SERVICE IN CHRIST, ed. by James I. McCord and T. H. L. Parker.
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 223 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Gordon
H. Clark, professor, Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind.
This Festschrift for Karl Barth on his eightieth birthday
is essentially a history of the care of the poor in the Christian church. True,
it has a chapter on the pagan Graeco-Roman world, but for the rest it proceeds
from the Old Testament and the New Testament to the early Church, the Middle Ages,
the Re-
formation, and on down to the present.
The twenty contributing authors have given us some interesting
history, with a liberal dose of ecumenical propaganda. This bias causes misintrepretation
in various places and in different degrees.
The chapter on Luther is quite good. The chapter on the Puritans
s unsympathetic. For example, the author "feels that deacons were included
along with elders simply because they happened to be mentioned in the New Testament."
What better reason could there be? While he acknowledges that some charges against
the Puritans are unfounded, he complains that they used the whole Bible, not merely
Amos, but "the less incisive ones (passages) from Titus" also.
Covenant theology is completely misunderstood, and in condemning
the Puritans for not reforming government and society, the writer ignores the fact
that they were usually a persecuted minority, sometimes forced into exile, and could
not possibly have influenced legislation.
But for readers who can detect propaganda, the historical contribution
is worth while.
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