PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OFGOD: CHRISTIAN ORIGINS ANDTHE QUESTION OF GOD: VOL-UME 4, by N. T. Wright. Minneapolis: For-tress, 2013. Pp. 1,658. $89.00 (cloth).

This is a book which, if read carefully, youmay never forget. It calls for determination tobegin perusing, but can thrill the reader withits scope, profundity, and spiritual insights.With its analysis and synthesis it covers a vastarray of subjects and themes regarding theApostle Paul, both his life setting and his theo-logical and biblical thought, with major atten-tion being given to Paul’s theology.

Book I is essentially an introduction to thewhole theme of the book, divided into Part I,Paul and His World (3–347), and Part II, TheMindset of the Apostle (351–569). Book Two isa detailed development of the theme, dividedinto Part III, Paul’s Theology (609–1265), andPart IV, Paul in History (1269–1519). Follow-ing the exposition is a detailed bibliography(1521–1590).

In these pages, Wright has attempted topresent a sharply defined consideration ofPauline theology by elaborating on the contextin which it is set, namely, the Jewish, Greek(Hellenistic), and Roman worlds in which Paulwas born and lived. It is difficult to understandPaul’s life and letters apart from this (that is, toread them with only a twenty-first-centuryperspective). Paul was a Jew and a Pharisee,born a Roman citizen, and schooled in the Hel-lenistic language. We need to remember that athis conversion/call experience he was com-missioned to carry the Lord’s name “before the

Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel” (Acts9:15). Parts I and IV, in particular, are devotedto this aspect of the study. The study of historyis essential for an appreciation and under-standing of theology.

One is reminded of the fact of Paul’s inter-action with his cultural, political, and religiousenvironments. He was appreciatively involvedwith the religious and philosophical conceptsfound in Greek and Roman worship and learn-ing. He could cite and use some of those in-sights, for example, Greek worship and wordsof their poets (Acts 17:22–29), the appoint-ment by the God of Israel of political leader-ship, and the Christian response to thosehuman authorities (Rom 13:1–17). But it wasPaul’s Jewish context that was determinativeof his theology. Wright gives this definitivestatement:

The key to it all then…is to understandthe Jewish context from which Paul came,and then to understand the nature of thechange in Paul’s Jewish understandingcaused by his belief in the crucified andrisen Messiah. (1318)

It is that last phrase that is so critical inWright’s analysis of the apostle’s theologicalthinking. The story/narrative of God comes toa climactic point here. We need to see beyondseparate stories and perceive the “grand nar-rative.” It begins with God as Creator—a pur-posive God (and monotheistic!). But thehuman creatures rebel and attempt to thwartGod’s plan. Then Abraham is called and re-ceives the covenant—that God will bless him,make him father of a people through whom theworld will be blessed. The story goes on—with

434 Copyright © 2014 by Word & World, Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved.

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promises of a redeemer, with Torah and its de-mands, and the hope of a glorious future. Butwhen the heralded redeemer appeared theydid not receive him. In fact, they crucified him.A crucified Messiah! But God raised him fromthe grave, exalted him, and promised new lifeby his Spirit to all who would receivehim—Jew and Gentile alike. The new age hasbroken in; the future is assured, and we awaitthe (second) appearance of the Anointed One.It is a Jewish story, yet open to all who exercisethe faith that Abraham placed in the word ofthe God who promised.

The reading can be tedious, the argumenta-tion can be dense, but as a study tool it canhardly be surpassed. By the use of the detailedtable of contents one can follow the trend of theexposition, and make one’s way through theforest and the trees. I can only give the book myhighest praise, and I commend it to you.

Walter M. DunnettSt. Mark’s Episcopal ChurchGlen Ellyn, Illinois

WAITING FOR GOSPEL, by Douglas JohnHall. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2012.Pp. 214. $25.00 (paper).

Any preacher who has ever sprinkled a ser-mon with the words must, should, or ought willwant to approach Douglas John Hall’s bookwith fear and trembling. In his trenchantanalysis of why the mainline Protestantchurches are moribund, Hall takes critical aimat preachers who are legalistic, moralistic, su-perficial, and shallow. He also inveighs againstsimplification of the faith, theological neglect,entertainment, and American evangelicalism.Not much in the current religious scene es-capes his penetrating analysis, for, as he says,these noisome activities have led to a deterio-ration of the church in general and gospel inparticular.

