Faith of Our Fathers

...He only felt at ease with persons FAITH OF OUR FATBERS Christ...

...Broadly incluters are in order before we move to tion of believing communities into sive and generously proportioned, it prospecifics...

...After discussing the wide an audience as possible...

...Schol- ing from their overall content and view- title implies...

...Just as 16 February 1979: 87 the main concern of an airplane is to get and their hard-sell promotion statements...

...Its content is ness, ness, social relations, recreation, moralsbetter than its outer packaging indicates...

...the present sorry ef- total of eight volumes, but some may fort is nothing more than a hodgepodge acquire the ones which flesh out their • of data which apparently could not even overall knowledge of religious experiV I satisfy the series editor...

...The perience of being tortured during the secCommonweal: 90...

...It comprises books of divergent Some of these bibliographies cover their ers ;find themselves thinking of selfchronological parameters, various inter- area well...

...plementau ' articles, and the New reacted to enthusiasm for independence...

...What else does one had been elected four or eight or a dozen dinner party in 1963, he confessed that expect from a close friend...

...thing like the emotional intimacy with of 1960-63...

...a more central figure in the conclusions different from those arrived But I made no attempt to establish any- Kennedy politics of 1967-68 than those at by the author...

...all volumes cover much victions reflected in primitive church Another illustration useful in describ- more material than the outer designation examples, he also repeats the standard ing these eight volumes is a bell-shaped would lead one to expect...

...200 developments curve plotted on graph paper...

...In long, rambling paragraphs (one 2[K} 1Saduon .A enue ,es Yor~ N...

...The only many of these books, this one overlaps • fresh material provided relates to mis- some of the earlier coverage and repeats sions and church growth in the trans- (often with improvement) analyses of Q Mississippi, Intermountain West, his persons previously mentioned...

...the fourth, about threewas, only a personal intimate could have ground, and in introducing readers to the quarters of the eighteenth century...

...which helped perpetuate Christianity books form the peak of a curve, while the Once read, though, it would be difficult through trials to a time of flowering in sixth one plunges back into mediocrity to use these books repeatedly as tools for crusades and strong theological schools...

...On the own journal...

...But in fact it turns out to cover most types of best in Study Bibles religious expression by the American people through the eighteenth century...

...Sitting next to my wife at a passion of its subject...

...quality with special study helps pensable to clergy and lay people Using the same topical...

...All that Robert Kennedy, by contrast, was reasonable to fault Schlesinger for failing energy, moralism, humane concern for temperamentally a true believer, an im- to analyze and judge Kennedy coolly...

...If moving up through subsequent halves of guishes, mistakenly I believe, between centuries can be considered equivalent to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries...

...Though it shelf of books is too much for any re- English Reformation with its Anglican, is never stated anywhere, the editor at sponsible publisher to ask...

...As with I domestic reforms before 1914...

...memoir and this a biography...

...It is reason- years later, he would have been even some of my columns criticizing his able to ask that the author, regardless of better, wiser, more thoughtful, more brother made him "furious...

...Then the second volume makes a when he was sure of their personal loy- VOLS...

...An exception to the symmetry of quick-reference or for refreshing one's Donnelly then charts the decline of faith this metaphor is the seventh book be- memory on a given topic...

...The other III...

...No contemporary who tried to maintain everyone's sake, don't plunge into I followed this rule when President as I did an arms-length relationship with crowds or ride in motorcades...

...Death has some dominion TIE ACE OP ATROCITY: experience of atrocity is summed up for DEATH IN MODERN LITERATURE him in the Holocaust-branded child who, seeing a funeral some time after the liberLawrence L. Langer ation of- the extermination camps, beLBeacon Press, $12.95, 256 pp...

...Mass death imposed on baker's 1950s memoir of her dying husthousands and millions who cannot band against a collection of letters by gather any glimmer of explanation for people under Nazi sentence of death, and why they should die has transformed all a meditation by Jean Amery on the exideas of death, according to Langer...

...My wife his emotional commitment, lay out the far-sighted...

...nings of most groups which later formed Commonweal: 88 strong American denominations...

