Page 5680 – Christianity Today (2025)

As fredy Buchet wrote about the film Love Story, the reaction of the public was far more interesting than the movie itself. Something similar can be said of Steven Spielberg’s film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Columbia Pictures) and the accompanying “novel” (Dell, 1977). Francis Schaeffer predicted in the late 1950s that the last third of the twentieth century would be characterized by “contentless mysticism.” This prediction was to some extent confirmed by the phenomenon of Star Wars, which began a spectacularly triumphal tour of the world’s movie houses in mid-1977 and generated a host of commercial byproducts (see September 23 issue, page 28). Close Encounters appeared too soon after Star Wars to be an imitation. In fact, it would appear that if Star Wars accidentally capitalized on the tremendous public readiness for some kind of moral-seeming mysticism (the “Force” of Obi-Wan Kenobe and Darth Vader), Steven Spielberg has consciously addressed himself to that readiness and indeed tried to present a message to it.

The motto of both the movie and the book, “We are not alone,” is more than a sub-title. It is as it were a scriptural verse of which the movie is the exegesis and interpretation. The fact that it is not Holy Scripture as we know it does not mean that it is not deliberately religious. It is evidently a religious counterfeit, intentional or not. Star Wars too involved a certain amount of spiritual counterfeiting with its apostrophization of the “Force,” as nearly as one can tell, a sort of pantheistic élan vital indwelling and in a sense governing the universe. But in Star Wars that was very subliminal, perhaps not even intentional on the part of George Lucas. In Close Encounters we are not confronted with such an evident pantheism, but do face a more explicit religiosity. The success of Spielberg’s film, following so closely on that of Lucas, demonstrates that what Paul said to the Athenians can also be said to the American public: “I observe that you are very religious in all respects” (Acts 17:22). But we may no more be content with this kind of non-specific religiosity in America than Paul was in Athens. He went on to proclaim, “God now declares that all men everywhere should repent” (Acts 17:30).

If Star Wars had stood alone, or been followed only by imitations that one could interpret as nothing but mere further commercialization, it might not warrant serious attention from Christians. But the fact that it has been followed so quickly by Close Encounters should give rise to some serious analysis on our part. Evidently Close Encounters too is a commercial venture—and an extremely lucrative one. But this is not all that it is. It is sufficiently different from Star Wars to count as a second witness, and offers evidence to convict the American public of an openness to non-specific, contentless mysticism. During the early centuries of Christianity, believers had to contend with what Adolf von Harnack called the “alien god,” namely the Marcionite-Gnostic idea that our universe was ruled by an evil, hostile power from whom we needed to flee into a sort of Gnostic other-worldly spirituality (a similar theme is present in the nineteenth-century American cult, Christian Science). Today, it seems that Christians have to contend with what we might call an alien good—the optimistic but illusory view that somewhere out in the impersonal universe are unknown but benevolent powers that will ultimately cause everything to turn out all right. Theologically, alien good like alien god (as in Athens) bypasses both incarnation and judgment—incarnation is bypassed because the good comes from outside and does not “dwell among us” (John 1:14), and judgment because its coming is precisely not a coming to judge (Mark 13:26–27). As such, the concept of alien good is a dangerous illusion. While the presentation in Close Encounters may be entertaining, it is also deluding, and all viewers, Christian and non-Christian alike, will do well to ask themselves not merely whether they enjoyed it but whether they understood it—and agreed.

For one who is familiar with the writing of many of the giants of the science fiction genre—Van Vogt, Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, to name but four—Close Encounters must appear a rather thin effort. Technically, the book should be called a novella rather than a novel, for it lacks depth. It is entirely built around a single incident—the anticipated and finally realized touchdown of an interstellar vehicle. One of the generally accepted canons of good science fiction is that the story has to be internally consistent and make sense on the basis of its own assumptions. In this respect, Close Encounters is deficient. The prodigous alien intelligence capable of maneuvering something that looks like Manhattan by night superimposed on Los Angeles—as one reviewer said—between the stars, and of impressing a vision of a Wyoming mountain on the minds of people all around the world, certainly ought to be able to produce something more in the way of communication with us than a five-note sequence, hand signals, and a bit of touching and feeling at the first personal encounter.

Many questions of motivation simply are inadequately worked out in Close Encounters. Why would the United States government allow an encounter of this magnitude to be supervised by a fifty-year-old field grade officer—a major—and in effect directed by a French scientist who not only has difficulty speaking English and requires the constant presence of an interpreter, but whose French profanity is actually franglais—English translated back into French, apparently for the benefit of partially French-speaking viewers and readers? Why would the wise and competent aliens pick a miscellaneous group of individuals, from all over America, to encounter, and then in the last analysis settle for one, the power company lineman turned mystic, Neary? Why do people of all sorts, from Indian multitudes to space-age technicians, go into apparent transports of joy when confronted with the arrival of an immense alien vessel? Spielberg wants to communicate the fact that the aliens are benevolent and can be trusted, but it seems a bit strange that so many humans automatically trust them and are—as the novel text frequently repeats—“very happy” at the mere prospect of catching a glimpse of their portable metropolis. The motto of the movie, “We are not alone,” is plainly intended to be comforting. But—such is the nature of fallen man and such has been his experience with unknown of his own kind—the arrival and presence even of human strangers is usually the occasion of a certain amount of suspicion and fear—sentiments strangely lacking in Close Encounters. Surely at least some earthlings would react with the suspicion that the alien visit might turn out like that of the Martians in H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds—a mission of conquest, exploitation, and enslavement. Of course Mr. Spielberg knows in his heart that the aliens are good, but would the U.S. Army know that? It is refreshing that the organs and institutions of man in this production appear merely somewhat obtuse, not totally pernicious, but even so they contrast poorly with the undifferentiated goodness of the aliens.

Close Encounters, even more so than Star Wars, is weak as science fiction—or at least weak in a different way, since Star Wars is plainly science cowboys and Indians, while Close Encounters poses as something more like science Seagull (Jonathan Livingston, of course). The genuine, great science fiction has never had a really big public anywhere in the world. When first Star Wars and now Close Encounters attain something like cult status, at least for a few months, it is probably less a sign that science fiction has come of age and is widely accepted, than that the vehicle of science fiction is being used to transport merchandise of an entirely different nature—the contentless mysticism that is so popular in a sceptical but still deeply credulous and spiritualistic age. The success of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, one of the earliest examples of what later came to be called science fiction, did reflect the openness of the age to the wonders of technology. But the success of Close Encounters really isn’t based on any widespread interest in science and technology. The only technically interesting scene is the docking of the great migrant city, and little or nothing specific is shown of the alien technology. The real interest is in the encounter, and—since so little is shown of the aliens—in the apparently spontaneous and natural transformation of the humans involved into devotees of the alien good.

One of the most puzzling scenes in the film—and book—is the chapel scene, in which a “priest”—specific religion undefined—leads the hastily assembled group of astronaut volunteers, prepared (for unknown reasons) for a cruise on the starship. The priest is wearing a clerical collar and looks rather Roman or Anglican, but the litany he leads and the astronauts’ responses must have been composed especially for the occasion, as it does not reflect anything recognizable. One would think that the arrival of a profound alien intelligence would pose at least a problem or two for some of the familiar religions of earth, yet we have the astronauts praising God and asking the Lord (not further identified) to grant them a happy journey—whether to the stars or to heaven is also left vague.

In short, the verdict on Close Encounters, and perhaps on the whole culture that produced it and that fills its producer’s coffers, must be this: scientifically clever, technically impressive, religiously and emotionally affected and even affecting, but almost altogether without coherent intellectual content. Close Encounters is Romans 8:28 abbreviated: “All things work together for good.” But Romans 8:28 dare not be abbreviated, for incomplete, it is false: “… for them that love God, the called according to his purpose.” As a symptom of our age, it is very enlightening; as a cure, if any were so misguided as to perceive it as such, it is no better than the Athenians’ altar to their Unknown God.

Harold O. J. Brown is chairman of the systematic theology department at Trinity seminary in Deerfield, Illinois.

The twenty-five books published last year that we label “choice” are not picked just from the categories of Bible and theology that we survey in this issue. Some of them come from such fields as church history (which is annually surveyed in our fall book issue) and practical theology (which also has a “choice” list just for itself in the fall).

We intend the list to reflect the diversity of views, branches, and concerns within the evangelical movement, broadly defined. It also reflects a diversity of types of books, from popular biographies to more scholarly reference tools. The purpose of this list is to call attention to books that are rarely bestsellers but with which the reading Christian should be familiar.

Most of these books should be in church, college, and seminary libraries. In addition, they belong in the libraries of secular colleges where religion is studied, as well as in public libraries. Readers should not hesitate to recommend these books to librarians in their communities. Here are the choices, listed alphabetically by author or editor.

Dreams, Visions and Oracles: The Layman’s Guide to Biblical Prophecy (Baker) edited by Carl Armerding and Ward Gasque. Eschatology, often sensationalized, is a perennial evangelical concern, as it was in Bible times. The essayists represent different points of view but speak calmly and show tolerance for each other’s differences.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: Volume 2: G-Pre (Zondervan) edited by Colin Brown. The middle volume of a basic reference book for Bible students.

Death Before Birth (Nelson) by Harold O. J. Brown. Opposition to abortion is not primarily a “Catholic” stance. The great majority of evangelicals also oppose it. Brown makes a very articulate and informed case for the great harm done not only to the developing human who is aborted but to society as a whole. He courteously examines the arguments favoring abortion and shows them to be seriously flawed.

Effective Biblical Counseling (Zondervan) by Lawrence Crabb, Jr. Psychology and counseling are areas in which evangelical writing has increased greatly in recent years—in quantity, in quality, and in diversity of stances. Crabb, a professional psychologist, seeks to help non-professionals to have a vital, biblically-based counseling ministry.

Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity (Eerdmans) edited by Tim Dowley. If you only have one church history book, this should be it. The coverage is reasonably balanced and accurate. The abundance of illustrations and the attractiveness of the layout can draw readers into this book who didn’t think they liked history.

Apocalyptic Writings (Yale) by Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was one of America’s foremost theologians. This compilation, edited by Stephen Stein, is the first publication of a commentary on Revelation on which Edwards labored for thirty-five years. The other major work is the first complete publication since the eighteenth century of a call to pray for revival in view of biblical prophecies.

Preserving the Person (InterVarsity) by C. Stephen Evans. Students of the behavioral and social sciences will especially welcome this thoughtful interaction with the trend of deemphasizing personhood. Evans suggests how scholars, especially Christians, can recover the concept of the person.

All Truth Is God’s Truth (Eerdmans) by Arthur Holmes. One of the best-known evangelical philosophers helps Christians relate faith and reason, revelation and human learning.

Declare His Glory Among the Nations (InterVarsity) edited by David Howard. Prominent evangelicals from around the world addressed a triennial gathering of students in Urbana, Illinois, at the end of 1976. Their messages reflect the key evangelical distinctive, spreading the evangel, the good news of Christ and salvation.

Splendor in the Ordinary (Tyndale) by Thomas Howard. In a culture that so stresses the spectacular, Christians need to be reminded that it is in the ordinary household and its daily routine that the God of the universe delights to be present, to be worshiped, and to instruct us concerning himself.

A Commentary of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Eerdmans) by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes. This 600-page commentary is a splendid aid to the serious study of one of the most inspiring and difficult of the epistles.

The Joyful Christian (Macmillan) by C. S. Lewis. One-hundred twenty-seven selections from fifteen of the author’s theological works are arranged thematically. Excellent for both those who have long appreciated Lewis and for those who need an introduction.

The End of the Historical-Critical Method (Concordia) by Gerhard Maier. A brief but thoughtful critique of the prevailing thrusts in academic biblical study, along with a constructive alternative.

I Believe in the Historical Jesus (Eerdmans) by I. Howard Marshall. A valuable interaction with the prestigious scholars who question the facticity and/or significance of what is reported about the life and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.

The Library and Resource Center in Christian Education (Moody) by Betty McMichael. A good church library is one of the best ways to strengthen any congregation. This manual is a thorough, practical guide for starting and operating a library to serve all ages.

Please Love Me (Word) by Keith Miller. Unlike Miller’s previous books, this is a biography. It tells about a prominent young socialite whose marriage fell apart and whose body was massively shattered in a car crash. But then she was remarkably converted to Christ and physically restored. Alas, the Christian community, with its all-too-common adulation of celebrities and insensitivity to their human need, nearly wrecked her life again through pressuring her to perform as a public exhibit of God’s grace.

The Book of Revelation (Eerdmans) by Robert Mounce. The high standard in other volumes of the New International Commentary series is enhanced by this latest addition to it.

Why Billy Graham? (Zondervan) by David Poling. By far the most prominent evangelical religious figure of our time has been the subject of many books, pro and con. This one is different, because the author, once fairly critical, has over the years become far more understanding and sympathetic.

God, Man, and Salvation: A Biblical Theology (Beacon Hill) by W. T. Purkiser, Richard S. Taylor, and Willard J. Taylor. Scholarly works from the Arminian-Wesleyan traditions are underrepresented in most theological libraries, so a special welcome to this 700-page work by three Nazarenes.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study (InterVarsity) by Ronald Sider. The author is one of the leading advocates of greater involvement by evangelicals in social issues. One need not come to the same answers as Sider in order to agree that he has raised significant questions.

The Community of the King (InterVarsity) by Howard Snyder. Evangelicals have frequently been accused of being unconcerned with the church. One couldn’t tell it by the books appearing on the subject. Snyder presents biblical precepts and suggests practical guidelines for embodying them in our time.

Reflections (Harper & Row) by Paul Tournier. Short excerpts from a dozen of the Swiss physician’s books are grouped under twenty-five themes.

