An African Religious Leader
Kimbangu: An African Prophet and his Church, by Marie-Louise Martin (Eerdmans, 1976, 198 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Irving Hexham, lecturer in religious studies, Bishop Lonsdale College, Derby, England.
This is a remarkable book, written by an evangelical Christian with a rare gift for standing outside her own culture and entering into the life of an African independent church: the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth Through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu. Martin sees this African church as just that, an African Christian church which is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant and yet which is truly biblical in its intention and, Martin argues, its practice. Clearly this is an unusual book, especially for Westerners who are accustomed to thinking about Christianity in terms of the historical development of the church in the West. It is also a challenging book that demonstrates the way in which Christian missionaries failed to recognize the working of God’s Spirit and drove the followers of Simon Kimbangu (1889–1951), a gifted African evangelist, out of their churches and thus forced them to create their own separate church.
The story of the rise of Kimbanguism in Zaire is a salutory one that raises many difficult problems for European readers. The crassness, and at times downright cruelty, of some Europeans is vividly illustrated. Evangelicals may not be surprised to discover that the founder of this church, Simon Kimbangu, spent thirty years in jail, largely in solitary confinement, simply because he refused to cease from preaching the Gospel to his own people in the then Belgian Congo. The hymns of his followers, often derived from Baptist hymnals, and their fervent faith, were construed by the Roman Catholic authorities and Belgian government officials as acts of sedition. (Hymns like “Onward Christian Soldiers” were taken to be military marching songs!) But worse still, after initial encouragement even evangelical missionaries refused to support the Kimbangists because they sought to express the Gospel in terms of their own African culture rather than conforming to the accepted patterns of Western Christianity and European culture.
Martin convincingly argues that many of the practices which were taken by Protestant missionaries to be “syncretistic” or “pagan” were in fact nothing of the sort and that what the Kimbangists were doing was simply rooting the Gospel in African soil. She thoroughly examines the historical evidence about the life of Simon Kimbangu and the growth of the Kimbangist movement and discusses in detail some of the accusations made against them by their critics. As a result she is able to present a strong apologetic for their church and casts doubt on the wisdom of many missionaries who confused the Gospel with their own cultural traditions. But she doesn’t dwell on the negative aspect of the story. Martin shows great understanding of the problems of the missionaries. The result is a superb analysis of a great Christian work in Africa.
This book is probably unique in the growing literature about African independent churches because of its interdisciplinary approach. The author combines historical research with anthropological insights and a basic theological approach to the subject. As such it is an ideal introduction to the problems faced by young churches and to questions of cross-cultural understanding. But let the reader be warned. It is a good book, an exciting and well written book, but it is also a deeply disturbing book. The evidence it contains shows that the persecution of Christians in the twentieth century has not been confined to Communists but has been perpetrated by many who have acted in the name of Christ and who have caused great suffering to thousands of fellow believers. Martin is to be commended for her work. It deserves to be widely read and discussed.
Concern For Orphans
The Politics of Adoption, by Mary Kathleen Benet (Free Press, 1976, 235 pps., $8.95), is reviewed by Robert Case II, associate in the ministry, McLean Presbyterian Church, McLean, Virginia.
Is there a relationship between the adoption practices and the abortion epidemic in this country? In an adoption should the identity of the natural parents be revealed or should the child’s desire to know be subordinated to the parents’ wish for secrecy? Is an unmarried father justified in asserting a parental claim? Is interracial adoption a humane and workable solution to the needs of the child and both sets of parents or is it a form of “cultural imperialism?” Who should allocate children to would-be adopters, and whose needs should take precedence in the decision?
These and other questions concerning adoption practices are being asked with greater frequency these days. Mary Kathleen Benet’s book deals with many of them. Unfortunately, most of the current books dealing with adoption (e.g., Beyond the Best Interests of the Child and Children Who Wait) devalue theology in answering these questions. Benet’s book does the same.
The current sociological attention on adoption is a healthy development. However, much of what Benet says will be discounted because of the radical solutions she suggests.