At the outset Hall states his conviction thatthere is a real possibility the once strong eccle-

siastical institutions of North America will dis-appear in the near future. This doleful themeprovides the backdrop of his book. But Hallholds out a rope of hope for the sinking ships:“The only thing that can salvage a moribundreligion is a lively recovery of its life-givingessence.…The lesson of history is clear…it iswhether we are able to hear and proclaim…gospel” (x, xi).

Hall’s main argument is presented in alengthy, tightly reasoned preface. Thirteensubsequent essays unpack and expand the ma-terial presented in the preface. These essaystake up the broad themes of “Mystery andMeaning of Gospel,” “The Basics of Gospel,”and “The Law within Gospel.” Even though,for purposes of grammar, Hall uses the term“the gospel,” he is careful to indicate that hiscentral concern is “gospel” without the defi-nite article. He notes that part of the problemin the expression “the gospel” is that it con-jures up “a rather definite body of ideas, his-toric references, words, phrases, claims” (5).Gospel, used without the definite article, con-notes for him the word euangelion, a broader,breathing term that reflects good news, goodmessage, good tidings.

Gospel is for proclamation, not exhorta-tion. The means by which the mystery of gos-pel can be spread is not by reducing it to“should” or “ought.” Nor is it salutary to wal-low in good feelings or trot unharnessed intosocial involvement. Because we live in a secu-lar age we are all tempted to “dumb down”what is at the heart of the church: gospel. Onesymptom of this malaise is the increasing irrel-evance of theology. The term, when it is used,has little currency today. People know what itmeans to be a doctor or a musician; but few cantell what a theologian is or does. Yet theology isthe muscle that allows the gospel to reach andstretch. “No other discipline, science, art ortrade (with the possible exception of the sextrade!) has enjoyed such a lengthy and inti-mate association with the human communityas has theology within the bounds of Christen-

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dom” (18). Making theology comprehensibleand viable (and not just for those who teach it)is an abiding concern in Hall’s narrative.

The importance of theology as a means ofpresenting and interpreting gospel is stressedin the thirteen essays of the book. Hall con-fesses a strong affection for Martin Luther, es-pecially the reformer’s emphasis on theologyof the cross. In another chapter Hall lifts up thecontribution of Karl Barth, “who can say it as itis.” Bonhoeffer also gets his own chapter,stressing the ethics of participation. SørenKierkegaard dominates a wry chapter as he“Attends a Megachurch,” the final edgy anddisconcerting essay in this collection. Thispiece could be read and profitably discussedby anyone who is concerned about churchgrowth, especially those who seek “relevance”at the expense of gospel.

Anyone who cares about the church (pas-tors, lay folk, students, even professional theo-logians) should find this book bracing. While

Hall’s observations make good grist fordiscussion, not everyone will agree with all hisobservations or conclusions. Occasionally helets his rhetoric get away from him. At differ-ent times he constructs sentences that go onfor fifteen or more lines. Moreover, not every-one will share his impatience with six-minutemeditations in favor of a nostalgic preferencefor two-hour sermons; it is apparent that Halldislikes sound bites at the expense of soundtheology.

Hall does not neglect other issues facing thechurch. For instance, he is impatient withthose who emphasize social responsibilitywithout theological grounding; but he makesit quite clear that social responsibility is notonly proper but essential. At one point he playsa catchy riff on the Westminster Confession,recalling that the question “What is the chiefend of man?” traditionally has as its answer:“The chief end of man is to glorify God and en-joy him forever.” Playfully, but quite seriously,

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Hall proposes a more apposite response for to-day: “The chief end of the human being is to beGod’s faithful steward in a profoundly threat-ened creation” (107).

Though Hall’s book will be a bracing breathof fresh air for many, it may be a source of dis-comfort for others. He uncovers and examinesissues that confront (and even undermine) thechurch. He picks and pokes at our premisesand practices in a way that is impossible to ig-nore. It is difficult to read this book withoutsmiling but also wincing at the pertinence ofhis observations. Arguing with him would be alittle like tilting with a prophet like Isaiah. Inthe end we would wish to be with him, Waitingfor Gospel, even though the exercise is some-times like waiting for Godot.