A Severe Mercy (Harper & Row) by Sheldon Vanauken. This is the deeply moving story of two young people who fall in love, marry, and become believers, partly through contact with C. S. Lewis. Subsequently the wife falls ill and dies and the husband, who is the author, learns of God’s severe mercy.

Archaeology in Bible Lands (Moody) by Howard Vos. This is a conveniently arranged guidebook, country-by-country, to the significant excavations of sites of biblical events. It is written for the non-specialist, but has abundant guides for further study.

Where Is God When It Hurts (Zondervan) by Philip Yancey. In a chatty, informal style, chock-full of illustrations, the editor of Campus Life discusses the profound questions of suffering and pain. Don’t look for easy answers here.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

The most welcome general book in the field of theology last year was The Joyful Christian (Macmillan), a selection of 127 readings from fifteen theological writings of the late C. S. Lewis. Although widely ignored in academic theology, Lewis’s books are probably the bestselling and most influential general treatments of Christian doctrine. It is strange that so many academic theologians delight in finding “meaning” in just about everything except what they denigrate as “lay” theology.

Another popular author had a somewhat similar compilation. Reflections on Life’s Most Crucial Questions (Harper & Row) is a topical collection of short excerpts from the writings of Paul Toumier.

The only major new work of systematic theology is the second volume of Helmut Thielicke’s The Evangelical Faith (Eerdmans) that treats the doctrine of God and of Christ. One more volume is in preparation. On a more popular and consistently evangelical level J. Heading and C. E. Hocking have collected nearly 100 short articles on the various divisions of theology (except for the church, which was treated in a separate book earlier) and entitled it Treasury of Bible Doctrine (Everyday Publications [230 Glebemount Ave., Toronto, Canada M4C 3T4]).

Miscellaneous (but not systematic) collections by evangelical authors include: Obeying Christ in a Changing World, three volumes (Collins + World), edited by John Stott, consisting of papers prepared for an Evangelical Anglican Congress in England; Our Sovereign God (Baker) edited by James Boice, with fifteen papers read at conferences on Reformed theology; volume one of the Collected Writings of John Murray (Banner of Truth), professor of systematics at Westminster Seminary, 1937–66; and volumes six and seven of The Doorway Papers by Arthur Custance, Time and Eternity and Hidden Things of God’s Revelation (both Zondervan).

Brief, miscellaneous statements from prominent European theologians included Final Testimonies (Eerdmans) by Karl Barth, Faith and Reality (Westminster) by Wolfhart Pannenberg, and The Hidden Question of God (Eerdmans) by Helmut Thielicke.

Maurice Wiles, a decidedly unorthodox theologian, has contributed a brief summary of what the discipline is about in What Is Theology? (Oxford). A far more orthodox overview, concentrating on continental thinkers, is G. C. Berkouwer’s A Half Century of Theology (Eerdmans). Interacting primarily with American Reformed theologians of this century is Robert Reymond’s The Justification of Knowledge: An Introductory Study in Christian Apologetic Methodology (Presbyterian and Reformed).

Reprints of systematic or major miscellaneous writings from influential sixteenth-through nineteenth-century thinkers to note: The Writings of James Arminius, three volumes (Baker), Our Reasonable Faith (Baker) by Herman Bavinck, Creation in Christ (Harold Shaw) by George MacDonald, The Christian Faith (Fortress) by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Expositions of St. Paul (Banner of Truth) by Richard Sibbes, and a paperback edition of Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (Westminster) edited by George Williams and Angel Mergal.

Before turning to the various topics of theology here are a few books by evangelicals that are intended primarily to help non-Christians come to the truth, or at least to help Christians present it to them more convincingly: Is Anybody Up There? (Seabury) by Donald Barnhouse, Hard Questions (InterVarsity) edited by Frank Colquhon, Faith Is for People (Vision) by Paul Little, The Cosmic Center (Eerdmans) by D. Bruce Lockerbie, More Than a Carpenter (Tyndale) by Josh McDowell, The Faith That Persuades (Harper & Row) by J. Edwin Orr, I Want to Be a Christian (Tyndale) by J. I. Packer, Tell Me the Truth (Harold Shaw) by David Pawson, Religion: Who Needs It? (Moody) by Richard Seymour, Questions Non-Christians Ask (Revell) by Barry Wood, and My Answer to the Moscow Atheists (Arlington) by Richard Wurmbrand.

GOD Since God is obviously studied in every division of theology, there is comparatively little that concentrates just on him. Divine Substance (Oxford) by Christopher Stead is a major study of the Greek philosophical underpinnings to the orthodox formulation of the Trinity associated with the Council of Nicaea (three persons in one substance). A more modern statement by a German academic theologian is The Doctrine of the Trinity (Eerdmans) by Eberhard Jüngel. Several essays, mostly by Catholics, treat the crucial concept, A Personal God? (Seabury), edited by Edward Schillebeeckx and Bas van Iersel.

Here are three popular evangelical presentations: God: What Is He Like? (Tyndale) edited by William Kerr, God the Father (Gospel Publishing House) by Russell Spittler, and The Trinity (Inter-Varsity) by Robert Crossley.

PROBLEM OF EVIL The question of how an all powerful God can allow suffering is perennial. The editor of Campus Life, Philip Yancey, in his usual readable style discusses Where Is God When It Hurts (Zondervan).

More technical treatments are: Providence and Evil (Cambridge) by P. T. Geach, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Westminster) by David Ray Griffin, and God and Human Anguish (Abingdon) by S. Paul Schilling.

ANGELS Often unconventionally speculative meditations on the various kinds of angels are offered by Ladislaus Boros in Angels and Men (Seabury). Fallen angels are the subject of three un-sensational books by evangelical authors: The Devil (Tyndale) by John Wesley White, What Demons Can Do to Saints (Moody) by Merrill Unger, and The Devil Did Not Make Me Do It (Herald Press) by Paul Miller. Miller argues that the power of demons is being exaggerated by some Christians.

A scholarly book of note from the field of comparative religions is The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Cornell) by Jeffrey Burton Russell.

SCRIPTURE Books about the Bible are the subject of other surveys in this issue. The doctrine of Scripture as a branch of theology, together with the closely related question of the proper method of interpreting the Bible were the subjects of several brief studies, some of them occasioned by the publication in 1976 of The Battle for the Bible by Harold Lindsell. Biblical Authority (Word), edited by Jack Rogers, is a collection of six essays that on various grounds dissent with one or more aspects of Lindsell’s book. In The Debate About the Bible (Westminster), Stephen Davis defends the infallability of the Scriptures in faith and practice but not their general inerrancy.

A well-received defense of the reliability of the New Testament by translator J. B. Phillips is back in print with a new publisher: Ring of Truth (Harold Shaw). Focus on Fact: Why You Can Trust the Bible (Revell) by John F. MacArthur, Jr. is in a very popular style.

Serious discussions with varying conclusions on the proper ways of studying the Bible are The End of the Historical-Critical Method (Concordia) by Gerhard Maier. Above the Battle? The Bible and Its Critics (Eerdmans) by Harry Boer, and Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Fortress) by Peter Stuhlmacher.

CHRIST AND SALVATION Certainly the most controversial theological book in English last year was The Myth of God Incarnate (Westminster) edited by John Hick. This magazine has commented on it several times, including page 58 of this issue in the column of John Stott, who writes from England where the book was first issued and where its contributors serve as theology professors. The authors deny that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, which is unfortunately common enough in academic circles. The mystery is why they want to (or are allowed to) remain in positions of leadership in professedly Christian churches. The Truth of God Incarnate (Eerdmans), edited by Michael Green, is a quickly assembled reply from Britishers representing a variety of theological positions. American InterVarsity will soon follow its British counterpart in issuing God Incarnate by George Carey.

What Are They Saying About Jesus? (Paulist) by Gerald O’Collins is a popular, sympathetic introduction to many of the modern Christologies emanating from both Catholics and Protestants, especially in Europe. One of the major writings in the field, Jesus: God and Man (Westminster) by Wolfhart Pannenberg is now available in a slightly revised second edition. Scholars should welcome The Origin of Christology (Cambridge) by C.F.D. Moule. Also of note is The Reality of Jesus (Paulist) by Dermot Lane.

Theology teachers should especially consult Case Studies in Christ and Salvation (Westminster) by Jack Rogers, Ross Mackenzie, and Louis Weeks for possible use in their courses. The book presents a variety of responses from throughout Christian history to the key questions of who Christ is and how we are saved. An interesting answer to the latter question, relating it to the level of our moral development, is provided by Jack Renard Pressau in I’m Saved, You’re Saved—Maybe (John Knox).

The doctrine of grace is comprehensively surveyed by Harold Ditmanson in Grace in Experience and Theology (Augsburg). Aspects of it are treated more briefly in Free Grace Versus Free Will (Baker) by W. E. Best and in Human Nature, Election, and History (Westminster) by Wolfhart Pannenberg.

The crucifixion of Christ is the subject of a brief but moving study by Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Fortress). He brings together the relevant data to convey more fully the harshness and the “folly” of the cross and its proclamation in the world of the first century. Hengel writes that Paul “never forgets the fact that Jesus did not die a gentle death … he died like a slave or common criminal in torment, on the tree of shame.”

Fifty-seven lenten radio messages, previously published 1943–56, are reissued in one volume: When I Survey … (Kregel) by Herman Hoeksema, a staunch Calvinist. Other kinds of responses to the cross are provided by two Catholics: The Calvary Christ (Westminster) by Gerald O’Collins and The Crucified Christ Is No Stranger (Seabury) by Sebastian Moore.

Both crucifixion and resurrection are the subjects of twenty-three sermons by evangelicals in Christ Is Victor (Judson), edited by W. Glyn Evans.

The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Bethany Fellowship) is a convenient compilation of the data by Richard Riss. More technical studies of the implications of resurrection are To Die and To Live: Christ’s Resurrection and Christian Vocation (Seabury) by Paul Minear and The Risen Christ and the Eucharistic World (Seabury) by Gustave Martelet.

THE HOLY SPIRIT From the flood of books we especially commend Baptism and Fullness (InterVarsity) by John Stott, an expanded edition of an earlier work. In it he makes clear, contrary to rumor, that he has not changed his mind. A technical treatment of high quality now has a new publisher. Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Westminster) by James Dunn.

Here are five popular books from different perspectives: charismatic. Experiencing the Holy Spirit (Bethany Fellowship) by Jim McNair: baptistic. The Spirit Within You (Broadman) by J. Terry Young: Eastern Orthodox. The Spirit of God (Morehouse-Barlow) by Thomas Hopko; and reformed, Glorious Is the Baptism of the Spirit by Robert Churchill and What About Continuing Revelations and Miracles in the Presbyterian Church Today? by Robert Reymond, both published by Presbyterian and Reformed.

THE CHURCH The Community of the King (InterVarsity) is an outstanding study of the relationship between the church and the kingdom of God by Howard Snyder, whose first book. The Problem of Wineskins, was also well received. A leading German academic theologian. Jürgen Moltman, adds a major work. The Church in the Power of the Spirit (Harper & Row).

In The Water That Divides (InterVarsity) Donald Bridges and David Phypers present arguments both for and against infant baptism and believer’s baptism. A reprint of a brief case for the former is Baptism (Fortress) by Martin Marty and a thorough case for immersion is The Meaning and Use of Baptizein (Kregel) by Thomas Jefferson Conant.

LAST THINGS A collection of seventeen essays by evangelicals of differing views was issued as Dreams, Visions, and Oracles: The Layman’s Guide to Biblical Prophecy (Baker) edited by Carl Armerding and Ward Casque. Many Christians are exposed to only one line of complex and confident prophetic teaching: it is good to have books available that raise questions about whether we are reading more into the Bible and current events than God intended. A similar book, but restricted to one aspect of the future, is The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views (InterVarsity) edited by Robert Clouse. Advocates of two forms of preplus post-and a-millennial views present their own cases and react to each other. Millard Erickson of Bethel Seminary seeks to give objective presentations of these four views in Contemporary Options in Eschatology (Baker). He also considers various understandings of the Great Tribulation. Understanding Bible Prophecy (Harper & Row) by Morris Inch briefly shows what prophets in the Bible were up to. Armageddon Now! (Baker) by Dwight Wilson seems at first glance to be another of the dozens of books every year announcing how near the end is. It is not. Instead, as the subtitle says, it is a historical study of “the premillenarian response to Russia and Israel since 1917.” The author, with numerous documented bad examples from books and periodicals of yesteryear, warns his fellow “premils” against being so confident when they identify some current political development with a prophecy in Daniel or Revelation. We need more such studies of the history of the interpretation of prophecy.

Moving from the future of humankind to that of individuals, the major theological contribution is Everlasting Life After Death (Alba) by E. J. Fortman. He speaks from a comparatively conservative Catholic position. Also noteworthy are the following evangelical contributions: Life After Death? (AMG) by Spiros Zodhiates, as usual a thorough job: Heaven for Those Who Can’t Believe (Regular Baptist Press) by Robert Lightner, especially to comfort parents of young children who die; It Will Be Worth It All (Loizeaux) by Woodrow Michael Kroll, a thorough study in what the Bible teaches about rewards to believers: and Resurrection, His and Ours (Advent Christian Conference [Box 23152, Charlotte. NC 28212]) by David Dean, an attempt to give a biblical defense of this evangelical denomination’s beliefs, especially those that are not widely shared such as death being a “condition of unconsciousness” and eventual “complete extinction of being” as the fate of unbelievers. Zodhiates disputes such views.