She is understandably disturbed over the secrecy surrounding various aspects of the adoption procedures in our country. She is further disturbed about the way in which our country treats its orphans. She questions the American practice of adopting foreign children. And she is concerned that our way of life leads inevitably to the destruction of the natural and most beneficial way of raising children. Anyone who has tried to adopt an infant recently knows the frustration and disappointment inherent in our adoption system. Furthermore, anyone who reads the papers is painfully aware of the thriving baby black market, where healthy infants will fetch as much as $25,000 from childless couples, or where young virile couples are paid to breed children in the best tradition of a laissez faire economy.
Benet’s book would be better had she not used a meat ax on American society. For instance, the author (who lives in France) sees the American Vietnamese baby lift as just one more example of our imperialistic nature, this time shown in a racist baby stealing project. She also sees the capitalistic West as destroying the family unit. Urbanization, she reasons, is a product of capitalism and urbanization fragments the family. Only in non-capitalistic countries can the proper family unit, the extended family, function.
Benet maintains that only in the idyllic Polynesian Islands is the extended family adoption concept practiced. Children are passed around within the entire family (grandparents, siblings) so that the child will not form an attachment to the biological parents only. The idea is that the child will be reared by the best equipped people within a “kin group.” In short, biological attachment is not nearly so important as a symbiotic attachment. Indeed, Benet holds that the tight nuclear family concept is a product of the Western industrialized world and not the healthiest environment for child-raising.
The author distorts Christian teaching. She remarks that one reason for the current “success” of the evangelically founded Holt Adoption Program was that it “stopped insisting on the religious commitment that its founder saw as indispensable to parenthood.” She also ignores the biblical teaching on sociological adoption (see Deut. 27:19; Ps. 146:9; Jer. 7:6, and James 1:27).
Having said I disagree with the author’s perspective and value judgments I nevertheless believe this book can provide a necessary stimulus for Christians to re-enter the adoption arena with creative proposals to solve some of the problems Benet recognizes. This is not to suggest that there are no evangelicals presently involved in this area (for instance, Bethany Christian Services), but it is to suggest that dealing with the problems surrounding orphans is not a vital concern for many Christians. If James is correct when he writes that our Christianity can be judged by how we treat orphans (among others) and that we ought not to leave it to the world to deal with the fatherless, then we need to once again pray for the vision of a Thomas Bernardo who took the Lord’s words in Mark 10:14 as a personal call to minister to the little ones.
The Study Of Society
Christians and Sociology, by David Lyon (InterVarsity, 1976, 89 pps., $1.95 pb), is reviewed by David E. Carlson and Dawn Ward, assistant professors of sociology, Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois.
With a dearth of books about the relationship of Christianity and sociology most Christian sociologists welcome any additions to the discussion. Originally published in Britain, Lyon’s book is now available without revision in this country. In his preface Lyon says he wants to help those students who “are quite unprepared for the subtle and persistent tendency of sociology to erode faith and raise doubts.” This sense of threat or challenge pervades each chapter. After reviewing three possible ways of relating to sociology (change to another major, dichotomize sociology and Christianity, or embrace sociology uncritically) Lyon says that sociology can illuminate the Christian faith.
He rightly focuses on the diversity and variety in sociology as a source of tension. His primary concern, however, seems to be the conflict generated by two tendencies of sociology—to relativize and to debunk. Although recognizing that knowledge is relative to our situation, Lyon says that “our Creator has revealed truth … which is not situationally determined.” “Sociological relativizing” for him is more than an arbitrary reference point; it claims ultimate significance for a theory. Lyon here feels that historical and contemporary sociology is contrary to Christianity. He addresses the issues of tensions between a sociological and a Christian view of man and the nature of religion.
In the third chapter Lyon considers the debunking motif. He explores the sociology of knowledge application of the “taken for granted” world view. Lyon emphasizes the negative effects of this questioning spirit; it breeds cynicism and distrustfulness as well as undermines authority.
