conformity contains its perils in the East as well as in the West. But Professor Gollwitzer’s work as a whole strikes the correct note, that of Christian responsibility.
HAROLD B. KUHN
Happily Haphazardous
An Expanded Paraphrase of the Epistles of Paul, by F. F. Bruce (Paternoster, 1965, 323 pp., 27s. [also published by Eerdmans under the title of The Letters of Paul: An Expanded Paraphrase, $4.95]), is reviewed by 1. Howard Marshall, lecturer in biblical criticism, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland.
In his introduction Professor Bruce tells us that this book began haphazardly with the writing of a paraphrase of Galatians in connection with a series of Bible study talks for young people; this was published in the Evangelical Quarterly, and then the author yielded to the friendly persuasion of the publisher to give the same treatment to the other epistles of Paul. The result is avowedly a paraphrase of the Greek text; it does not claim to be a translation and is therefore immune from the criticisms that might be directed against the masquerading of paraphrase under the title of translation. The aim of the author has been, not to deal with the subtleties of Paul’s use of moods and tenses or to amplify the meanings of key theological terms, but to write the epistles out in such a way that the general (flow and structure of Paul’s argument will be clear to the reader. To this end the various epistles are provided with headings and subheadings, and a number of footnotes have been added to clarify difficult expressions.
Were this all we were given in this book it would be sufficient cause for thanks, but more is offered. Alongside the paraphrase is printed the text of the English Revised Version of 1881, which must surely rank as the most literal and accurate translation of the Bible in common use; thus the Greekless student may compare the paraphrase with the literal translation at every point. This text has been annotated with the fuller marginal references compiled by Drs. Scrivener, Greenup, and W. F. and J. H. Moulton, only a section of which is printed in modern editions of the RV. Finally, the author has arranged the epistles in what he considers to be their probable chronological order and has written a brief introduction and connecting narrative that put them in their historical setting and deal briefly with various problems of introduction and criticism.
The high quality of all Professor Bruce’s work is so well known that there is no need here to praise a book that displays the qualities of clarity and accuracy we have come to expect from its author. It will inevitably be compared with the earlier work of J. B. Phillips; it provides a much more accurate rendition of the Greek, but at the same time it does not (in this reviewer’s estimation) have quite the same vigor of rendering and that ability to “get with it” which established Letters to Young Churches as a superb piece of popularization. Professor Bruce’s aim is rather the different one of providing a tool for study. The person who is prepared to work through this book, letting the RV text and the paraphrase illumine each other and making use of the abundant scriptural references, will surely find that he comes into very close contact with the mind of Paul.
I. HOWARD MARSHALL
One Had Better Say It
The Thickness of Glory, by John Killinger (Abingdon, 1965, 158 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by John Pott, minister, Second Christian Reformed Church, Grand Haven, Michigan.
In this collection of ten sermons, Dr. Killinger seeks to prick the conscience of the complacent American church-goer—conservative or liberal—who worships(?) a god who never really disturbs him. The reason for this unreality is the subtle mistake of identifying the “hind” parts of God with the Almighty himself (Exod. 33:23). This error dogs the footsteps of everyone who seeks the true God. The seeker fails to find the living Christ because he expects to find him “attractive.” He does not realize, with Isaiah (chap. 6), that the Lord is “high and lifted up.” Thus worship fails to be the adoring of the worthship of God. Like Jacob at the ford Jabbok, the man who seeks God desperately needs to encounter the “Stranger” in aloneness. After all, the Christian life is not a state of having arrived but an unremitting quest for more—more of the life in Christ. It is through “the fellowship of his suffering” that the “finder” has fellowship with the living Christ. Only in this experience of fellowship does the believer get out of himself and into the depths of God’s eternal purposes. Swept along on this mighty flood, he conquers all that opposes, even death itself.
There is an emphasis in these sermons that I deeply appreciate. Genuine Christianity has never been easy—not that God has made faith so difficult but that our sin has plunged us into much darkness. It is to be feared, however, that these sermons will not dispel that darkness. Though they arc learned, provocative, and beautiful, they lack a straightforwardness and a simplicity they might have had if the author had stayed closer to the Scriptures. One is not guilty of biblicism if he insists that the Scriptures, in any given passage, have something very specific to say, and that one had better say it. If God is as great as the author so eloquently and so rightly assures us, it is impossible to believe that his Word is suggestive rather than declarative.
