474 - Faith, Science, and the Future

Faith, Science, and the Future
Paul Abrecht, ed.
Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 236 pp. $3.95.

This book was compiled as background reading for a World Conference on Faith, Science, and the Future: The Conditions of a Just, Participatory, and Sustainable Society, sponsored this year by the World Council of Churches in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its value, however, transcends the conference. Nowhere else is there available so concise a review of Christian thinking about the whole range of ethical issues in this field. Part I takes up the debate over faith, science and technology, especially with regard to human dominion over nature and standards for the quality of life. Part 2 takes up the question of energy sources; Part 3, the problems of food, natural resources, environment protection, and population; Part 4, the control and direction of technology; and Part 5, the issues of economic justice.

The chapters are not even. Some are an editor's work, drawn from the fruits of earlier ecumenical conferences, and some are written by individuals. In general, the volume has the richness, the polemical confrontation, the variety, and sometimes the confusion of nine years of ecumenical study and at least a dozen World Council consultations on these subjects. The forthcoming report of the Cambridge conference will add another episode. Those who wish to get into this dialogue-whether church groups, university or seminary circles, or individuals-could hardly do better than to start with this book.

Charles C. West
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, N.J.