EVANGELISM A lot of theological writing is being done with respect to the mission of the church. Such books are to be distinguished from those that stress technique. I Believe in Evangelism (Eerdmans) is by David Watson, a Church of England pastor. As with the “1 Believe …” series generally, this is a book of high quality. Declare His Glory Among the Nations (InterVarsity), edited by David Howard, contains twenty messages to the 1976 student missionary convention at Urbana that make very challenging reading. One of the major movements in theology today frequently goes under the theme of “liberation” with more of an emphasis on political and economic freedom than on escaping from eternal damnation. Seven addresses to the Evangelical Theological Society of Canada interact with this thrust in Evangelicals and Liberation (Presbyterian and Reformed) edited by Carl Armerding.

By far the major publisher for advocates of liberation theology (most of whom write from experience in the Third World) is Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY 10545). Of their many 1977 offerings we mention two: The Militant Gospel: A Critical Introduction to Political Theologies by Alfredo Fierro and The Meaning of Mission by José Comblin.

Noteworthy books from American Protestants are: What Next in Mission? (Westminster) by Paul Hopkins. Mission in a New World (Fortress) by Edgar Trexler, and The Flaming Center: A Theology of the Christian Mission (Fortress) by Carl Braaten.

Broader than the title indicates is Evangelization in America (Paulist) by David Bohr. He looks at the biblical, historical, theological, and ethical background before reaching his goal of studying evangelism by Catholics in America.

THEOLOGY AND THE ARTS AND SCIENCES Nancy Barcus of Houghton College urges Developing a Christian Mind (InterVarsity) in response to the varieties of secular thought. Arthur Holmes of Wheaton College forcefully and capably reminds us that All Truth Is God’s Truth (Eerdmans). Hans Schwarz of Lutheran Seminary. Columbus, interacts at greater length with rival views from scientists and philosophers in OurCosmic Journey (Augsburg). C. Stephen Evans of Wheaton College covers much the same ground in Preserving the Person (InterVarsity), but with a focus on various behavioral sciences. All three of these books are commendable attempts to think “christianly” in a secular world.

God, History, and Historians (Oxford) is an excellent anthology, edited by Carl Thomas McIntire, of a score of modern Christian views of history. Langdon Gilkey gives a very extensive interpretation of history in Reaping the Whirlwind (Seabury).

The Reflection of Theology in Literature (Trinity University) by William Mallard is a major contribution in relating the two disciplines. Of similar interest is Story: The Language of Faith (University Press [4710 Auth PI., S.E., Washington, DC 20023]) by Mason Olds.

Two leading Catholic scholars present overviews of the history and current status of the discipline of philosophy in The Elements of Philosophy (Alba) by William Wallace and Philosophers and Philosophies (Barnes & Noble) by Frederick Copleston.

Evangelicals have been writing on psychology probably more than on any other discipline of late, and with considerable diversity. Research in Mental Health and Religious Behavior (Psychological Studies Institute [620 Peachtree St., N.E., Atlanta, GA 30308]), edited by William Donaldson, Jr., is a 600-page collection of 35 papers from a conference sponsored by several evangelical organizations. Just on the psychology of religion rather than also on counseling is a collection that is almost as long. Current Perspectives in the Psychology of Religion (Eerdmans) edited by H. Newton Malony. Articles from a variety of religious stances are included. Other notable books include: The Rebuilding of Psychology (Tyndale) by Gary Collins, The Essence of Human Nature (Zondervan) by Mark Cosgrove, Mental Health: A Christian Approach (Zondervan) by Mark Cosgrove and James Mallory. Jr., A Religious Foundation of Human Relations: Beyond Games (University of Oklahoma) by George Henderson, Christian Psychiatry (Revell) by Frank Minirth, and Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship (Eerdmans) by Paul Vitz.

DENOMINATIONAL THEOLOGY By far the most significant book in this area is volume one of a projected multi-volume series Profiles in Belief (Harper & Row) by Arthur Piepkorn who completed the project shortly before his death. The first volume objectively describes the theologies of the numerous Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic traditions together with some details about their institutional expressions in North America.

For insights into the teaching of Orthodoxy in the Soviet Union see Our Hope (St. Vladimir’s Seminary [Crest-wood. NY 10707]) by Dmitrii Dudko, a parish priest. The book consists of his answers to questions of both a doctrinal and practical nature.

Of the many books on Roman Catholicism we mention Our Christian Faith (Our Sunday Visitor) by Richard Hire, an overview of the whole of doctrine from a traditional perspective. The Resilient Church (Doubleday) by Avery Dulles, a well-known theologian who believes in innovation (“adaptation”) but faults those who have gone too far, and Infallibility: The Crossroads of Doctrine (Sheed Andrews and McMeel) by Peter Chirico, an attempt to reformulate the understanding of the papacy so that it will not be the stumbling-block to merger with certain other denominations.

Charismatic Catechism (New Leaf) by Ernest Gentile presents in question and answer format a Pentecostal view of the range of doctrine.

Adventist theology has been seldom studied in depth. See Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission (Eerdmans) by P. Gerard Damsteegt for an academic study of the beginnings of Adventism with special reference to its aggressive missionary concern. The Shaking of Adventism (Zenith [1300 Market St., Wilmington. DE 19801]) is by Geoffrey Paxton, an Anglican who has been closely involved with one side of an internal Adventist controversy on the understanding of justification by faith.

Lutheran doctrinal emphases are popularly presented in Faith and Freedom (Augsburg) by Charles Anderson and in Getting into the Theology of Concord by Robert Preus and Getting into the Story of Concord by David Scaer, both from Concordia.

PARTICULAR THINKERS Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) was a chemist turned philosopher, whose approach to reality has been found congenial by theologians of various perspectives. Richard Gelwick gives an introduction to his thought in The Way of Discovery (Oxford) while John Apczynski seeks to apply Polanyian insights to the nature of religious belief in Doers of the Word (Scholars).

Other religious thinkers about whom books were published last year include: Bultmann. The Quest of the Christ of Faith (Word) by William Baird: Cobb. John Cobb’s Theology in Process (Westminster) edited by David Ray Griffin and Thomas Altizer; Dostoevsky, The Burden of Vision (Eerdmans) by George Panichas: Jung. Masks of the Soul (Eerdmans) by Jolande Jacobi and Jung’s Analytical Psychology and Religion (Southern Illinois University) by Carl Alfred Meier; Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr (Word) by Bob Patterson; Rahner. The Theological Method of Karl Rahner (Scholars) by Anne Carr; Ricoeur, Mystery and the Unconscious (Scarecrow) by Walter James Lowe; and Tillich. The Nature of Theological Argument (Scholars) by Robert Schrader.

PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY This is a catch-all category for books of which advanced students of religion and theology should be aware. They share little in common other than their concern with questions that are central to religion or to Christianity and their generally speculative rather than expository character. The authors’ views cover the spectrum. The Self-Embodiment of God (Harper & Row) by Thomas Altizer, Christianity for Pious Skeptics (Abingdon) by James Ash-brook and Paul Walaskay. Reason and Religion (Cornell) edited by Stuart Brown, Being and Will (Paulist) by John Bur-bridge, Process Theology (Westminster) by John Conn, Jr. and David Ray Griffith, The Pursuit of Death (Abingdon) by Howard Congdon, Patterns of Grace (Harper & Row) by Tom Driver. Images for Self-Recognition: The Christian as Player, Sufferer, and Vandal (Seabury) by David Baily Hamed, Theological Method and Imagination (Seabury) by Julian Hartt, Above or Within? The Supernatural in Religious Education (Religious Education Press) by Ian Knox, The Necessity of Faith (Eerdmans) by Harry Kuitert, The Pursuit of the Divine Snowman (Word) by Peter Macky, Identity and the Sacred (Free Press) by Hans Mol, Stories to the Dark: Explorations in Religious Imagination (Paulist) by William James O’Brien, Belief and History (University Press of Virginia) by Wilfred Cantwell Smith. Christ and Consciousness (Paulist) by William M. Thompson, God and Utopia: The Church in a Technological Civilization (Seabury) by Gabriel Vahanian, First Considerations: An Examination of Philosophical Evidence (Southern Illinois University) by Paul Weiss, and Tensions: Necessary Conflicts in Life and Love (Templegate [Springfield. IL 62705]) by H. A. Williams.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Song of solomon Two commentaries both incorporate measures of the sublime and the ridiculous. In terms of weight, first mention goes to Marvin H. Pope’s Song of Songs (Doubleday). It is a marvel to reflect on what has happened to the originally simple format of the Anchor Bible series. In this latest offering a Yale professor takes 743 pages to try to show that the Song is rooted in the fertility religion of the ancient Near East with its sacred marriage rites. Everything from women’s liberation to Indian love poetry is covered with an extensive bibliography and copious notes. As a work of scholarship, Pope’s volume will rank high, though its eccentricities will keep it from becoming a standard work. For those who are not satisfied that Solomon was originally an ancient fertility worshiper. Joseph C. Dillow’s Solomon on Sex (Nelson) gives the option of seeing him as a modern American businessman. Troubled by all the sexual temptations of modern youth, Solomon holds out until marriage only to find that the battle continues. Keeping her husband away from such temptations is the job of Shulamith (Solomon’s wife), and this she does by turning herself into what we might call a “total woman.” Everything you ever wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask is covered in this book.

PSALMS The three-volume Psalms (Cambridge) by J. W. Rogerson and J. W. McKay, part of the Cambridge Bible Commentary, offers much help to the average Bible student despite its brevity. While thoroughly conversant with critical studies of the Psalms, both authors are also convinced that the Psalter remains for the Christian today a valuable book of worship and devotion. More of a how-to book, dealing with twelve selected psalms, is Stuart Briscoe’s What Works When Life Doesn’t? (Victor). Briscoe has discovered, as have others through the ages, that the psalms speak to our deepest emotions, those of death, depression, and fear. In Praying the Psalms (Fortress), the African bishop Leslie E. Stradling examines three categories of psalms: prayers of praise, prayers in time of stress, and prayers for others. He looks at them in the light of the coming of Christ and the problems faced by Christians today. Also from Fortress is a short study book by Roland E. Murphy, Backgrounds to Both Psalms and Job.

PENTATEUCH Two major volumes shed light on Pentateuchal themes. The noted Catholic scholar Bruce Vawter has put us in his debt with On Genesis (Doubleday), a major handbook to all aspects of Genesis study. A discussion of theological themes, various kinds of critical study, and the meaning of Genesis for the church today precedes a line-by-line commentary on the book itself. Both layman and scholar will find something here. A slightly less ambitious work. Theology as Narration (Eerdmans) by George A. F. Knight, expounds the Book of Exodus under the theological theme of revelation. Already well known for his Christian Theology of the Old Testament, Knight has given us another fine study. In what is more a scientific than a biblical treatise. Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth (InterVarsity). Robert C. Newman and Herman J. Eckelmann try to retain a literal interpretation of the language of Genesis while finding room for a much older universe than militant creationists usually permit. The solution: the days of Gnesis one are twenty-four-hour days, but each “day” introduces a new and much longer creative period.

THE PROPHETS The long announced Hermeneia series on the Old Testament continues with a second volume, also from the hands of H. W. Wolff, who earlier did Hosea.Joel and Amos (Fortress) presents the best of German form-critical scholarship and is destined to become a standard in its field. Joel is set in the first half of the fourth century. It is seen to have a dual thrust concerning the day of Yahweh as both judgment and salvation and to represent the threshold between prophetic and apocalyptic eschatology. Amos, by contrast, is seen as the earliest of Hebrew prophets and as a book formed from an initial prophecy of doom that was supplemented by new materials all the way down to post-exilic times. The author stands in wonder before the message of Amos. In his foreword he confesses, “Only with trepidation does an exegete direct his attention to the man from Tekoa.” While it is true that Wolff has left unanswered many of the great questions surrounding the solitary figure from the eighth century, his book does communicate something of the spirit in which one must approach this magnificent piece of literature. A second book on Amos, The Farmer From Tekoa by Herman Veldkamp (Paideia. [P. O. Box 1450. St. Catherines. Ontario]), is not so much a commentary as a series of messages from the prophet. The spirit of Amos is captured beautifully and clearly in these messages, and we welcome for the first time in English dress the writings of this Dutch divine.

Jeremiah (Word) by Andrew W. Blackwood. Jr., is a model of what a homiletical commentary should be. Fully aware of modern scholarship. Blackwood avoids technicalities and brings out the message of the prophet for both his own time and ours. Solid help on the text is combined with work on the structure and literary nature of the oracles, so that the reader upon finishing this commentary feels he really knows Jeremiah and his world.

In the category of small paperback studies of the prophets. 1977 produced some gems. Allan A. MacRae in The Gospel of Isaiah (Moody) sees Isaiah of Jerusalem writing for a situation in exile 150 years later and his own contemporaries so gripped by the message that they themselves could feel the situation even before it happened. The rest of the book is a kind of homiletical commentary on chapters 40–56 of Isaiah. Aiming for the same audience, Terence E. Fretheim in The Message of Jonah (Augsburg) finds the key to the book in the man Jonah as a “run-away believer.” Jonah is seen as a short story based on the theological conflict that arose in Jonah’s mind when he realized that God’s ability to change his mind about punishing the guilty extended even to a city like Nineveh. How God met his errant prophet in those circumstances is then the theme of the book. More homiletical and less theological is Can You Run Away From God? (Victor), a series of messages on Jonah by James M. Boice. In the same genre. All Things Weird and Wonderful (Victor) by Stuart Briscoe shows how Ezekiel and his mysterious book of whirling wheels can communicate with our generation.

