Book Briefs: November 9, 1973

Unfounded ‘Secret’

The Secret Gospel (Harper & Row, 1973, 148 pp., $5.95) and Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Harvard University, 1973, 454 pp., $30), by Morton Smith, are reviewed by Ronald J. Sider, associate professor of history, Messiah College Campus at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Secret Gospel is more than the current annual volume in the headline-catching series of wildly speculative discoveries of the “real” historical Jesus (e.g., The Passover Plot, The Sacred Mushroom). While cataloguing the manuscripts in the ancient Orthodox monastery at Mar Saba in the Judean desert not very far from Qumran, Morton Smith (professor of ancient history at Columbia) discovered an important new document with significance for New Testament research. In both the popular and the heavily footnoted, scholarly version, however, Smith has combined very careful analysis of his significant discovery with a highly speculative reinterpretation of Jesus that is pockmarked with irresponsible inferences. Does, for instance, the fact that Jesus posted guards at Gethsemane demonstrate “that he had no intention of giving his life as a ransom for any”?

But first the important new document. Smith has discovered a hitherto unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria, an important Christian theologian of the latter part of the second century. In it, Clement says that Mark wrote his Gospel before Peter’s martyrdom in Rome and then took his notes and Peter’s to Alexandria and wrote an expanded, secret Gospel that was carefully preserved in the Alexandrian church. Further, Clement’s letter includes a long quotation (and another short one) allegedly from the longer edition of Mark’s Gospel!

Is the document authentic? On the basis of extremely painstaking analysis of such matters as the vocabulary and style of Clement and of the new letter, Smith concludes (and most of the distinguished scholars who examined his manuscript before its publication agree) that the letter is indeed from Clement. It is somewhat less certain that the alleged quotation from Mark is authentic, especially since Clement viewed apocryphal literature far more uncritically than any other church father. But Smith’s view, based on careful comparison of the vocabulary, phraseology, and grammatical peculiarities of the alleged Markan quotation and the four canonical gospels, that the quotation does stem from Mark may be correct. If it is, then his discovery is of major significance for New Testament scholarship.

But a new letter from an early church father or even a new, authentic story from the author of the second Gospel would not in itself create the headlines and controversy that Smith’s Secret Gospel has produced. The attention-grabber is Smith’s highly speculative picture of Jesus as a libertine magician. He depicts Jesus as a magician who thought he was possessed by a spirit as the result of an ecstatic experience in which he had traveled to the highest of the spherical bodies thought to encircle the earth. In a secret nocturnal baptismal rite, Jesus enabled others to have the same experience and thus to “enter the kingdom,” thereby becoming free from the law. Here is an example of Smith’s logic:

What really proves Jesus practiced magic is the essential content of most of the major stories in the Gospels. In Mark Jesus appears as one possessed by a spirit and thereby made the son of a god; so do magicians in the magical papyri. Other stories say he was fathered by a god; the same was said of other magicians [p. 105, Harper book].

If Smith means that he operates with the presupposition that Jesus could not have been the incarnate Son of God filled with the Holy Spirit, then one must challenge his dogmatic presuppositions. If on the other hand Smith uses the word “magician” to describe anyone who claims the power to work miracles and sees himself as divine, then to be sure the term applies to Jesus. But one must object that he has selected a term whose contemporary connotations will lead to serious misunderstanding. Unlike most magicians, Jesus saw all his activity as done in complete obedience to and total dependence on Jahweh. To argue (on the basis of the apocryphal Gospel of Peter!) that in crying “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Jesus the magician was bewailing the loss of the obedient spirit on whom he had relied for his magical activity is simply absurd!

Responsible scholarship will challenge Smith at numerous other points. Here are a few:

1. He develops his (exceedingly brief) interpretation of the resurrection “visions” in terms of his own theoretical account without any attention to the primary sources. If the disciples experienced only visions, how could they have escaped a decisive refutation of their belief in the empty tomb by the religious authorities in Jerusalem?

