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Women's Visions: Theological Reflection, Celebration, Action. Ofelia Ortega, editor, Geneva, WCC Publications, 1995. 182 pp. $18.95.

Eighteen Christian women from fourteen countries across the globe introduce readers to their own work and to women's theological voices from their own settings. These inspiring and thought-provoking papers were first presented in a spring 1993 seminar held at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland. Contributors include Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant women from every continent, countries as diverse as Peru, New Zealand, Benin, Canada, and the Philippines. The volume offers an excellent overview of church women's concerns at the midpoint of the Ecumenical Decade for Women, both in their commonalities and in their differences. Especially valuable are the many references to less well-known women writers and to regional women's projects. This book is well suited to introduce the global scope of women's theological reflection and action; it also offersinew voices and perspectives to those already versed in this subject.

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ.

Begrimed Land Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness. Robert E. Hood, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994. 198 pp. $15.00.

In this well-researched and well-written book, Robert Hood advances a number of important themes about the interplay between Christianity and antiblack attitudes. Hood's central point is that negative views of blacks and blackness within Christianity are not the result of Christianity's succumbing to wider, external influences but are, instead, intrinsic to Christian scriptural and theological worldviews. As an example, he cites the association of terms such as white and light with goodness and black and dark with evil. These perspectives, he argues, are sufficiently ingrained in Christian consciousness that the carryover into racial matters is both inevitable and irreversible. In this way, Hood places Christianity at the heart of the Western philosophical assault on black life that began in the Greco-Roman period.

Hood also points out that, while the defamatory process greatly intensified with the fifteenth century slave trade, a singular focus on political motivations, such as the consolidation of slavery, cannot account for the strength of antiblack sentiments within Christendom. His suggestion is that such motivations only partly explain a phenomenon rooted much more immediately in Christian thought systems.

R. Drew Smith, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN.

From Creation to New Creation: Old Testament Perspectives. Bernhard W. Anderson, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994. 256 pp. $16.00.

Bernhard Anderson is best known to seminary students for his well-used introductory textbook Understanding the Old Testament (now in its fourth edition) and to biblical scholars for his distinctive work on the theme of creation in the Hebrew Bible. Besides his classic Creation versus Chaos (1967, reprinted I987) and the important anthology Creation in the Old Testament, which he edited in

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1984, Anderson has written many essays on biblical creation theology that, until now, were tucked away in a wide variety of journals and books. It is, therefore, a delight to have fourteen of these valuable essays (written between 1955 and 1994) collected in one accessible, reasonably priced volume. Whereas some of the essays provide a general. introduction to biblical teaching on creation, others engage in sensitive literary readings of creation texts in Genesis, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, while still others bring biblical understandings of creation into conversation with the environmental crisis and contemporary scientific cosmology. This is not only required reading on the subject of creation in the Bible but exemplary biblical scholarship at its theological best.

J. Richard Middleton, Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, NY.

The Rise of Normative Christianity. Arland J. Hultgren, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994. 210 pp. $16.00.

Suitable for pastors and theologically educated laypersons, this richly documented study argues that fourth-century Christian orthodoxy was the legitimate heir of a "normative" form of Christianity traceable through the writings of the second and third centuries back to the time of the apostles and, ultimately, to Jesus himself. Largely an attack on the views of Walter Bauer and his modern-day devotees, Hultgren's study attempts to broaden the discussion to consider not only the theology (or "confession") of the various early Christian movements (for example, Marcionites, Gnostics, and Ebionites, in addition to their "normative" counterparts) but their communal life as well (their "ethos"). Critics may question Hultgren's steady reliance on the Book of Acts and later proto-orthodox writings and, especially, his confusion of literary descriptions (for example, of "community") and social realities. At the same time, the study is clearly written and argued, often insightful, and at all times thought provoking.

Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC.

Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Thomas F. Torrance, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1994. 71 pp. $5.99.

In these two lectures on christology, we have a valuable contribution to the renewed conversation about the Trinity from Edinburgh's former professor of Christian dogmatics. With welcome freshness, Thomas Torrance shifts the focus in the discussion from ourselves to God, from our self-will to God's freedom and faithfulness, from our attempts to name and control God to God's gracious self-giving and self-naming in Jesus Christ.

