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BOOK REVIEWS

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his reflections is to have the; mind stimulated and the soul stirred. It probably will hold greatest value for ministers who will be stimu lated to reflect at greater depth on the life in Christ and to develop many of these; themes into sermons for their congregations. Hyran E. Barefoot A Gospel Without Myth? By David Cairns. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1960. 323 pages. $5.00. The subtitle to this volume is "Bultmann's Challenge to the Preacher." The author (Professor of Practical Theology, Christ's College, Aberdeen, Scotland) is no Bultmann disciple! The aim of this book is to evaluate Bultmann's theology in the particular area of its challenge to the preacher. Does Bultmann leave any "gospel" for the preacher to preach? The author divides his book into two parts and suggests that many readers will profit from beginning with Part . To this review er, however, that is an unsound suggestion. The relevance of Part I for understanding Bultmann's starting point is too important for omission. Part I contains three chapters dealing with: The Inter-relatedness of Preaching, Theology, and Philosophy; Heidegger, Cradle or Cockoo?; Heidegger with the New Look? This is important to Cairns' approach since Bultmann's claim to present a "myth free" gospel and theology rests upon his belief that Heidegger has provided him with the non-mythological and adequate concepts which can govern both theology and preaching. Cairns devotes three chapters to a refutation of this belief; he finds the Heideggerian basis inadequate for an approach to the Gospels. In Part H Cairns relates the demythologizing project to the task of the preacher. Suggestive chapter titles are: Mythical Thinking and the Preacher; The Existential Interpretation; Myth and Miracle; The Flight from History; Will This Preach? A concluding chapter treats of the continuing problem of the mythical and the relationship of the mythical to the existential; Bultmann's antithesis between cosmologicai and existential judgments; the idea of paradoxprofound or bogus. One of the most clarifying areas of the book is Cairns' presenta tion of some of the sermons of Bultmann and H. W. Bartsch and his analysis of their own use of preaching a demythologized gospel. He approaches the border of accusing them of dishonesty in preaching so much more of the gospel than they accept! This has impressed many "listeners" to "Bultmannian" preachers. Some of them can do such splendid preaching with so little to preach; they put to shame those of us who do suchi little preaching with the "whole gospel" as our Bible. Ray Summers The Easter Enigma. By Michael C. Perry. New York: The Humanities Press, 1961. 264 pages. $4.50. The author writes from his retirement from the position of

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REVIEW AND EXPOSITOR

"Senior Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge." The work was originally printed in England in 1959; this is an American printing. The better known Austin Farrer of Trinity College, Oxford, has provided a stimulating and "pace-setting" introduction. "Enigma" is defined by N. Webster as "an obscure saying," "anything inexplicable," "that which hides its meaning under obscure1 or ambiguous allusions." Professor Perry would accept any of these in using the term "The Easter Enigma." It must be made clear in the beginning that he accepts the resurrection of Jesus, i.e., he believes in the resurrection of Jesus as something which happened to Jesus. He will have no part of the popular Bultmann idea that Easter represents only something which happened to the disciples. To make clear Perry's faith in the resurrection of Jesus as an event observe "Jesus died on the Cross, but was raised from the dead by his Father. In his new state he was no longer clothed by the old material body of his incarnate life, but by some kind of spiritual body such as St. Paul attempts (sic!) to describe for us" (p. 194). Two major problems (or questions) stand out in Perry's mind in the enigma of Easter: One, the "empty tomb," i.e., what happened to the physical body of Jesus? Two, the "appearance" of Jesus, i.e., how did he make known to them the reality of his victory over death since with physical eyes they could not "see" his new spiritual body? Relative to the first of these questions, i.e., the "empty tomb," Professor Perry falls back on the often used idea that God performed a miracle of disposal and withdrew the physical body of Jesus into "nothingness." In this way the body would not be present to handicap the faith of the disciples that Jesus had been raised. Relative to the second question, i.e., the "appearances" of Jesus, Professor Perry goes back to another often used theory, i.e., the "telepathic theory of the Resurrection appearances." His view is that Jesus started with the disciples where they were. They believed in the Jewish idea of resurrection of the; body, not the Greek idea of the immortality of the soul. Only against this background could they understand his survival of death. Jesus therefore "communicated" with his disciples in some way (called "telepathy") causing their minds to project an "apparition" of his body as they had known it. This convinced them that it was really he who was teaching them and that he had conquered the powers of death. Perry recognizes the objections to his interpretation and battles with them. Really, the only thing "new" in his approach is his application of modern parapsychology to an old theory. Much of his application of parapsychology, however, and his exploration of apparations and spiritism appears to be completely irrelevant. A literal interpretation of the appearances is much easier to believe! Ray Summers Commentary on Galatians. By Ragnar Bring. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961. 296 pages. $5.00. The author is Professor of Systematic Theology at the University

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