One hopes that the phenomenon of Alex Haley’s search for his roots will encourage Christians generally to be more interested in their forebears in the faith. Before mentioning books by topic, I want to highlight ten notable titles representing different kinds of books and varied stances. These books belong in all theological libraries as well as major college and public libraries.
Far and away the most significant book in this area to appear since the last survey was prepared (see September 10, 1976, issue, p. 30) is Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity edited by Tim Dowley (Eerdmans). If you only have one church history book in your personal library, this should be it. No other survey so attractively combines accuracy and readability with an abundance of well-chosen illustrations. It will please both those who already like to read about the past and those who never knew how interesting it could be. The format of this volume—short chapters with numerous pictures, maps, charts, and brief sidebars mixed in—makes this a book that will invite browsing at odd moments by the whole family, as well as deliberate reading or using for reference.
One branch of the Reformation is depicted in large brown-and-white photographs in From Luther to 1580: A Pictorial Account by Erwin Weber (Concordia).
Zwingli by G.R. Potter (Cambridge) is a major biography of a Reformer second in significance only to Calvin and Luther but who has not received nearly the same attention.
Naturally an author who attempts to cover the whole field, as does Paul Johnson, former editor of The New Statesman, a British weekly, in A History of Christianity (Atheneum) can be faulted for leaving out much that others rightly consider important. But unlike many surveys Johnson’s is quite readable. His perspective leads him to focus more on the conflicts within the institutional church and to sympathize more with “progressives” (Pelagius rather than Augustine). Nevertheless this is a useful volume for those who already know something about the subject.
Not a history of something, but rather reflections on what history is all about is the volume God, History, and Historians: Modern Christian Views of History edited by Carl Thomas McIntire (Oxford). Twenty-two selections, more of them from theologians than from professional historians, are grouped under three headings, “The Meaning of History,” “The Nature of History and Culture,” and “Historians and Historical Study.”
Five notable titles are specifically related to Christianity in North America. Robert Handy offers A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada (Oxford). It is the first of a projected twenty-volume series, the “Oxford History of the Christian Church” edited by Henry and Owen Chadwick. Handy is to be highly commended for treating Canada as well as the U.S. Such an approach allows for greater perspective and raises questions about why some facets are similar and others different. Many, perhaps most, conservative Protestant and Orthodox bodies maintain close contacts across the border.
One page sketches of 425 influential religious leaders, all now dead, are in Dictionary of American Religious Biography by Henry Warner Bowden (Greenwood). By his selections, the author has been far more representative of the diversity in American religion than surveyors have traditionally been.
It is a pleasure to welcome the appearance of the first volume in a projected multi-volume posthumously published series, Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada: Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and Eastern Orthodox by Arthur Carl Piepkorn (Harper & Row). This volume is both the most comprehensive, most accurate, and the fairest treatment of the scores of religious denominations (apart from Anglicans) who are led by bishops claiming to be in succession to the apostles. If you want information on such a body, whether large like the Roman Catholic Church or small like the Estonian Orthodox Church or unusual like one of the three divisions of the Liberal Catholic Church, this is the book to consult. Six more volumes are projected for the series.
Most of the founding fathers of the American republic were not orthodox Christians, contrary to widely held views on the popular level. The Enlightenment in America by Henry May (Oxford) is a major study of how the ideas of men like Locke, Hume, Voltaire, and Rousseau came to have a profound effect in various ways in the Revolutionary age. May properly treats the Enlightenment as a religion even though its proponents then, like secularists of our day, did not usually so define themselves.
Evangelical Christianity recovered from the onslaught of rationalism at the beginning of the nation, but a century later a similar threat emerged and this time, so far, has proved to be more successful in capturing control of the older Protestant (and more recently Catholic) institutions. Trying to stem the institutional loss, unsuccessfully, were such men as William Bell Riley and J. Gresham Machen. They and five others are the subjects of more sympathetic scholarly essays than one is accustomed to—Voices of American Fundamentalism by C. Allyn Russell (Westminster).
Before looking at books by topic we mention two books for travellers who wish to combine their sightseeing with increasing their knowledge of the Christian past. America’s Religious Treasures by Marion Rawson Vuilleumier (Harper & Row) describes more than 800 sites of religious significance, arranged by states. Europe on Purpose: The Christian Traveler’s Guide by Robert Baylis (Pilgrimage Press [2398 Telegraph, Berkeley, Cal. 94704]) is an inexpensive “must” for anyone going to Europe. In addition to the descriptions of sites, there is also a capsule history of the church in Europe and a section with practical advice on the mechanics of travel—such as air fares, hotels and hostels, guidebooks.
