Book Briefs: May 26, 1967

A New Man-Centered Era?

The God Question and Modern Man, by Hans Urs von Balthasar, translated by Hilda Graef (Seabury, 1967, 155 pp., $1.95, paper), and America and the Future of Theology, edited by William A. Beardsley (Westminster, 1967, 206 pp., $2.25, paper), are reviewed by Milton D. Hunnex, professor of philosophy, Williamette University, Salem, Oregon.

If what these two books say is true, theology either has no future or will flower as the form of the new man-centered era into which we are emerging. The authors of both books take as a fact the passing of what von Balthasar speaks of as the cosmological era wherein men experienced nature as a “sheltering whole” in which “God’s nearness had been felt … in the whole visible cosmos which on its borders merged almost without break into the invisible sphere of the divine. This is no longer so either emotionally or intellectually.”

Von Balthasar believes that the “frightening silence” of God is forcing men into a more adequate understanding of his transcendence. Whereas before men saw themselves as mirrors of the cosmos, now they see the cosmos as extensions of themselves and their own responsibility. Indeed, it is one’s openness to both his own and God’s transcendence that makes him a spirit.

Man’s coming of age has given rise to “a growing vagueness and transcendence of the concept of God [that] may be but a symptom indicating that this concept itself is growing among men.” “God, man, and the world must lose something of their intelligibility,” von Balthasar writes, but “man is not less religious.”

Like Altizer, von Balthasar is optimistic about the disappearance of the old familiar God. But whereas Altizer sees God’s disappearance as a new epiphany of the Word, Balthasar reads the same evidence to mean the emergence of a deeper understanding of God. This deeper understanding is the understanding that emerges from the love of a “brother with a love that comes from a higher source” than one’s own finite capacity to love. Hence “it is impossible to leave out the social aspect from the most intimate religious decision of the individual.”

Von Balthasar tries to find the triumph of a transcendent God in the current secular consciousness. His problem is that he wants to preserve a transcendent God and a transcending man in spite of secularization. His effort is profoundly irenic, but it is hardly capable of stemming the tide of secular indifference to a transcendent God reflected by some of the writers of the Beardsley volume.

This other book comprises a series of conference papers presented at Emory University in November, 1965. Professor Altizer’s essay heads the list. For him theology must be entirely reconstructed in order to become relevant. He reiterates his familiar conviction that “only the death of God can make possible the advent of a new Humanity.” Interestingly, he says that “America is symbolically and perhaps literally the place” in which this must take place. His apocalyptic exuberance evokes a rebuke from Rabbi Rubenstein, who wisely notes that anguish and despair is the outcome of the death of God. Rubenstein hopes, however, that “America can accept the death of God,” but counsels that “if you become post-Christian, choose pagan hopelessness rather than [Altizer’s] false illusions of apocalyptic hope.”

There is some real merit in the essays dealing with religious language; but there are also some technical inadequacies. Bishop Johnson properly cautions that when the Christian apologist tries to translate Christian terms into non-Christian terms “he does not translate; he loses the Christian faith … [and] may end up substituting an alien system for the gospel.” Ferré also warns against the “reckless” use of linguistic philosophy by theologians like van Buren, whose use of it “is almost unrecognizably different from the use made of it by the linguistic philosophers he purports to be following.”

The book deals with a wide range of topics and proposals, but the balance in points of view leaves something to be desired. If it does identify the future of theology in America, then it can only be said that the gap between what biblical Christians think Christianity is and what theologians or professors of religion are trying to make it into will become even wider than it is today.

Confronting Non-Christian Religions

The Church Between Temple and Mosque, by J. H. Bavinck (Eerdmans, 1966, 206 pp., paper, $2.65), is reviewed by Anthony A. Hoekema, professor of systematic theology, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The subtitle expresses the purpose of this book: “A Study of the Relationship Between the Christian Faith and Other Religions.” In view of the current resurgence of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, this is a timely study.