JOHN POTT
Short But Sure
Toward an Understanding of Homosexuality, by Daniel Cappon (Prentice-Hall, 1965, 302 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Donald F. Tweedie, director, Pasadena Community Counseling Center, Pasadena, California.
This is a remarkable book. Dr. Cappon brings to our attention an area of social pathology that has been much misunderstood and cries for understanding and action. He is a psychiatrist who has dealt with some two hundred homosexual patients and whose general psychiatric practice has involved some two thousand cases.
Although I usually read a book as a wholistic experience, when reading for review purposes I do keep my “literary peripheral vision” alert in four areas. I try to evaluate the book as a literary piece, as a work of scholarship, as a source of professional helpfulness, and, finally, as it relates to the biblical revelation. My impression is that Cappon’s work is wanting in all four areas.
Stylistically, there is such unevenness that it is difficult not to become fascinated with this aspect of the book. The attempt to communicate to a rather low level of laity as well as to professionals makes for an unlikely and unlikable disjunction. Numerous technical terms and Latin phrases are mingled with homely descriptions, such as that in which an initial interview is said to be a time for the homosexual patient and the therapist to “smell each other out.” Further, sentences and phrases are inexplicably italicized. Footnotes are frequently appended with no apparent relevance. Much of this irregularity may perhaps be understood in the light of the author’s prefatory confession that he had no particular interest in the problem but that, having been invited to write a book, he did so.
Nor is this work very scholarly. It is journalistic, anecdotal, and full of vague generalizations on homosexuality and society’s evaluation of it. He finds, for example, that our culture is becoming hermaphroditic as well as homosexual; this he discovers, he says, in almost every social index. At the same time, he seems to ignore the extremely pervasive heterosexual and pornographic permeation of the “new morality.” Variations in homosexual patterns in various European areas are presented without evidence, and evaluations of homosexual problems in underdeveloped countries are accompanied with extremely meager data. And I know of no other book which includes in its index such strange listings as “How,” “What,” and “Who.”
The book is also disappointing as a professional contribution. To avoid misunderstanding and to promote the cause of science, the author declares that he is restricting the term “homosexuality” to “overt, acted-out homosexual behavior, in which the individual, male or female, habitually seeks and attains orgasm by means of sexual contact with a member of the same sex over a period of years, because of choice or preference for a sexual partner of the same sex, though this is not necessarily an exclusive choice.” But in later parts of the book he discusses homosexual acts of children, latently homosexual persons, and other aspects of the subject that comport not at all with his careful definition. There is even a discussion of acts of “overt latent” homosexuality—whatever these might be! Cappon presses for thorough diagnostic procedures as being both the initial aspect and the main body of therapy, but he does not make this idea clear in relation to his complex homosexual categories. He emphasizes that the cure of homosexuality is an all-or-none affair and then proceeds to discuss partial cures in detail.
The author’s approach is rather eclectic, middle-of-the-road, and therapeutic. I would take issue with his assertions that hypnosis and the couch are especially contraindicated in therapy with homosexuals. He makes the interesting comment that the simple suggestion of stopping the homosexual behavior “without a hint of threat or demand” has been very successful. However, his support for this statement refers to a chronic alcoholic patient to whom he issued the warning, “You’d better stop drinking or you’ll kill yourself.”
The frequent quotation of Scripture might make the Christian reader think that Dr. Cappon was attempting to square his theory in therapy with the Bible. Such hope is short-lived, however, for the author suggests that the Church should make up its mind whether it is “better to mate than to burn,” and that fornication and adultery should be freely permitted. He then continues with an unsupported forthright statement that sexual abstinence by adolescents is as abnormal as homosexuality and runs contrary to biological, medical, and psychiatric science. He thinks that the rise of the pastoral counseling movement augurs well for our extensive national mental health problem, if only counselors “become secular” and remove the clerical collar.