Four short paperbacks briefly survey various prophets. David Allan Hubbard applies the teaching of each of the minor prophets to present social problems in twelve radio sermons published as Will We Ever Catch Up With the Bible? (Regal). Similar in format but less exegetical is John E. Hunter’s Major Truths From the Minor Prophets (Zondervan). Nine magazine articles are brought together in Prophets and Prophecy (Fortress) by F. H. Seilhamer, while Six Prophets for Today (Augsburg) by W. A. Poovey offers dramas suitable for church use on Jonah, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Hosea, Micah, and Amos. The final book in this category is The Prophets and the Powerless by James Limburg (John Knox). Responding to speculation on ancient astronauts and on the approaching demise of our planet, Limburg contends that the true biblical spirit of prophecy is to be found not in apocalyptic visions but in the solid message of God’s advocacy for the powerless.

HISTORY The big news in this category is a massive volume in Westminster’s Old Testament Library entitled Israelite and Judean History, edited by John H. Hayes and J. Maxwell Miller. With the passing of Martin Noth. Roland de Vaux, William F. Albright, and Gerhard von Rad, a new generation of scholars will have to come forward to fill the gap. In this book, fourteen European. Israeli, and American scholars have come together to produce a comprehensive survey of biblical history from early times to the Roman era. Given the varied backgrounds, the book has a remarkable degree of homogeneity. Extensive bibliographies cover each period, and the major lines of debate are clearly set forth, including options argued by conservatives such as Kenneth Kitchen. This is not just a history of Israel and is not designed to take the place of any standard history. It will, however, function as a resource for all who seek to write biblical history in the coming days.

Much shorter and designed to unravel a complicated subject for a lay audience is a small paperback entitled A Chronology of the Hebrew Kings (Zondervan) by Edwin R. Thiele. The author’s The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings is well known as the most creative approach to Hebrew chronology in recent years, and this little book will be welcomed by laymen who have neither the time nor the energy to plow through the larger work.

THEOLOGY In recent years those feeling the crisis of biblical authority have tended to look back to the canon as a normative beginning point for those who wish to retain the Bible in the life of the church. It comes as no surprise, then, to find two books on Old Testament theology that focus on the process of canonicity. In Canon and Authority (Fortress), edited by George W. Coats and Burke O. Long, ten leading Old Testament scholars turn away from the question of how the text came to be to discuss instead what it means in its present form. Everything from the creation story to elements of later prophecy is covered in these theological essays. In Prophecy and Canon (Notre Dame) the Notre Dame scholar Joseph Blenkinsopp focuses his attention on how the Hebrew canon came to be. He senses a tension among the three major sections of the Jewish scriptures and views the final product as a resolution of these tensions within the Judaism of the second-temple period. By avoiding a christological approach to canon, Blenkinsopp hopes to speak as vividly to Jews as to Christians.

Two additional volumes deal with Israel’s understanding of the future in a prophetic context, in Covenant and Promise (Westminster) John Bright begins with the question of why Jeremiah and his opponents could harbor such radically different understandings of God’s covenant and its implications for the future of the nation. Tracing one stream of thought back to the absolute promises of God’s election and the other stream back to the conditional elements of God’s commandments, Bright brings together the elements of the conflict and shows how they were resolved within the religion of Israel. In a more narrowly focused book, Thomas M. Raitt sketches a Theology of Exile (Fortress). For him, the key problem of late Judean history is how to explain the impending disaster, given the covenant promises of God. Using form-critical means to separate Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s oracles of judgment from their oracles of deliverance and emphasizing the shift involved, Raitt concludes that these two prophets were able to provide a new theological foundation for Judah that dealt with the problem of despair in a way that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar tried to do for Job but failed.

Finally, two collections of essays with theological themes add to the feast. In Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament (Fortress), editor Douglas A. Knight brings together older and younger scholars to discuss how “tradition history” influenced the theological development of the Old Testament. Scripture in Historyand Theology (Pickwick [5001 Baum Blvd., Pittsburgh, Pa. 17213]), edited by A. L. Merill and T. W. Overholt, includes eighteen widely ranging essays in honor of J. Coert Rylaarsdam, a former Chicago professor.

SURVEYS A landmark in interpreting the simple stories of the Bible is the publication of volume one of S. G. de Graaf’s Promise and Deliverance (Paideia). The late author, an Amsterdam minister, spent much of his life teaching teachers how to communicate theologically to a wide variety of audiences. The first of his works to appear in English translation takes the biblical story from Genesis to the conquest of Canaan and will be an invaluable resource for teachers, ministers, and parents.

Of a very different order is Let the People Cry Amen (Paulist) by John F. X. Sheehan. In a study that is sometimes highly speculative and often draws from controversial strains in Old Testament scholarship, Sheehan has given us a way of reading the Old Testament that looks at its oral history as a key to understanding the whole.

Two other books lack the sparkle of the previous two but are useful introductions. A Popular Survey of the Old Testament (Baker) by Norman L. Geisler is a Christological survey of the Old Testament for undergraduates. The book is replete with charts and maps. Far less ambitious is Walter W. Stuenkel’s The Books of the Old Testament (Concordia). Stuenkel simply tells when, how. and why each book was written. Both Geisler and Stuenkel assume traditional conservative conclusions.

LITERARY CRITICISM Two paperbacks deal with the subject of structural analysis and go a long way toward bringing that elusive subject within the grasp of the average Old Testament scholar. It may be argued whether structuralism as done by these scholars is really what the French structuralists have in mind, but these are nonetheless fine short introductions. In Biblical Structuralism (Fortress or Scholars) Robert M. Polzin begins by describing structural analysis, moves on to apply the method to the Book of Job, and finishes with a study of the work of Wellhausen, Van Rad, and Noth from a structuralist point of view. Robert C. Culley’s Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Fortress or Scholars) likewise applies structuralist principles to a number of Old Testament passages. In the hands of Culley and Polzin, structuralism becomes a refreshing way of looking at the text as it stands without the subjectivity of various attempts to reconstruct the history of the text.

David Robertson in Old Testament Literary Criticism (Fortress) follows a new trend. The earlier volume on literary criticism in the same series dealt largely with source analysis, but Robertson looks at the Bible as literature. This is really what literary criticism is all about, and we can be grateful that modern critical study of the Scriptures has finally caught up with the study of other texts.

DICTIONARIES AND CONCORDANCES The big news in 1977 was the appearance of revised translations of volumes one and two of the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Eerdmans), edited by G. J. Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Issued in German 1970–73, the volumes first appeared in English a couple of years ago. However, enough suggestions for corrections and improvements were made that the publisher decided to put out a revision. Words starting with one of the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet are treated in these two volumes of what will be a standard reference series, the Old Testament counterpart to Kittel.

A helpful linguistic tool is updated with the issuance of volume ten of the Computer Bible (Biblical Research Associates) edited by F. I. Andersen and A. D. Forbes. This volume covers eight minor prophets, taking the place of and supplementing volume six in the series. The Hebrew printout is now in standard character rather than in computer language, and the methods of word analysis have been considerably improved. As a result this valuable tool is now even more valuable.

On a very different order is an 1845 concordance brought back into print under the title Dictionary of Old Testament Words for English Readers (Kregel), by Aaron Pick. Although the transliteration system is somewhat outdated and the same information is available in a slightly different form through Young’s Concordance. this volume may still prove useful for those who wish to know the Hebrew word behind any English word in the King James Version.

ANCIENT NEAR EAST Easily the best of last year’s books in this category is The Treasures of Darkness (Yale), a thorough study of Mesopotamian religion from the fourth millennium down to the time of the Hebrews by the Harvard Semitist Thorkild Jacobsen. Mesopotamia was, of course, the area from which Abraham and the patriarchs emerged, so the history of its religion has many interesting points of comparison with the Bible. Slightly more technical collections are included in The Legacy of Sumer (Undena [Box 97, Malibu, Calif. 90265]) edited by D. Schmandt-Besserat. The Sumerians, who preceded the Assyrians and Babylonians in the same area, exerted a formative influence on all Near Eastern culture, and the lectures thus collected are a most useful introduction to certain aspects of that culture. Originally given as lectures at the University of Texas, these chapters contain much for everyone concerned with the subject. From the same publisher comes a short monograph entitled Thoughts About Ibla by Ignace J. Gelb. Ibla or Ebla is the site in Syria where in the last two years spectacular finds have been unearthed that illuminate the history of the patriarchal period. A popular evangelical introduction to the find is Ebla Tablets: Secrets of a Forgotten City (Creation-Life) by Clifford Wilson.

MONOGRAPHS Every year more and more work originally presented in dissertation form is made available to the public, especially through the good offices of Scholars Press (Box 5207. Missoula, Mont. 59806) with its various low-cost series. The next seven titles are among this publisher’s more important contributions. Wisdom and Cult by Leo G. Perdue begins with the assumption that while the relation between prophecy and cult and between prophecy and wisdom has been well worked over, very little has been done on the relation between wisdom and the cult in Israel. Perdue studies both Mesopotamian and Israelite wisdom literature and concludes that the wise men definitely viewed cult as a necessary and normal part of their world. In Comparative Philology and the Text of Job Lester L. Grabbe has used as a starting point the criticism of James Barr and the suggestions of Mitchell Dahood and Marvin Pope concerning philological problems in Job. His concern is method, and chapter four gives a convenient summary of what he would consider a valid approach.

Bruce C. Birch’s dissertation The Rise of the Israelite Monarchy: The Growth and Development of First Samuel 7–15 is a tradition-history study of the passages in question, to determine the roots of the various views on kingship expressed. Essentially he finds a series of old Saul traditions that came down to their final form as the Deuteronomist added his own concern that kingship be made subject to covenant. A stimulating essay on the ideas of the exilic and post-exilic communities comes in the form of Jon D. Levenson’s Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48. Finding a combination of mythical and non-mythical elements behind the high-mountain tradition of Ezekiel 40:2, Levenson goes on to suggest that the tensions in which these varying traditions are held still stand as a beacon to those who both hope for God’s promises and labor for what he has mandated. Another Harvard dissertation. Isaiah 24–27 and the Origin of Apocalyptic by William R. Millar, goes back to the question of dating the so-called Little Apocalypse of Isaiah. His conclusion: the entire apocalypse comes from the last half of the sixth century B.C. after the destruction of Jerusalem and stands at the very beginning of the movement we know as apocalyptic. Two additional Harvard monographs deal with technical linguistic matters. Douglas K. Stuart in Studies in Early Hebrew Meter returns to an interest of his mentor. Frank Cross, in examining the metrical features of such passages as Exodus 15 and the Song of Deborah. Another of Cross’s students, Robert Polzin, attempts in Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose to date the key document in relation to the Chronicler by the linguistic features. Both these represent solid objective work.

From Johns Hopkins University Press came Divine Presence and Guidance in Israelite Traditions: The Typology of Exaltation, in which Thomas W. Mann follows the history-of-religions approach to the question of the divine-presence motif in the exaltation of a leader. In the main this is a study of the Exodus narratives with additional reference to David, Solomon, and others. Moses is seen as the prototype of a royal and religious figure for whom the divine-presence motif in Exodus is absolutely central. A second volume in the same Near Eastern Studies series is not itself a dissertation but interacts with recent theses. Patrick D. Miller. Jr. and J. J. M. Roberts in The Hand of the Lord also look to comparative material to discuss the provenance of the so-called Ark narrative in First Samuel. The authors conclude that the narrative was formed in the period of religious crisis between the defeat and loss of the ark at Ebenezer and the later victories of David.

An excellent piece of work on the Chronicler from the able pen of Hugh G. M. Williamson is entitled Israel and the Book of Chronicles (Cambridge). Williamson believes that the writer of Chronicles is not the same as Ezra and Nehemiah; he shows that Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s exclusivist attitude toward the remnants of the northern tribes is not reflected in Chronicles. Cult and Conscience (Brill) by the veteran Jewish scholar Jacob Milgrom is a thorough study and clarification of the “guilt offering” (asham) and the priestly doctrine of repentance in Leviticus and elsewhere. His conclusion: remorse plus confession constitute the priestly approach to repentance, but sacrifice is required also (contra prophetic teaching) to obliterate sin.

MISCELLANEOUS A fine short paperback entitled Old Testament Books for Pastor and Teacher (Westminster) is a very personal statement by Brevard S. Childs of what books will be of most use to the working pastor. John H. Otwell’s And Sarah Laughed (Westminster) gives us a balanced survey of the role of women in the Old Testament. The late eminent Old Testament scholar Gerhard Von Rad has left a legacy for preachers in a short book published by Abingdon entitled Biblical Interpretations in Preaching. It begins with an excursus on the relation between exegesis and preaching and goes on to twenty-one biblical passages about which Von Rad makes exegetical suggestions. Finally, Strange Heroes (Holman) is a paperback collection of meditations by David A. Hubbard on twenty-five of the best-known men and women in the Old Testament.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Jesus and the gospels Every year hundreds of books about Jesus appear in print, but not every year does one become a best-seller, as did 1977’s Jesus of Nazareth (Collins + World) by the late William Barclay. The book is based on the film of that title directed by Franco Zeffirelli and televised last Easter. More than 100,000 copies have been sold, and the sales are likely to continue, since NBC bought the rights to show the film during Holy Week for the next nine years. People who like big books with lots of sentimental pictures will love this one! As usual, Barclay writes interestingly, in non-technical language; but several of his other books on the story of Jesus are better—and considerably cheaper.

How does a historian look at the life and teachings of Jesus? Michael Grant attempts an answer in Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (Scribners). The author of numerous historical studies intended for the educated lay reader. Grant seeks to steer a course between what he regards as the excessive skepticism of many critics and the adulation of believers in approaching the gospel materials. Although he does not argue that the Gospels are historically trustworthy in every detail, he makes it very clear that there is no reason to deny the fundamental features of the life and teaching of Jesus that are found there. Scholars and ordinary Christians alike will wish to challenge many details in this book, but no one will read it without being both entertained and intellectually stimulated.