Professor Bavinck, who had occupied the chair of missions at the Free University of Amsterdam for more than twenty-five years at the time of his death in 1965, faces the issue squarely. While granting that the Christian faith has certain things in common with the great world religions, he insists on its uniqueness.

How, then, must the Church confront the non-Christian religions? Is dialogue possible? Yes, since these religions all deal with certain basic questions every man must face, whoever he may be. To understand a world religion, we must know what answer it gives to these five questions: (1) How am I related to the cosmos? (2) What is my relation to the religious norm that is supposed to regulate my behavior? (3) How am I related to the tension that exists in my life between those areas in which I am passive and those areas in which I am active—am I simply a piece of wood drifting downstream, or do I have a real personal responsibility? (4) From what do I need to be redeemed, and how am I redeemed? (5) How must I think about the Supreme Power behind the universe, and how am I related to him, her, or it?

In Part I Bavinck describes, with many fascinating details, how the great world religions answer these questions. And in Part II he goes on to show how the Christian religion answers them. It becomes quite clear that, since the Christian answer is based on God’s Word as revealed in Scripture, it is the final answer. But when one sees the Christian answer against the background of the non-Christian religions, one sees it in a new light. For example, after pointing out that the non-Christian religions vacillate between thinking of God as a person and thinking of him as an impersonal force, Bavinck shows that, though the Bible calls God personal and reveals him as addressing us in personal encounter, the term person is not really an adequate but only an analogous designation for God. God’s personality far transcends human personality.

Bavinck also discusses the implications of Romans 1 for our evaluation of the non-Christian religions. Although man can know God apart from the Bible, he suppresses this knowledge. The non-Christian refashioning of God in his own image must be seen as the cropping up of this suppressed truth about God in new forms. When the missionary speaks to a Buddhist or Hindu, therefore, God is not addressing this man for the first time. Rather, the God who has previously revealed his everlasting power and divinity to this man (Rom. 1:20) is now addressing him in a new way, through the words of the missionary. There is, therefore, always a point of contact.

The Church, situated as it is between temple and mosque, must witness to God’s truth courageously and humbly—courageously, because it will encounter much opposition; humbly, because it must confess its own sins. It can witness without pride to non-Christians only when it realizes that it, too, has often been guilty of repressing God’s truth.

This book is a must for every evangelical missionary. In fact, any Christian, with or without theological training, can read it with profit. Not only does it help one understand the non-Christian religions; it also throws surprising new light on the uniqueness of Christianity.

Love + Liberty – Law=?

Moral Responsibility: Situation Ethics at Work, by Joseph Fletcher (Westminster, 1967, 256 pp., $1.95, paperback), is reviewed by Arthur F. Holmes, director of philosophy, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

This book gathers together a number of essays, mostly written for specific occasions and published from 1959 on, with a final summary chapter on the notion of moral responsibility. The essays tend therefore to be somewhat repetitive and in large part to duplicate what Fletcher said in Situation Ethics (1966) and Morals and Medicine (1954).

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

• Evangelicals at the Brink of Crisis, by Carl F. H. Henry (Word, $1.75). A hard-hitting overview, in the aftermath of the World Congress on Evangelism, of pressing concerns in theology, evangelism, social action, and ecumenism.

• One Race, One Gospel, One Task, Volume I, edited by Carl F. H. Henry and W. Stanley Mooneyham (World Wide, $4.95). Major addresses, Bible studies, and reports from the World Congress on Evangelism communicate the spiritual vitality and urgent message of the meetings.

• The New Immorality, by David A. Redding (Revell, $3.50). A lively consideration of biblical morality viewed against the backdrop of situation ethics and the varied moral decisions that confront men today.

Certain familiar themes come through clearly: (1) We need a morality that mediates between legalism and antinomianism (whether that of the atheistic existentialist or the Christian extemporizer). (2) This new morality must be relativistic, for there is no prior standard of judgment, no eternal biblical law. (3) The only moral law is that of love between persons. To these familiar themes we may now make two additions: (4) Love and justice are neither antithetical, nor disjunctive, nor mutually complementary; they are one and the same thing. (5) Love implies responsibility, the key to which is the idea of response to others, to persons in situations.