2. His conception of the “Kingdom of Heaven” announced by Jesus is inadequate both because he fails to consider the parables of the kingdom and because he overlooks the fundamental eschatological character of the kingdom that Jesus announced (as Cullmann and others have shown, Jesus taught that the New Age had begun to invade the Old Aeon).

3. Surely it is unacceptable to call Jesus a “libertine” because he redefined his followers’ relationship to the law. (Smith calls Jesus a “figure notorious for his libertine teaching and practice” because he broke the Sabbath, neglected purity rules, did not fast, and was called a “winebibber.”

4. Smith’s reinterpretation of the history of the early Church is often highly speculative and free of all historical evidence. For instance, there is not a grain of evidence for his suggestion that James, the conservative administrator, asked the Pharisees and Herod Agrippa I for a “little timely persecution” to rid the Jerusalem church of Peter and other “libertine rivals.”

But these and numerous other fundamental weaknesses will not doom Smith’s two volumes to quick oblivion. His scholarly volume is important and will provoke continued controversy. Evangelicals ought to be in the middle of the debate.

It is very unfortunate, however, that Smith mixed together very careful linguistic analysis of an important new document with highly speculative and sometimes irresponsible interpretations. Nothing in the new document requires or supports his view of Jesus as a libertine or a magician (except that he performs a miracle!). This mixture of scholarly analysis and unfounded speculation may attract headlines, but it will not fool the careful reader.

The Real Church

The Church in Search of Its Self, by Robert S. Paul (Eerdmans, 1972, 384 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Carl G. Kromminga, professor of practical theology, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Will the real Church of Jesus Christ please stand up? To tell the truth, no single contestant can either make all his claims stick or be totally discredited. The three major ecclesiological types all claim to represent the true Church. Yet all three show characteristics that cast doubt on the claim.

Unlike the TV show, The Church in Search of Its Self has an emcee who also serves as the panel and contestants who are also the audience. Professor Paul, an expert in modern church history teaching at Pittsburgh Seminary, writes from a broad perspective gained during long service with the World Council of Churches. The audience he has in view is “the Church itself, in its variety,” and this includes “theologians, pastors, theological students, laymen, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Liberals, Conservatives.”

Paul serves as panel, but he has help. Initially, Ernst Troeltsch’s ecclesiological classification serves to distinguish the three contestants. The church-type “is the structure that the church assumes whenever men have attempted to identify the church closely with the society in which it is set.” Contestant one responds affirmatively and approvingly to questions about Constantinianism, the geographical parish, and the close alliance between church and state. This does not mean that he is to be identified completely with historic Roman Catholicism; Protestants, too, for many years and in many lands have found the “church-type” comfortable and have identified with it.

The second contestant is the “sect-type.” He responds favorably to church-talk that extols the prophetic and pilgrim character of the fellowship of believers. His polity predilection is congregationalist, his concern evangelistic, and his anthropology pessimistic.

The third contestant has no definitive name. He is simply, in Troeltsch’s classification, the “third type.” His theology and program are vague. He is mystical, socially idealistic, inclined to accent the immediacy of the Spirit, individualistic, and highly experiential.

Of course, the real Church of Jesus Christ can hardly stand up in the person of any of the three contestants, and none of the contestants can be completely identified with any current denomination or group of denominations. Traditionally, the three families of polity represented here, though differing on the form of the Church, agreed that a divinely sanctioned form did exist. Today, however, traditional-practical rather than principiant reasons often determine the allegiance of the three contestants to their classic type.

Professor Paul argues that the true form of the Church cannot be decided by an appeal to polity even when the particular polity in question claims divine sanction.

In other words, we have to get beyond the specific polities of former ages to the concern that was common to high churchmen of all kinds, the conviction that the Church is called into being by God, and that its form should bear a recognizable relationship to Jesus Christ and his gospel [p. 35].