In "Preaching Christ Today," Torrance shows that the affirmation that Jesus Christ is "truly God, truly human" expresses the very essence of the gospel. Jesus Christ is God's freely chosen way of being for us and with us as God. Jesus Christ is God's own self-being, God's own self-expression. God is not one thing in Jesus Christ and, then, "behind Jesus' back," something unknown and quite different that we name and describe to suit ourselves.

"Incarnation and Atonement" underscores the unity of Christ's person and work. Jesus' incarnate life-the very fact of Jesus Christ-is itself redemptive. Christ is not just a means of salvation we choose to acknowledge or not, thus leaving the burden of redemption on our own shoulders.

This book will help pastors clarify what is at stake, and at risk, in the current debate about how we respond to the God who meets us in the scandalously particular person of Jesus Christ-a gospel to which, Torrance argues, the modern scientific world is more open than is a church still struggling to free itself from the

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outdated relativism of the Enlightenment and, we might add, from ideological captivities too numerous to list.

John B. Rogers, Jr., Covenant Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC.

Serenity; Courage, and Wisdom: The Enduring Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr. Henry B. Clark, Cleveland, Pilgrim, 1994. 223 pp. $14.95.

Early in his book, Henry Clark confesses that he believes Reinhold Niebuhr's life was worthy of emulation. So, when Clark sets out to offer a critical appraisal of Niebuhr's Christian Realism philosophy, there is little doubt where his journey will end. Given the sheer volume of Niebuhr's writings, it is refreshing to read a book whose author is familiar with almost all of Niebuhr's work (allowing us the luxury of being more selective in our follow-up reading) and is as comfortable with scholarly 'quotations as he is with anecdotal illustrations. Unfortunately, the overall character of Clark's book is like overhearing a telephone conversation; we know he is responding to critics of Niebuhr but we seldom catch more than snippets of a rather one sided dialogue. The main strength of this book is that it reminds us of much of what we had forgotten about Niebuhr's expansive religious philosophy. While Clark's treatment may not be comprehensive enough for a full, scholarly meal, it ce'itainly whets the appetite nicely.

Randall K. Bush, First Presbyterian Church, Racine, WI.

The Courage to Live: A Biography of Suzanne de Dietrich. Hans-Ruedi Weber, Geneva, WCC Publications, 1995. 168 pp. $15.90.

Paradox ~characterized the life of Suzanne de Dietrich. Born to wealth, she was deeply concerned for the poor. Championing labor, she sympathized with struggling management. Warmly inclined toward home and children, she never married. The second French woman with a university degree in engineering, she never worked as º an engineer. (As a student, she became fascinated with Bible study through the Student Christian Movement and began a long career of Bible teaching.) Disliking bureaucrats and church politics, she spent her life working with bureaucrats and church politicians. A feminist, opposing female exploitation, she stressed the complementarianism rather than the identity of the sexes and urged women to be women. Badly crippled, she traveled all over the world, usually alone. She loved life but courted death by driving her little car in hair-raising fashion. "French" to the core, she denounced tribalism. Passionately "ecumenical," she resisted harmony achieved by reductionism. With a solid theology generally oriented toward neoorthodoxy, she welcomed truth from any quarter.

Her voluminous writing, her touch with the world-wide life of the churches, and her years at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland, made her probably the most influential female lay theologian of the twentieth century.

This fascinating account of her life and work-a fitting introduction to the ecumenical movement-by a competent author who knew her well, both as friend and colleague, is the fruit of scholarly research and restrained, fair interpretation.

Donald G. Miller, Gaithersburg, MD.

The Rich M n and the Kingdom: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Protestant Establishment. Albert F. Schenkel, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995. 248 pp. $14.00.

Probe the history of seminaries, denominations, world missions, and ecumenical movements that have helped shape the lives of many people reading this journal, and one will find a vast array of debts to an American who, from 1917 to 1960, gave away a billion dollars.

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Based largely on exhaustive original research in family archives, Schenkel's study supplies the reader with grist for reflection on some of the great perennial questions of the history of religion in America: Is religion the necessary underpinning of this nation's fragile unity? Is some version of Protestantism the only real candidate for that underpinning? Are Protestant Americans always vulnerable to substituting "Americanism" for faith in the God of the Bible?

John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s answers to these questions were those of the liberal nineteenth-century theology that invited humanity to overcome its ancient enemies of war, poverty, and class conflict with the aid of scientific objectivity, business pragmatism, the inspiration of Jesus, and careful investments of money.