GENERAL Most history books can readily be classified within one period of time and one geographical area, but in addition to some of those mentioned above as “Notables” there are a few others that roam beyond normal boundaries, and so we group them together here.
Man Through the Ages by John Bowie (Atheneum) is an overview of world history in less than 300 pages that can serve as a useful background for studying the Church’s past. How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer (Revell) is one prominent evangelical thinker’s interpretive account of change in Western society generally.
The Creeds of Christendom with a History and Critical Notes (three volumes) by Philip Schaff is now available in a soft-cover reprint edition (Baker). It was originally prepared in 1877.
The Catholic Encyclopedia by Robert Broderick (Nelson) can be added to reference collections for consultation along with other volumes when seeking short definitions of Catholic terms. Don’t look for balance in such entries as “Lutheranism.”
Christianity and the arts can be studied in three ways. Sacred Discontent: The Bible and Western Tradition by Herbert Schneidau (University of California) with reference to the Bible’s impact on literature; The History of Our Lord As Exemplified in Works of Art by Mrs. Jameson and Lady Eastlake (two volumes, Gale Research) is a reprint of a nineteenth-century work (no color illustrations) that traces the history of art in depicting other biblical scenes besides events in the life of Christ; Holy Places of Christendom by Stewart Perowne (Oxford) has color photographs of historic churches, monasteries, and the like from around the world.
Particular topics or aspects of Christianity through the ages are treated in Committed Communities by Charles Mellis (William Carey) on the role of disciplined groups in world evangelism, Christian Holiness in Scripture, in History, and in Life by George Allen Turner (Beacon Hill) on the doctrine of entire sanctification, Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective by John Connery (Loyola University of Chicago) on the history of a stance widely shared by conservative Protestants, Christians at Prayer edited by John Gallen (Notre Dame), Women and Religion: A Feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought edited by Elizabeth Clark and Herbert Richardson (Harper & Row), and Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary by Marina Warner (Knopf), a widely publicized book that we mention because it is unreliable as a history of the role of Mary.
Finally we mention in this section Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History by Langdon Gilkey (Seabury), a major contribution by an American theologian, and Encounter with Erikson: Historical Interpretation and Religious Biography edited by Donald Capps, et al. (Scholars) with essays on the use of psychology in studying the past.
THE EARLY CHURCH Full publication by Harper & Row later this year of the Gnostic documents discovered at Nag Hammadi will spark renewed interest in this ancient heresy. Two books can be informative for laymen, especially to help make some sense behind the apparently nonsensical Gnostic speculations, but they must be used with caution: The Laughing Saviour by John Dart (Harper & Row) and The Gnostics by Jacques Lacarriere (Dutton).
A History of Christian Thought from Apostolic Times to Saint Augustine (Exposition) is a scholarly survey by John Willis, a Jesuit who teaches history at Boston College and was once a Congregationalist minister. Three specialized studies to note are: Origen and the Jews by Nicholas de Lange (Cambridge), Three Monophysite Christologies by Roberta Chesnut (Oxford), and The Way to Nicea by Bernard Lonergan (Westminster), translated from Latin.
For very helpful background to biblical times and the early church see The Atlas of Early Man by Jacquetta Hawkes (St. Martin’s).
THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH Unlike last year there are no general surveys to mention; however, there were several works of broad interest. Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion by Jonathan Sumption (Rowman and Littlefield) reviews the large amount and variety of travelling that took place during what is sometimes thought a static time. The same publisher offers a short, penetrating essay by Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?
A leading authority’s lectures on church-state relations in the East were published as The Byzantine Theocracy by Steven Runciman (Cambridge). The West was featured in several essays in honor of C.R. Cheney, Church and Government in the Middle Ages, edited by Christopher Brooke et al. (Cambridge). East and West are both treated in a major study by Deno John Geanakoplos, Interaction of the “Sibling” Byzantine and Western Cultures in the Middle Ages and Italian Renaissance (Yale).
What is a year without a book on St. Francis? Anthony Mockler in Francis of Assisi: The Wandering Years (Dutton) focuses on the impact of environment on Francis rather than vice versa. In the process he offers explanations of long standing paradoxes.
A comprehensive account of the period is provided by Malcolm Lambert in Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus (Holmes and Meier). Protestant libraries in particular should be interested in this well-documented book that includes helpful maps.