The questions of the identity of the true Church and of the form in which it can be recognized cannot be answered by an attempt to make one of the contestants out to be authentic and the other two imposters. The issue is deeper:

It is the problem of establishing the basic authority on which any Christian proclamation can be made whether in word or form. Until that issue has been faced and resolved, not only the shape of the Church but even the essential content of the gospel will remain unclear [p. 36].

Roughly correlative to Troeltsch’s three types are three historic views of the nature of spiritual authority and the means by which it is transmitted and received. These answers, intended to validate the claim to the title “Church of Jesus Christ,” are obtained in these three ways: by appeal to the Church, by appeal to the Bible, and by appeal to the “Spirit.” In Part Two of this volume Professor Paul discusses each of these answers in careful, scholarly fashion.

Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches look to the Church’s historical continuity, its clergy’s apostolic succession, as the foundation for spiritual authority. The leaders of the Protestant Reformation, including the early Anabaptists, sought to justify their form of the Church by appealing directly to the New Testament picture of the Church. This restorationism soon became somewhat modified because of civil realities, but from time to time in this tradition basic restorationism has vigorously reasserted itself. In third-type churches, authority and its transmission are harder to identify. Quakers and Pentecostals of various stripes quite clearly belong to this type, which generally tends to appeal to Inner Light or the Spirit for ecclesiastical authority.

Paul shows that Luther and John Wesley, by accenting the evangelical experience, somewhat blended third-type concerns with those of historical continuity and biblical restorationism. This “solution” prevents the absolutizing of any single form of the appeal to divine authority.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

The Challenge of Religious Studies, by Kenneth G. Hawkins (Inter-Varsity, 150 pp., $2.50 pb). A helpful introduction to some of the issues that confront students who take courses in religious studies at secular universities. Should be put into the hands of all such students and read by parents and pastors also.

The Gospel and Frontier Peoples, edited by R. Pierce Beaver (William Carey [533 Hermosa St., South Pasadena, Calif. 91030], 405 pp., $2.95 pb.). A conference to discuss unique problems involved in evangelizing frontier—primarily tribal—cultures. Some of the papers produced are excellent, especially the research on Africa.

The Epistles to the Corinthians, by E. M. Robertson, and The Gospel of Luke, by John Drury (Macmillan, 154 and 220 pp., $1.50 each, pb). The popular, recently thoroughly revised translation of the New Testament by J. B. Phillips is now to have its own commentary series of twelve volumes, of which these are the first to appear. Drury says of the Virgin Birth, “We are in a region more legend than history,” and of the Resurrection, “Something ‘actually happened’.…, but just what is no longer accessible to us.” Robertson, by contrast, like Phillips himself, expresses no such skepticism.

China: Christian Students Face the Revolution, by David Adeney (Inter-Varsity, 130 pp., $1.50 pb). The story of Christians, especially students, during the turmoil of the Chinese civil war and under the Communist regime since then. An inspiration and example for Christians everywhere. Highly recommended.

Commitment Without Ideology, by Daniel Batson, Christiaan Beker, and Malcolm Clark (Pilgrim, 207 pp., $6.95). Three professors develop a theology that departs from orthodoxy. It is based upon the experience of interpersonal relationships and heavily indebted to existential philosophy.

African Traditional Religion: A Definition, by Bolaji Idowu (Orbis, 228 pp., $5.95). A scholarly rebuttal of what the author sees as the tendency of Western religionists to view indigenous religion in Africa too superficially and without due respect. He describes what he perceives to be the genuine African religion. Strongly reflects growing African self-awareness.

I Will Be Called John, by Lawrence Elliott (Reader’s Digest, 338 pp., $10.00). A journalist portrays the life of Pope John XXIII in warm, human terms. Focuses on the time before he became Pope. Easy and enjoyable reading.

