Historians And Christianity
A Christian View of History?, edited by George Marsden and Frank Roberts (Eerdmans, 1975, 201 pp., $4.50 pb), is reviewed by Kenneth W. Shipps, assistant professor of history, Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois.
What introductory book on the numerous relations between history and Christianity could evangelical Christians read with ease? Beyond the thought-provoking but sketchy essays of John Warwick Montgomery, this vast field has lain fallow. Evangelicals have finally produced a book worthy of the subject, edited by Professors Marsden and Roberts of Calvin College. The essays contained in this volume raise crucial questions, offer some suggested answers, and collect a manageable bibliography of what historians, theologians, and philosophers have written since 1945. The Christian historians who have undertaken this task deserve much praise, as does Eerdmans for publishing their efforts.
Professor Roberts introduces the volume. He notices the need for the student and the scholar to relate Christianity and history. He goes on to affirm the orthodox Protestant perspective of the authors and their attempt to eschew overconfident or overdiffident tendencies in previous Christian approaches to history. He states that the authors have a moderate stance: “While retaining an awareness of the complexity and ambiguity of history, they are unwilling to view human activity as chaotic and under the control of demonic powers. Nor are they willing to accept as valid the observation that Christian commitment must undermine sound scholarship. At the same time, however, they are hesitant to claim the hand of God or the forces of good and evil are easily identified within history.”
After the introduction, the book divides into two sections: (1) fairly general essays on Christianity and history and (2) somewhat critical descriptions of historians and others who have suggested ways to relate Christianity and history, including long summaries on H. Butterfield, K. S. Latourette, and H. Dooyeweerd and a bibliographical essay offering a complex of works. As is usual with collections of essays, some are better than others.
The first, “Why Study History?” by Kirk Jellema, does not support the editors’ contention that the volume was “the fruit of much reflection and many years of dialogue among Christian historians.” Jellema contrives a “Socratic” conversation among riders in a car going to Pittsburgh. Driving in the wrong direction, they discuss why Christians should study history. Perhaps the author and editors thought Jellema’s piece would appeal to college students; I question that.
Like many of the essays, the one by Marsden was published previously. It appeared in the Christian Scholar’s Review (1973) under the title “The Christian and the Teaching of History.” Marsden’s competent essay highlights many ways that a Christian studies history. His comments reflect a good understanding of traditional views of the purposes of history as suggested by Scripture, though he, like the others, does not formally exegete Scripture. The major problem with the piece is that it does not mention much about the teaching of history, one of the most neglected aspects in a Christian view of education. He needed more explicit paragraphs about Christian attitudes, approaches, and rich fields involved in the teaching of history.
C. T. McIntire surveys the rich tradition of Christian historiography. He shows how Judeo-Christian views of the process, unity, particularity, and purpose of history have affected later kinds of secular assumptions in the writing of history. He highlights the insights of recent Christian historians from Christopher Dawson to R. H. Tawney. In perhaps the most important section of the book he recognizes “new directions” for Christian historiography: efforts to explore the creative activities of man; the role of religion in making culture; the making of judgments in history; the revision of secular historiography.
The other two essays in the first section do not add much to the work of Marsden and McIntire. D. A. MacPhee reviews recent work by Christians in American history, and Edwin Van Kley suggests how some historians respond to the social sciences. Van Kley does not make explicit why his thoughts are a “Christian” response as distinguished from the response of what might be called a conservative humanist.
Each essay in the second half of the book is well written and provides a summary of what recent historians and others have published in an effort to relate Christianity and history. William Speck offers two excellent studies: the “Bible reading and doing of history” by Herbert Butterfield and the efforts of Kenneth Scott Latourette to chronicle the expansion of Christianity through the centuries. Speck shows that these men have not simply dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s of Christian historiography. Butterfield’s many insights and Latourette’s massive works already stand as testimony to the vitality of Christian historians in the twentieth century.