Students of monasticism will welcome Medieval Monasticism: A Select Bibliography by Giles Constable (University of Toronto [33 E. Tupper St., Buffalo, N.Y. 14203]).
Six specialized studies to note: The Exclusion of Women from the Priesthood by Ida Raming (Scarecrow), an investigation of the pertinent canon law, The Bible in Early English Literature by David Fowler (University of Washington), Tamers of Death: The History of the Alexian Brothers from 1300 to 1789 by Christopher Kauffman (Seabury), Thomas Aquinas by Frederick Copleston (Barnes & Noble), Simoniacal Entry into Religious Life from 1000 to 1260: A Social, Economic, and Legal Study by Joseph Lynch (Ohio State University), and The Spirituality of Western Christendom edited by E. Rozanne Elder (Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University).
THE MODERN CHURCH For our purposes this period starts about 1500. Because there are so many books, separate categories for the major geographical areas follow this general section. Warren Wiersbe, pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, offers two major historical approaches to preaching. Walking With the Giants (Baker) has sketches of nineteen British and American preachers, plus bibliographies for studying about preaching as well as helps for preachers. Treasury of the World’s Great Sermons (Kregel) ranges beyond Anglo-Saxondom to include 123 sermons selected from two earlier ten-volume collections. Both of these volumes belong in libraries that serve preachers.
A worldwide survey of the Lutheran movement is conveniently available in The Lutheran Church Past and Presentedited by Vilmos Vajta (Augsburg). Reflections on its principal confessions are in Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional Writings by Eric Gritsch and Robert Jenson (Fortress). Specialists should know of Action and Person: Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther by Michael Baylor (Brill).
A very useful survey is available in Introduction to the Reformed Tradition by John Leith (John Knox). Both the Vajta and Leith volumes should be available in every theological library. Worthwhile essays within the conservative Reformed tradition (which is somewhat slighted by Leith) were published in Soli Deo Gloria edited by R.C. Sproul (Presbyterian and Reformed), in honor of John Gerstner; Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin edited by David Holwerda (Baker), in honor of John Bratt; and The Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times by Graham Harrison et al. (Westminster Conference [75 High St., Huntingdon, Cambs., England]). A country-by-country overview of much conservative Reformed activity is provided in The World Survey of Reformed Missions, Third Edition (Reformed Ecumenical Synod [1677 Gentian Dr. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49508]). Better understanding of Calvin is conveyed in Calvin and Classical Philosophy by Charles Partee (Brill).
Baptists in general are represented by a brief, popular overview, The Baptist Heritage by Edward Cole (Cook). Reflections on Methodism’s ministry over the centuries are in Informed Ministry by Egon Gerdes (Institute for Methodist Studies [2121 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, Ill. 60201]). The same institute also prepared A Checklist of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies, 1970–1975. The Exclusive branch of a movement much smaller than those previously mentioned, the Plymouth Brethren, is the subject of Backgrounds to Dispensationalism by Clarence Bass (Baker, reprint). The influence of Dispensationalism has spread far beyond the small movement that first promoted it. Bass is critical but his documentation allows others to check for themselves. A rather different kind of widespread influence has resulted from the Society of Jesus. For a sympathetic overview see An Introduction to Jesuit Life: The Constitutions and History Through 435 Years by Thomas Clancy (Institute of Jesuit Sources [3700 W. Pine Blvd., St. Louis, Mo. 63108]).
The fastest growing and most widespread Christian movement in our century is undoubtedly the pentecostal-charismatic movement (or is it movements?). Besides innumerable first-person testimonies there were several studies for those who want a better understanding of what’s going on. Giving somewhat more emphasis to the Protestant expression is The New Charismatics: The Origins, Development, and Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism by Richard Quebedeaux (Doubleday). Several viewpoints are represented by essays in Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism edited by Russell Spittler (Baker). Robert Culpepper, a Baptist missionary to Japan, attempts a dispassionate, largely theological approach in Evaluating the Charismatic Movement (Judson). A popular autobiography of one of the best-known globe travelling Pentecostals is A Man Called Mr. Pentecost by David du Plessis (Logos). Franker than the usual autobiography is The C.M. Ward Story (New Leaf) by an Assemblies of God leader. Also more revealing than one is accustomed to is Oral: The Warm, Intimate, Unauthorized Portrait of a Man of God, on Oral Roberts by Wayne Robinson (Acton), a former vice-president in Roberts’s organization. Although laudatory, two popular biographies of one of the best-known women in the charismatic movement reveal more of her shortcomings than used to be the case in this genre. Daughter of Destiny: Kathryn Kuhlman, Her Story by Jamie Buckingham (Logos) is longer and more “official” than Kathryn Kuhlman by Helen Hosier (Revell).