With theme (1) we can heartily concur. It is demanded both by a biblical ethic and by the changes in traditional morality brought about by modern technology and by our depersonalized society. And it should hardly need saying that situation ethics (or the new morality) and Playboy antinomianism are radically different viewpoints. Our complaint is rather that themes (2) through (5) present a misconceived middle ground: love is defined in terms of personalistic existentialism rather than with reference to moral law, as in the New Testament (for instance, John 15:9–14; Rom. 13:8–10). Fletcher accordingly fails to see that the biblical alternative to legalism (law without love or liberty) is not situationism (love and liberty without law) but a biblical personalism that unites love with law as well as with liberty, giving content to love and guarantees to liberty. Without such content and guarantees, Fletcher is right in saying that love is relativistic and the meaning of responsibility is confined to the particular moral situation.

Eight of the fourteen chapters are situation-oriented: four on sex, one on euthanasia, three on the morality of business, wealth, and stewardship. It is not enough to pass these chapters up as vitiated by the moral theory in use. The evangelical must bring his own ethic to bear on the same agonizing problems; it may turn out that situational considerations weigh more heavily than the legalists among us would like to admit. If moral decision includes prudential judgments at all, so that not everything is black or white, Fletcher may have something valuable to teach us.

A Newsman’S View Of The Bible

Your Bible, by Louis Cassels (Doubleday, 1967, 267 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by John H. Kromminga, president, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Louis Cassels is widely known as a newspaper writer on religion. This book is written against the background of a thorough acquaintance with the Bible and a love for it that is frankly expressed and clearly evident. It is intended as a Bible-reading aid “for people who want to get acquainted with the Bible and who are starting from scratch.” The objective is certainly worthwhile, and good elements are plentiful. The basic reading plan appears sound. The frank admiration of the literary and dramatic features of the Bible comes as a fresh breeze. Supercilious Bible critics are stoutly opposed, and the reality of the Resurrection is as stoutly defended.

But for all its good points, the book has one outstanding weakness, which appears early and never quite disappears. The underlying view of Scripture is much too low. Admittedly, one would have to present a simplified version of the theological questions surrounding the Scriptures in a book such as this; but this particular simplified version comes out at the wrong place. In warning the reader against the extremes of literalism, the author comes up with a description of a literalist that is inaccurate and inadequate. At times the literalist looks like someone whom most conservatives themselves would repudiate. At other times, he looks like anyone who really believes God spoke.

Only a few of the instances of this pervasive weakness need be cited. Cassels says that Jesus was not a biblical literalist, because he did not hesitate to attach greater value to some portions of the Old Testament than to others. But who today would disagree? Again, he suggests that the reader may find it helpful to attribute to John any statement in the Fourth Gospel that seems to be attributed to Jesus but that sounds arrogant, harsh, or judgmental. This is do-it-yourself criticism of the first order. The general approach to the Old Testament may be attractive to those who are “starting from scratch,” but it is not calculated to introduce anyone to the progress of revelation in God’s dealings with his people.

Many more items could be mentioned. For instance, Cassels seems to give more credence to the legend that the Queen of Sheba had a son by Solomon than to the story of Solomon’s dream. But why belabor the point? In spite of a fine objective, a good popular style, and adequate literary craftsmanship, the author has succeeded only in introducing an outstanding book. Left in the shadows is the Word of the living God, who spoke by the prophets in the old times and in the latter days by his Son.

Luther Speaks Today

The Theology of Martin Luther, by Paul Althaus, translated by Robert C. Schultz (Fortress, 1966, 464 pp., $8), is reviewed by Ralph A. Bohlmann, assistant professor of systematic theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

Together with its companion volume on Luther’s ethics (now being translated), this lucid study by the venerable Luther scholar of Erlangen is unquestionably the best comprehensive survey of Luther’s basic theology now available. It reflects more than forty years of research, yet is written primarily for the non-specialist, and it will be a standard work for pastors, students, and interested laymen for years to come. The translation and format of this first English edition are superb.