By them time he died in I960, his dream of a "Christian America" had already suffered a fatal assault from resurgent forces, secular, sectarian, and pluralistic. But as Schenkel says in the very last paragraph of the book, there is an "undying religious I aspiration" in the dream, expressed in such apparently irresolvable conflict as that between a Christian Coalition and a National Council of Churches. What those two organizations have in common is the faith that humans have a divine calling to leave the earth a better place for the next generation to live in. That hopeful vocation, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. embraced in his heart and with his capacious' ,pocketbook. Even without realizing it, many of us are still in his debt, as this book abundantly proves.

Donald W. Shriver Jr., Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY

Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East. Moshe Weinfeld, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995. 300 pp. $34.00.

The idiom "justice and righteousness" is one of the more potent and significant phrases in the moral "lexicon" of the Bible. Weinfeld has brought a wide familiarity with both biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature to the exhaustive study of this phrase in its various contexts. His fundamental claim is that justice and righteousness are less a juridical matter in Scripture than a sociopolitical one, and the starting point is the responsibility of the king for the establishment of a just society. A significant feature of that establishment is the proclamation of freedom or liberation that is reflected in the royal edicts of ancient Mesopotamia that freed people from forced labor, economic debts, and the like. In Mesopotamia, Syria, and Israel, these took two basic forms: the one-time proclamation of release for the entire population of the land, which usually involved manumission of slaves and return of property, and the granting of permanent rights to certain cities, for example, freedom from forced labor and military service. Weinfeld gives particular attention to~ the sabbatical year and the jubilee in the biblical laws and to the activity of the deity to establish justice and righteousness.

The author's knowledge of the Near Eastern material and his ability to identify its relevance for understanding social practices and ideology in ancient Israel is the great strength of the book. Already well known in its original Hebrew publication, it will now have a deservedly wider audience, especially among those interested in ethics and society in ancient Israel.

Patrick D. Miller, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ.

What Is Postmodern Biblical Criticism? A.K.M. Adam, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995. 8I pp. ,$10.00.

A.K.M. Adam, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, has provided "modern" readers a lucid introduction to "postmodern" reading practices. The starting point and framework for Adam's four-chapter analysis of postmodern biblical criticism is provided by Cornel West's approach to

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postmodernism as “antifoundational. Antitotalizing and demystifying.” Deconstruction follows from antifoundationalism (the refusal to posit any premise as the privileged starting point for establishing truth claims); political criticism follows from postmodern demystifying; and transgressive interpretations that cross disciplinary borders follow from resistance to totalizing.

Anxions and fearful readers are reassured by both the form and content of the book. Adam employs a simple, understandable style of writing and is faithful to academic conventions. And throughout the volume, Adam suggests that postmodern and deconstructive theories do not necessarily lead to the conclusion that teach is that these matters are awkwardly entangled in their various discourses.

Edgar V. McKnight, Furman University, Greenville, SC.

Roots of Wisdom: The Oldest Proverbs of Israel and Other Peoples. Claus Westermann, Louisville, Westminster John Knox, 1995. 178 pp. $19.99.

In Roots of Wisdom, Claus Westermann turns his form-critical expertise from prophetic oracles and psalms to the earliest proverbial wisdom of ancient Israel. He rejects the view that proverbial wisdom originated as the literary product of formal wisdom schools. Rather, he asserts the “universal character of proverbs,” that Israel’s proverbial wisdom originated with oral, one-line observations about human life that are similar to those found in preliterate cultures around the world.

The form-critical method enables Westermann to distinguish the origins and purpose of early sayings found in Proverbs 10-31 from the didactic, literary wisdom of Proverbs 1-9, admonitions, and commandments. Analyzing the roots, however, is but half the task. Proverbs as a cultural-rhetorical form have a forward-moving momentum that seeks out new situations to illuminate with their word of wisdom. Westermann continually points our instances of proverbial wisdom’s applicability to contemporary life, and his observations are very satisfying.

Among the contributions for the book is the illuminating comparison between Proverbs 10-31 and extrabiblical proverb collections from Sumer, Egypy, and Africa. Another is the perspective it provides on proverbs in Qohelet, the distorical and prophetic books, Psalms, Job, and the Synoptic Gospels. Still another is Westermann’s placing early proverbial wisdom in dialogue with contemporary theology, warning it not deal exclusively in abstract concepts, lest it rub the risk of distancing itself from the language of the common people about God and, ironically, of thereby losing its universal character.