A more substantial work is I. Howard Marshall’s I Believe in the Historical Jesus (Eerdmans). Although written for the general reader, the work is the product of decades of serious academic research. In contrast to Grant’s work, Marshall’s is not a historical study of Jesus, setting out what can be known about him, but rather a discussion of the issues raised during the centuries of academic gospel study and of the presuppositions necessary for writing a historical account of the life of Jesus. Marshall writes from within the evangelical faith. He never skirts the issues raised by modern critical scholarship, nor does he allow himself to make cheap apologetic points. I Believe in the Historical Jesus will be of special interest to students in theological seminaries and departments of religious studies, but it will be of value to many others also. Some of the same ground is covered in Quest for the Historical Jesus (Baker) by Fred H. Klooster, professor of systematic theology at Calvin Seminary.

Jesus in the First Three Gospels (Abingdon) is a simple account by Millar Burrows, a distinguished American biblical scholar who writes from within the traditional “liberal” perspective. Many orthodox Christians will find it hard to understand how the author can combine a deep personal commitment to Jesus with so many doubts about what have normally been considered basic doctrines of the Christian faith. A more orthodox approach is offered by Gerald O’Collins in What Are They Saying About Jesus? (Paulist) and The Calvary Christ (Westminster). O’Collins, a Jesuit scholar who teaches at the Gregorian University in Rome, writes about theology as though he really believes that it makes all the difference in the world, and in so doing he communicates something of the excitement of serious theology to his reader. Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ by Harold W. Hoehner (Zondervan) provides the Bible student with a helpful discussion of all the available information about the date of Christ’s birth, the beginning and length of his ministry, and the date of his crucifixion.

The most famous portion of the teaching of Jesus was the subject of two books, one by Fred L. Fisher and the other by John R. W. Stott. Fisher’s book. The Sermon on the Mount (Broadman), is a readable and straightforward exposition of Matthew 5–7 in terms that are relevant for everyday living. In Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (InterVarsity). Stott once again reveals himself to be a master expositor. The content was delivered first as lectures to students at Cambridge and other universities and then to the famous Keswick Convention: the written form is certain to find a wide and appreciative readership. A most creative and stimulating study of the characteristic feature of Jesus’ teaching is offered by Madeleine Boucher in The Mysterious Parable (Catholic Biblical Association). Boucher seeks to look at the parables from the point of view of the study of modern literature, and in doing so she challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of contemporary New Testament scholarship. Christ and Power (Fortress) by Martin Hengel is a lucidly written account of the biblical and historical data on the subject with a few brief hints for the church as it struggles to work out the implications of its faith in today’s society. Closely related is a new edition of Christ and the Powers (Herald Press) by Hendrik Berkhof.

The literary genre of the gospels is the subject of What Is a Gospel? (Fortress) by Charles Talbert. He contends, contrary to critical consensus, that the Synoptics are varieties of ancient biographies. Alternatively, Gilbert Bilezikian of Wheaton College finds notable similarities between Mark and classical tragedy in The Liberated Gospel (Baker).

A rather technical study entitled Community of the New Age: Studies in Mark’s Gospel (Westminster) by Howard C. Kee has been hailed as “perhaps the most important work done on the Gospel of Mark … in the past twenty years.” It will be of interest primarily to scholars. A recent addition to Fortress’s Proclamation Commentaries is Matthew by Jack D. Kingsbury, who previously wrote two more technical studies of that gospel. He focuses on the special theological emphases of Matthew, and the book will be of primary interest to preachers. The Images of Jesus (Winston) by Daniel O’Connor and Jacques Jimenez is a much more popularly oriented study of Matthew’s Gospel. Rather than tell the reader what the text says, it encourages him to dig out the meaning for himself. Two works that combine an exposition of the biblical text with a concern for “liberation theology” are Arturo Paoli’s Meditations on St. Luke (Orbis) and Jose Miranda’s Being and the Messiah: The Message of St. John (Orbis). Neither book is likely to be totally convincing to either scholars or others, but all readers will be stimulated to think more thoroughly about Scripture and its contemporary relevance. Jesus: Stranger From Heaven and Son of God (Scholars) by Marinus de Jonge offers an original approach to the theology of John’s Gospel. Jesus on Trial (John Knox) by A. E. Harvey is a study of Jesus’ trial and the events that led up to it, as recorded in the Fourth Gospel. While he doesn’t blaze any trails in Johannine studies, Harvey offers a very readable and illuminating study of “the court case that altered history.” A commendable series of nontechnical paperback commentaries based on the Jerusalem Bible was inaugurated by Doubleday with Invitation to Matthew by Donald Senior and Invitation to Luke by Robert K. Karris. Although the series is to be by Catholic authors, there is nothing in the first volumes, at least, to limit the usefulness for other denominations. The format is attractive, the comments are lucid and brief, and each section is concluded by a study question that helps the reader apply the passage to contemporary living. James M. Boice, the well-known radio Bible teacher and pastor of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church, has published the third volume in his series on The Gospel of John (Zondervan). This one brings him to the end of chapter 12. Useful though the commentary is, one wonders whether it might not have been even more useful if it were shorter.

Erudite, devout, and critical—these all describe Raymond E. Brown’s large volume The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (Doubleday). Following the pattern set in his influential two-volume commentary on John, Brown somehow manages to give the impression that orthodox Christian commitment is wholly compatible with the most radical views of New Testament criticism. The result will doubtless be unsatisfying to both right and left. Nevertheless, the work is a major achievement, deserving of interaction.

REFERENCE TOOLS The second of three volumes of The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Zondervan) edited by Colin Brown not only maintains but strengthens the high standard set by the earlier volume and the German original upon which it is based. Volume Two covers terms from “Gall” to “Present” (to which is appended an extremely valuable essay on eschatology). Here is the treasury of the Greek New Testament in easily accessible form for the benefit of all. If you would like to bring joy to a minister or seminarian, give him or her this indispensable (and expensive) tool.

More limited in scope but also useful is The Challenge of the Concordance (Attic) by Harold K. Moulton, a study of eighty-six New Testament words or word groups. The author has served as a missionary in India and as translations secretary for the British and Foreign Bible Society. The grandson of W. F. Moulton and the son of J. H. Moulton, two of the most distinguished Greek scholars of modern times, he is also an authority on the Greek New Testament. In this work, which grew out of his revision of the famous Moulton and Geden Concordance to the Greek Testament, he attempts to show the practical and devotional value of the careful study of words and their meaning. The New Testament Concept of Witness (Cambridge) by A. A. Trites is an exhaustive study of a concept that lies at the heart of the New Testament message.

The first strikingly new English-language concordance to the Bible to appear in many years is the Modern Concordance to the New Testament (Doubleday) edited by Michael Darton, which is designed to be used with any of six major translations but is based on the Greek text. In contrast to the nineteenth-century Englishman’s Greek New Testament, Darton’s Modern Concordance lists words thematically as well as verbally. This is not necessarily a substitute for either the standard English concordances edited by Young and Strong or the ordinary Greek concordances, but it certainly adds considerably to them and will no doubt be of great value to students. This, too, would be a gift to rejoice the heart of any minister or theological student! Ralph Earle continues his Word Meanings in the New Testament (Baker or Beacon Hill) with volume five, on Philippians through Philemon. This contains much of the same material to be found in a concordance but presents it by chapter and verse.

INTRODUCTION A book that is one of the most important for evangelicals to appear in a long, long time is New Testament Interpretation edited by I. Howard Marshall. It was released in Britain last year and is to be issued in North America this year by Eerdmans. Subtitled “Essays in Principles and Methods,” it is a symposium by scholars such as F. F. Bruce, Donald Guthrie, and R. T. France. Here is what the evangelical theological student has always desired: a discussion of such matters as the history of New Testament study: its presuppositions; questions of semantics and the history-of-religions approach; historical, source, form tradition, and redaction criticism; demythologizing and the “New Hermeneutic”; the authority and exposition of the New Testament. There is also a very useful bibliography. A much less satisfactory approach is taken by H. P. Hamann in A Popular Guide to New Testament Criticism (Concordia), “a conservative approach to the problem of biblical interpretation” that will scarcely convince the faithful, to say nothing of anyone else.

It has come as something of a shock to many to find the author of Honest to God, John A. T. Robinson, now writing in defense of the trustworthiness of the New Testament! In 1976 he published Redating the New Testament, in which he attempted to show that all of it was written before A.D. 70. Now we have Can We Trust the New Testament? (Eerdmans), which answers the question in the affirmative, though not in a way that would be satisfactory to most evangelicals. Specialists will be interested in The New Testament and Structuralism, essays on this latest of trends in academic New Testament study. The essays were translated from French and edited by Alfred M. Johnson, Jr., and published by Pickwick (5001 Baum Blvd., Pittsburgh, Pa. 17213).

A work bound to be discussed for a decade is Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (Westminster) by James D. G. Dunn, a prolific younger British scholar who is well known for his writings on the Holy Spirit. The accent in the book is definitely on diversity. Sample: “We can no longer doubt that there are many different expressions of Christianity within the NT.” “We must conclude, therefore, that there was no single normative form of Christianity in the first century.” “To recognize the canon of the NT is to affirm the diversity of Christianity.” The book provokes searching questions on its proposals but is sure to be regarded as a major contribution.

The New Testament Experience of Faith (Bethany Press) by Leander E. Keck is a popular introduction to the New Testament that sets the early Christian writings in the context of the geographical expansion of the faith during the first Christian century. The economic-class context is the focus of lectures on the Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Louisiana State University) by Abraham Malherbe.

Appearing for the first time in book form is The New Testament: An Introduction to its Literature and History (Banner of Truth) by the late renowned J. Gresham Machen.

THE TEXT The Identity of the New Testament Text (Nelson) by Wilbur N. Pickering is mentioned here as a warning to the unwary layperson who is unfamiliar with the subject. The author defends the kind of text translated in the King James over against the kind underlying almost every translation since that of John Nelson Darby, including such representative committee products as the New American Standard and the New International. Very few scholars, regardless of theology, agree with Pickering. Of course, as those who are familiar with the issue recognize, numbers are not the only consideration. But in this case there is good reason to stay with the overwhelming majority of scholars. Pickering’s book is a hodgepodge of logical and theological inconsistencies and reveals a grossly inadequate understanding of the intricacies of textual criticism. For a balanced critique see the four-page review in the December, 1977, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society by Richard Taylor. The reviewer has his Ph.D. in textual criticism from Bob Jones, where he taught for many years, and is of unsullied orthodoxy.

The Bible student who wishes to get a glimpse of what textual criticism is really all about could profitably turn to either of the following: The Early Versions of the New Testament (Oxford) by Bruce M. Metzger or The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans (Eerdmans) by Harry Gamble, Jr. Both demonstrate that textual criticism is a highly refined discipline. Gamble defends the literary unity of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.

PAUL Paul for a New Day (Fortress) is an exciting book in which Robin Scroggs attempts to trace what Paul says about justification, faith, the church, and ethics. But the New Testament scholar cannot be content to remain merely an objective observer of the biblical writings; he must proclaim their message to the church. A book that will appeal to the whole family is Paul (Harper & Row) by John Drane, which is attractively designed and includes numerous photographs and maps illustrating the life and ministry of the great apostle. Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Fortress) by E. P. Sanders is cut from a different cloth. Technical, ponderous—challenging, perhaps, but exceedingly heavy going even for the expert—and expensive, Sanders’s book challenges just about every assumption that a New Testament scholar might have on the subject.

Two works that deal with the controversial matter of Paul’s view of women are both written from a thoroughly evangelical theological position but come to quite different conclusions: Don Williams, The Apostle Paul and Women in the Church (BM1 [Box 7951. Van Nuys, Ca. 91409]) and George W. Knight III, The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women (Baker). Without gainsaying either the scholarship or Christian conviction evident in Knight’s study. I would say that Williams brings into the discussion passages that have been conveniently omitted from the traditional hierarchical approach and that he therefore arrives at a more fundamentally biblical position. However, two slender books cannot be said to settle the issue.

Reading Through Romans (Fortress) is a new book by C. K. Barrett, veteran exegete and commentator. Barrett is one of those all-too-rare scholars who wear their learning lightly to the great blessing of the Christian community. These twenty studies appeared originally in a denominational fortnightly in England. Barrett here covers Paul’s longest epistle in merely eighty-five pages. By contrast, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones devotes 363 pages to an exposition of four verses in The Christian Warfare (Baker), twenty-six lectures on Ephesians 6:10–13. Here we have the opportunity to compare two styles of Bible teaching, each having a place in the edification of the people of God. Romans: A Digest of Reformed Comment (Banner of Truth) by Geoffrey B. Wilson is an unusual commentary in which the author makes liberal use of quotations from other works. Like other recent Banner of Truth publications, the book is physically attractive and easy to read. And it is chock-full of eminently quotable quotes that the preacher will welcome.

REVELATION Pride of place among last year’s full-length commentaries on New Testament books must go to Robert Mounce’s The Book of Revelation (Eerdmans), a volume in the New International series. The product of many years of very fruitful study, it is easily the most thorough and scholarly commentary on the Apocalypse now available. The point of view represented is that of mild futurism, roughly comparable to that of George Ladd and G. R. Beasley-Murray.

Not a traditional commentary, but definitely worth reading is the famous lay-theologian Jacque Ellul’s exposition, Apocalypse (Seabury).

HEBREWS Major in size and scope is a new work by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Eerdmans). As in the rest of Hughes’s writings, the treatment is not only full, astute, and of the highest scholarly standards but also rich in theological insight.