Travail and Vision, by Lewis Lupton (Olive Tree [2 Milnthorpe Road, London W. 4, England], 190 pp. each, $11 each). Two more volumes on the history of the Geneva Bible (the one the Pilgrims brought with them). Splendidly illustrated, they are a real treasure for those interested either in translations or in Reformed theology. Each volume can be read with profit independently of the others in the series.

Inside Story of Mormonism, by Einar Anderson (Kregel, 162 pp., $2.95 pb). Well informed, clear writing on the history, doctrines, and practices of Mormonism by a convert from it. A good book in this area.

Joy, by Barbara Evans and Pat Boone (Creation, 144 pp., $3.95). A young lesbian’s search for fulfillment is expressed in this exchange of letters with the well-known Christian, whose warm and encouraging replies are instrumental in her transformation. The first-hand account of her struggles, even after conversion, and their solution through Christ provide useful insights for the reader.

Blest Be the Tie That Frees, by Ken Berven (Augsburg, 104 pp., $1.95 pb). The special emphasis of this book is that of the sufficiency of God’s grace, not our works, as the basis for our salvation and relationship with God. A very effective presentation of the Gospel using stories, self-history, and Bible exposition. Highly recommended.

Sex Is a Parent Affair, by Letha Scanzoni (Regal, 261 pp., $4.95 and $1.95 pb). Excellent help for Christian parents in dealing with their children’s questions on sex.

Jesus and the Pharisees, by John Bowker (Cambridge, 192 pp., $13.50). An introductory discussion that despite the title, contains only a brief discussion of Christ’s association with the Pharisees. Major portion consists of translations of the relevant Greek and Semitic sources.

Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communities: Nineteenth Century America, by Raymond Lee Muncy (Indiana University, 275 pp., $10). A well written, broadly researched analysis. Essentially a socio-historical study.

Let’s Succeed With Our Teenagers, by Jay Kesler (David C. Cook, 127 pp., $1.25 pb). Seeks to build bridges instead of walls between parents and teens. Helpful examination of various aspects in this relationship.

Politics: A Case For Christian Action, by Robert D. Linder and Richard V. Pierard (Inter-Varsity, 155 pp., $1.75 pb). Two college professors, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, provide a refreshing and challenging perspective on a topic in serious question today: Christian involvement in politics. Though written for collegians, this volume deserves attention from anyone seeking a correlation between his faith and his personal activity in the political realm. Working from biblical foundations, the authors seek to reestablish the Christian’s position of “salt and light” in the world through a people-oriented approach to politics. Well documented, helpful bibliography.

The Idea of God and Human Freedom, by Wolfhart Pannenberg (Westminster, 213 pp., $6.95). A collection of loosely related essays, including a helpful and informative (though not impeccable) examination of the frequently misunderstood relation between the Bible, myth, and Christian tradition. Includes several good arguments against atheistic criticism of the theological and evangelistic enterprise, and a new and somewhat problematic interpretation of Hegel’s relation to Christianity.

Gilbert Haven: Methodist Abolitionist, by William Gravely (Abingdon, 272 pp., $8.95). A scholarly, well-written biography that emphasizes the zealous reaction of a Methodist minister against the passage in 1850 of the Fugitive Slave Law. Haven sought, without notable success, to galvanize the nation against racial inequality.

Genesis 1–11, by R. Davidson (118 pp., $5.95, $2.95 pb), Isaiah 1–39, by A. S. Herbert (219 pp., $9.95, $3.95 pb), and The First and Second Books of the Maccabees, by John Bartlett (358 pp., $14.95, $4.95 pb). Latest additions by Cambridge University Press to its multi-volume commentary on the New English Bible.

The Key to Heaven and Conversations With the Devil, by Lester Kolakowski (Grove, 168 pp., $6.95). Two works in one volume by a post-Marxist humanist: a collection of Bible stories retold with political and ethical morals, and conversations between Satan and prominent personalities in church history. Witty, satirical use of dialectical argument to disclaim absolutes in society. The author has been expelled from the Polish Communist party and now teaches at Oxford.