But that is not the case with the work of Dooyeweerd, analyzed by Dale Van Kley. One wonders why the editors included a piece, by far the longest, on Dooyeweerd. The Dutch philosopher has never written anything on history that anyone but those in the Reformed tradition would espouse. Van Kley in an excellent summary clearly shows that Dooyeweerd’s world-historical vision has a certain beauty and meaning, but it remains very personal and flawed. Surely an essay on Reinhold Neibuhr would have provided an additional view of history from outside the field of professional history. It also would have reflected the bias expressed by several of the book’s contributors.
The concluding bibliographical essay by M. Howard Rienstra raises several crucial questions that historians, theologians, and philosophers have considered in recent times. Is the Christian faith dead as the spiritual dynamic of Western civilization? Has the role of the Christian and the Church changed? Can history be construed in a Christian way? If so, do not the efforts of the Christian historian produce irrelevant or childish myths? Reinstra suggests how several historians have addressed these questions. He goes on to note questions and books on the nature of historical knowledge and the meaning of history. In the final section of his concise essay, he notes the crucial questions theologians have faced: “If Christianity is historical, are the truth claims subject to verification through historical inquiry? Or does the truth of Christianity rest solely on faith?”
The questions raised in A Christian View of History? demand systematic and concerted scholarship. The efforts of the contributors are not as scholarly as is needed, but they offer some basis for future answers and investigation. And since the book is a paperback and written at the level of college students and laypersons, it will remain a useful and accessible resource.
Real Help For The Pastor
How to Save Time in the Ministry, by Leslie B. Flynn, (Baker, 1975, 95 pp., $2.95 pb), 49 and Holding, by Richard Knox Smith (Two Continents, 147 pp., $7.95), and Plain Talk About the Pastorate, by Roy W. Hinchey, (Broadman, 1975, 64 pp., $1.50 pb), are reviewed by Cecil B. Murphey, pastor, Riverdale Presbyterian Church, Riverdale, Georgia.
The halos have been stripped away. The word is out: ministers have problems, too. These three books attempt to offer help.
Halfway through Flynn’s book I thought, At last! We need something like this. Flynn challenges but doesn’t preach. He doesn’t increase the already heavy load of guilt. This brief book, a reprint, offers stimulating ideas on how to “work smarter, not harder.” Short chapters deal with making schedules, becoming conscious of time, delegating responsibility, and being one’s own efficiency expert.
A chapter called “Start Earlier” pushes ministers to get going earlier in the morning. We’ve heard it before. But Flynn’s admonition, replete with illustrations of others who started earlier and got more out of their day, challenges rather than offends.
If that’s not your problem, try this one: “Take Time Off.” Here he hits at pastors who work, work, work. Having pushed for action he now balances the picture nicely by saying, “Yes, but take off a day each week.” There is also a very practical section on how to use spare minutes—waiting for a plane, waiting for the doctor, sitting in a traffic jam. I hope this book never goes out of print.
Smith’s 49 and Holding misled me. The chuckle-provoking cartoons by Serman Goodrich along with the subtitle (How to Face 50) prepared me for a breezy, humorous book on how to face the male menopause of the clergy. It’s that—but more. Smith packs this slim volume with penetrating insights into the psyche of the clergy. He has been there!
What clergyman hasn’t thought of leaving the ministry at some time? What about the stigma? The guilt? With four years of college and three of seminary, it’s quite a shock to realize he is not really qualified for anything else. Smith zeroes in on this crisis period of life with sprightly text, enough humor to keep the reader moving on, and yet an intensely practical view. He includes excellent resources for professional assessment, ways of attaining moral/spiritual support, and helps on making decisions. This is a fine help for ministers approaching that “middlescent” period.
Hinchey’s Plain Talk About the Pastoratecould serve as a handbook for inexperienced or prospective pastors. While written for Southern Baptists by their secretary for church-minister relations, the book will be useful for those in other denominations, too.
There are weaknesses. The short chapters read well but tend to be superficial, with simplistic answers, especially the section on getting along with people. Illustrations in the book tend to be of the happily-ever-after sort. Still, Hinchey is readable and worth reading. Merely to know that other pastors have problems like one’s own is helpful.