Lyon in the next chapter discusses various sociological views of man and contrasts them with a “total view of man” as image of the Maker. He criticizes extreme views and ignores the contributions of other views of man because they are only theories. His discussion on the sociology of sin, although basic, is stimulating.
Lyon’s second major topic is a sociological view of religion. He glances at three approaches to religion (as behavior, as belief, as reification) and concludes that “none … is mutually exclusive or watertight,” and therefore cannot be taken as complete but should also not be ignored by the Christian.
Lyon concludes his short book with a chapter on “Christian Sociology.” He assumes that a “distinctively Christian approach to sociology” has been made clear in the preceding pages. Claiming that it is not sub-Christian for Christians to study sociology, Lyon encourages Christians to change society in accordance with Christianity’s explicit value system. His brief allusion to a historical “Christian sociology” could be expanded. He thinks that Christian sociology should consider non-Christian sociology “but … develop its distinctive sociological presuppositions and use these to criticize or modify other sociologies.”
The strengths of this book are, first, that it calls attention to the misuses of sociology by sociologists. We wish this theme had been more explicitly developed. The reader may tend to conclude that the problem is more with sociology than it is with sociologists who misuse sociology and its principles. Second, it recognizes the value commitments of sociology and calls the Christian to seriously consider them from a biblical perspective.
The weaknesses of this volume include its brevity in dealing with only two issues, nature of man and religion, its defensive tone, its underdeveloped expression of how a Christian may approach sociology, its “monolithic” view of sociology, despite his denials (Lyon tends to view sociology as a “monolithic” authority, not as a discipline of tensions and disagreements), and its traditional approach, which suggests that he is a conservative who feels threatened by sociology.
As one colleague asked after reading the book, will the reader be encouraged to continue studying sociology? A less defensive, more positive book is needed.
Charismatic Theology
Charism and Sacrament: A Theology of Christian Conversion, by Donald L. Gelpi (Paulist, 1976, 258 pp., $5.95 pb), is reviewed by Larry W. Hurtado, assistant professor of New Testament, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
This is the third book by Gelpi dealing with Pentecostalism (the others are Pentecostalism and Pentecostal Piety). The jacket describes it as “the attempt of a noted American Catholic theologian to synthesize the relationship between charismatic and sacramental worship.” But it does much more. The book rethinks the sacramental theology of conversion and Christian life by using insights from charismatic experience, modern philosophy, and post Vatican II Catholic biblical studies.
Gelpi is a bright, well-read, ecumenical Roman Catholic theologian, charismatically alive and well. He shows in this book a vigorous ferment that one could wish might be felt not only throughout Catholicism but also evangelicalism. If Gelpi be read, one could not say that Catholic Pentecostalism is simply classical Protestant Pentecostalism warmed over, nor could one accuse Catholic Pentecostalism of being blindly submissive to tradition or insensitive to issues other than personal piety.
Gelpi has some interesting, difficult, thought-provoking, and exciting comments on such issues as personal conversion, sanctification, church life, tonguespeaking, the eucharist, marriage and celibacy, baptism, ministry, papal infallibility, and Christian social involvement. He incorporates insights from a diversity of writers and fields, including Whitehead, Edwards, Bird, Küng, Lonergan, and Ricoeur, to name a few. Yet there is clearly a thinker at work so that the result is not a patchwork but Gelpi’s own, new production.
In discussing the sacramental nature of marriage from a charismatic perspective, Gelpi suggests that if the local church has not exercised its responsibility of ratifying only those marriages adjudged to be “rooted in a gift of the Spirit,” a given marriage may not be sacramentally indissoluble. Accompanying this suggestion is a strong plea for the churches to rescue marriage from the “romantic individualism” of secular society by a renewal of “Christian betrothal,” a period of “communal public discernment in which the spiritual maturity and personal call of the betrothed are prayerfully tested and confirmed by the community.”
On the presence of Christ at the eucharist Gelpi speaks of the communion elements being “changed” as to purpose or meaning, rejecting Aristotelian concepts connected with the “transubstantiation” formula, and preferring terms like “transfinalization” and “transignification.”