Almost half of those attending the recent huge charismatic gathering in Kansas City were Roman Catholics. For background on this movement see Catholic Pentecostalism by René Laurentin (Doubleday), Catholic Pentecostals Now edited by J. Kerkhofs (Alba), Which Way for Catholic Pentecostals? by J. Massyngberde Ford (Harper & Row), and Sounds of Wonder: Speaking in Tongues in the Catholic Tradition by Eddie Ensley (Paulist). The last-named is a popular survey of precursors ever since the early church.
No other modern movements call forth as much writing as the charismatics. The Nuns by Marcelle Bernstein (Lippincott) is a journalistic account on the variety of nuns around the world. Jesus, the Living Bread edited by James Talley (Logos) is an illustrated account of the international Catholic eucharistic congress held last year in Philadelphia. A famous speculative theologian is the subject of a biography by Mary Lukas and Ellen Lukas, Teilhard: The Man, the Priest, the Scientist (Doubleday). Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre by Yves Congar (Our Sunday Visitor) is about a man who shows that Catholicism, like so much of Protestantism before it, is able to be very tolerant of radical innovators in its midst but not nearly so tolerant of those who wish to keep believing and practicing as they always have.
A very interesting reflection on continental European theology in this century (with far too few references to English-speaking theologians) is offered by one of the leading conservative dogmaticians in A Half Century of Theology by G.C. Berkouwer (Eerdmans).
In a popular vein, Gerald Strober gives us a close-up glimpse of one of the world’s best-known Christians in Graham: A Day in Billy’s Life (Doubleday). The same author tells young people about Billy Graham: His Life and Faith (Word). Finally an informative personal account of missionary radio is given by Philip Booth in Slim Fingers (Christian Literature Crusade).
CONTINENTAL EUROPE Besides Zwingli and From Luther to 1580, mentioned in the introduction, there were a few other titles from the Reformation period. Women of the Reformation: From Spain to Scandinavia by Roland Bainton (Augsburg) is a sequel to his two earlier volumes on women in France and England and in Germany and Italy. Sketches of twenty-nine women are presented.
Renaissance Rome: 1500–1559 by Peter Partner (University of California) is especially interesting because it seeks the explanation of how the city’s artistic creativity and urban renewal coexisted with the religious and political upheaval.
Two specialized studies: Mysticism and the Early South German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement, 1525–1531 by Werner Packull (Herald Press) and Domesticating the Clergy: The Inception of the Reformation in Strasbourg, 1522–1524 by William Stafford (Scholars). Numbers six through nine of the Sixteenth Century Bibliography series appeared, of which Annotated Bibliography of Luther Studies, 1967–1976 by Jack Bigane and Kenneth Hagen would be of widest interest (Center for Reformation Research [6477 San Bonita Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63105]).
An interesting postscript to the Reformation is a readable and reliable account of the return in 1689 of the Waldenses to their homeland by Walter Utt, Home to Our Valleys! (Pacific Press [1350 Villa St., Mountain View, Cal. 94042]).
Christianity in Russia is the subject of several studies. Of more scholarly interest are Russian Mystics by Sergius Bolshakoff (Cistercian Publications [1749 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, Mich. 49008]) and The Great Revival: The Russian Church Under German Occupation by Wassilij Alexeev and Theofanis Stavrou (Burgess). For a proper background on the present plight of Soviet Protestants a good history of the pre-Communist period is The Meek and the Mighty: The Emergence of the Evangelical Movement in Russia by Hans Brandenburg (Oxford). Popular, reliable narratives of the present scene are in Young Christians in Russia by Michael Bourdeaux and Katharine Murray (Bethany Fellowship) and A Song in Siberia by Anita and Peter Deyneka, Jr. (Cook). Contemporary documents from within the country are translated and compiled in Religious Liberty in the Soviet Union edited by Michael Bourdeaux et al. (Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism [Keston, Kent, England]).
From Soviet tyranny we turn to a tyranny that is past but whose repercussions are still very much with us. Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? Reflections on the Holocaust edited by Eva Fleischner (KTAV) contains the papers given at an international symposium; Christian attitudes to Jews, before and after the Nazis, are a major theme. Nazism and the Pastors by James Zabel (Scholars) is a study of the ideas of some of the pro-Hitler (the majority) Protestants. A leading Catholic ethicist was a medic in the German army during the war. His memoirs of that time are published as Embattled Witness by Bernard Häring (Seabury). (The massive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eberhard Bethge is now in a Harper & Row paperback.)