Basic Doctrine For Non-Christians
The Untamed God, by George Cornell (Harper & Row, 1975, 152 pp., $7.95), and How You Can Be Sure You Are a Christian, by Bob Dryburgh (Keats, 1975, 142 pp. $1.75 pb), are reviewed by Michael H. MacDonald, associate professor of German and philosophy, Seattle Pacific College, Seattle, Washington.
In The Untamed God, George Cornell, the religion specialist of the Associated Press for twenty-five years, argues a realistic case for God, integrating the worlds of logic, science, and philosophy with biblical revelation. Cornell is the author of five previous books, including They Knew Jesus and Behold the Man. The Untamed God treats the new developments in theology and recent trends in religious attitudes. It speaks to the abundant evidence for God in today’s world and shows that the divine need not be “crowded out” of our world by modern technology. The Untamed God is designed for the person who wants to believe but does not know just what or why. Pastors might wish to recommend it for the alienated and spiritually bankrupt, sophisticated reader who needs to find depth and quality of life.
Bob Dryburgh, a leader in the work of Global Outreach, attempts to demonstrate how one can be sure of both one’s faith and one’s commitment to it. His strong point is certainly his knowledge of and emphasis on the Scriptures, and the book may be somewhat comforting to the babe in Christ. Yet Dryburgh often seems to rush in where angels fear to tread. He uses relatively few secondary sources and does not integrate the findings of modern research but restates the old pat answers with little that is new. The book may not be completely persuasive to one who does not already believe that the Bible is God’s Word. Dryburgh seems to suggest that it’s up to the atheist to prove the contrary.
Cornell, although basically conservative, does not enter into divisions between Catholic and Protestant. He quotes scholars from both camps frequently. He realizes his attempt is necessarily inadequate and conjectural, that the ambiguity and mystery will remain. Dryburgh’s answers are simplistic. He uses a jargon all too familiar to evangelicals but not as useful to the broken world around us. For a less modern but very sound exposition of this type, my personal choice is still C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.
Different Approaches To Christian Ed
An Invitation to Religious Education, by Harold William Burgess (Religious Education Press [Box 364, Mishawaka, Indiana 46544], 1975, 173 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Kenneth O. Gangel, president, Miami Christian College, Miami, Florida.
Rarely does one see a volume from a Catholic publisher, with a foreword by a Catholic seminary teacher, whose author is an evangelical Protestant. Burgess has a B.D. from Asbury Seminary and is the director of religious affairs at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Perhaps the strange combination of ingredients in this book accounts for the strange results.
On the one hand, Burgess shows good scholarship and an interesting combination of sensitivity for the evangelical position and knowledge of Catholic thought. The models or paradigms he uses are interesting and in general quite supportable: “the traditional theological approach” to religious education, the “social-cultural approach,” the “contemporary theological approach,” and the “social-science approach.” The first model supposedly includes both Protestant and Roman Catholic traditional theory; the second represents old-line liberalism as exemplified by George Coe and Horace Bushnell; the third represents neo-orthodoxy (though this is not really “contemporary” given today’s theological scene); and the fourth is an exclusively Catholic position based on the works of James Michael Lee.
The strengths of Burgess’s work lie in its excellent organization, its historical review, and the treatment of Lee. For these strengths the book should be studied by all professors of religious education in evangelical schools, both at the undergraduate and the graduate level.
But weaknesses also abound. I was happy to see Frank Gaebelein and Lois LeBar listed as “representative traditional theorists”; unquestionably, evangelical church educators view their books (Christian Education in a Democracy and Education That Is Christian) as classics in the field. But I am baffled by the inclusion of Harold Carlton Mason; his books Abiding Values in Christian Education and The Teaching Task of the Local Church certainly have merit, but he could hardly be called influential in the sense that Gaebelein and LeBar have been and should probably not be cited as one of the “principal Protestant representatives.” Burgess also names Clarence Benson, Peter Person, and C. B. Eavey.