The Flow of Religious Instruction, by James Michael Lee (Pflaum/Standard, 379 pp., $4.95 pb). Professors of religious education will want to be familiar with this major work in their field.

They Meet the Master, by Robert E. Coleman (Christian Outreach [Box 22037, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33315], 149 pp., $2.95 pb). A manual for both individual and group study of biblical principles of evangelism. Well presented and artistically creative.

The First Fundamental: God, by Robert Lightner (Nelson, 160 pp., $5.95). Survey of the nature, existence, and character of God by a Dallas Seminary professor. Sound study that counters many academic and popular views of God.

Kahlil Gibran: Wings of Thought, by Joseph P. Ghougassion (Philosophical Library, 243 pp., $7.50). Intellectual presentation of renowned mystic’s life and philosophy, inferred from his perennially best-selling writings. Since so many people are attracted to the thought of this Lebanese immigrant to America, it is useful to have it scrutinized, even in this far from definitive way.

Faith and Virtue, by David Harned (Pilgrim, 190 pp., $6.95). A discussion of faith, hope, and love as developed through natural theology. Views them as virtues that are learned in social experience and explores their relations to a nebulous form of Christianity.

Jesus, Where Are You Taking Us?, edited by Norris Wogen (Creation House, 250 pp., $4.95). Ten messages from the First International Lutheran Conference on the Holy Spirit held in Minneapolis in August, 1972. Speakers represent viewpoints of the “charismatic movement.”

Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism, by R. C. Zaehner (Pantheon, 223 pp., $6.95). An outstanding Roman Catholic specialist in Oriental religions, who has previously written persuasively of the unique authority and value of biblical religion, appears to have second thoughts as he contemplates what Christian mysticism has in common with drug-induced religious experience and with the philosophy of Zen. Provocative but weak, because of the author’s own uncertainties; concludes on the wistful note that, despite all clerical bureaucracy, hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, Christianity is worth another try.

The Challenge of the Other Americans, by Sergio Franco (Beacon Hill, 119 pp., $1 pb). Certain Christians sin in the way they feel and act toward the poor and the ethnic minorities. This obviously creates barriers to presenting the Gospel. The author discusses the problems and suggests Christian responses. A sensitive, solidly Christian book published by the Nazarenes.

A Slow and Certain Light, by Elisabeth Elliot (Word, 122 pp., $3.95). Insights, based on Scripture and personal experiences, into how and why God guides as he does. Avoiding pat answers, it is humbly and sympathetically written.

Gifts and Ministries, by Arnold Bittlinger (Eerdmans, 108 pp., $1.95 pb). A balanced exegetical study by a theologian in the charismatic movement.

The Religious and Philosophical Foundations in the Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Ernest Lyght (Vantage, 96 pp., $3.75). A master’s thesis tracing the growth of King’s philosophy of nonviolence. Develops and discusses King’s key purpose as the linking of Christian love and Gandhian methods of nonviolent disruption in an attempt to stir the American “conscience.” A useful companion to biographical presentations of King.

Religion in Contemporary Thought, edited by George F. McLean (Alba, 326 pp., $4.95 pb). Fourteen essays by noted contemporary scholars, focusing largely on atheism, secularity, and the “death of God.” Several of the essays seek to discern a redeemingly religious dimension to modern humanistic secularism.

Teaching the Old Testament in English Classes, by James S. Ackerman, et al. (Indiana University, 494 pp., $12.50, $4.95 pb). The author’s intentions are to increase understanding of the literary products of the Hebrew faith by placing them in their historical setting. However, the views presented are quite unacceptable to evangelicals even when allowance is made for the aim of teaching about religion rather than indoctrination.