THE BRITISH ISLES A distinctive format is used by Edward Hindson, editor of Introduction to Puritan Theology (Baker). An essay on each of twelve divisions of systematic theology is selected from the writings of twelve prominent Puritans.
Much of English religious history could be gleaned from this past year’s output of specialized studies: Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age: A Survey of Printed Sources by Peter Milward (University of Nebraska). The Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans, and the Two Tables, 1620–1670 by J. Sears McGee (Yale), Reason, Ridicule, and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England, 1660–1750 by John Redwood (Harvard), Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture, 1780–1850 by Thomas Walter Laqueur (Yale), and The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians by Ian Bradley (Macmillan).
Scholarly studies of individuals who have been involved with Christianity in the British Isles in a variety of ways include: William Blake: A New Kind of Man by Michael Davis (University of California), C.H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament by F.W. Dillistone (Eerdmans), Oliver Plunkett: His Life and Letters by Tomás Ó Fiaich and Desmond Forristal (Our Sunday Visitor), Ian Ramsey: To Speak Responsibly of God by Jerry Gill (Allen and Unwin), John Charles Ryle: Evangelical Bishop by Peter Toon and Michael Smout (Reiner), and Wesley in the Christian Tradition edited by Kenneth Rowe (Scarecrow). Here is also the place to commend Banner of Truth for reprinting the Letters of George Whitefield for the Period 1734–1742.
Regrettably, the biggest continuing religious story from the British Isles in our time concerns the conflict in Northern Ireland. Among the many titles in this area, university libraries should consider The Protestants of Ulster by Geoffrey Bell (Urizen), Northern Ireland: The Orange State by Michael Farrell (Urizen), Children in Conflict by Morris Fraser (Basic Books), and the Origins of Ulster Unionism by Peter Gibbon (Rowman and Littlefield).
NORTH AMERICA: GENERAL In addition to the five notable titles on the United States and Canada mentioned at the beginning of this survey, there were a few titles treating some aspect of American religion from earlier to more recent times. (Separate categories for twentieth-century America and for the earlier centuries follow.)
The most general was a revised edition of Historical Atlas of Religion in America by Edwin Scott Gaustad (Harper & Row). The revision is major enough that libraries will need to acquire this edition. It should be a collateral resource for any course in American religious history.
Also wide in scope is Denominationalism edited by Russell Richey (Abingdon). The ten essays look at what is a key distinctive of North American religion as compared to Latin America and Europe where one “church” usually dominates in any given place and the dissenters are divided into several small “sects” or as compared to Asia and Africa where, generally speaking, all Christian groups are small with none dominating.
Libraries will want The Howard University Bibliography of African and Afro-American Religious Studies compiled by Ethel Williams and Clifton Brown (Scholarly Resources [1508 Pennsylvania Ave., Wilmington, Del. 19806]). A valuable feature is the indication of libraries where the more than 13,000 entries can be found.
Of more popular interest is Major Black Religious Leaders, 1755–1940 by Henry Young (Abingdon). Twelve men are introduced. Five well-known white men are the subjects of Profiles of Revival Leaders by W. Glyn Evans (Broadman).
The Bicentennial saw a large number of books of celebration. Here is a list of some of the ones more given to reflection and minus illustrations. Three collections of essays that deserve wide circulation: An Almost Chosen People: The Moral Aspirations of Americans edited by Walter Nicgorski and Ronald Weber (Notre Dame), The American Religious Experiment: Piety and Practicality edited by Clyde Manschreck and Barbara Brown Zikmund (Chicago Theological Seminary), and A Nation Under God? edited by C.E. Gallivan (Word). Seven titles by single authors: The Old Religion in the Brave New World: Reflections on the Relation Between Christendom and the Republic by Sidney Mead (University of California) by one of the foremost American church historians, Without Help or Hindrance: Religious Identity in American Culture by Eldon Ernst (Westminster), Religion and the American: The Search for Freedom Under God by Christopher Mooney (Westminster), Day Dawns in Fire: America’s Quest for Meaning by Merrill Abbey (Fortress), The Political Pulpit by Roderick Hart (Purdue University), on American civic piety, and two titles from Broadman on the impact of religion in American life: Nationhood and Kingdom by James E. Wood, Jr., and Faith, Stars, and Stripes by Ronald Tonks and Charles W. Deweese.