His treatment of the “word of knowledge” and “word of wisdom” links them with the gift of teaching, against much popular Catholic and Protestant Pentecostals (but with the late British Pentecostal, Donald Gee, whom Gelpi does not seem to know of). There is throughout a firm call to openness to the charismatic gifts, and there are descriptions of the “pathologies” of churches that remain insensitive to these spiritual manifestations.
The book is not for as broad a group as the jacket blurb claims—“any Christian growing in a prayerful insight into the mind of Jesus.” It is clearly a theologian’s and well-read clergyman’s book. Not only are there technical terms used without definition, such as “hylomorphic,” but at times the prose is just jargon: “For the experienced openendedness of one’s personal conscious thrust toward selftranscendence combines with the highly abstractive character of evaluative, propositional feelings in order to prevent any single conceptual feeling from exhausting the possibilities for decision” (p. 52).
On one key point Gelpi seems to have missed the force of his own logic. He insists that baptism is truly efficacious only when the candidate and community are “properly disposed” in faith dependence, and that infant baptism is proper and efficacious only when the Christian parents and the church they belong to “show evidence of sufficient religious conversion” to provide “a faith environment informed by the gift of the Spirit to a degree that is sufficient to nurture the child’s growth in Christ.” And Gelpi is aware that the condition of “religious inauthenticity” characterizes many parishes. Yet, he insists that the re-administration of baptism is never proper, “for it seems to call into question the ritual efficacy of one’s initial sacramental covenant.” It seems to me that Gelpi’s own premises would dictate that baptisms performed under conditions of “religious inauthenticity” have no “ritual efficacy” to call into question.
On the whole, however, the book is a praiseworthy attempt by a theologian to address his church on important issues and displays commendable qualities of vigor, submissiveness, creativity, and reverence. This reviewer agrees with Gelpi that “neither Catholic nor Protestant piety in many of their present popular forms is completely acceptable” and hopes that this book may stimulate the mutual development and sharing for which Gelpi calls.
A Bridge For Yankees And Latins
History and the Theology of Liberation: A Latin American Perspective, by Enrique Dussel (Orbis, 1976, 189 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by J. Robert Ross, Christian Campus House, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois.
With reference to A Theology of Liberation (Orbis, 1973), I noted that “in order for a North American Christian to read Gutierrez with any great appreciation he must be willing to … build a hermeneutical bridge that takes into account the radically different historical situations characterizing North and South America.” A competent Latin American theologian and historian has already begun the construction of such a bridge. It is a breathtaking task of theological engineering. But I wonder whether the structure erected by Dussel will bear the weight of all the theological traffic that must use it—particularly in promoting understanding of the identification of Christ with the poor and oppressed. Nevertheless, Yankees and Latins should be greatly indebted to him for undertaking this necessary historical and theological venture.
The first part of the book attempts to put Latin American history within the scope of world history. Then he considers the church history of Latin America within the history of Christianity as a whole. Dussel does not use standard historical categories to accomplish these two ambitious goals. Rather he analyzes world and church history using his own categories.
The ambition of this book is its greatest weakness. It attempts to do more than is possible in a slim volume. For example, the entire eighteenth century of church history in Latin America is covered in a page and the period from 1850 to 1929 in just over two pages. The book provides a few helpful insights into the economic, political, and religious background of Latin American theology. For example, Dussel focuses on some of the more socially sensitive priests and bishops who participated in the Spanish conquest of the Indians. Nevertheless, there are many omissions that are apparent even to the nonspecialist in Latin American affairs. For example, he ignores Protestant missions and their impact on the modern situation. And he glosses over the notoriously corrupt character of traditional Latin Catholicism and its lack of the positive influence on the morality of the population. (See, for example, the Maryknoll report of 1958, Latin American Catholicism-A Self Evaluation by William Coleman.)