FIRST PETER Two popular expositions are The Apostle Peter Speaks to Us Today (John Knox) by Holmes Rolston and First Peter: A Translation and Devotional Commentary (Word) by E. M. Blaiklock. The latter author brings to the text his years of experience as a professor of classics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. As in so many of Blaiklock’s other writings, the reader garners a rich harvest from the author’s full knowledge of the Greek language.

BACKGROUND The second volume in a very important history appeared, The Jewish People in the First Century (Fortress), edited by a team of Jewish and Christian scholars led by S. Safrai and M. Stern. Among the subjects treated are economic life in Palestine, the Jewish home and family, the calendar, the Temple, the synagogue, art and architecture, and education. This is an invaluable reference work that should be a part of any significant theological library. The Legacy of Zion (Baker), edited by Henry Moeller, is a collection of intertestamental Jewish texts that provide a background to New Testament study. The documents are very usefully indexed and cross-referenced. Israel in Revolution, 6–74 C. E. (Fortress) by David M. Rhodes is a political history based on the writings of Flavius Josephus. Rhodes provides the student with an introduction to the man, his work, and his times; the book should be very useful as a textbook.

A number of texts and studies of important Jewish writings of the intertestamental period were published in The Anchor Bible as Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (Doubleday) by Carey A. Moore. The volume is a very thorough and scholarly study of the eleven writings that were added to the canonical books of Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures and are, therefore, a part of the Apocrypha. Critical histories of the research related to two important writings are The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Scholars) by H. Dixon Slinger-land and Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Scholars) edited by George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jr. A very important but outlandishly expensive work is The Books of Enoch (Oxford), edited by J. T. Milik, a comparison of the Aramaic fragments of this ancient writing (which is quoted in the Epistle of Jude) with the other texts and versions known previous to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Speaking of Qumran, The Dead Sea Scriptures: Third Edition (Doubleday), edited by Theodor Gaster, includes twenty-four more texts than the 1964 edition. A four-page addendum updates the comprehensive bibliography, The Dead Sea Scrolls (Scholars) by Joseph Fitzmyer.

Also of considerable interest to New Testament scholars is the long-awaited publication by Harper & Row of The Nag Hammadi Library, prepared by a team of scholars under the direction of James M. Robinson, after other scholars tarried needlessly following the discovery of a dozen Gnostic codices in Egypt in 1945. Most of those who examine the gospels of Thomas, Philip, the Egyptians, Mary, and other such writings will applaud the judgment of the early orthodox church in excluding them from the New Testament canon.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Interpretation A foundational handbook that will help the reader interpret and understand God’s Word is Better Bible Study (Regal) by A. Berkeley Mickelsen and Alvera Mickelsen, a husband-and-wife team. Although the book was written at an elementary level and with an eye to the person who has done very little serious Bible study, one would be hard pressed to think of a better introduction to the subject. Why are there so many translations of the Bible? How are we to interpret the use of figurative language in Scripture? What are the chief characteristics of prophecy? poetry? parables? And how should these various types be interpreted? What is “typology” and what guidelines are there for its interpretation? These are the sorts of questions with which the Mickelsens concern themselves.

Interpreting the Bible (Hawthorn) by David Stacey is a similar work that focuses upon the theological issues raised by biblical interpretation. In The Bible Makes Sense (John Knox), Walter Brueggemann offers guidelines for reading the Bible that incorporate some of the essential elements of biblical theology; he sums up the biblical position admirably. Good News for Everyone (Word) by the distinguished linguist and translator Eugene A. Nida draws back the curtain to allow the layperson to glimpse the principles and processes that went into the translation of the Good News Bible. Nida also tells how to use the GNB to full advantage. Much of what he says is of value for users of any translation.

Of interest to the pastor and the theological student are two recent translations from German in which the authors attempt to trace the interfaces of theology and biblical criticism. Both authors are associated with the University of Tübingen, which has become once again the major center for academic theology in Germany. Peter Stuhlmacher, successor to Ernst Käsemann, harks back to the work of the influential conservative scholar, Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938), in his Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Fortress). Without rejecting the so-called historical-critical method of exegesis, Stuhlmacher calls for a “hermeneutics of consent”—an approach to the Bible that is open both to the transcendence of God and to critical thinking and that takes into account the Holy Spirit’s witness to Scripture in the believing community. Thus historical-critical interpretation becomes not an end in itself but a means to an end, namely, the hearing of the Word of God.

The title of Gerhard Maier’s book might seem to suggest that he rejects criticism for an uncritical (i.e., unthinking) approach to Scripture, but this is not so. What Maier, a former student of Stuhlmacher, objects to in The End of the Historical-Critical Method (Concordia) is the anti-biblical assumptions that seem to underlie much of the work done by some biblical scholars who identify themselves with this method. Although he offers what he calls the “historical-biblical method” as an alternative to the “historical-critical method,” his suggested way of going about the task of biblical exegesis does not seem to differ greatly from that suggested by his former mentor. Both works underline the fact that there is no such thing as the historical-critical method; there are only historical-critical methods. One’s actual handling of the Bible is influenced by many factors, not the least of which is one’s willingness or unwillingness to place oneself, as Schlatter once said, “under the biblical text.”

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Leading the way for 1977 is a large volume entitled God, Man and Salvation (Beacon Hill) by W. T. Purkiser, Richard Taylor, and Willard H. Taylor. The authors, all older Nazarene theologians, organize biblical theology under the categories God, Man, and Salvation but attempt to do justice to the historically based categories as well. About one-third of the book deals with Old Testament theology, while the other two-thirds moves to the New; all of it has a slightly Nazarene or holiness flavor. This is not to say that people outside the holiness tradition will not benefit greatly from this very substantial work.

The Land from the fertile pen of Walter Brueggemann initiated a new Fortress series, “Overtures to Biblical Theology.” Brueggemann here attempts to correct an overemphasis on existential and historical categories, claiming that in the Bible itself the problem is not merely “emancipation” and “meaning” but “rootedness” and “belonging.” The land serves as a central focus not only in Old Testament Judaism but also, according to Brueggemann, in New Testament faith. This is sure to be an influential volume and will stimulate interest in a subject too long neglected. Shorter and less technical is God B.C. (Oxford) by Anthony Phillips, the chaplain of St. John’s College, Oxford. Written as a Lenten meditation, Phillips’s book looks first at how various classes of people at various times understood God through the Old Testament. Moving into the New. Phillips affirms that Jesus’ view of God was the same as that of the Old Testament. The radical separation between God and man is seen as comforting and supportive of the human condition rather than as fear-provoking. This would make a fine gift book.

BIBLE AS LITERATURE Sacred Discontent (University of California) by Herbert N. Schneidau is a wide-ranging study of the impact of the Bible in shaping the cultural tradition of the West. As it confronted the ancient world with a totally new and critical mode of thought that did not take any human institution for granted, so the Bible has confronted our own history with a searching skepticism and habit of self-criticism that have become fundamental features of our civilization. Intended for a similar audience is the first volume of a projected two-volume history. The Bible in Early English Literature (University of Washington) by David W. Fowler. While Schneidau is stimulating and challenging to read and will be of great interest to every serious student and teacher of English literature, Fowler’s work is a more essential reference tool and should find its way into all institutional and public libraries where there are likely to be readers interested in either the Bible or early literature.

ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, AND GEOGRAPHY There seems to be no end to the parade of books on archaeology and the Bible. Happily, many of them are worthwhile. First mention this year in a survey designed for the thoughtful layman must go to Archaeology in Bible Lands (Moody) by Howard Vos. In the opening chapters Vos talks in clear, non-technical language about what archaeology is and how it is done. After this he surveys ten areas: Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Iran, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. Each survey begins with a general history of archaeological work in the area and then discusses specific excavations. The book has a set of maps at the beginning and would make an ideal companion volume for anyone traveling in the Middle East.

Aimed at collegians who are not convinced of an evangelical understanding of biblical archaeology but are willing to be is Clifford Wilson’s Rocks, Relics, and Biblical Reliability (Zondervan).

A number of illustrated books are impressive for both photographic excellence and a solid supporting text. The Bible: A Pictorial History (Seabury) combines a theologically astute history of Israel by Claus Westermann with some magnificent photographs by Erich Lessing. More specifically archaeological but with similar quality in text and pictures is a 1975 volume that we did not see until recently, Biblical Lands (Elsevier-Phaidon) by P.R.S. Moorey. It is chock-full of maps, sketches, pictures, and charts that illuminate not only the land of Israel but also the world of Canaan, Phoenicia, and Persia. From the same British publisher but released in the United States by Cornell University Press are two superbly illustrated introductions to Near Eastern archaeology and civilizations. The Ancient Near East by Charles Burney goes all the way back to neolithic times and traces the story of what we call Mesopotamia down to the last years of the Assyrian empire, or roughly the close of the Old Testament period. A companion volume, John Ruffle’s The Egyptians, does the same thing for ancient Egypt but carries the story well into New Testament times. These two volumes equal the quality of both text and graphics in the previous two. Surprisingly, the prices of all four are relatively low.

To round out the feast there are two books originally produced in Israel and released in the United States by Shocken. Jerusalem the Holy by the late Michael Avi-Yonah, with photographs by Werner Braun, chronicles life in Jerusalem from biblical times to the present. A companion book Archaeology in the Land of the Bible by the noted Israeli archaeologist Avraham Negev does the same thing for the archaelogical record. Each book provides a fascinating introduction to its subject.

If you want a thorough tour of the geography of Palestine, with a text much like the chatty-style of an informed guide, see The Holy Land (Baker) by G. Frederick Owen.

Finally, an important revision of a widely used book should be noted. The Macmillan Bible Atlas (Macmillan) by Yohanon Aharoni and Michael Avi-Yonah went through several printings in its 1968 edition and has now been updated. The earlier edition is not terribly outdated, but if you don’t yet have this valuable tool on your reference shelf, this is the time to add it.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

The ethics of food distribution.

Endangered Species, by James M. Dunn, Ben Loring, Jr., and Phil Strickland (Broadman, 1976, 153pp., $2.50pb); Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, by Ronald J. Sider (InterVarsity, 1977, 249 pp., $4.95 pb); Stones into Bread?, by Owen D. Owens (Judson, 1977, 124 pp., $3.95 pb); Peace on Earth Handbook, by Loren E. Halvorson (Augsburg, 1976, 128 pp., $3.50 pb); Christian Responsibility in a Hungry World, by C. Dean Fruedenberger and Paul M. Minus (Abingdon, 1976, 127 pp., $2.50 pb); Finite Resources and the Human Future, edited by Ian G. Barbour (Augsburg, 1976, 192 pp., $4.75 pb).

A “grin and Bear It” cartoon that appeared in many newspapers last October shows a grocer ringing up the price of a loaf of bread for a woman at the checkout counter. Apparently answering her complaint about price, he says, “It’s simple economics, madam … Wheat goes up, bread goes up. Wheat comes down, bread stays up.”

American consumers feel the pinch of that marketing reality. But what we feel is nothing compared to what one-and-a-half billion other “consumers” (mostly would-be consumers) experience. In January The New York Times carried this report from Rome:

“The world’s major food agency has just completed a lengthy self-examination and come up with a gloomy conclusion on the way its war against hunger is going. The agency, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, is confident that it is using the best possible methods to combat starvation among the world’s poor. But the F.A.O.’s three-week biennial conference ended here with warnings that little or no progress had been made in the last three years toward eradicating hunger and malnutrition.”

For more details on the evidence on which reports like those in the Times are based see an excellent compilation edited by E. R. Duncan and published by the Iowa State University Press: Dimensions of World Food Problems. Theology and ethics are missing, but it is a veritable one-volume encyclopedia of scientific solutions to world hunger. Although somewhat technical, this volume is a valuable reference tool for seminary, college, and certain church libraries.

Who’s to blame for world hunger? Most books from a religious perspective, including some of the six titles from 1976 and 1977 that are reviewed in this article, too easily chastise America and other industrialized nations for political or economic policies that directly or indirectly deny millions the opportunity to obtain enough food. That charge is too pat for the complexities involved. Yet the books are worth reading to see what can be done by concerned individuals and groups.

Endangered Species concentrates on the theological aspect of world hunger. Featuring such chapter titles as “What Does Theology Have to Do With Bloated Bellies?”, the book communicates profound theological principles in deliberately unsophisticated vocabulary. The three Texas Baptist authors cite both Old Testament and New Testament data. They present a wholistic concept of biblical anthropology, a Christian world view, and the ethical dimensions of the evangelical faith. The book includes an elementary theology of both global and local ecology in such chapters as “The Earth Is the Lord’s—Or Is It?” A short appendix, “Answers to [Eleven] Objections,” provides a remarkably concise rationale for newcomers to the subject.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger is more sophisticated. Here Messiah College professor Ronald Sider devotes part two of his three-part book to a theological treatise that he calls “A Biblical Perspective on the Poor and Possessions.” Quoting Moses, David, Solomon, and six Old Testament prophets as well as Jesus and four apostles, Sider develops a doctrine of judgment and of God’s call to repentance. And he names works befitting our profession of discipleship.

This leads to a section on implementation. Critics have questioned the feasibility of some of Sider’s ideas of implementation, and some have found fault with his theological premises. But there is widespread agreement that his work contributes significantly to current Christian concern about the attitude of God toward oppressed people. His integration of redemptive theology with sociology and ecology holds particular value for collegians, seminarians, and other future-minded thinkers. Sider also argues, not necessarily convincingly, that the highly industrialized nations are to blame for the world food problem. In two chapters, “Structural Evil and World Hunger” and “The Affluent Minority,” he documents his charges.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger has practical suggestions. Its final section includes chapters on simpler lifestyles scaled by the “graduated tithe,” communal sharing, and broader structural change. If a study group is mature enough to survive the debates generated by some of Sider’s proposals, members can realistically experience at least some of the involvement Sider suggests.