One of the more significant books on American religion focuses on the ideas and practice of missions, both within the country and in other lands. Eleven papers by missiologists are in American Missions in Bicentennial Perspective edited by R. Pierce Beaver (William Carey).
Sometimes denominational histories are of interest to outsiders. If you have ever wondered about the origins and nature of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), which seems like a rather strange name for a world-wide fellowship, then see A Brief History of the Church of God Reformation Movement by John W.V. Smith (Warner Press). If you want to have a detailed account of one of the more vigorous of the smaller branches of Methodism, see Conscience and Commitment: The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America by Ira F. McLeister and Roy S. Nicholson (Wesley Press [Marion, Ind. 46952]). This is an enlarged edition bringing the story down to the 1968 merger into the Wesleyan Church from the group’s origins in 1843 because of strong anti-slavery sentiments. Another branch of Methodism very much affected by slavery is surveyed in Dark Salvation: The Story of Methodism as It Developed Among Blacks in America by Harry Richardson (Anchor).
Topical essays rather than chronological narratives are presented in Baptists and the American Experience edited by James E. Wood, Jr. (Judson). A more specialized story is told in Mission to America: A Century and a Quarter of Southern Baptist Home Missions by Arthur Rutledge (Broadman).
Now back in print is an important aid to the study of Presbyterianism: The Presbyterian Enterprise edited by Maurice Armstrong, Lefferts Loetscher, and Charles Anderson (Westminster). Libraries building black studies collections will want The Rise and Decline of the Program of Education for Black Presbyterians … 1865–1970 by Inez Moore Parker (Trinity University).
NORTH AMERICA: BEFORE TWENTIETH CENTURY Kenneth Clark’s renowned television series, “Civilisation,” should have increased our awareness of the importance of architecture in understanding the past. A splendid collection of photographs by John de Visser of early church buildings from coast to coast in what is now the United States and Canada has been published as Pioneer Churches (Norton) with text by Harold Kalman. “Pioneer” refers to being among the earliest (extant) in its region or of its denomination. A valuable collateral reference for any course in North American religious history.
The most massive biography this past year was Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography by Thomas R. Ryan (Our Sunday Visitor). It needs to be in all major libraries; its nearly 900 pages will serve as a sourcebook for future studies of this extraordinarily complex and controversial convert to Catholicism.
Other biographies: Benjamin Wisner Bacon: Pioneer in American Biblical Criticism and Frank Chamberlain Porter: Pioneer in American Biblical Interpretation both by Roy Harrisville (Scholars), Jonathan Edwards the Younger by Robert Ferm (Eerdmans), Wheat Flour Messiah: Eric Jansson of Bishop Hill by Paul Elmen (Southern Illinois University) on the Swedish-born founder of a utopian community in Illinois, Richard Mather of Dorchester by B.R. Burg (University Press of Kentucky), on a first-generation Puritan leader who was father of Increase and grandfather of Cotton, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, by Donna Hill (Doubleday), a lengthy, documented narrative by a believing descendant of Mormon pioneers who provides useful insights while sidestepping crucial questions, and Benjamin West: The Context of His Life’s Work with Particular Attention to Paintings with Religious Subject Matter by John Dillenberger (Trinity University). For more than fifty years prior to his death, West lived and worked in England but managed to continue to be thought of as American.
The first two (out of seven) parts of Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana, completed in 1700, are now available in a far more accurate edition than ever before, edited by Kenneth Murdock and published by Harvard, the college over which Cotton’s father, Increase, had presided. This is obviously an essential tool for the study of New England Puritanism. Other studies, undertaken from a more distant vantage, include: Puritan New England edited by Alden Vaughan and Francis Bremer (St. Martin’s), containing twenty essays published in scholarly journals since 1960, Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath in Early America by Winton Solberg (Harvard), Valley of Discord: Church and Society along the Connecticut River, 1636–1725 by Paul Lucas (University Press of New England), God’s Messengers: Religious Leadership in Colonial New England, 1700–1750 by J. William T. Youngs, Jr. (Johns Hopkins), What Must I Do To Be Saved? The Great Awakening in Colonial America by J.M. Bumsted and John Van de Wetering (Dryden), and Moby-Dick and Calvinism: A World Dismantled by T. Walter Herbert, Jr. (Rutgers).