I must confess, however, that despite these negative comments, I enjoyed the book and found in it a fund of assets. Cappon reflects a growing optimism about effective psychotherapy with homosexuals. This would be better taken if his two case studies presented to “explode the myth of incurability” were more convincing. The reports of successful therapeutic treatment in groups of persons with homosexual problems is encouraging. Cappon also repudiates the naïve but lingering concept of a “third sex” and presents a good sample of evidence to disprove any genetic basis for homosexuality.
I also appreciated the author’s description of homosexual components of personality structure as an alien part of personality, and his general emphasis on the patient’s responsibility for his problem. This is in my mind a sine qua non for therapy with homosexual persons. Apart from this, the always difficult task becomes impossible.
The concept of ethical neutrality is also repudiated, and the value-judgment involvement of the therapist is recognized. However, these values are discussed in the context of ethical relativism, with sanctions resting upon social pressure and psychological conditioning. It is a moot question whether this kind of value recognition is progress or regress.
The volume contains much interesting data and makes the reader feel he is sharing the author’s therapeutic endeavors. These factors alone make a sure though short step in the direction of the title.
DONALD F. TWEEDIE
Jacob Defended
Jacob Have I Loved, by Jean Rees (Eerdmans, 1962, 288 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Charles M. Davis, associate professor of English, Taylor University, Upland, Indiana.
When he was a boy, Mark Twain writes, he was allowed to play chess on Sunday if he would give biblical names to the pieces. In much the same way, numbers of modern writers have discovered the value of a biblical cast of characters for throwing a luster of sanctity over what otherwise might be questionable, trivial, or sentimental. Mrs. Rees in her Jacob Have I Loved has not fallen into this trap. Her novel is a reverent account of the history of Jacob and his family as found in Genesis. To this she has added the fruits of her research, and the story is enlivened with much that is not generally known about things as diverse as ancient animal husbandry and the etiquette of Egyptian wines.
But the justification of the historical novel is this: that it clothes the bare bones of history with life, so to speak; that it conveys a sense of the “pastness of the past” and a sense of the continuity of the past and present. Mrs. Rees’s novel adds no dimensions to the biblical account. Here is one of the tremendous dramas of history: a record of unexampled human treachery, lust, cowardice, cruelty, and murder, which, for all that, cannot prevail against the “terrible patience of God.” Little of this overwhelming struggle of opposites, of light against darkness, of the anguish, the horror, and the exultation of the Genesis account is realized in Mrs. Rees’s smoothly written novel. The author is plainly sympathetic with Jacob and his aspirations and writes with the commendable impulse to defend him. But Jacob needs no defense. The best thing that can be said about him is that he had no illusions about himself; and when he fought with the angel for a blessing, it was not because he deserved it but because he could not live without it.
CHARLES M. DAVIS
Time On Their Hands
Dispensationalism Today, by Charles Ryrie, foreword by Frank E. Gaebelein (Moody, 1965, 221 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by James Daane, assistant editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
The author’s announced twofold purpose is to present dispensationalism in its current purged, refined form, and defend it against much unwarranted criticism. In my judgment Ryrie, professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, has achieved his objectives to a considerable degree. Even if one is not “almost persuaded” to become a dispensationalist, one must admit that his argument is lucid, its spirit well-tempered, and its general apologetic defense marked by an acumen and subtlety that bespeak theological competence.
Since the strongest criticism against dispensationalism has come from the conservative theological camp of Reformed covenantal theology, the author constantly makes this theology the point of reference in both his offensive and his defensive efforts. Adherents of a covenantal theology (those who systematically structure all of God’s dealings with man in terms of covenants) will not, I think, be brought to bay, but Ryrie’s book may well bring them a renewed sense of the limitations of their theology.
Ryrie argues that the pre-, unlike the a-millennialist, has a philosophy of history, because he believes that history achieves a historical goal, that is, a goal within history. God will show that Christianity works, not merely in heaven, nor merely by saving people and bringing them into heaven, but also within the actual historical world of time and space. Thus fundamentalism, often scored for its depreciation of history because of its slight recognition of the Church’s creeds and theological tradition, scores a point.