Alyce M. McKenzie, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ.

Out of Silence: Emerging Themes in Asian American Churches. Fumitaka Matsuoka, Cleveland, United Church, 1995. 168 pp. $10.95.

Fumitaka Matsuoka, a theologian and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, has produced one of the rare, poignant, and well-written books on the life and faith of Asian American congregations, which now number over three thousand. Asian American Christians of diverse national ancestry have long been silent and have often been seen by the larger society only as the diligent and capable model minority. Matsuoka eloquently voices the untold stories of endurance and pain, wisdom and insight that have been buried deep beneath the powerful silence.

Set out in three chapters with a helpful introduction, the book discusses Asian American Christians’ struggles with the issues of community, ethnicity, identity,

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and racism. The author affirms the joy of community that draws Asian Americans to the church and celebrates the formation of an ethnic identity that nurtures souls that are hungry and thirsty for human dignity. Matsuoka recognizes the ambiguity involved in forging a new identity in the in-between world of Asian Americans but also sees in this ambiguity the creativity of what he calls "holy insecurity." He also describes the Asian church's mission to offer an alternative way of human relationships in the midst of the racism in this country.

The author challenges all Christians to reflect upon the silent sufferings as well as the Christian faith responses of Asian Americans-especially those of triply oppressed Asian American women. He offers a passionate plea for the construction of an inclusive and reconciled community in which people from all ethnic groups can live with a sense of affirmation and freedom from the idolatrous cultural practices of oppressive powers.

Inn Sook Lee, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, NJ.

The Land Is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies: Norman C. Habel, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995. 190 pp. $I2.00.

Norman Habel has produced an excellent analysis of the variety of ways land is understood in the Hebrew Bible. Without attempting to harmonize or synthesize them into the ideology of land in ancient Israel, he presents them as independent and possessing their own integrity.

Habel describes the six ideologies by the images of land used (for example, fertile soil or sanctuary), the place of God (for example, heaven or the land), the type of charter that establishes entitlement to the land (for example, royal edict or gift), who holds power over the land (for example, king or peasant), and any rights held by the, people or the land itself.

Habel's examination reveals the complexity of social ethics in ancient Israel and provides a good perspective on the interaction of various segments within Israelite society. In 'addition, the book provides material for reflecting on biblical insights into contemporary issues concerning land and power.

Jeffrey A. Fager Kentucky Wesleyan College, Owensboro, KY.

Serious Talk: Science and Religion in Dialogue. John Polkinghorne, Valley Forge, Trinity Press International, 1995. I17 pp. $I3.50.

In the latest of his books on the relationship between science and religion, physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne argues that the unity of knowledge demands that science and religion engage in dialogue. Those familiar with Polkinghorne, an important voice for over a decade now in the science and religion dialogue, will find little new content here.

Originally two series of lectures, Serious Talk retains a conversational tone. The first half presents eight important areas of consonance between science and theology. The second half revisits the traditional Christian notions of creation, providence, the resurrection of Jesus, and eschatology in light of science. The significant amount of redundant material from one chapter to the next is an unfortunate distraction.

A central concern for Polkinghorne, captured in his somewhat misleading slogan "epistemology models ontology," is that our theories should be consonant with the basic human experience of the world as a place of true openness. However, both of Polkinghorne's examples of modern science, quantum mechanics and chaos theory, are susceptible to deterministic interpretations. Thus, his claim for open-

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ness in science is finally more of a desire than an argument for it. Though brief, this book is a good introduction to Polkinghorne's overall program.

Kirk Wegter-McNelly, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.

Invisible Harmony: Essays on Contemplation and Responsibility. Raimon Panikkar, edited by Harry James Cargas, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995. 210 pp. $16.00.

We live in a time when serious theological or philosophical discourse about human religiousness, its patterns, sources, and meaning have become scarce commodities. Reflection on religion and its meaning gets caught between the strictures of the new fundamentalisms that have arisen in many religious communities and the preoccupation of historians of religion with deconstruction and thick description. This collection of essays by Raimon Panikkar is a welcome opportunity to plumb the heights, the depths, the mysteries, and the miseries related to the human religious experience. Christian ministers find themselves increasingly in a religiously plural world even if their parishes are on the main streets of America or Europe.