Althaus presents Luther’s thought on twenty-eight topics, beginning with the authority of Scripture and ending with eschatology. Since he intends to let Luther speak for himself, his own analysis of Luther’s thought is augmented in both notes and text by copious citation of Luther’s writings (all citations have been translated and cross-referenced with available English translations). Accordingly, he does not as a general rule discuss secondary treatments of Luther’s theology nor trace its historical development.

To analyze the theology of Luther in this way is to run the risk of subjectivity in selection and interpretation. Althaus seeks to overcome this by presenting Luther’s thought, then criticizing it where he feels he must (for example, aspects of Luther’s treatment of the hidden God, Christology, and the Lord’s Supper). Yet many of his interpretations (and criticisms) of Luther are questionable, among them the assertions that Luther regarded the descent to hell as an aspect of Christ’s humiliation and that Luther taught double pre-destination. His treatment of Luther’s doctrine of Holy Scripture, one of the weakest parts of the book, tells us more about Althaus than about Luther. The two-page analysis of Luther’s views of the Trinity is clearly inadequate. On the other hand, Althaus’s exposition of Luther’s thought on faith, the work of Christ, church, ministry, and the sacraments is particularly well done.

Althaus rightly challenges some recent Luther interpretations. He finds that Luther affirms God’s general, but non-salvational, natural self-revelation (vs. Barthians). In his view of the Atonement, Luther decisively follows the “Latin” line (vs. Aulén), though he frequently uses “classical” concepts. For Luther, God’s justification of the sinner is based on Christ’s work of reconciliation, not on man’s future ethical righteousness (vs. Holl). Although he doesn’t use the terminology, Luther clearly teaches the “third use” of the Law as a guide for Christian living (vs. Elert and others).

In spite of its flaws, this volume shows how Luther’s central concern with the Gospel permeates every aspect of his theology. This is its great strength. Althaus helps Luther speak as relevantly today as he did 450 years ago.

The Key To Anabaptism

Anabaptist Baptism, by Rollin Stely Armour (Herald, 1966, 214 pp., $6.75), is reviewed by William Nigel Kerr, professor of church history, Gordon Divinity School, Wenham, Massachusetts.

Scholars of Anabaptistica have consistently bypassed the doctrine and practice of the ordinance of baptism in their search for the essense of the movement. Now Rollin S. Armour, professor of religion at Stetson University, provides an in-depth treatment of this significant doctrine in its historical setting.

Methodologically the study is representative. Armour enters the complex, interlocking segments of Anabaptism through selected persons. The variety and yet unity of the Anabaptist thinking on baptism is examined in the words and letters of Balthasar Hübmaier, a former priest and theologian trained by Johann Eck of Ingolstadt; Hans Hut, bookbinder and chiliast turned mystic; Melchior Hoffmann, furrier by trade and prophet involved with millenarian expectations; and Pilgram Marpeck, entrepreneur, inventor, and lay theologian. Thomas Münzer and Hans Denck are dealt with in chapter 2 as preparation for Hans Hut’s baptismal theology, chapter 3. The author avoids indulging in the fascinating biographies of these persons and gives only the data that pertains to doctrinal matters.

One is tempted to ask why he treats these figures and not others who occupy a more central position in the Anabaptist movement. John S. Oyer raises this question in his preface to the book but concludes, “Armour fits each man’s thought into the larger Anabaptist picture so persuasively that the necessity for their inclusion is beyond question.” This is so; but others—or perhaps the author himself—will want to interpret Grebel’s letter to Münzer of 1527, the 1524 “Protest of the Zürich Council,” the “Schleitheim Confession” of 1527 (Article I), Menno Simons’s Works (II, 201 ff.), and Riedemann’s Rechenschaft of 1524 against this background.