The various religious traditions of German-speaking immigrants are as fascinating as are those of the English-speaking ones to whom more attention has been given. It could be argued that the original English vision for the kingdom of God has been modified along German-American lines, and vice versa. Five books to note: Continental Pietism and Early American Christianity edited by F. Ernest Stoeffler (Eerdmans) has essays on pietism in seven denominational expressions. The Brethren in the New Nation edited by Roger Sappington and The Old Brethren by James Lehman (both Brethren Press) are in-depth looks at the movement now divided into Church of the Brethren, “Grace” Brethren, and other branches; the former collects documents illustrating the period from 1785 to 1865, the latter is an informal reconstruction of what it was like to be among the “Dunker” Brethren in the 1840’s. The Pennsylvania Dutch by William Parsons (Twayne) is about the earlier German settlers and their descendants, both from the Lutheran and Reformed churches as well as from the smaller bodies including the “Plain Folk.” (German immigrants after 1835 had a basically different development.) ‘Twas Seeding Time by John Ruth (Herald Press) is an informal account of how Mennonites were affected by the American war for independence.
Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution by Catherine Albanese (Temple University) is an important contribution.
Four studies of frontier religion: Religion in Antebellum Kentucky by John Boles (University Press of Kentucky), Road to Augusta by Joe Burton (Broadman), on the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, Equality on the Oregon Frontier: Jason Lee and the Methodist Mission, 1834–43 by Robert Loewenberg (University of Washington), and Massacre at Mountain Meadows by William Wise (Crowell) on the murder of a party of some 120 persons in Utah in 1857 for which one Mormon was tried and executed. The author tries to make a case that Mormon leaders were involved and that the massacre was a logical expression of their views.
Following the Civil War, fervor for helping blacks waned, especially in the face of rapid urbanization and industrialization. See Immigrants and Religion in Urban America edited by Randall Miller (Temple University), The Philadelphia Quakers in the Industrial Age, 1865–1920 by Philip Benjamin (Temple University), Salvation in the Slums: Evangelical Social Work, 1965–1920 by Norris Magnuson (Scarecrow), and Knights of the Golden Rule: The Intellectual as Christian Social Reformer in the 1890s by Peter Frederick (University Press of Kentucky).
NORTH AMERICA: TWENTIETH-CENTURY Martin Marty argues in A Nation of Behavers (University of Chicago) that our religious groupings (such as mainline, evangelicalism and fundamentalism, ethnic) are better described in terms of how the people in them behave than what they say they believe. More formal social scientific studies include The American Catholic: A Social Portrait by Andrew Greeley (Basic; see the same author’s Communal Catholic: A Personal Manifesto [Seabury] for his pungent distinctions between institutional and communal Catholicism), Symbol and Conquest: Public Ritual and Drama in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Ronald Grimes (Cornell), Sunday Morning: Aspects of Urban Ritual by Michael Ducey (Free Press) based on four white, middle-class churches in a Chicago neighborhood, Out of the Cloister by Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh (University of Texas) on the changes in orders of nuns, The Growth Crisis in the American Church: A Presbyterian Case Study by Foster Shannon (William Carey), and The Church Emerging: A U.S. Lutheran Case Study edited by John Reumann (Fortress).
Religion and politics is calling forth numerous books aimed at the general public. Among them we mention: The Man From Plains: The Mind and Spirit of Jimmy Carter by David Kucharsky (Harper & Row), The Religion of President Carter by Niels Nielsen, Jr. (Nelson), Rebirth in Washington: The Christian Impact in the Nation’s Capital by Wallace Henley (Good News), and Religion at the Polls by Albert Menendez (Westminster). In the latter several campaigns, not just the most recent, are investigated.
Two autobiographies of prominent religious figures are Thus Far on My Journey by E. Raymond Wilson (Friends United Press), long-time secretary of the Quaker lobby on Capitol Hill, and A Canterbury Tale by John Cogley (Seabury), prominent Catholic journalist who became an Episcopalian near the end of his life.
Studies of early twentieth century Protestants included R.A. Torrey: Apostle of Certainty by Roger Martin (Sword of the Lord), The Significance of J. Gresham Machen Today by Paul Woolley (Presbyterian and Reformed) and Ordained of the Lord: H.A. Ironside by E. Schuyler English (Loizeaux).
Three somewhat different forms of evangelical activity are surveyed on a popular level in The Faith Healer by Eve Simson (Concordia), on the wide-ranging phenomenon under that name, Moody Bible Institute: God’s Power in Action by Dorothy Martin (Moody), and Flames of Freedom by Erwin Lutzer (Moody), on a Saskatchewan-launched awakening in our decade. The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge (Baker) is a slightly enlarged and revised edition of a book first issued in 1975 and that gives a good overview, with numerous references for further reading, of a movement that is more in the news of late.