Ryrie further argues that if a premillennialist consistently recognizes the progressive character of revelation, he will also be a dispensationalist. Dispensational theology, urges the author, calls for a recognition that various stages of revelation produce differing dispensations, that is, periods in which God deals with mankind in a manner distinguishable from the manner in which he deals with mankind in other periods. Thus, Ryrie argues, every biblical theologian must recognize dispensations, the Old and the New and, for that matter, another which precedes the Fall, and still another marked off by the Fall and the establishment of the covenant of grace with Abraham.
Authentic dispensationalists, Ryrie insists, believe that man is and always was saved by grace, that God’s gracious purposes take one form in the Church and another in Israel, and, further, that while these are not unrelated, they are never wholly blended into a unity. He therefore is critical of covenantal premillennialists (Daniel P. Fuller, George E. Ladd, and others), for although they recognize a present distinction between Israel and the Church, says Ryrie, in the end they make the Church the “spiritual Israel.” Since the Bible, according to Ryrie, does not identify “literal Israel” of the past or present with the Church, the touchstone of authentic dispensationalists is a consistentapplication of the hermeneutical principle that interprets the Bible according to the “natural,” “normal,” literal meaning of language.
Though I am not a dispensationalist, I enjoyed this book because it deals seriously with some of the basic, unsolved problems of both dispensational and covenantal theology. Time and history are admittedly a problem in any theology, but some of Ryrie’s criticisms of covenantal theology are much too facile. He contends, correctly, I think, that covenantal theologians have forced much scriptural teaching into the covenantal mold, paying little or no attention to the historical roles that the Bible gives to both Israel and the Church. But he also contends that covenantal theology has read the whole of the New Testament into the Old; I think the truth is rather that it has too often not gotten out of the Old into the New. What, for example, has the fulfillment and embodiment of the covenant in Jesus Christ done to the restructuring and understanding of the covenant in covenantal theology? Not only does the thought and language of this theology remain almost wholly within that of the Old Testament, but Reformed theologians have scarcely known where to place Christ in the covenant; the majority of them have construed the covenant of grace as established with the elect. Ryrie’s book may make it apparent that neither dispensational nor covenantal theology has given Christ his allotted biblical role in either eschatology or the covenant. Ryrie contends that during the Mosaic dispensation, the Old Testament believer did not (could not) consciously believe in Christ. It is difficult to see how one can hold rigidly to this and yet recognize the assertion of Jesus that Abraham “saw my day.” In any event, I would suggest that the theologians of neither theological tradition have consciously and adequately recognized the role Christ played in the history of revelation and the decisive qualification of time and history that this role effected. If Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, then George Ladd is surely right when he asserts that the New Testament is the only place to find an authentic hermeneutic (p. 187).
Ryrie’s defense of dispensationalists against the charge of divisiveness and separatism boomerangs, I fear, when he says that it is an “unvarnished fact” that Luther was a separatist, and that separation is not out of order when a segment of a church recovers some lost aspect of biblical truth. Grant this, and there is no restriction on subdividing the Church. Moreover, Luther was not a separatist, and it is patent that no man reforms the Church by leaving it. Indeed, no Christian may leave a church under the illusion that he is better able to serve the Lord outside it (P. 83).
This is, nonetheless, for many reasons, a good book. For one, it forces both theological traditions to face some of the basic theological problems with which each must continue to grapple until a fuller biblical perspective is gained. Both need to continue to face the issues of time and history as they are conditioned by the progressive character of biblical revelation. Both still have time on their theological hands. Neither belongs to the ancient theological tradition of the Church, for, as Ryrie points out with some unconcealed pleasure, they are of about equal vintage. If dispensational theology cannot go back beyond Darby, covenantal theology cannot go beyond Cocceius; and even Cocceius’ construction of a covenantal theology that would take history more seriously was quickly arrested, says Ryrie, by the application of Calvinism’s predestinarianism.
JAMES DAANE
Book Briefs
The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament, by Bertil Gärtner (Cambridge, 1965, 164 pp., $4.75). The serious student will find this very profitable.