Armour holds that the “key to Anabaptism” is the doctrine of regeneration and that this is best understood in its seeming external simplicity and best interpreted latitudinally in the ordinance of baptism. He writes, “Every facet of their life and faith from conversion to resurrection and from Christian life to eschatology was bound together in a unity that could be encompassed metaphorically under the rubric of ‘baptism.’ ”

To the simple “biblical Anabaptist,” the ordinance meant a pledge to discipleship in the light of the Cross of Christ. It was the commencement of “cross-bearing” carried out as instructed in a martyr-theology. Among the theorists, outside Hübmaier, one finds a strange weaving of biblical themes, medieval mystical practice, and Joachim-like eschatology into a pattern in which baptism is the dominant motif. It is even presumptuous, perhaps, to speak here of a system of doctrine, for the sources are not organized into a system. Yet certain ideas recur with frequency and force, and it is these that Armour gathers and presents in a comprehensive and manageable form. The church historian is deeply indebted to this author for his careful labors.

The book is multiply indexed and has a useful bibliography. Its pleasant style bears a compactness of thesis form that will commend the work to the scholarly community. It is the Brewer Prize Essay of the American Society of Church History and is published as #1 in “Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History.”

Supersynthesis Of An Evangelist

King Windom, by John Farris (Trident, 1967, 635 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Ella Erway, assistant professor of drama and speech, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York.

Is the evangelist charlatan or saint? Novels depicting evangelists have generally made their central character, like Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, a salesman of religion. John Farris’s King Windom is the latest work of fiction dealing with the career of an evangelist. Windom is a carnival barker, spiritualist medium, master of publicity, subject of medical analysis, and recipient of the vision of God. While Sinclair Lewis created a forceful and believable Elmer Gantry as the caricature of the con man, Farris makes Windom a supersynthesis of evangelists but does not succeed in bringing his character into focus.

Farris delights in relating incidents rather than exploring the personality of King Windom in the setting of Southern revival psychology. A novel may communicate theme through plot or setting, but the fascination of evangelism is the preacher himself. King Windom is a superman who never sleeps. He speaks with instinctive oratory and communicates with God on a mystic level. The advances of women and prospects of wealth do not deter him from his vision. In his tall, rugged appearance he is a composite of contemporary evangelists. The reader may be caught in the fast pace of events but gains no insight. The distortion of Windom destroys the illusion of reality.

The author has successful moments as the novel’s suspense builds. He does not fear to have his hero touch whiskey, though it may offend the church librarian. The illusion of sensual scenes is achieved without explicit detail, and good does not conquer all evil. The parallels between the carnival and tent meeting are reflected in the small Southern town’s reaction to them. One character depicts the horror of religious calling distorted to theft, murder, and sadism. The evangelist charters a train that becomes a symbolic and mythical message of the Gospel—a splendid fictional example of Marshall McLuhan’s theories of communication. Unfortunately, these assets are obscured by lack of unity in the central character.

The skill of the writer is uneven. Scenes in Southern towns are solid wood and stone, but the “Gospel train” is a movie set. The portrayals of thinly disguised contemporary evangelists are amateurish. Transitions between incidents are awkward. The style is fluent but lacks condensation. Minor characters become more alive than King Windom.

Farris has a sympathetic tone for the evangelist but asks questions without providing answers. The mysticism of King Windom lacks meaning. A clear focus could have made him the medium of a message.

A Serviceable Old Testament Survey

An Historical Survey of the Old Testament, by Eugene H. Merrill (Craig, 1966, 343 pp., $4.50, paperback), is reviewed by Gleason L. Archer, chairman, Division of Old Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

After earning three degrees from Bob Jones University, the author of this manual of Old Testament history went on to do graduate work at Michigan State, Columbia University, and New York University. That his commitment to the historic Christian faith and the reliability of Holy Scripture has remained firm is obvious in his treatment of liberal views on the higher criticism of the Old Testament. He shows a real command of the literature in the field, abundantly citing both conservative and liberal authors in his footnotes. Yet the main purpose of this work is to summarize the historical narratives of the entire Old Testament, including the biographies of the patriarchs in Genesis as well as the adventures of prophets like Elijah and Elisha in First and Second Kings. In general Merrill adheres very closely to the biblical account, though he tends to abridge and summarize in the later stages of Israelite history, especially during the Divided Monarchy. Most of the book, then, is a faithful retelling of the biblical narratives.