From Mars Hill to Manhattan by George Papaioannou (Light and Life) is a study of Greek Orthodoxy in America especially as related to its longtime archbishop, later patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras. The Days of Our Pilgrimage by Paul Westphal Thomas and Paul William Thomas (Wesley Press) is a history of the Pilgrim Holiness Church from 1897 until it helped form the Wesleyan Church in 1968.
The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod has been much in the news of late. Preus of Missouri and the Great Lutheran Civil War by James E. Adams (Harper & Row) is an outside journalist’s attempt at fair reporting and analysis that is useful but hardly the last word. No Room in the Brotherhood: The Preus-Otten Purge of Missouri by Frederick Danker (Clayton [Box 9258, St. Louis, Mo. 63117]) is a long account by an insider from the perspective of what appears to be the losing side organizationally, while Anatomy of an Explosion: Missouri in Lutheran Perspective by Kurt Marquart (Concordia Theological Seminary [Ft. Wayne, Ind. 46825]) is by someone on the winning side. Exodus From Concordia (Concordia Seminary [St. Louis, Mo. 63105]) is the official report by the school’s trustees. It was in protest of their actions that the majority of the faculty and students withdrew in 1974.
John Gordon Melton has compiled a list of more than 1,200 groups in A Directory of Religious Bodies in the United States (Garland) including twenty-three kinds of Mormons, a dozen branches of Episcopalians, and seven kinds of black Jews.
LATIN AMERICA The Lost Paradise by Philip Caraman (Seabury) is about an oft-studied seventeenth-century Jesuit republic in what is now Paraguay. Pentecostalism in Colombia by Cornelia Butler Flora (Fairleigh Dickenson University) is a scholarly study of the non-trinitarian United Pentecostal Church and its rapid growth. Theology of the Crossroads in Contemporary Latin America by Orlando Costas (Humanities Press) is a major interaction by an evangelical with much of the recent theological and ethical discussion in Latin American Protestantism.
AFRICA Besides the previously mentioned and fundamental Howard University Bibliography of African and Afro-American Religious Studies we call attention to God’s Higher Ways by Clarence Duff (Presbyterian and Reformed) on the Orthodox Presbyterian work in the troubled land of Ethiopia, Church Growth in Burundi by Donald Hohensee (William Carey), Church Planting in Uganda: A Comparative Study by Gailyn Van Rheenen (William Carey), Uganda: Fire and Blood by Elain Murray Stone (Logos), on severe persecution in that land during the 1880’s, I Love Idi Amin by Festo Kivengere (Revell), on severe persecution in the same country now, and African Christianity by Adrian Hastings (Seabury), a brief overview of the common issues around the continent.
ASIA-PACIFIC For all three “third world continents” there are many more interesting testimonies available, usually about missionaries, sometimes about nationals, than we have room to mention. Studies on specialized topics that should be of somewhat wider interest include: The Deep Sea Canoe: The Story of Third World Missionaries in the South Pacific by Alan Tippett (William Carey), The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings Which Followed by William Blair and Bruce Hunt (Banner of Truth), Hewn From the Rock: Origins and Traditions of the Church in Sydney by Marcus Loane (Anglican Information Office [507 Kent St., Sydney 2000 Australia]), and Light in the Far East by Edward Fischer (Seabury), on Catholic Archbishop Harold Henry’s forty-two years in Korea.
Also for those interested in the church in Asia and the Pacific, see The Kalimantan Kenyah: A Study of Tribal Conversion by William Conley (Presbyterian and Reformed), a scholarly study of an Indonesian tribe, Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three Nineteenth-Century American Missionaries in East Shantung by Irwin Hyatt, Jr. (Harvard), an account of widely differing reponses to life in northeast China, When Blood Flows, the Heart Grows Softer by Jeanette Lockerbie (Tyndale) on Christianity in the tragic land of Cambodia, Evangelical Awakenings in the South Seas by J. Edwin Orr (Bethany Fellowship), fourth in a series of five books and misleadingly titled since islands such as Madagascar and Indonesia are included as is Australia, and Crucial Issues in Bangladesh by Peter McNee (William Carey).
Finally theological reflection growing out of historical experience characterizes the essays compiled by Roy Sano in The Theologies of Asian American and Pacific Peoples (Asian Center for Theology and Strategies [1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley, Cal. 94709]).
Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.