...this book and his earlier work on the thousands of feet, the series' first volume The final volume leaves readerKennedy administration, A Thousand begins slowly by taking the reader from a passengers cruising along at about Days, calling the latter a personal standstill up to 4000 feet, surveying two twenty thousand feet by covering devel...

...A supplementary ence in America...

...Yet I kept wanting to say to himstrongly about a politician, I should historian of such luminous intelligence don't fly in single-engined planes, don't either go td work for him or guard my and the master of such a virtuoso style...

...Hav- his subject and no historian of a future If Providence had been kind to him, it ing declined' an offer to join his staff, I generation coming cold to the evidence would have devised a means of keeping was content to keep my distance from could possibly present readers with this him out of the 1968 presidential camhim and to criticize his policies as I saw feast of detailed information, delineate paign and giving him more time to reflect fit...

...clear, nontechnical way...

...Fogde Volume 8, Change and Challenge by deals adequately with urban revivalism Jonathan A. Lindsey, is a happy return to and the spirit of robust nationalism that competence as it touches on the kaleidoslay behind both foreign missions and copic events of recent decades...

...In the hands of a master the fact that it offers them little other than craftsman such a viewpoint might yield spare prose...

...which stimulated reform efforts from cause it is unquestionably the worst pro- Their continuing usefulness is further dissimilar figures such as Erasmus, duction of the series...

...That might seem an odd stance If accepted on this premise, the book is give him fatherly advice...

...With his poised, ironic cast of mind, the many actors in the crowded scene and to grow...

...There is abundant evidence none...

...clearly...

...In fact, this centuries before and after the life of opments between 1955 and 1975...

...Schlesinger did go to formation efforts by Catholics and work for John Kennedy and did become a Henry Warner Bowden emerging Protestant bodies...

...annotations: annotations, cross references, sup in which different classes of people cross references: special articles...

...paddle boats in white water, and for independence jealously from the outset...

...and sociological that reflect the finest in Bible who prefer a more literal t ranslaframework, he discusses political de- scholarship and are presented in a tion for detailed study of the text...

...A third of minorities identified by confessional, A few mole remarks about surface mat- part traces the gradual institutionaliza- national or ethnic roots...

...Readers unac- It begins with the rise of Germanic kingto an astonishingly high level of ac- quainted with the general topic might doms and monasteries, two institutions complishment...

...He counterpoints death in the twentieth century that he John Gunther's generation-old account began in The Holocaust and the Literary of his son's death and Lael WertenImagination...

...The "Spirit nothing less than a thorough delineation of specialized studies are carefully of 76" may be a figure worthy of sup- of all religious groups planted in the early avoided to expand the set's appeal to as port...

...But he always went rushing responded that one could occupy middle evidence honestly and state the issues through each day as if there were no ground, being sympathetic yet critical...

...Five of the eight (but not the same their tangled relationships with warfare useful only to indicate that the series is five) include lists of suggested readings...

...It is un- have been a good president...

...One gauge of creased need for social ethics, urbanism Bailey's lack of concern about his and the general failure of Protestant finished work is the fact that at least 124 z churches to meet new human conditions errors remain on 140 printed pages...

...Volume 6, The Church Goes West by Myron J. Fogde, is the most curiously titled book of the series because only one-sixth of the volume deals with the topic...

...Readers will Puritan and Scottish Presbyterian phases, Consortium Books who was responsible have to decide for themselves whether Wallace traces the rise of the Church of for general guidelines in the series, they can afford the price of discrete vol- England monopoly in Virginia as well as Thomas Pearl, apparently urged each umes which appeal to them...

...Volume 2, Reform and Renewal by moving up the graph, the bell curve With inaccurate titles, no indexes and John Patrick Donnelly, S.J., is a mastercharacterizes this series fairly accurately...

...Throughout the book, readuneven...

...twelve centuries from the end of the And this brings me at long last to the Consortium, $9.50 each, $5.95 paper Roman Empire to sixteenth century reSchlesinger book...

...Prospective readers are hereby churches with offices of leadership, vides adequate information on the beginadvised to ignore the garish dust jackets creeds, liturgies and power to discipline...

...others aid uninitiated readers critical reform as a perennial objective ests brought to the work by different au- in a minimal way, but since these vol- for all churches if they wish to remain thors and fluctuating abilities to keep umes do not claim to be definitive, it is vital...

...THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE WITH THE THE NEW OXFORD ANM)TATED Marty includes Indians, Blacks and other APOCRYPHA: Oxford Study Edition BIBLE WITH THE APOCRYPHA fringe groups for whom mainline Chris- This interfaith edition is recom- Expanded Edition, with Apocrymended for church and ,chuol pha including the'l'hil'l and tianity offered little...

...The middle units of the group...

...In the years feature of the Schlesinger book...

...Volume eight rises reduced by the fact that five of the eight Luther, King Henry VIII and Pope Paul considerably above that nadir, but not have no reference notes at all...

...John and...

...basic quality of information as criteria for because none of them contains an index...

...He as Quakers and Baptists who influenced treatment of subject matter which does treats post-exilic Judaism and the Hel- some colonies-Pennsylvania and not sacrifice accuracy or sound interpre- lenistic world as background for the life, Rhode Island respectively-and dozens tive stan• ministry and passion of Jesus...

...Many of the most interesting And what of Robert Kennedy himself...

...We can be grateful that Robert think he would welcome or heed my adhad gradually learned that if I felt Kennedy had in his inner circle a trained vice...

...It also sacrifices a great deal of the complexity of the early 1$OOs by selecting representative groups and individuals to highlight central issues...

...with a creative gospel message...

...the gained the first-hand knowledge that un- whole set, one metaphor that suggests fifth, sixth and seventh fairly steadily dergirds this book...

...steadily upward, while the second moves troductions to their fields...

...the sum of $76 for such a sketchy American colonies...

...my subject which is such a distinguishing passages in this book are based on his He died an unfinished man...

...sassination when he made the transition seems even more of a memoir because he here with which readers can make up from agent, adviser and political man- was personally closer to Robert than to their own minds and, if they wish, reach ager to the role of leader in his own right...

...Volume 4, Religion, Awakening and Revolution by Martin E. Marty, deals with decades between the Great Awaken- Oxford-for the ing and the Revolutionary War...

...at the time of living them...

...He includes some discussion of Catholicism and Judaism plus a great deal on communitarian experiments which were in vogue at that time...

...Cloth Ot391OA $16.95 He provides standard coverage of revivalism and libertarian ideology of that Durable Soft Cover 58OOA t 1.:;U /so available: Cloth (shown) 9. The U & and New 7 stormcntx century, without relying upon or referBlack Cowhide 5836A $ Cloth UN+I{ IC 513.95 ring to any of the controversial theories about religion and revolution that have surfaced in the last decade...

...His narrative is well-paced, as his enough to restore the quality achieved by three are skimpy and rarely do they point analysis is fair and penetrating...

...Standard components of church history are not lacking here, but most of the embellishing variations and minority voices have been omitted...

...Index to People, Places, and Themes: Oxford Bible Maps...

...As with many Protestant augious experience with some of its British superficial reasons...

...Schlesinger easily meets those tomorrows...

...If we use hard to find this out by any process other began to "threaten and obscure the true conceptual clarity, literary style and than reading each volume of the entire set character of Christianity...

...tional atmosphere so credibly...

...t Volume 5, A New Christian Nation by Louis B. Weeks, tries a thematic approach instead of straight chronological coverage in the early national period...

...It combines a translation study Bible containing the Revised highly acclaimed for its literary Standard Version text, it is indisards in this country for all time to come...

...1L)O 1r, 16 February 1979: 89 covers almost two full pages) the author chapter by Ira V. Birdwhistell is inserted treats familiar issues such as theological with no explanation at all...

...Hinson covers much of the recent pubup in the air quickly, so this series moves Fortunately such excesses have little to lishing behind a second, renewed quest with great speed through early chapters do with what the books actually contain, for the historical Jesus, but most of the of Western church history and concen- but someone easily led by appearances time his conclusions are conservative and trates primarily on the American reli- could dismiss the substantial works for traditional...

...Through sive,.accurate, richly detailed and well- contemporaries and I had no reason to several national political campaigns, I written...

...If he had lived and been John Kennedy had no difficulty with this with such authority, or recreate the emo- elected at 43 in 1968, he would certainly kind of detachment...

...The titles are mis- thors who tend to see their religious conantecedents...