Owen D. Owens uses the middle one-third of Stones into Bread to expound his theological position. Asserting that the temptations of Jesus provide warning against seeking ultimate answers in economics, politics, or even religion, he builds a biblical rationale for specific action against hunger as a vital component of obedient faith in God the Creator and Redeemer.

Owens notes that though Jesus fed hungry multitudes, he resisted the temptation to turn stones into bread. He uses a pair of chapters called “God’s No” and “God’s Yes” to explore how the infinite deals with the finite. The first of these two chapters exposes the nature of contemporary idolatry and American Christians’ witting or unwitting oppression of other people. Owen discusses “divine withdrawal” and the possibility that God may impose a no on the Western world’s seemingly insatiable desire for progress. He also shows God’s demand for repentance or judgment. The companion chapter extracts from Scripture some guidelines for obedience to the Creator in relation to creation. Subsequent chapters also deal with the concept of love in action and of “eco-justice,” which the author defines as the joining together of concerns for ecology and justice.

Stones into Bread packages its practical proposals in the chapters called “Survival Ethics: What Shall We Do?”, “Specific Action Strategies,” and “Beginning Where You Are.” The recipe calls for honest repentance and “creative alternatives to policies in which each person, group, and nation looks out only for number one.”

Owens identifies worship, sanctioning, benevolence, and lay ministry as four action possibilities. He declares that “Worship is the one essential means available to us to deal with world hunger, provided we understand that worship means responding to God’s love for us with our entire being—heart, soul, mind and strength” (p. 99).

Sanctioning, says Owens, is the redeemed worshiper’s God-given new ability to say yes and no: “The church of God has an inevitable accountability to affirm that which is good, reject that which is evil, and keep quiet when it is the wrong time to speak or when we can’t tell the difference” (p. 102).

Effective benevolence, which in a market economy is centered so largely on areas of financial stewardship, implies perceptiveness as well as compassion. Owens describes guidelines for benevolent organizations and for their donors.

For him lay ministry means more than people working in religious institutions. He does not prescribe specific activities but stimulates ideas that can result in practical action.

Worth noting by any evangelical who is wrestling with the relationship between Gospel witness and social action is the six-page passage at the end of chapter four of Peace on Earth Handbook. Here Luther Seminary professor Loren Halvorson classifies church groups into four attitudinal categories: critical evangelicals, hopeful activists, critical activists, and hopeful evangelicals.

“These four groups,” he says, “are not to be pitted against one another, but rather to be seen as stages in the full sweep of Christian concern for peace and justice. We need to recognize the different contributions of each group and the different approaches needed to assist each one through its particular stage of development. Each needs to be affirmed but also helped toward an eventual understanding of the positions represented by the other three groups. This approach recognizes not only that there are different positions at any given time, but that there also is a process in development which results from new perspectives and experiences over a period of time” (p. 88).

Peace on Earth Handbook includes a fifteen-point “whole earth confession checklist” and a list of fifteen “models for local action,” with names and addresses of groups worth emulating. Criteria for their selection were the activities’ pertinence, replicability, specificity, manageableness by volunteers, and directness of “people interaction.”

Christian Responsibility in a Hungry World, aimed at “the 100,000,000 Christians in America,” offers little visible theology. A chapter called “God’s Generosity and Our Responsibility” includes some teaching about the human disruption of creation and about Christ as the beginning of the new creation. Although eschatologically ambiguous, it nevertheless gives some useful ideas on the biblical basis for combining temporal ministries with spiritual.

Finite Resources and the Human Future, consisting of eight essays on four panel discussions presented in a Carlton College symposium in 1975, assembles the views of eight leading U.S. scientists, ethicists, and social analysts, not necessarily Christians. Among them are two professors of religion. At certain points, such as when discussing Garrett Hardin’s “lifeboat ethics,” participants take sharp issue with each other’s positions. Only the epilogue has a distinctly religious approach, but considered in relation to the preceding sobering essays, it packs a wallop. Indeed powerful prose is needed to force Christians to evaluate their responsibilities in a hungry world.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Isolating the problem.

Millions of Americans know what it is to be lonely. Their need for satisfying relationships has stimulated a flock of new enterprises in recent years, including singles’ bars, encounter groups, singles’ apartment complexes, and computerized dating services. Even the Christian community has entered the market. An ad in a Christian newspaper assured single Christians that “God did not ordain loneliness” and urged them to subscribe to a monthly publication through which they could supposedly get to “know” other single Christians on four continents. Popular music sounds a constant lament of broken relationships and loneliness in songs like “All By Myself,” “Lonely Street,” “Have You Ever Been Lonely,” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody.”

A fourth of the people questioned in one survey said they felt very lonely or cut off from other people at some time during the preceding few weeks. In another study, 27 per cent of the unmarried women (plus 10 per cent of the married women) and 23 per cent of the unmarried men (plus 6 per cent of the married men) expressed intense loneliness. Almost half of the widows over fifty living in one large metropolitan area said that loneliness was their worst problem. Loneliest of all, researchers find, are elderly men who live alone and are infirm.

For so pervasive a problem, loneliness has received surprisingly little attention from psychologists. A University of California psychologist, Anne Peplau, compiled a bibliography on the topic that as of April, 1977, had only 175 articles, dating back to 1937. Among the first to consider it a distinctive problem were the personality theorists Harry Stack Sullivan, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and Clark Moustakas. Erich Fromm suggested, in 1941, that if society did not meet five basic human needs—the needs for relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, identity, and a frame of orientation—widespread loneliness would result.

The emotional pain of loneliness is often expressed in physical symptoms, such as “an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach,” or nausea. People who are chronically lonely seem to have an underlying anxiety, a fear either of not obtaining or of losing a desired relationship. Loneliness is very often accompanied by depression.

Although loneliness is distinct from grief, there is considerable psychological overlap. The yearning and pining, restless movement, scanning, and focus on the lost person that mark grief are characteristic of loneliness also. The lonely person is highly motivated by his emotional pain to seek out the desired or lost relationship. At the same time he may, because of societal norms, behave in ways that overtly deny his need.

Loneliness seems to involve the feeling of not only wanting another but also not being wanted by another. Anyone who has sat alone in a bustling cafeteria while other people sit together talking and laughing has probably felt for a moment the intertwined twinges of loneliness and wanting to be wanted.

Of course, one needn’t be alone to be lonely. Some people feel intensely lonely even when they’re with others. And to be alone is not necessarily to be lonely.

People of all ages and descriptions experience loneliness. It is not clear, however, whether there are different kinds of loneliness. Do infants and children experience it differently from the elderly? Singles differently from the married?

The psychologist Robert Weiss has suggested that there are at least two basic forms of loneliness: emotional isolation and social isolation. Emotional isolation involves the lack or loss of a psychologically intimate relationship with another person or a very few others. A person can overcome it only by establishing a very similar kind of relationship. This type of loneliness is generally experienced, according to Weiss, as a sense of utter aloneness, whether or not companionship with others is available. Social isolation, on the other hand, is marked more by feelings of being on the margin of life and of aimlessness. The person needs a supportive network of accepting friends who regard him as a member of the network, rather than a specific companion.

A third kind of loneliness might well be added to these: existential loneliness. The person feels his life has no meaning, and he feels alienated from God. Existentialist writers have repeatedly written about the isolation of human beings from the transcendent and from purpose in life. They have painted graphic pictures of fundamentally lonely people.

The lonely person is isolated and unattached. For some reason he is unable to develop significant relationships, or is unable to gain emotional satisfaction from the relationships that are important to him.

Two basic feelings underlie the various forms of loneliness. The first is a lack of the sense of belonging. Not being chosen by others, the lonely person is unsure that he is really wanted by anyone. The second is the feeling that no one understands. The lonely person has either lost or been unable to form relationships in which he can share intimate concerns with another person who is interested, sympathetic, and accepting.

The loneliness of not feeling accepted and understood may be experienced by married as well as single people. Married persons who become too busy in separate spheres of activity, or who do not talk to each other about deep feelings for fear of being hurt, or who fail to encourage intimate communication, are likely to experience loneliness.

Some people suffer from long-term or chronic loneliness. Others experience short-term or acute loneliness, which is generally associated with a temporary condition, whether biological, interpersonal, or environmental—having moved to a new place, for instance.

Chronic loneliness is often the result of negative childhood experiences. The child as he develops has three fundamental needs that must be met if he is not to experience this. He needs (1) to feel attached, (2) to feel accepted, and (3) to acquire adequate social skills.

Only in recent years have psychologists come to realize that to form bonds of affection or attachment, an infant needs more from a mother-figure than the satisfaction of his physical needs. The psychiatrist Rene Spitz found that over one-third of a group of babies who were in an institution and did not receive adequate cuddling died within two years. The children who survived were drastically retarded in mental, motor, and social skills, even though they had had adequate physical care. Other psychologists have found that infants seem to form specific attachments to their caretakers within their first five months. Some psychologists have suggested that an important cause of crying during the first three months of life is loneliness. This kind of crying promptly stops when the infant is picked up and cuddled, whereas crying because of physical need does not.

A young child may be severely affected by being separated from his mother. Short-term separation for two weeks or more may cause the child to experience grief. Upon meeting the mother again, the child remains emotionally distant and detached for hours or even days. When he gets over this he is likely to cling to his mother, apparently afraid he will lose her again.

The longer-term effects of disrupted attachment are slowly being understood. The British psychologist John Bowlby has suggested that many psychological difficulties seem to be associated with a long-lasting impairment of attachment. He found that the person who develops a psychopathic personality or a depression syndrome is very likely to have suffered a disruption of affectional bonds during childhood. We can readily assume that this disruption would lead also to chronic feelings of loneliness.

If this is so, then we need to learn much more about how to compensate for the disruptions caused by death, divorce, and out-of-home care during early childhood. There is now one divorce for every two marriages in the United States. In 1974 the parents of more than a million children were divorced. One-parent households increased in number from almost three million in 1966 to almost five million in 1975. Child abuse, which can certainly disrupt a child’s attachment bonds, has increased, and this is undoubtedly feeding into the problem of chronic loneliness. The long-term effects of institutional child-care and shifting a child from babysitter to babysitter because a family moves or due to other factors need to be explored; these things, too, seem likely to play some part in chronic loneliness.

The second fundamental need of the developing child is acceptance. Parents communicate acceptance or rejection in many ways: by whether they meet his basic needs without lengthy delays; by the way in which the child is held, caressed, and talked to; by the frequency and form of discipline; by the amount of spontaneous affection they show; by how much they interact with the child.

Parental rejection may destroy the attachment bond if extreme, but more often it handicaps the child by damaging his self-esteem. When the child receives mostly negative responses from the people who are most significant in his life, a foundation of doubt and insecurity is laid. The child who feels rejected by his parents is likely to conclude that he’s not good enough to be wanted by anybody. He is afraid to approach others for fear of further rejection. Persons with low self-esteem are less open in relating to others than are people with normal self-esteem, and they are more likely to have their feelings hurt. Furthermore, they feel too “weak” to overcome their problems. Either they assume that nobody would want anything to do with them because they don’t have anything to offer, or they behave in ways that tend to repel others. Rejection by parents also hinders people from forming the basic trust that is essential to an intimate relationship.

The third developmental factor important for avoiding chronic loneliness is the acquiring of adequate social skills. Children with disrupted affectional bonds and those with low self-esteem find it hard to develop the social skills that enable them to carry on intimate relationships.

The person who is rejected by his peers because of his inadequate social skills may focus his efforts on tasks and things rather than people. Instead of developing a feeling of self-worth in a network of accepting relationships, he tries to gain acceptance by what he can achieve and acquire. The result is further isolation and loneliness, because self-esteem based on this kind of comparison is inevitably competitive. The task-centered person is playing a serious game of oneupmanship, and so he finds it increasingly difficult to trust others. Instead, he is likely to see them as objects to be manipulated.

Up to this point we have been looking at individual conditions, the particular psychological factors that may hinder a person in relating to others. The prevalence of loneliness in modern America suggests the need to look also at some social conditions that are a part of the backdrop of our life. I believe that the following all contribute to loneliness in modern America: technology, television, urbanization, and the acceptance of certain Renaissance values.

The desire to increase production and profit has motivated the development of an impersonal technology and a commodity-orientation. The individual has become a means to an end, a production tool. Although this orientation is not new in our society, we have done something new with it: we have taken it into our personal lives. The technological emphasis on efficiency—on maximum output at minimum time and cost—has been extended to human interaction. When efficiency and the accompanying goals of convenience and comfort become internalized as guiding values, human relationships become more superficial. Deep, satisfying relationships take time, effort, and sometimes pain to develop; the process may at times be inconvenient, uncomfortable, inefficient.

The increasing need for specialists in our complex technological system fosters further isolation. Persons who are not specialists in the same thing may find it hard to talk to one another, and so loneliness increases.

Television, too, enhances separation. Family members may sit beside one another for hours every day without communicating. There is little talk and virtually no play in millions of homes. Family members can hardly feel a part of an intimate network of understanding and caring if they seldom interact directly.

Further, some recent studies have shown that heavy TV viewers tend to have distorted pictures of social reality and are more distrustful, more fearful of others. In both the ads and the programs, those who get the rewards are the ones who are the most scheming, unattached, competitive, and coolly ruthless—these are hardly the characteristics that nourish deep, trusting relationships.

