In the World of Books

All reports evaluate the year just ended as one of tremendous activity in the publishing world. Both secular and religious fields reflected a great output of titles and banner sales of books.

Among evangelical Protestants, the Christian Booksellers Association convention in Grand Rapids saw record attendance and interest, and publishers talked of larger editions and a new high for in-print totals.

Religious books shared in trends common to the secular publishing world, such as television-inspired interest in books by celebrities, continuing attention to news headline-related subjects, and large numbers of titles devoted to the self-help and how-to, and the personal improvement formulas. The religious field also registered a gain in heavier or more serious titles, commentaries, new versions of Scripture, and scholarly symposia, while fiction and juvenile reading continued to reflect long-standing weaknesses.

The list of theological works was a strong one, perhaps the strongest in recent years in volumes of distinctly evangelical character. Sherwood Wirt’s Crusade at the Golden Gate and Russell Hitt’s Jungle Pilot sold more than 25,000 copies. The symposium on Revelation and the Bible already is in 30,000 homes despite efforts of some liberals to demean it, and a British edition has appeared. Also encouraging is the fact that evangelical works are appearing under “new” imprints such as Oxford, Harpers, Westminster.

There was a day when it would have been extremely difficult to list 25 creditable evangelical books published within a year’s time, but when CHRISTIANITY TODAY named its “Choice Evangelical Books of 1959” (p. 17), a wealth of worthy titles was available. Books of sermons and several theological works of real stature were perforce omitted. This evidence of evangelical advance in the world of books is heartening.

While prosperity seemed to be smiling on publishers, booksellers, and certain evangelical writers, a rash of self-criticism evidenced itself in writers’ conferences and evangelical journals. Editorials appeared commenting on the decline of good reading and the cultured unrelatedness of evangelicals. Panel discussions on the cultural lag in Christian publishing gave evidence of increasing awareness of deficiencies. An editorial by Dr. A. W. Tozer in Alliance Witness was reprinted by several magazines, and others picked up the same theme. Deploring the poor reading habits of most evangelical Christians in this country and the output of mediocre stuff by many evangelical writers, Tozer—in a rather harsh judgment—held it “hardly too much to say that illiterate religious literature has now become the earmark of evangelicalism.”

Whether this wave of critical awareness inaugurates an improvement toward a higher quality of writing, or merely a preoccupation with the problem, remains to be seen. Awareness of deficiencies is essential but in itself offers no real solution. The problem remains, into 1960 and beyond, unless skilled writing becomes a serious concern and a genuine goal. Too long have evangelical Christian circles evaded a striving for perfection in literary expression as well as for excellence in content. This lack has not gone unobserved even among secular writers. Sydney Harris in his “Strictly Personal” syndicated column recently observed (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Nov. 23): “It is the religious manuscripts, especially, that are the most painful to look at.… The amateurs feel strongly about the subject, and they assume that strong feelings make strong writing, but such is not always the case.… Most of these aspiring authors are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly … and untalented. Their fine characters and good intentions gleam from every page; and so does their lack of writing ability.…” Perhaps nowhere more than in this world of literary expression have evangelicals shown greater allegiance to the prevailing American cult of mediocrity.

True, some improvement may be noted in religious non-fiction in the last several years. But alongside the encouraging signs, a dearth of good copy remains in many areas. Good religious fiction, in the main, is noteworthy for its absence, and while more material of a wholesome variety has appeared for teen-agers, good books for the eight-to-twelve-year-old bracket appear to be a casualty of TV thrillers. Even here, as in all classifications, religious publishing could stand a good spurt of competition in keen writing, the sort of spur that would send quality soaring, through the publishers’ opportunity to be discerningly selective in the choice of manuscripts for publication.

One point that often rises to the surface in discussions with religious publishers and booksellers is the seeming unwillingness of the Christian reading public to pay sufficient prices for quality books. The religious book market—particularly that portion of it called evangelical or conservative—has a reputation for being a “cheap” market. Books in similar categories, especially juveniles and devotionals, generally sell for double or more in the secular world. If this is so, this price barrier in itself is a severe stricture on the production and publication of quality material. Such cultural barriers can be overcome only by a long process of education, a training from childhood up in the real values of good books and good reading. At the same time, on the higher levels of secondary school and college, we shall need to encourage serious dedication to Christian writing as an art, both as avocation and career. For until the literary pursuit gains the status of an art that deserves and demands the highest training, application, skill, dedication, and discipline, we shall not encourage great writing, and the output of the presses will not achieve better quality—even though they may attain increases in circulation as in the year just past.