Robert BrusicLuther SeminarySaint Paul, Minnesota

SAVING KARL BARTH: HANS URSVON BALTHASAR’S PREOCCUPA-TION, by D. Stephen Long. Fortress, 2014.Pp. 304. $49.00 (paper).

Books on theological friendships are rare.This ought not be. What better way to compareand contrast differing theologies than throughthe crucible of intellectuals of differing confes-sions finding their way as friends? D. StephenLong assigns himself the admirable task ofsaving the Balthasar-Barth friendship fromneoscholastic misunderstanding and Prot-estant misappropriation. Long considers Bal-thasar an outstanding guide through Barth’stheology, both as an interpreter of Barth, aswell as a theologian who supplements andforwards what Barth accomplished.

Long makes his case in a series of captivat-ing moves, beginning with a chapter on theirfriendship. Although it was the Catholic-Protestant split that divided them (especiallyon the topics of “pure nature” and the analogiaentis), on another level Barth and Balthasar

had much in common. Both loved Mozart.Both had a painting of the Grünewald crucifix-ion hung over their desk. Both wrote long, fas-cinating works of theology. Both saw JesusChrist as the center of their theology.

Barth and Balthasar’s theological conver-sation begins with a letter Balthasar sent toBarth upon the publication of Church Dogmat-ics 2.1. Their friendship (which was always aconversation and a disagreement) continueduntil Barth’s death. They vacationed together.They taught seminars together. They corre-sponded.

It may always have been part of Balthasar’sprogram to welcome Barth back to Roman Ca-tholicism. This was less a form of proselytiz-ing, and more a sense on Balthasar’s part thateither Barth misunderstood a basic theolo-goumenon of Catholic thought, or it had neverbeen presented in the proper manner, and ifonly Barth could see Catholic theology in thelight in which Balthasar saw it, there would beno barrier.

So, although Barth and Balthasar find sub-stantial and sustained agreement on the“form” of theology and its impact on variousrealms of theological thought, such as God, inChrist; ethics, as dogma; and the church, al-ways in renewal; it is around this particular lo-cus, the analogia entis, that the two never findrapprochement.

It is also the case that Balthasar continuallyrisks censure from his own Catholic commu-nity, and misunderstanding from the Prot-estant side, for his way of presenting Barth’stheology (and his lifelong commitment to doso). Chapter two in Long’s book is thereforedevoted, in all its complexity, to presentingBalthasar’s interpretation of Barth, and chartsthe genealogy of its abandonment by Catholicsand Protestants alike, if for different reasons.

It may do a disservice to Long’s work to at-tempt a one-sentence summary of Balthasar’sway of interpreting Barth, for in fact neitherwriter wrote in ways that can be simply sum-marized. Instead, Long notes, Balthasar him-

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self believed “setting forth Barth’s theology isdifficult.…it could not be done in a few propo-sitions, but was more like finding the right wayto present Mozart” (39).

There is, in another sense, a very straight-forward way to summarize what was centralfor both Barth and Balthasar. Long offers thesentence, midway in his book, that anyonewould do well to memorize. Barth and Baltha-sar sought “much more profound articulationof what mattered to both of them: Christologywith an analogy between God and creaturesthat prevented identity” (44, emphasis added).

Two terms in the book are worth defininghere in this review. It is not my intent to be pe-dantic, but honestly, even as a reader of thebook somewhat familiar with theological re-flections on the topics of pure nature and theanalogia entis, they were not terms I had devel-oped concise definitions of in my own mind, soI offer these reflections here.

First: Pure nature is the idea that created

nature is whole and complete on its own. Itdoes not need God to be what it is. In theologi-cal systems that assume pure nature (and mostProtestant theologies do so), grace is some-thing added on top, extrinsic to, nature. Thebasic question: Was grace present prior to sin,or does grace only come into play when naturestops being pure? Both Barth and Balthasar re-ject the notion of pure nature, although theyapproach some questions about nature andgrace from different perspectives.

Second: Analogia entis is the theologicalconcept that there exists something that ana-logically corresponds to the creator (of every-thing) that makes contemplation of the natureof that creator possible. In other words, thevery being of creation offers an analogy bywhich one can contemplate the being of God.Barth was famously opposed to the analogiaentis, especially in his early work, although, re-markably, he develops later in his Church Dog-matics an understanding of the hypostatic

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union as a potential locus for the analogiaentis. Balthasar sees this implicit in Barth’swork and expresses it explicitly.