Jesus as Seen by His Contemporaries, by Etienne Trocmé (Westminster, 134 pp., $4.95). Trocmé does an excellent job of discussing various modern “schools” of thought on who Jesus was and what he said and did. Despite some excellent suggestions as to a few images that the apostles might have had about Christ, Trocmé himself fails to develop a full, vivid picture of Christ. Indeed, he suggests that Christ must remain a mystery, not completely definable by any group.

Organizational Climates and Careers: The Work Lives of Priests, by Douglas Hall and Benjamin Schneider (Seminar, 312 pp., $11.95). Sociological and behavioral analysis of the career development of Catholic priests in the archdiosese of Hartford. Evaluates interaction of numerous factors in a specialized manner. Intended more for sociologists than for clergy.

Adventuring For Christ in Changing Times, by James DeForest Murch (Restoration Press [Box 391, Louisville, Ky. 40201], 350 pp., n.p.). Murch’s autobiography, completed about a year before his recent death, is an interesting, detailed recounting of his experiences both in the Christian publishing world and as a leading figure among the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ (instrumental). Murch was managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY 1958–61.

Where Is the Bible Silent: Essays on the Campbell-Stone Religious Restoration of America, by Russel N. Squire (Southland Press [1220 S. Maple Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90015], 145 pp., n.p., pb). On origins and conflicts of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ movement. In discussing differences, such as the use of instrumental music, the author (a member of a non-instrumental congregation) urges non-judgmental attitudes where the Bible is not explicit.

God as Woman, Woman as God, by J. Edgar Burns (Paulist, 89 pp., $1.25 pb). A brief study of woman’s relation to deity in religious literature and tradition. The author suggests that a view of God as feminine as well as masculine will “redress” the imbalance of a male-oriented culture. Interesting.

Story and Promise: A Brief Theology of the Gospel About Jesus, by Robert W. Jenson (Fortress, 198 pp., $3.95 pb). An imaginative story line but very little about the Jesus of the Gospels. Tries to be constructive but deprives the biblical “stories” of any substantial claim to reliability.

Theology and Intelligibility, by Michael Durrant (Routledge and Kegan Paul [9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108], 204 pp., $11.50). A learned attempt by a man well versed in Hellenistic, patristic, and Thomistic thought to refute the concept of even a limited ability to know God and to dismiss the Trinity as meaningless, particularly Augustine’s teaching on the subject. Highly technical; should be alarming to any who would rely on philosophy to support faith in the Trinity.

Godmen of India, by Peter Brent (Quadrangle, 346 pp., $10.00). A journalistic portrayal of Hinduism, its history, tenets, and present activities as found in the author’s travels through India. Particularly focuses on the role of gurus.

In Hoc Signo?, by Glen Gabert, Jr. (Kennikat [Port Washington, N.Y. 11050], 139 pp., $6.95). A history of Roman Catholic parochial education in the United States. Interesting, well written, footnoted.

Part Three contains excellent analyses of contemporary Protestant and Roman Catholic ecclesiological thinking. The ecclesiologies of Claude Welch, Langdon Gilkey, Gibson Winter, and Harvey Cox, for example, are examined in detail and perceptively criticized. Forty-five pages are devoted to the question whether post-Vatican II Catholicism represents “Catholic reform” or “Roman rebellion.” In addition to the documents of Vatican II, the writings of Avery Dulles, Gregory Baum, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Hans Küng, and others serve as a foil for this discussion.

All this sets the stage for Part Four, “Future Prospect,” in which Paul gets at the root issue: the true identity of the Church is determined by the identity of God and Christ as revealed in the Gospel. The Church is the servant of God’s purpose, of his will toward the world. Here the accent falls on the fact that God is the God who acts, who supremely reveals himself in Christ’s reconciling action, and who calls the Church into a servanthood reflecting that of the Incarnate Lord.