From time to time Merrill introduces illuminating information from recent archaeological discovery. And occasionally he discusses the competing views of rationalistic scholars, without ever making concessions that discredit biblical veracity. Thus he comes out very clearly for the 1445 B.C. date for the Exodus, on the basis of First Kings 6:1 and Judges 11:26; he even maintains Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes as a live option.

Only in the matter of the chronology of Ahaz and Hezekiah does the author depart from a strict adherence to the biblical data; even though Second Kings 18:9, 10 states that the siege of Samaria began in the fourth year of Hezekiah and was completed in his sixth year (722 B.C.), Merrill delays the start of Hezekiah’s reign until 715. This in turn leads him to adopt the theory of a second invasion of Judah by Sennacherib and a termination of Hezekiah’s reign in 686 with the unlikely consequence that his degenerate, renegade son Manasseh, despite his idolatrous tendencies, shared the throne with Hezekiah for ten years.

On the whole, Merrill adheres quite strictly to the mainstream of conservative opinion in matters of chronology and authorship. His discussion of prophetism and of the various writing prophets is good, in view of the limitations of space. In dealing with the five poetical books, he pays particular attention to Job and the Song of Solomon. He summarizes the contents and message of all thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures, even including the intricacies of the sacrificial system and the Tabernacle of the Mosaic Law.

If I were asked to make suggestions for a second edition of this book, I would encourage the author to go over his text again very carefully to eliminate minor inaccuracies (such as the statement on page 102 that Hatshepsut herself married her stepson, Thutmose III; actually it was her daughter who married him), typographical errors, and colloquialisms. Some statements are obviously the result of inadvertence, such as the report that Pharaoh’s baker was “decapitated and hanged” (p. 90) in accordance with Joseph’s dream. The interpretation of Joseph’s motivation in delaying his self-disclosure to his brethren (p. 91) seems to overlook Joseph’s apparent desire to awaken in them a sincere repentance for their past sin before he as their longlost brother, welcomed them. But apart from such minor matters as these, we have here a very serviceable text for use in college or Bible institute courses in biblical literature.

Book Briefs

A History of the Geneva Bible, Volume I: The Quarrel, by Lewis Lupton (Fauconberg Press, 1966, 120 pp., one guinea). Students of church history will value this little volume both for its intimate rehearsal of religious disputations in Britain, 1554–1560, and its Old English style of art work.

Church, State and the American Indians, by R. Pierce Beaver (Concordia, 1966, 230 pp., $6.75). Two and a half centuries of missionary efforts to make Indians into Christian, “white” Americans and rid them of their “Indianness.”

An Invitation to Hope, by Pope John XXIII, translated and arranged by John Gregory Clancy (Simon and Schuster, 1967, 143 pp., $3.95). The kindness and humility of the ecumenical pope shine forth in this “spiritual autobiography.”

The Child’s Story Bible, by Catherine F. Vos, revised by Marianne Catherine Vos Radius (Eerdmans, 1966, 436 pp., $6.50). The daughter of the author has spruced up the language and content of this old favorite for the child of today. Scores of new and appealing pictures.

Paperbacks

Marburg Revisited: A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions, edited by Paul C. Empie and James I. McCord (Augsburg, 1967, 193 pp., $1.75). Papers from the consultation of Lutheran and Presbyterian Reformed theologians that assert that no theological barriers remain to prevent pulpit and altar fellowship between the two traditions.

New Testament Word Lists, compiled and edited by Clinton D. Morrison and David H. Barnes (Eerdmans, 1966, 125 pp., $2.95). New Testament Greek–English word lists arranged in order by book and chapter to facilitate rapid reading of the Greek text.

The Crucified Answer, by Olov Hartman, translated by Gene L. Lund (Fortress, 1967, 201 pp., $1.95). Twenty-seven meditations by the talented Swede better known for his plays and novels.

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