The middle to late section of Long’s book isa rip-roaring good read, especially if you like atheologian who picks a fight in a friendly man-ner. Here, Long outlines the collapse of Baltha-sar’s interpretation of Barth—not the failureof Balthasar’s interpretation, but rather itsabandonment by later theologians both of theProtestant and Catholic variety. Then, one byone, he illustrates why they are wrong, or howthey have misunderstood Barth, Balthasar, orboth.

Long concludes the book with a chapter onBarth and Balthasar as unlikely ecumenists.Barth often said he believed the proper posturefor ecumenism was dogmatic intolerance ofothers’ positions (239). Balthasar was oftensuspect in his own community because of hisfascination with Barth. Barth was involved inthe church struggles during the war and fol-lowing. Balthasar had left his Jesuit order andfounded a new one, a religious community formen and women called the Community ofSaint John. In spite of their oddly marginal po-sitions vis-à-vis the church, their friendshipbecame a model for ecumenism then, andLong argues it can be a model for ecumenicalconversation today.

The precise way the two were ecumenicalis summarized well in a late sentence of Long’s:“Balthasar’s theology was always caught be-tween these two poles: convincing Catholicsthey were as christological as Barth’s Re-formed theology, and convincing Protestantsthey could affirm the analogia entis andthereby glimpse the whole creation as God’sgood gift in, through, and for the glory of themystery that is the hypostatic union” (277).

Barth and Balthasar shared a common vi-sion of Christ as a radiating center that illu-mined everything else. Barth is rememberedfor focusing on the center. Balthasar, for Long,is to be remembered for illuminating how thatcenter in Barth can radiate out into even more

theological arenas than even Barth considered,especially into creation itself. It is Long’s lovelyaccomplishment to invite all of us afresh toread Barth through Balthasar, and to readtheir friendship as a model for our own start-ing point in the continuing theological con-versation.

Clint SchneklothGood Shepherd Lutheran ChurchFayetteville, Arkansas

THE ENTANGLED TRINITY: QUAN-TUM PHYSICS AND THEOLOGY,by Ernest L. Simmons. Minneapolis: For-tress, 2014. Pp. 205. $39.00 (paper).

There’s a long history of lively interdisci-plinary conversation in the liberal arts collegesof the Lutheran church in the United States.Bill Narum and Harold Ditmanson at St. Olafor Stanley Olsen at Augustana come to mind.Here is a book that continues that conversa-tion in the red-hot field of science and religion.What is remarkable about Ernest Simmons’scontribution is that the theological locus cho-sen for the conversation is not simply the moreconventional category of creation but the doc-trine of the Trinity. For many Christians thatdoctrine probably has been a mystery thatquickly becomes a muddle when they try toexplain it. Of the Three in One, a wit has saidsadly: “you will lose your faith if you deny it;you will lose your mind, if you try to under-stand it.”

Simmons, drawing on thirty-five years oflife in the creative ferment of Concordia Col-lege in Moorhead, takes up the challengeboldly. For the science side of things he turnsto physics, carrying forward the program-matic legacy of the college’s seminal dean, CarlL. Bailey. The sweep of the author’s reach isambitious. The conversation touches on eachof the three articles and their connectednessand speaks to the human quest concerning ori-gin, forgiveness, and hope. There’s even a

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turning out toward the other religions that be-fits the author’s conviction that the doctrine ofthe Trinity is not an insiders’ matter, safely se-cured from the stuff of the world or the naturalsciences’ study of that stuff. This book willserve readers in advanced college and semi-nary classes and can be a boon to pastors re-sponding to inquisitive laypeople embarkedon a journey of faith seeking understanding.

The book opens with chapters covering thefoundational concepts of faith, knowledge,and theology. Part II follows with a wonder-fully clear and concise summary of the devel-opment of the doctrine. The “experientialroots and biblical witness” are seen to be atwork in the apostolic fathers on through thelikes of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Athanasius, andAugustine. But it is the Cappadocian fathersand their theme of the Trinitarian dance ofperichoresis that Simmons selects for crucialemphasis. Discussion of Aquinas, Bonaven-ture, and Luther concludes the historical treat-ment, which throughout emphasizes that themovement of Christian reflection is “from theexperience of three to one, not one to three”(144). The stage is set for science to play “heu-ristic” and “supporting” roles, inspiring thetheologian’s reflection on perichoresis.