The God-given character of the Church stems, not from its conformity to a divinely ordained pattern of polity, but from the fact that God has given the Church his Spirit. Church renewal must start with “what it believes about God,” and the recent self-criticism of the Church should be gratefully received as a corrective judgment by God’s Spirit on the Church. Indeed, Paul maintains, the Church is not structureless, but form must be dictated by the calling to proclaim God “in word, deed, and presence.” Church union efforts must begin at this center and not at the historical edges of the Church reflected in differing polities.

Paul’s thesis that the doctrine of God is fundamental to the doctrine of the Church is sound. But I question whether his own doctrine of God is complete enough to give an adequately biblical foundation to the form and work of the Church. For example, in a footnote (p. 368) he implies that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is Docetic: if God is his Father and Mary his mother, Jesus is not fully man. Paul rightly rejects the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, but in calling into question the doctrine of the Virgin Birth he is clearly at odds with the primary accounts of the Incarnation found in Matthew and Luke.

A further deficiency is Paul’s vagueness on the nature of the reconciliation God effects between men and himself in Christ. The grace that has created us and sustains us seems to be regarded as simply continuous and on one plane with the grace that redeems us. In order for man again to be responsive to grace, his arrogance must “dissolve in gratitude.” But how can this transformation occur unless the offensiveness of our arrogance is juridically removed from the presence of the holy God? According to the Bible, to achieve that crucial goal the Father sent his Son into the world to die an accursed death on the cross. The arrogance of man will not dissolve into humble gratitude simply by his observing the Church as a reconciled community. For that community, if it truly bears witness to the whole truth of God set forth in Scripture, acknowledges that its life of servanthood and gratitude is rooted in the vicarious atonement for sin effected by the Son. When confronted by the need for and fruits of that kind of an atonement, human arrogance does not automatically melt into gratitude; rather, the atoning cross proves to be a stumbling block to the Jew and folly to the Gentile.

The Church in Search of Its Self renders excellent service in setting forth the components of the Church’s contemporary quest for self-understanding. The assertion that this quest will constantly prove frustrating unless it is motivated by a sound biblical theology is most welcome. But the theology offered here needs substantial correction in the light of all that Scripture reveals about the Triune God if it is to help the Church gain true self-understanding.

IN THE JOURNALS

Reference Services Review is a new and very useful tool for all libraries. Published quarterly, it includes reviews of new reference books, plus an index to reviews of them in more than threescore other journals, among which CHRISTIANITY TODAY is honored to be the Protestant representative. Subscriptions are $10/year. Write Pierian Press, Box 1808, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106.

Volume 5 of Fides et Historia has 140 pages of essays and reviews by evangelical historians on a wide range of subjects, including “The Horatio Alger Myth,” ‘The Early Franciscans,” “Sources of Pietistic Fundamentalism,” “John Warwick Montgomery and the Objectivist Apologetics Movement,” and “Billy Graham: Preacher of the Gospel or Mentor of Middle America?” Special price for this volume is $3. For a copy and information on regular subscriptions to the twice-yearly journal write: Conference on Faith and History, Department of History, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809.

Christian teachers, whether in public or in non-public schools, should be familiar with the journal of the Association of Christian Teachers. Three issues/year of Spectrum are available for £1 from 47 Marylebone Lane, London W.1., England. Although it is of primary interest to Britishers, its relevance extends to other English-speaking countries.

A new journal from Britain, entitled simply Christian, has recently begun publication under the auspices of the Institute of Christian Studies (not to be confused with a school of the same name in Toronto). The first issue includes numerous articles and reports on various forms of church renewal and Christian affirmation (7 Margaret St., London W.1, England, $9/year).

The third annual issue of Studia Biblica et Theologica has appeared with five essays by Fuller Seminary students on such topics as Wisdom and Habakkuk, the Parousia in the Synoptics, and the Commandment of Love. For 1974, the journal plans two issues and will welcome essays from other seminaries (135 N. Oakland Ave., Pasadena, Cal. 91101; $2/issue).

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