In certain areas, especially in respect to theological subjects, there has been an improvement, reflected in the annual summaries elsewhere in this issue. This is all to the good. But the evangelical picture retains a need, within the near future, for something akin to the university presses for the issuance of scholarly works in limited editions for libraries and serious students. The output of a Christian university press need not necessarily be limited to theological and critical works. Establishment and endowment of such a publishing venture might do more than any other single development to inspire and raise the level of quality writing in the evangelical camp. It would raise goals and standards for others, and set an example for private and other institutional publishers. It could mark the beginning of a new era in evangelical publishing in this country and in the whole Christian world.

In broader perspective: Not in three decades have there been more alluring opportunities for the expression of religious and moral convictions. In this climate capable and discriminating evangelical thinkers and writers should respond with growing enthusiasm. Great days are ahead for religion in the world of books.

WILL DAILY NEWSPAPERS YIELD TO ROMAN PROPAGANDA DRIVE?

A cleverly-written article in the Catholic Home Messenger gives advice on “How to Write a Letter to a Newspaper Editor.” It suggests among other things that appeals should be made to the editor’s vanity, and adds that the writer should not necessarily identify himself as a clergyman or as a Roman Catholic. The author explains that the object in view is not to make the daily newspapers of our country Roman Catholic. “We are only concerned,” he writes, “that the changes (which the letters seek to bring about) conform to Catholic principles.”

Letter writing is a free exercise of the citizenry of our land, and within legal limits is above criticism. One wonders, however, if newspaper editors are aware of the intensive campaigns being undertaken in our time by groups within the Roman church seeking national conformity to the teachings of the hierarchy.

“Maybe Catholics fail to realize what one suggestion can do,” says the author, Russell L. Faist. “Letters from readers have done marvelous things to newspapers. They have stopped serials in the middle of publication; they have caused editors to refuse half pages of advertising; they have teased editors into taking a second look at national and international figures.”

If, as he urges, letters to editors deal with questions of “fairness, unselfishness and suitability,” little fault can be found. Actual conditions, however, are quite otherwise. Pressure on newspaper editors from Roman Catholic sources is lopsidedly religious in nature. “Is the news unfavorable to Romanism? Does the Church appear to be something less than the ‘one true Church’? Is its personnel seen as anything but noble and heroic? Are its activities described in any terms other than altruistic, even when (as in Colombia) rival houses of worship are burned and innocent people are killed? Do people ever walk out of its ranks? Can I afford to print the truth?” These are the questions that Romanism subtly wants the editors to consider along with such matters as “fairness, unselfishness and suitability.” These are the issues that affect subscriptions and advertising revenue.

Certainly there is a place for letters to the editor, and we can join with our Roman Catholic friends in protesting the immorality that is constantly trying to invade our family newspapers. We need further to bear our witness to the truth as it is in Jesus Christ by speaking up in defense of the Christian faith. But the whole trend of our time—to turn the house of God into a lobby group or letter writing organization for political and social action, and to retool the Church of Jesus Christ so that its main thrust is as a power bloc instead of a beacon and herald—is a travesty of the Gospel. Churches have a right to urge their constituents to exercise responsible citizenship. But what standard will the Church use in evaluating the issues of the day? If the Christian conscience of the laity is stirred to trust social reform alone, and not spiritual regeneration as the primary Christian dynamism for the renewal of society, why bother with the adjective “Christian”?

We need to pray earnestly for the newspaper editors of our nation. We need to beseech our Heavenly Father that they be converted to genuine faith in him, and that they be filled by his Spirit with such godly confidence that they cannot be swayed from truth and freedom of the press by any pressure group, whether religious or nonreligious.