The reader unfamiliar with evangelical literature in church education is left with the impression that either Burgess hasn’t done his homework or no evangelicals have written anything of merit in the field since 1960 except for An Introduction to Evangelical Christian Education, edited by J. Edward Hakes, and Lois LeBar’s Focus on People in Church Education. But what about Zuck’s fine theological treatment of The Holy Spirit in Your Teaching, Byrne’s Christian Education For the Local Church, Bower’s Administering Christian Education, Murch’s Teach or Perish, Richard’s A New Face For the Church, and my own Leadership For Church Education?
On the last two pages Burgess says that his major purpose in this book was “to invite interested persons to work together toward a better understanding of the relationship between theory and practice in the field of religious education.” But the hope is short-lived when he opts for the social-science approach as “the brightest hope for the future of religious education as a field and as a profession.” In my opinion. Burgess abandons the central strength of evangelicalism, which is its biblical and theological centricity, when he chooses the social-science approach. If Christian education is not theologically based and if the authority of Scripture is not the focal point for its study and its constructs, then it is no longer evangelical. I am afraid that Burgess has jettisoned the cargo and is busily concerned with sailing about in an empty ship.
RECENT BOOKS ON THE BIBLE
Just who is Jesus? All kinds of answers differing from the portrayals in the New Testament have been given. In The Forbidden Gospel (Harper & Row, 64 pp., $5.95), J. Edgar Bruns offers fifteen pages of excerpts from ancient, heretical, Gnostic writings with an overly sympathetic introduction and notes. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is often called the father of liberal theology; his The Life of Jesus, based on his university lectures, has been reprinted (Fortress, 543 pp., $14.95). In Jesus as Precursor (Fortress or Scholars, 165 pp., $3.95 pb) Robert Funk asks, “Of whom is Jesus an authentic precursor?” His answer takes in a number of writers, including Kafka, Castaneda, and Thoreau, depending upon which aspects of Jesus are emphasized. The most comprehensive approach to the question “Who is Jesus?” is provided by John Hayes in Son of God to Superstar (Abingdon, 255 pp., $6.95 pb). He tries to let fourteen distinguishable approaches—such as “the Christ of orthodoxy,” “the political revolutionary,” and “the Qumran Essene”—speak, contradictorily, for themselves. The fascination with “explaining” Jesus shown by so many who do not accept the apostolic testimony to him is an indirect confirmation that this testimony is true.
Two fresh evangelical approaches to the parables of Jesus are Behind History, by Ray Stedman (Word, 166 pp., $4.95), who restricts himself to the seven parables of Matthew 13, and The Mysteries of the Kingdom, by Herman Hanko (Kregel, 306 pp., $5.95).
The latest addition to the prestigious Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series is Sōma in Biblical Theology With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology by Robert Gundry of Westmont College (Cambridge, 266 pp., $25). It is lamentable that works of scholarship such as this that should be in all theological libraries are priced so high. Gundry argues, in opposition to many other scholars, that sōma always means the physical body; his argument supports the bodily resurrection of Christ and of all human beings.
Two well-known scholarly German commentaries are now available in English: James, by Martin Dibelius and Heinrich Greeven (Fortress, 285 pp., $16.95), and The Good News According to Matthew, by Eduard Schweizer (John Knox, 573 pp., $12.95). The former is part of the Hermeneia series. Neither book is likely to help preachers.
Now available are the first two (covering A through Je) of four volumes of the English edition of the Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, edited by Michael Avi-Yonah (Prentice-Hall, 650 pp., $25/volume). Each volume contains more than 500 photographs, maps, and similar aids. Almost all the entries cover several pages. For example, Ai has 15 pages, Capernaum has 4½, Jerusalem has 68. This set belongs in every biblical-studies library as well as major public libraries.