Urbanization is another heavy contributor to society-wide loneliness. One may feel surrounded by too many people; one reacts by shutting them out and by zealously guarding privacy. In midtown Manhattan, to take an example, an office worker could encounter 220,000 persons within a ten-minute radius of his office. We can be stimulated only so much; then we try to cope by filtering out stimuli. The people-weary worker may at the end of the day feel he wants to escape from people, even his family. He may ignore the stranger who needs help. He may avert his glance when encountering another person and not say hello.

Related to urbanization is the phenomenon of mobility. Modern transportation, the rise of large national and international corporations, and the economic lure of the city have combined to make moving a common experience for Americans. Each year forty million of them change their residence, according to estimates, and the average person will move at least fourteen times during his lifetime. Between 1970 and 1975, almost half the people in America moved. Mobility not only disrupts existing friendships but also makes people more hesitant to try to develop new ones. It is becoming unusual for people to have “old friends” whom they see regularly. People may be reluctant to involve themselves with newcomers to their neighborhood because either they or the newcomers will probably move in the next two years, and the effort doesn’t seem worth it.

The last social condition I cited as a contributor to loneliness had to do with values. A decreasing consensus of values is due in part to secularization, but is related also to the fact that metropolitan areas are international centers. Tolerance of the pluralism doesn’t cover up the inability of people to understand one another at intimate levels of value commitment.

On the other hand, in America at least, there does seem to be agreement about four Renaissance-derived values: independence, individualism, freedom, and competitiveness. The problem is that these are values that separate people.

Even under ideal developmental, biological, and sociological conditions, people experience loneliness. It may come at a point of crisis, in a moment of solitude, or at the point of considering one’s death. It is experienced as a sense of personal insignificance in relation to the universe, an inability to find meaning for life that transcends the immediate, or a feeling that God either does not exist or does not personally relate to human beings. It first appears at the point at which we recognize our separate existence and exert our self-will. Much of the current love affair between Americans and Eastern religions seems to be an attempt to overcome existential loneliness, to find unity with the Divine, to transcend separateness, to find peace with life.

An adequate understanding of existential loneliness begins in the Creation account. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness …’” (Gen. 1:26). God is interpersonal. And man, created in God’s image, is also an interpersonal being. Later “the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him’” (Gen. 2:18). Although God obviously saw that human psychological needs required another person “corresponding to” (New American Standard Version) him, He made man a social being so that He might ultimately satisfy the need. Loneliness, therefore, reminds the human being of a fundamental emptiness in his life.

When sin entered into human experience, the basic bond between man and God was broken. From the point that Adam and Eve chose to violate their relationship with God they became self-centered and narcissistic. Human experience became forever marked by a divisive self-centeredness. Adam and Eve no longer belonged in the intimate way they had previously. They no longer belonged in the Garden, and the sinfulness that separated them from God disrupted their own union. They became defensive and tried to pass the blame. They were no longer able to communicate trustfully with one another on the deepest levels.

Once belonging, trust, and understanding were lost, the specter of competitiveness entered in. Cain competed with Abel. Self-will separated him from God; social comparison separated him from Abel. His murder of his brother permanently separated him; he was condemned to a life of wandering and loneliness rather than death. Even this was more than he could bear, however, and he pleaded with God for a place of refuge where he could belong and be safe.

The removal of God as the center of human relationship was the precursor of today’s secularization. In order to cope with sin without repenting, modern man has attempted to get rid of God by pronouncing him dead. But this attempt plunges man deeper into the depths of loneliness and despair without remedy. Instead of turning to God in repentance and having life’s most fundamental relationship restored, the secular person casts about for substitutes that will allow him to retain his narcissism but overcome his loneliness and alienation. Drugs, alcohol, sex, and marathon encounter experiences become part of the search, as do T.M., est, and countless other semireligious, semi-psychological trips.

Sin, however, continues to prevent the non-defensive communion that brings consistent understanding and belonging. The person who denies his sin is continually shocked by the selfishness of those he thought he could trust. Attempts to become transparent are frustrated when openness is met by misunderstanding and rejection. Existential loneliness cannot be overcome by secularism. The essential of unconditional regard is humanly possible only within the confines of a carefully controlled therapeutic setting or between non-intimates. The agape love of God that makes such an intimate union possible is foreign to the person who rejects God.

At the point of separation through sin, the entrance of judgment was inevitable because of the justice of God. Although sin grossly distorted human functioning, traces of God’s image remain. However, judgment became perverted. The standard of judgment became whether or not self-centered personal rights had been violated; hence judgment became the servant of ego-defenses. This is why the path toward emotional intimacy is marked by sensitivity and hurt. This is also why the Scripture is full of exhortations to Christians not to judge one another. God is the only non-defensive judge. Christians are to evaluate and discern and correct, but only on the basis of clear biblical guidelines and in a humble manner. Any other judging, even the twisted use of those biblical guidelines for defensive purposes, will be met by reciprocal judgment.

Repeatedly, the Scriptures exhort Christians to bear with one another, to put on love, and to be united in spirit. This is the picture of a community where people belong and are understood. To the extent, however, that the church community becomes secularized and ceases to be the family of God in practice, loneliness will prevail. One Christian recently remarked that she felt great unity and communion with God during the worship service but great loneliness and isolation in the narthex. Too many churches have become trapped in the secular system of conditional regard, status orientation, and production or possessions as the measure of worth.

Ultimately, existential loneliness cannot be overcome until God and the person are reconciled. At the point of redemption and reconciliation we become the adopted children of God. We belong. In the ultimate act of overcoming loneliness, God sends his own Spirit to be one with us by residing in us. Because we don’t lose our humanity at that point, we still need from others the human experience of belonging and being understood. But if that fails we are not cast into panic and despair, like the secular existentialists. We have the promise that one day we will have an eternal place of belonging and will become unified with God, because we will be like Christ. Heaven, it seems, is a place of oneness; hell is a place of separation and utter loneliness forever.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Adventures in Evangelicaland

“First Anita Bryant, now. Chuck Colson.”

“What’s the connection between those two?”

“Cream pies, that’s what. They have both suffered for their faith by having cream pies thrown into their faces.”

“You talk as if that entitles them to a place in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.”

“Can you think of anything faced by American Christians that could better qualify someone?”

“Yeah, it’s good for the rest of the world to realize that we also suffer.”

“You know, it’s a shame how the world is so anxious to take advantage of someone who’s recently been born again.”

“Like Eldridge Cleaver?”

“Yes, like Eldridge Cleaver. I find it inexcusable that some ad agency should take advantage of his innocence about Christian things by trying to get him to endorse a line of pants, especially that kind.”

“I agree. They have no business exploiting him, making a profit from him, when he is such a new, untaught Christian.”

“Right on. They ought to leave him to the church, to para-church organizations, and the Christian media.”

EUTYCHUS VIII

Nice Design

Your edition of the January 13 issue just arrived today (late as usual). The tardiness is more than compensated for by the improved art work, or really the layout and design. The wide margins and their use for quotes and biographical information—very nice.… Because a topic is serious doesn’t mean it has to look heavy and/or boring.… The review of Bruce Cockburn’s music (Refiner’s Fire) was well done. I bought a tape of Phil Keaggy after your column on him, and was very pleased.

JOHN H. BRAY

Barrie, Ontario

The Good Things

“Expedition” by Elva McAllaster (Dec. 30) … challenges mind and spirit alike, is biblical in sensibility, and well crafted. The only flaw I see is the repetition of line one at the end, which seems unnecessary and “cute.” But that is a minor point. The poem is excellent.… Not enough people, including myself, point out the good things.

MATTHEW R. BROWN

Midland, Mich.

Wesleyans And Scripture

The report of the meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society under the title “Wesleyan Issues” in your December 9 issue suggests, somewhat awkwardly, the troubles which Wesleyans and other evangelicals whose roots lie deep in eighteenth and nineteenth century piety have had in fending off the narrow view of the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture which B. B. Warfield and, recently. Harold Lindsell have tried to make definitive of evangelical orthodoxy. The Christian Holiness Association has not “softened” its statements on Scripture in recent years, but simply clarified the fact that we Wesleyans stand in an older and much broader evangelical tradition than that represented by modern neo-Calvinist scholasticism.

That position is, simply, that the Scriptures are inerrant in matters of faith and doctrine: and that those matters are not accurately understood by reference to the verbal inspiration of every word of Scripture, whether in the original autographs or modern translations, but in the meanings of the messages about faith and righteousness, history and hope, which whole passages of Scripture set forth. Understanding these meanings and messages requires both critical and reverent reflection by men and women of deepest faith, whose commitment to fellowship with all disciples, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is thoroughgoing. And it requires them to consider those passages in the larger context of the “book” of the Bible in which each appears. For this reason, the followers of Christ, beginning with the apostles, have been theologians, not echo boxes. They have trusted the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Scriptures, and so to guide them into all truth, just as Jesus promised.

TIMOTHY L. SMITH

Professor of History

The Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Md.

A Small Post-Script

Thielicke’s article on “Why the Holocaust” (Jan. 27) is thought-provoking. Naturally, the author cannot deal with all the aspects of the problem, yet it is a little surprising that he hardly refers to the ominous presence of antisemitism in German society prior to Hitler.

May I add a little post-script dealing with this aspect of things? In the final year of the war a lady belonging to the higher ranks of German society was allowed to go to Switzerland for health reasons. Buying a book in a Christian bookshop in Basel she complained about the Allied air attacks on defenseless women and children in Germany. The saleslady serving her—she is the source of my information—remarked about all the women and children killed in Auschwitz, to which the German lady replied: “Yes, but they were Jewish women and children!”

LUDWIG R. DEWITZ

Columbia Theological Seminary

Decatur, Ga.

I do not believe Helmut Thielicke. He protests that he didn’t even remotely suspect the full extent of what was happening in Nazi Germany. Who did know the full extent except the Nazi masters? Now some are even protesting that Hitler didn’t know of the orders to exterminate the Jews, that they were given without his knowledge and consent.

With 1,000 concentration camps in Germany and occupied countries, with millions of men, women, and children used as slave labor in factories, marched in the streets, moved across country in cattle cars, gassed and incinerated, Germans who could see, hear, and smell knew something horrible and of great magnitude was going on (“beating wings of darkness circling about us”).

No, they didn’t know the full extent but they knew enough to have said as Bodelschwingh is quoted as saying, “over my dead body” or now say they lacked the courage to do so. Christ’s new commandment was “to love one another even as I have loved you”—to be willing to die for one another which obviously they weren’t.

RUFUS H. CRAIG

Alexandria, La.

Your gala Nazi issue would have been laughable and unworthy of serious attention had it not been for the presence of the article by Robert Clouse. Clouse spent most of his time traducing and defaming the brave women (such as those of the Missouri delegation), who stood up to the degeneracy of the I.W.Y. Convention. I wonder if Professor Clouse was in Houston? If so, what are his views about the grotesque immorality there, the likes of which resembled that of Berlin at the height of “Weimar Culture”? Was he offended by the repression of the minority by the leader Bella Abzug? Maybe this is only offensive to Clouse when done by Herman Goering at a Reichstag session.…

Clouse anguishes over the “press for conformity.” Well said, for this was Hitler’s concern. The same Adolf Hitler who loathed the bourgeois Christians of Germany, and promised the destruction of their culture regardless of the outcome of World War II. Indeed, it was not the despised middle class who furnished the criminals of the Third Reich, but it was the failed academics such as Joseph Goebbels, Ernst Hanfstaengl, and Dietrich Eckart. Academics anxious to curry favor with those in positions to further their careers. These men worshiped the state, considered themselves socialists, and ridiculed the “paranoia” of the bourgeoisie. They re-wrote history, in the same manner as Clouse, to toe an ideological line and to create justification for their own fashionable views. The intellectual dishonesty of Germany’s academic community of the 1930s and the same intellectual charlatanism of Clouse’s article of 1978, is the genuine danger to our culture.

DWIGHT PRADE

St. Louis, Mo.

“Why the Holocaust” is truly enlightening and provocative. I found myself underlining so many principles which would deceive many of us. Not only has Herr Thielicke given us insight into what was taking place in Germany during the Third Reich, but he has also served a forewarning to those of us who live in a Christian milieu where God and country go hand in hand.

I was especially touched as I read his one sentence, “The soil of men’s hearts had been plowed and there was great readiness to repent.” How sad to think there were so few true shepherds to guide those ready to enter into the Kingdom by faith and repentance. The commentaries by the three American historians were also excellent, making the whole an informative, thought-provoking package. Thank you for such a timely article.

HELEN LOUISE HERNDON

St. Louis, Mo.

Good Word For Verbicide

I want to thank you and D. G. Kehl for the excellent article (“Have You Committed Verbicide Today”, Jan. 27). We are often so frantically busy using the medium of language to try to capture some notice for our ideas that we rarely have time to pay attention to the medium itself, apart from anything we wish to do with it. And as Christians we have perhaps more of a stake in language than anyone; for if God is to communicate his message through us to the world, then his word and our expression of it must remain intelligible to that world, or we shall end up “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Dr. Kehl’s article was a timely reminder of the “awful” (in the old sense) responsibility we have in our speech, that “every word shall be accounted for.”

PETER GORHAM

University of Californi

Irvine, Calif.

This is C.T.’s annual book issue. Included is a list of twenty-five books that Donald Tinder, our book editor, suggests you add to your library. Some of them contain opinions we disagree with, but the learning process includes getting acquainted with various sides of issues so that we come out with opinions formed on the basis of the data, not on guesswork.

I highly recommend the article on loneliness, a disease suffered by so many today. I have found that a sense of the presence of Jesus and the knowledge of the indwelling Spirit has helped me; it can help you. When your C. T. arrives, friend wife and I will be enjoying the balmy breezes of Florida after a very snowy Chicago winter.