From a theological perspective the book adds little to the radical Latin American theology of Gutierrez, Miranda, and Alves. Some of Dussel’s ideas demand explication, justification, and critical analysis—a case in point, his view of revelation, the main presupposition of his book: God reveals himself to us by revealing the “meaning” or “sense” of history. To understand the significance of history is to know God. This view has roots in Scripture, but Dussel has not adequately related it to the uniqueness and finality of the revelation of God in Christ in order to guard it from becoming an autonomous principle of revelation with potentially catastrophic theological consequences.
Finally, Dussel’s account of liberation theology, like that of Gutierrez and others, presupposes a continuity between inner historical liberation and the liberation of the kingdom of God. That view is not only liberal but distinctively Catholic. Liberation theology presupposes a Catholic continuity between nature and grace, and the Protestant evangelical is bound to find himself uneasy with it. In addition, the Protestant fundamentalist would reject the book because it does not accept the dominance of Western capitalism over the entire world economy. But there are theological grounds for a critique of liberation theology that have nothing to do with a conservative identification with the economic and political status quo.
Tearing Down The Walls
On Common Ground: Protestant and Catholic Evangelicals, by Paul W. Witte (Word, 1975, 135 pp. $4.95), is reviewed by William W. Wells, assistant professor of religious studies, University of Hawaii, Hilo, Hawaii.
Witte’s book proved to be as fascinating as the title suggests. The author was reared as a Roman Catholic; he studied for the priesthood for eight years. Subsequently, however, he chose to study at a Protestant center, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, the instructional part of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Today he and his wife are missionaries in South America with Logos Translators, the Catholic equivalent of Wycliffe. Witte insists that he is thoroughly evangelical, in spite of the fact that he has chosen to maintain his denominational ties with the Roman Catholic Church. Hence his self-assumed title, Catholic evangelical.
Although Witte never states it exactly this way, it appears to me that his primary intent is to persuade Catholic readers of three things: that Catholic renewal needs an even deeper commitment to the Gospel and to the Scriptures, that Catholic evangelicals need to recognize that evangelical Protestants are distinct from either liberal or extremely fundamental Protestants, and that evangelical Protestants and evangelical Catholics have much in common. But while that is his primary intent, there is an obvious secondary intent. Witte assumes throughout his work that evangelical Protestants will overhear his exhortation. In two chapters he seems to shift his attention to his evangelical Protestant audience. He clearly hopes that Protestant evangelicals will begin to recognize and acknowledge Catholic evangelicals as brothers.
The book has fifteen short chapters on a variety of subjects, so there is no way to sum the book up adequately. Instead I will highlight some interesting aspects of the book. First, his statement that he is an evangelical. Early in the book he reminds his readers of the diversity within evangelical Protestantism. For example, most evangelical Protestants would not see baptism as necessary for salvation, although some do. Evangelical Protestants do not, however, deny the label “evangelical” to that minority who hold that baptism is necessary. Again, some evangelical Protestants believe that the more extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are no longer bestowed, while others claim to have received them. Now we all know that Catholics too have their “distinctives.” So why is it, he asks, that Catholic distinctives are just too distinctive? Why do Catholic distinctives place them “beyond the pale” of evangelicalism? Witte obviously believes that they need not.
Early in the book Witte looks at several of the most sensitive differences between Catholics and Protestants: authority, the place of tradition, and the doctrine of papal infallibility. It becomes evident that Witte is a translator first and a theologian second. At places he is not as precise as he should have been. In reading Witte’s call for Christian unity one senses that the author is deeply committed to finding a mediating position. He recognizes the excesses of the Catholic past, yet he is convinced that the Catholic perspective contains elements of truth that must not be lost within the process of renewal. And that cautious, critical approach governs his discussion of the topics just mentioned. The same is true when he gets to Mary. He insists that Catholics who are involved in the renewal of their church must recognize and acknowledge that excessive devotion to Mary has at times and in places overshadowed the worship of Mary’s Son. On the other hand, he also insists that evangelical Protestants recognize that the words “from this day forth, all generations will count me blessed” are biblical (Luke 1). Mary, he points out, deserves respect for her part in God’s gift of the Christ.