So what “physical metaphor” (161) doesscience offer for the Trinitarian life? Simmonsis a theologian and is careful to acknowledgethat he is not a scientist (137). But he can readand listen to colleagues across campus and hedraws deeply on scientific understandings.Some of this will be familiar to other non-scientist readers and listeners, like myself.There is lucid description here of quantum“complementarity” by which the interconnec-tedness of physical reality can be experiencedeither as wave or particle. Niels Bohr’s Copen-hagen interpretation of the Heisenberg Uncer-tainty Principle is favored in thinking abouthow it is impossible to measure simultane-ously particle and wave properties. But the sci-ence piece that may be new for manynonscientist readers is the notion of quantum

entanglement that finds its way into the book’stitle. Briefly, the point is that “particles thathave once interacted can never be fully sepa-rated” (185); they have become “entangled.”The term, first coined by Edward Schrødinger,may carry an overtone of being unwelcome,and Simmons is keenly aware that both ordi-nary experience and parlance at the macrolevel, and traditional theism, offer resistanceto the help available from the quantum world.Well, what might follow for the bold ordesperate theologian who heeds the inspira-tion the quantum world offers?

That inspiration might most basically leadthe theologian back to the Mars Hill sermonPaul preached to the philosophers in Athens,asserting that God “is not far from each one ofus. For ‘In him we live and move and have ourbeing’” (Acts 17:27b–28). We have the panen-theistic entanglement of God in us and of usin God. Talk of that level of being “connectedthough separate” is fairly commonplace thesedays due to the work of Moltmann andPolkinghorne, among others. But Simmons,writing “mainly from a process perspective”(157, n. 21), doesn’t stop there. He writes pro-foundly of how the immanent Trinity is entan-gled in the worldly work of the economicTrinity. The principle of complementarity isapplied to that very work, so that “when welook for origins, we find Creator,” but when weare looking for forgiveness or for hope, Sonand Spirit may come into view (152). But thisentangled Triune God is not to be split up, aswhen we pit one person against another in abloodthirsty Father demanding the death of aloving Son. Just so, creation, incarnation, andsanctification are to be held together. There’seven an original spin on the kenosis notion, asSimmons writes of how “Christ kenoticallyemptied himself of the immanent perichoresis ofthe Trinity in order to enter into the economicperichoresis of the creation” (177, emphasishis).

This is not sleepy bedtime reading. Theconciseness of the writing and the sweep of the

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author’s vision will call for the reader’s full at-tention. But there is gospel here, for ErnestSimmons points a way to a fuller grasp of thevery good news that truly nothing can separateus from the incredibly entangled love of God.

Paul R. SponheimLuther SeminarySaint Paul, Minnesota

WORSHIP AS REPENTANCE: LU-THERAN LITURGICAL TRADI-TIONS ANDCATHOLICCONSENSUS,by Walter Sundberg. Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2012. Pp. 190. $18 (paper).

Walter Sundberg, professor of church his-tory at Luther Seminary, has written a much-needed antidote to a popular understanding ofLutheran worship as a mere celebration ofGod’s love, failing thereby to call worshipers toturn from their sins and repent. In a study that

is solid both historically and theologically, hemakes the case that penitence and conditionalforgiveness of sins have been at the center of along tradition, both Lutheran and catholic, un-til about the 1960s, and that this tradition isworship as repentance.

Sundberg argues that conditional absolu-tion—which declares that if you’re not peni-tent you’re not forgiven—is a “time-honoredpractice in Lutheranism” and “is a legitimateand effective exercise of the discipline of theoffice of the keys.” He points out that condi-tional absolution is closely related to othercommon practices of Lutheran churches in thepast, such as exhortation to communicantsand private confession. “There is no doubt thatthese practices have been abandoned in con-temporary mainline American Lutheranismas represented in the Evangelical LutheranChurch in America,” he observes (6).