From his deep faith as a Christian and his immense learning, Panikkar examines contemplation and silence in the life of religion. He gives religious pluralism a fresh turn with his convictions about human rights and religious freedom. These essays are not speculations about the absolute or God as the ground of being. They are reflections on the way in which the human family is religious. They open for us the question of how we seek meaning in a universe that offers us grounds for hope and occasion far despair.

The editor has given helpful information about Panikkar and his work. The introduction is well intentioned, but the exegesis of Panikkar's thought tends to undercut its subtlety. For Panikkar, the contradictions that riddle religious life are not resolved or denied.

Donald G. Dawe, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Richmond, VA.

The Hum: Call and Response in African American Preaching. Evans E. Crawford, Nashville, Abingdon, 1995. 92 pp. $8.95.

Evans Crawford, who for thirty-five years was dean of Howard Divinity School's Rankin Memorial Chapel, helps us to understand the practical significance of the verbal exchange between preacher and pew, known in the black church as call and response. Crawford invites us beyond the surface phenomenon of participatory proclamation to consider the theological and spiritual dynamics that are represented in this traditional exchange between preacher and congregation. On one side of the dialogue, The Hum focuses on the way in which black preachers use timing, pause, inflection, pace, and other musical qualities of speech to encourage the listeners to become a part of the preaching event. On the other side, he explains how such phrases as "Help him Lord!" and "Come on now" actually testify to the listener's willingness to allow the preachers to make their case and, ultimately, to praise God. To the uninitiated ear, call and response could appear to be little more than sound and fury signifying nothing, but Crawford lifts it up as an art that can be mastered by blacks and appreciated by others outside the tradition.

Cleo J LaRue, Jr., Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ.

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Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy. John B. Cobb, Jr., Cleveland, Pilgrim, 1995. I48 pp. $12.95.

The failure of socialism has been seen as marking the end of radical critiques of capitalism. This book, however, demonstrates that Christianity still provides a basis for such a critique. Taking a Christian environmentalist position that he describes as "panentheism," Cobb denounces economic individualism, the global free market, and the pursuit of increasing productivity and efficiency on a worldwide scale, for despoiling the environment, enriching the few, and diminishing "sustainable economic welfare" despite rising worldwide GNP.

Cobb's solution is to replace agribusiness with the family farm and local self-sufficiency, to reject the international growth system based on debt, and to promote by government action, including protectionism, decentralization, and regional and international measures, the social and communal values that have been abandoned in the pursuit of "economism."

Radical indeed. But is it Christian to destroy the world economy, to create nationalistic enclaves of inefficient, environmentally friendly producers, and to establish a host of regulatory mechanisms at every level to bring the market under control? Are there not less radical ways of dealing with these problems, including for example, the extension of U.S. environmental limits to Mexico through the archetype of the market-oriented globalism that Cobb denounces, the North American Free Trade Agreement?

Paul E. Sigmund, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

Narrative and Imagination: Preaching the Worlds That Shape Us. Richard L. Eslinger, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995. 231 pp. $16.00.

Eslinger sets out to answer the question "When we preach, where and how do we begin?" His work, by his own admission, begins twice: first, with an overview of narrative theology and hermeneutics; then, with a summary of developments in imagination theory. The necessity of "two beginnings," not to mention the variety of theories ~being merged, raises a question about whether the two bodies of material can be wedded. His goal is to locate the construal of imagination within a narrative-based postliberal theology and to apply this to the homiletical task. He uses an inductive method, presents "straw" theories (for example, Margaret Miles') in order to reveal better ones, and embarks on excurses (for example, on Edward Farley's individualism and "social-ism") that, at times, leave the reader wondering if the goal is still in sight.

The benefits of the book are several. Eslinger helpfully introduces the reader to a wealth of information mined from narrative theology, imagination and linguistic theories, and hermeneutics. His analysis of three sermons, relying heavily on Buttrick and Lowry, is illuminating and clarifying. Finally, his summary of the role of imagination in the history of modern homiletics reminds us of the roots from which current discussions have grown, and he whets our appetite for new fruit in the homiletical vineyard.

Ann L Hoch, Duke University Divinity School, Durham, NC.