...I say "curifor a biographer to adopt, but it was a splendid piece of work, comprehen- ous" inasmuch as we were almost exact founded in personal experience...

...Judg- Wallace, Jr., covers much more than its reach a wide general readership...

...Included Features include introductions, bates, revolutionary action and the way are introductions...

...usually resisted-a curious impulse to Kennedy...

...In a series strains between liberals and fundamen- marked by poor typesetting, this volume N talists, growing industrialism and in- is a compositor's disaster...

...holds the single coffin and asks: " `But Richard L. Schoenwald where are the other dead people?' " (xi) Langer has an Edmund Wilson-esque w AWRENCE Langer, a professor of gift for finding books so intriguing that English at Simmons College, here you wish life could go on forever just to continues the study of the meaning of let you read them all...

...Although a distinguished leading up to his death when I came to contrary, I preferred to maintain an historian, Schlesinger is writing here as a know him best, I often experienced-but arm's-length relationship with Robert participant as well as an observer...

...and changing political values for his cues Its value for beginners remains despite and guidelines...

...Few will wish to acquire the an important book...

...He treats the Volume 7, Destiny and Disappoint- complexities of contemporary life with • ment by Raymond H. Bailey, tries with discernment and understanding...

...The series close friend, cdnfidante, and political begins to level off after that, with the emissary of Robert Kennedy...

...If he impulse...

...Kennedy entered the White House...

...Schlesinger distin- itself is the flight pattern of an airplane...

...1-8 sharp climb, moving rapidly, through alty or their ideological commitment...

...again...

...and politics...

...Lindsey a area of special competence...

...readers to much extant material or guide scope of issues covered in these pages Perhaps we should abandon metaphors them in pursuing a subject that interests ranges from mysticism and doctrine to now because such figures of speech are them...

...Puritan establishments in New England...

...Better than their covers This outlook remained with him to the end...

...And suddenly there were He concluded that part of the conversa- two criteria...

...In chronicling the growth of churches, Weeks follows the rise of pre-Civil War denominations as they benefited from frontier conditions while erstwhile powers failed to grow under republican conditions...

...leading too...

...sometimes non-directive tables of con- piece of compact generalization, literary The earliest volume moves slowly and tents, these books can serve only as in- grace and balanced historical judgment...

...lhe result in some of the vol- Hinson, begins the series with a survey of ence in all the colonies, dissenters such umes is a popular and easily understood the complex origins of Christianity...

...and the New Oxford Bible Maps...

...Instead of centering on arly competence undergirds most of the ing them- as a set, the books are over- settlers at Plymouth, it accomplishes volumes, but the technical impediments priced at 9.50 per volume...

...Though limited success to bridge the years from it too could have benefited from an up1900 to the end of World War II...

...author to write for laymen and non- Volume 1, Jesus Christ by E. Glenn Beyond that, he treats Catholic experispecialists...

...Moreover, it is lament that by A.D...

...Fourth Books of the Maccabees emergence, and explains the meaning, of and adult level, and for individual and Rsahn 151...

...An ecumenical revivals which changed religious stand- study...

...Written places the 1955-75 years in context and along a simple interpretational line, it brings them to life, giving them perhaps could prove informative as an introduc- more interpretive meaning than they had tory text for the period...

...All of them are written to references to further reading at all...

...tion by observing that it was difficult to know whether I was "with us or against US...

...the the underdog, and political skill would patient activist, a man of passion and book at times is infused with some of the have achieved considerable good...

...Because REVIEWS covering books in a series third book depicting events in the sevenRobert Kennedy was the kind of man he are tricky things to get off the teenth century...

...readers interested in their segment of the puzzling why three of them contain no Volume 3, The Pilgrims by Dewey D. total survey...

...The third, fourth and fifth profit from reading a selected volume...

...Then he outlines the courses att the high school, college...

...Using three theologians to give the flavor of religious thought and three controversial issues to show the impulse for social reform, he brings readers rapidly past the half-century mark to the eve of another war...

...View- dated manuscript and better proofreading American religion as if it were re- ing, as final volume in the series it ends flected by the total fabric of national life, the whole set on a note of competence the author feels free to range impres- and learning sensitively communicated...

...sionistically over foreign policy, busi- So the set concludes...