Why have these practices been abandoned?Citing a book titled All Is Forgiven: the Secular

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Jan. 28-30, 2015

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Message in American Protestantism, by Mar-sha G. Witten, Sundberg maintains that “thetemptation for the preacher is to modify andaccommodate Christian faith to the dominantvalues of the culture in order to make religiouspractice more marketable” (3). Against this“feel good” approach to worship, Sundberg ar-gues that, when we have confessed and re-ceived absolution, before we take Communionwe also hear the “binding key,” warning that,

On the other hand, by the same authority, Ideclare unto the impenitent and unbeliev-ing, that so long as they continue in theirimpenitence God hath not forgiven theirsins and will assuredly visit their iniqui-ties upon them if they turn not from theirevil ways, and come to true repentanceand faith in Christ, ere the day of grace beended. (1)

This form is contained in the absolution for aspecially appointed preparatory service to beheld a day or two before Communion onSunday and was recommended as a vesper ser-vice on Wednesday or Friday of Holy Week. Itwas in the Service Book and Hymnal used inmany Lutheran churches from 1958 to 1978.

Sundberg has worked closely with the de-velopment RECLAIM, a new Lutheran hymnal“for church and home,” published in 2013. Butwhen the “On the other hand” version of thebinding key was included as a second optionfor absolution in the introductory edition ofthe hymnal, the advisory board members ob-jected vociferously that absolution should beunconditional, that the conditional versionconfuses law and gospel and gets the orderwrong by ending with judgment. This prompt-ed Sundberg to make a defense, based on ex-tensive research, which led to this book.

In the final version of the RECLAIM hym-nal, the “On the other hand” absolution is con-tained in a special Order for Public Confession.In the regular settings for Holy Communion, aversion of the binding key is contained in thesecond option for absolution, which concludesas follows:

The Almighty and merciful God grantunto you that are penitent, pardon and re-mission of all your sins, time for amend-ment of life, and the grace and comfort ofhis Holy Spirit. Amen.

Can present-day Lutherans abide absolu-tion with a warning to the impenitent? Itdoesn’t seem likely. But Sundberg has made astrong case that at least may wake us up to theneed for worship that takes our sin more seri-ously.

In pointing to worship traditions that dothis, he ranges from the Pentecostal to theCatholic. And, invoking Kierkegaard andBonhoeffer, he critiques the so-called “churchtradition” in which you’re born a Christian andare home free if you go through the rituals ofthe church. By contrast, he maintains that,

Whatever its faults and misuses over thecenturies—and they have been legion—liturgical worship, at its best, has this pur-pose: to call Christians to repentance; towarn them to be under no illusion as to whothey are and how far they fall short whenthey stand before God and holy things; toteach them to worship God in humility, tofeed them the Bread of Life, to make themready to give testimony to Christ in wordand deed. (15, author’s italics)

“Where is the grace of God in this austereconception of liturgy and its purpose?”Sundberg asks, and answers that grace residesin the repetition (which he refers to as “blessedrepetition”), assuming “the weakness andfrailty of Christian believers,” realizing thatthey will never be “instantly and permanentlyconverted” but inevitably will “fall away” andwill need to be restored (15).

Making his case historically, Sundberg de-votes chapters to “The Witness of the EarlyChurch,” “Luther and the Binding Key,” “TheAttack on Private Confession,” and “TheEmergence of an Opposing Tradition.” At theend, he blames the liturgical renewal move-ment for turning worship as repentance toworship as celebration.

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In summary, Sundberg has made an im-portant case for leaders of Lutheran worship toend the practice of dispensing cheap grace andto return instead to a tradition that brings us,as worshipers, to repentance.

Jack MillerMillville, Minnesota

WHAT A FRIEND THEY HAD IN JESUS:THE THEOLOGICAL VISIONS OFNINETEENTH- AND TWENTI-ETH-CENTURY HYMN WRITERS,by Harry T. Cook. Salem: Polebridge, 2013.Pp. 181. $18.00 (paper).

Harry T. Cook—a retired Episcopal clergy-man; former columnist on religion, ethics, andpublic policy for the Detroit Free Press; and au-thor of Long Live Salvation by Works: A Hu-manist Manifesto—here addresses nineteenthand twentieth-century hymnody of NorthAmerica.