BARTH AMONG THE MIND-CHANGERS: SOME UNRESOLVED ISSUES

From time to time Karl Barth has penned brief reviews of his own theological position and perspective, the last in this series in a recent issue of The Christian Century. Naturally, too much importance is not to be attached to a report which Barth himself regards as little more than a trifle. Nor shall we find much light on the basic issues that concerned him 30 years ago and therefore on the underlying principles of the Church Dogmatics. On the other hand, the actual impressions and intentions of Barth as stated by Barth have a particular value, especially since he stands among the “mind-changers” as a champion of special divine revelation.

A great part of this latest review is taken up with Barth’s well-known if not so easily understood attitude to the East-West political cleavage and conflict. It might be thought that this outlook discloses a basic strain of Swiss neutralism possible only in a country artificially isolated from the strains and stresses of other powers. Yet the Swiss generally do not follow this line of approach, and it may be that, in spite of his attempts at understanding, Barth is guilty of a certain naiveté in relation to the policies and dominating principles of the Kremlin. On the other hand, Christians in the Western world should be impelled from time to time to search their own consciences, not so much in regard to the basic rightness of their cause, but certainly in relation to the way in which they represent it, and more particularly in relation to the over-easy identification of everything in the Western world itself with Christian truth and practice. An element of prophetic challenge may be found here, one which gains no little point from the threatening signs that German nationalism needs little encouragement to rear its ugly head for the third time this unhappy century.

Our main interest lies in the remarks concerning the Dogmatics as Barth’s major theological enterprise. He confirms the fact that in its later stages the Dogmatics has become in large measure a refutation of Bultmannism, in which Barth himself finds a new version of the older liberalism fostered by Schleiermacher, and more specifically an example of the evils of enslaving theology to a dominant existentialist interpretation. The basic problem for evangelicals is whether Barth himself does or does not break free in effect from the neo-liberalism which he finds in Bultmann. Not a few evangelical writers feel that, while he may not subjectivize the Gospel as Bultmann finally does, he sets it in a sphere of transcendence which breaks its contact with true history and thus deprives it of genuine objectivity. If this is true, the Dogmatics is vitiated from the outset and must finally be adjudged a liberal work in spite of its express intention and the apparently good points or passages to be found in it. On the other hand, some contend that there is an intrinsic improbability in this reading in view of Barth’s explicit aim and the fact that Barth himself dismisses as misconceived caricatures the various representations of this kind, usually drawn for the most part from his earlier writings.

Unfortunately his latest self review gives little help in deciding this issue. At most, we are given one or two very indirect indications that may help us to view the matter as Barth himself sees it. First, he reiterates strongly his own desire that theology should be emancipated from all philosophical domination, whether existentialist or historico-critical, or for that matter Kantian. Hence there can be no doubt as to his own intention. Second, he does not find much serious understanding of his work in the Protestant world, whether orthodox, neo-orthodox, or liberal. Indeed, apart from isolated studies such as that of Berkouwer, he sees the greatest critical and even positive interest and appreciation among Roman Catholic dogmaticians, who apparently take him at his face value and are not on the lookout for mysterious transmutations. Finally, he is amused that in so many books about his theology he comes across hypotheses from which he learns more about himself than “he ever dared dream.”

This does not amount to very much in fact. It is all allusive and indirect. It contains no explanation of issues that arouse apprehension. It does not point us to the basis of Barth’s objectivity, nor clarify his interpretation of history, nor establish his interrelating of the objective authority of Scripture with its not so clearly objective inspiration as he seems to understand it. It does not remove the possibility that Barth may be mistaken as to his own presumed fulfillment of what is no doubt his sincere aim. The most that can be said is that Barth seems to have a picture of himself and his theology rather different from that of many of the orthodox expositors even of his Dogmatics. Elementary fairness demands that this be given serious consideration as the basis of understanding, although an author is not always the best judge of his own work. It may prove that there are serious defects as well as good qualities in the picture, as Roman Catholics from their own angle do not hesitate to maintain. It is important, however, that the evangelical as well as the Roman response to Barth should be concerned with these genuine rather than perhaps illusory defects and qualities. For in this way, as Berkouwer’s approach to Barth suggests, the path is opened to fruitful interchange which may lead, not merely to clearing up misunderstandings, but to putting right the defects and harnessing significant emphases to the service of biblical truth and evangelical witness.

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