Several recent commentaries by evangelical pastors and professors are intended for Bible teachers and students generally: Life Without Limits: The Message of Mark’s Gospel, by Lloyd Ogilvie (Word, 290 pp., $7.95), Acts: The Expanding Church, by Everett Harrison (Moody, 419 pp., $7.95), Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, by Fred Fisher (Word, 453 pp., $9.95), I Corinthians, by Gordon Clark (Presbyterian and Reformed, 322 pp., $7.95 pb), The Freedom of God’s Sons: Studies in Galatians, by Homer Kent, Jr., (Baker, 191 pp., $2.95 pb), I and II Thessalonians: A Digest of Reformed Comment, by Geoffrey Wilson (Banner of Truth, 124 pp., $1.65 pb), Commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, by Ronald Ward (Word, 284 pp., $7.95), and The Revelation of Jesus Christ, by Ray Frank Robbins (Broadman, 260 pp., $3.95 pb).
A score of articles, theses, summaries, and bibliographies, most of them by men connected at some time with Westminster Seminary, are collected in a useful volume entitled The New Testament Student at Work, edited by John Skilton (Presbyterian and Reformed, 258 pp., $5 pb).
For Bible teachers who use overhead projectors, Irving Jensen prepared a three-volume set of books containing 16 transparencies and 228 transparency masters: Jensen Bible Study Charts (Moody, 384 pp., $9.95/volume pb).
Wise Words in a Wicked World, by Charles Turner (BMH, 131 pp., $2.95 pb) discusses various themes in Proverbs. A similar overview rather than a verse-by-verse commentary is given by John Hayes in Understanding the Psalms (Judson, 128 pp., $4.50 pb). A different approach is used by Stuart Briscoe in What Works When Life Doesn’t (Victor, 143 pp., $1.95 pb); he offers expositions of twelve of the psalms.
Two recent studies of Jeremiah and his ministry by evangelical leaders are Words of Fire; Rivers of Tears, by David Howard (Tyndale, 139 pp., $2.95 pb), and Death of a Nation, by Ray Stedman (Word, 242 pp., $5.95). Neither is a formal commentary, but both help us to understand the prophet’s message for his time and for ours.
In outline form Gerald Twombly offers An Analytical Survey of the Bible (BMH, 192 pp., $4.95 pb). A brief survey of just the New Testament with many charts is provided by Alger Fitch, Jr., in Afterglow of Christ’s Resurrection (Standard, 135 pp., n.p., pb). Considerably more substantive without sacrificing readability is retired Scottish professor A. M. Hunter’s The New Testament For Today (John Knox, 86 pp., $2.95 pb), which delightfully introduces ten books from the various parts of the New Testament.
Those who affirm the Bible’s truthfulness will welcome the reprinting of the 1955 revision of the late William Arndt’s Does the Bible Contradict Itself? (Concordia, 172 pp., $2.50 pb). Arndt does much more than simply say no. He takes a page or two each to discuss scores of pairings of apparently contradictory verses. Arndt’s explanations are not the only possible ones nor are they always the preferable ones, and doubtless other questions could be raised. But discussing specifics instead of staying on the level of generalities, pro and con, is good.
Several recent works are intended for advanced scholars specializing in the study of Jesus and the Gospels: A Theology of Q: Eschatology, Prophecy, Wisdom, by Richard Edwards (Fortress, 173 pp., $11.95), Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke-Acts, by Eric Franklin (Westminster, 241 pp., $10), The Sermon on the Mount: A History of Interpretation and Bibliography, by Warren Kissinger (Scarecrow, 296 pp., $12.50), The Fourth Evangelist and His Gospel: An Examination of Contemporary Scholarship, by Robert Kysar (Augsburg, 296 pp., $4.95 pb), Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom, by Norman Perrin (Fortress, 225 pp., $10.95), which focuses on various interpretations of the parables as well as the kingdom, The Sword of His Mouth, by Robert Tannehill (Fortress or Scholars, 224 pp., $4.95 pb), which studies many of the Synoptic sayings, and The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark, by Etienne Trocmé (Westminster, 293 pp., $12.95).