Cook recounts his upbringing in a smallMethodist church where he learned nine-teenth-century gospel hymns. The emotionalties remained. He still sings them (xi), but hasintellectually “left all that behind” (xi). Hesketches a brief history of hymnody fromColossians through present-day congrega-tions and then turns to a history of nineteenth-and twentieth-century North American Chris-tianity. It moves from the Revolutionary War,through the “sometimes even execrable dog-gerel” (17) he is studying, to higher criticism.This leads to asserting that there is “little de-pendable information” about the person orpersons of Jesus, that “the Jesus of Christianityis more a character of myth than a figure of his-tory,” and that “the Jesus of church creeds re-sembles hardly at all the one depicted in thetexts of the synoptic gospels” (31).

The central part of the book exegetes thirtymostly gospel hymns, with notes about theirauthors and contexts. He finds their picture ofJesus does “not reflect much, or sometimes

any, of its biblical or creedal depictions” (35).Cook has some heavy artillery: “Heaven andindividual mortality are inventions of peoplefrightened into selfishness” (47); the Jesus that“got drummed into the heads of generationsof children in Protestant Sunday schools [was]a kind of benign scold who tsk-tsks…andpromises a spiritual lollipop if one is particu-larly good” (91); “I Heard the Savior Say” is de-cent poetry and very Pauline, Augustinian,and Lutheran (maybe a stretch), but “by ratio-nal standards an intellectually bankrupttheology” (93); and the “idea that one caneventually turn in the…bloody cross for aplace in heaven cannot be considered sane,even in a metaphorical way” (101).

Cook’s analysis pictures Jesus as “a blankcanvas stretched on a frame” (131). Thirteenparts of this “collage” are analyzed. In an epi-logue, Cook describes mainline denomina-tions, their authorized hymnals, “smiley”praise music that makes one long for chant,Roman Catholics who have never heard chant,a downtown church with empty pews and anorganist paid by an endowment from a deadindustrial titan who loved Bach, a mega-church with new cars in a four-acre parking lotwhere people are weeping in a building thatlooks like a gymnasium, “new music” (withguitars, a keyboard, bells, and drums) in asnappy-looking new parish with smiling Fa-ther Jim and an unengaged congregation,Catholics singing Protestant hymns, and a ru-ral church where congregational singing is atrial.

The thesis of the book is that hymns like“Softly and Tenderly” have been “perennial fa-vorites of typical Protestant congregations”and some Catholic Christians in spite of “so-phisticated theological systems” (167). Cookasks if this religion is a “psychiatric therapy onthe cheap” or “an emotional teddy bear” (167)and gives his version of engaged religion—about the here and now, the biosphere, reason,and sustainable life. A new set of texts along

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the lines of Fosdick’s “God of Grace and God ofGlory” is called for (168).

Cook’s analyses of gospel hymnody andplaces where “correct theology and liturgy [Iwould say “incorrect”] have become the pri-mary concerns” and where denominationalexecutives and pastors focus on survival (118–119) are well taken and drive the church toconfession, but there are missing parts of thepicture.

First, not only systematic theologians andchurch musicians have objected to gospelhymnody. So has the church catholic. Cook’sfocus is on American civil religion. Second,form criticism does not lead only to the ab-sence of a Jesus: because a family tells differentstories about great-grandmother does notmean she did not exist or was multiple people,nor can an intellectual moment trump accu-mulated wisdom across generations. Third,reason is no more trustworthy than any otherhuman endeavor. Fourth, the most curiousomission is the late twentieth-century hymnexplosion that followed the meetings between1961 and 1969 at the Scottish Churches Housein Dunblane, Scotland.

There are two bigger concerns. First, anineteenth-century category mistake col-lapsed congregational and choral song into thesame thing, broke the folk-like spine of con-gregational song, and substituted the seduc-tive mist of popular feeling. It gave rise to thenotion that sixteenth-century followers of Lu-ther sang in harmony (160), that the mist“works,” and that Bach’s music that was notmeant to be congregational can be dismissed(162). This is the culture’s presupposition.Where salvation by works is the control, theculture calls the shots. Though Cook does notlike systems, works with its counsel of despairis the one he follows.

As I explained in Let Justice Sing, doxologyfires justice and peace. Though the warningagainst cloying piety is important, all thehymnody “of previous eras” does not fit thatdescription (154). Doxology and God “on theside of the poor” (155) are central to Mary’sMagnificat, the quintessential spawn of thechurch’s song.

Paul WestermeyerLuther SeminarySaint Paul, Minnesota

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