Witte’s book is not, then, an essay in technical theology written for scholars; it does not even grapple thoroughly with the issues separating Christians. But it is a book of the heart, a call for unity and Christian love, written to laymen—both Catholic and Protestant. It brings a needed message. Having lived, associated, and worshiped with evangelical Protestants, having sensed the work of the Spirit both there and within his own Catholic community, Witte feels a close bond between Protestant evangelicals and the participants in the renewal movement within his own Catholic communion. Precisely because the book is directed primarily toward Catholics, it is unlikely to offend Protestant readers. And for exactly that reason it may be useful within the evangelical Protestant community in helping to break down walls of prejudice, suspicion, and ignorance.
Psychoanalyzing Luther and Others
Psychohistory and Religion: The Case of Young Man Luther, edited by Roger A. Johnson (Fortress 1977, 198 pp., $12.95), is reviewed by Lewis Rambo, assistant professor of psychology, Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois.
This book contains six essays written by Roland H. Bainton, Clifford J. Green, Roger Johnson, William Meissner, Paul W. Pruyser, and Lewis W. Spitz. Each author focuses on different aspects of Erik H. Erikson’s Young Man Luther (Norton, 1958) in order to examine the value of psychohistory as a methodology for studying religion. Erikson’s work is important because it is one of the earliest and most influential studies that probes the complex relationship between an individual’s psychological development, influential external circumstances, and the individual’s effect upon the environment. As a psychoanalyst, Erikson is interested in the vicissitudes in the relationship between young Martin Luther and his father Hans, but he also deftly portrays the ambience of Luther’s time and the matrix of his theology.
The editor notes that since the publication of Young Man Luther in 1958 many scholars have utilized the methods of psychohistory and there have been critiques of Erikson by historians. However, there has been little effort on the part of religion scholars to evaluate Erikson’s contribution. Encounter with Erikson edited by Donald Capps et al. (1977, Scholar’s) is one attempt to fill that gap. Psychohistory and Religion is another. Bainton and Spitz, as church historians, point to the inadequacies of Erikson’s historical research, but both are impressed with the fact that Erikson’s interpretation of Luther is built upon explicit and self-conscious psychological theory. They note that historians tend to draw conclusions about people with less than sophisticated psychological insight.
Pruyser, a clinical psychologist, and Meissner, a psychiatrist, applaud the way in which Erikson has contributed to an expansion of the psychology of religion. Pruyser points to the fact that in studying Luther Erikson gives attention to the psychological dimensions of Luther’s religious quest without being reductionistic. Meissner explores the role of grace in Luther’s search for identity.
Green uses Erikson’s psychohistorical method to examine the life and theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he then compares Luther and Bonhoeffer. Johnson’s essay examines Erikson’s work as a method of scholarship and as a form of religious ideology—a suggestion that will generate controversy among Erikson scholars. Johnson believes that psychohistory can and should be used as a method in religious studies, but any evaluation of Erikson would be amiss if it were not cognizant of the impact of Erikson’s implicit critique of modern society and its destructive childrearing practices and the resulting proclivity for violence. Johnson buttresses his argument with an analysis of Erikson’s portrait of Hans Luther—supposedly a brutal, ambitious, and superstitious man. Johnson shows that Erikson’s characterization is not only historically inaccurate but not in accord with Erikson’s general psychological stance that seeks to stress the strengths of even the most frail people. Erikson’s Hans is an ideological creation—the villain—to show the evil of parents who victimize their children as Hans victimized Martin.
Psychohistory and Religion is unusual in that the authors do not fail to level incisive criticisms of Erikson’s work, but at the same time they express enthusiastic appreciation for Young Man Luther. The contributors advocate the use of psychohistory as a method to examine the interface between personality and history, identity and ideology, consciousness and society. However, it is clear that psychohistory can be viable only when rigorous standards of historical research are maintained and when psychological theories are used heuristically and empathically.