The Supreme Court Review 1964, edited by Philip B. Kurland (University of Chicago, 1964, 315 pp., $6.50).
By Freedom’s Holy Light, by Gordon Palmer (Devin-Adair, 1964, 162 pp., $3). A selection of patriotic messages.
The Campus Ministry, a symposium edited by George L. Earnshaw (Judson, 1964, 329 pp., $6.95). A spate of essays on the why and how of the Christian ministry on college and university campuses.
The Trumpet Sounds: A Memoir of Negro Leadership, by Anna Arnold Hedgeman (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 202 pp., $4.95). A moving account.
All Things New: A Declaration of Faith, by Anne Biezanek (Harper and Row, 1964, 152 pp., $3.50). A young mother of seven who is a devout Roman Catholic tells of her agonizing struggle to match faith and practice, conscience and birth control, and how she came to be the first Catholic to establish a family-planning clinic.
That Day with God, edited by William M. Fine (McGraw-Hill, 1965, 216 pp., $4.95). Sermons and religious expressions that followed the late President Kennedy’s death. A fine Kennedy memento.
The Europe of the Capitals, 1600–1700, by Giulio Carlo Argan (World, 1964, 224 pp., $20). One in a series of fourteen handsome volumes that constitute a “vast inquiry into the cultural background of the Western world.” Text and well over 100 art reproductions (many in color) combine to give a splendid view of the art, ideas, and history of the Baroque age.
Memories of Teilhard de Chardin, by Helmut de Terra (Harper and Row, 1965, 142 pp., $3.50). A close friend shares his memories of a man who grew big in death.
Scots Breed and Susquehanna, by Hubertis Cummings (University of Pittsburgh, 1964, 404 pp., $5). An extensive history of America’s frontier Scots-Irish.
World Religions (Revised Edition), by Benson Y. Landis (E. P. Dutton, 1965, 128 pp., $2.95). Concise, fact-packed, but sometimes east of accuracy.
They Harvest Despair: The Migrant Farm Worker, by Dale Wright (Beacon, 1965, 158 pp., $4.95). A novel describing the life and toils of a migrant farm worker.
This Honorable Court: A History of the United States Supreme Court, by Leo Pfeffer (Beacon, 1965, 470 pp., $10.95). Hardly democratic in itself, the Supreme Court—consisting of nine men serving for life and responsible to no one—is, in Pfeffer’s story, the governmental institution that is most committed to and most effective in promoting and preserving our democracy. Every American who feels competent to criticize the court should know its history.
Man through His Art, Volume II: Music, by Anil de Silve, Otto von Simson, and Roger Hinks (New York Graphic Society, 1964, 64 pp., $7.95). Commentary and reproductions of paintings that illustrate man’s social progress in the field of music. One of a series of fourteen books sponsored by the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession with the financial help of UNESCO. Distinguished craftsmanship.
Paperbacks
Firebrand of Flanders, by Phyllis Thompson (Lutterworth, 1964, 118 pp., 6s. 6d.) A biography of Odilon Vansteenbergh, former co-director of the Belgian Gospel Mission. Personal glimpses of the man; highlights of the history of the mission.
Baptists and Roman Catholicism, by James Leo Garrett, Jr. (Broadman, 1965, 45 pp., $.95). A survey of Baptist writings about the Roman Catholic Church, with an interpretation of recent developments.
A Brief History of Preaching, by Yngve Brilioth (Fortress, 1965, 230 pp., $2.95). Since most preachers think much about sermons and little about preaching, this provocative book is recommended reading.
Youth Considers Sex, by William Hulme (Nelson, 1965, 96 pp., $1.50). Considerable sense about sex.
The Ethics of Rhetoric, by Richard Weaver (Regnery, 1965, 234 pp., $1.45). First published in 1953.
Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment, by Walter F. Berns (Regnery, 1965, 264 pp., $1.25).
The Book of Deuteronomy: A Study Manual, by Clyde T. Francisco (Baker, 1964, 112 pp., $1.50). Excellent.
God Was in Christ, by D. M. Baillie (Scribners, 1965, 230 pp., $1.45). Lucid theological writing; Baillie’s best-known work. First published in 1948.
