John M. James

Book Reviews : Contrasting Theologies of Preaching

conscious selves. This possibility threatens the very core of Christian belief. The apologist’s task is the more daunting because, although a respectable number of eminent cosmologists can be mustered on the Christian side, there are noticeably fewer biologists and hardly any AI specialists. John Puddefoot steps into the arena with a wellinformed and admirably clear exposition of the issues involved, God and the Mind Machine (SPCK, 1996, £7.99, pp. 145, ISBN 0-281-04973-4). He eschews extremes and remains agnostic about what may ultimately turn out to be possible. He has no wish to see Christians taking up positions which will eventually demand an ignominious retreat. He makes a distinction between our

Book Reviews : For Positive Biblical Preaching

are exclusively prudential reasons. Kant, one may safely say, would have been surprised, not to say perturbed, to find his contentions deployed as the principal support of this position. His doctrine of autonomy is taken to imply that no consideration can ’bind’ an agent who, in the light of his own interests, declines to accept it Kant’s sharp distinction between one’s interests and ’what reason

Book Reviews : Basics in Preaching

graphy referred to is now obtainable only through a library or ’second-hand’, if at all. Granted those limitations, this is a sound and unusually comprehensive introduction to the ’basics’ of preaching. Beginning with a brief outline of modern communication-theory, the emphasis throughout falls commendably on the dynamics of change. Whilst offering little to those seeking new directions, it provides much practical material for those who are new to the subject or who wish to review it.

Book Reviews : Contrasting Styles

addresses are personal to the preachcr and relate to particular situations: to plagiarize them is to betray the Holy Spirit. But Dennis Runcorn’s pithy manner of dealing with familiar themes and his illustrations (the hackneyed ones apart) will inspire more relevant preaching in others. Lesslie Newbigin’s addresses, transposed from the Indian situation to our own, will enable the reader to fulfil a more Christ-like ministry. Pastors and preachers will profit from both these books. WILLIAM D. HORTON

Book Reviews : Creative Preaching ?

evident as is the school of thought from which the book emerges. He comments helpfully, as a Christian, on an extensive range of philosophies, past and present, although at times he over-simplifies. Throughout he stresses the transcendent dimension that the theistic biblical perspective alone maintains. But one is puzzled. How can he quote the scriptures so selectively, even superficially? (One of his explicit biblical citations could be a splendid basis for hedonism with

Book Reviews : Expository Preaching

American orientated in both style and language, its earlier edition ’Basic Types of Pastoral Counselling New Resources for the Troubled’ (Abingdon Press (1966)), has already become one of the standard texts on the subject in this country. The primary objective of the whole work is ’to help mmisters (and seminar students) develop maximum skills in the basic caring and counselling methods required for an effective ministry of healing and growth’, and it deals very thoroughly with wideranging types of needs short-term crisis help, griefrelated caring and counselling, marriage and family enrichment, and training lay care teams in its

Book Reviews : Sermon Menu

run: giving glimpses of the obvious, tiresomely pointing the moral (our Lord never did that), wasting words where brevity is called for, being too technical, demanding a degree of understanding of biblical history which is not to be found in the average pew! They need to be both more pointed and more simple, terse and designed for reading aloud. Too seldom is any attempt made to show the train of thought which is presumably intended to link the three lessons of the day. Some comments are so obvious as to be

Book Reviews : Barth for Preachers

Reinhardt Verlag, Basel, SFr 68.00, pp. 502) will prove useful for all who are interested in the work of any or all of the three. The entries for the authors begin with a single page ’Vita’, a list of their major works and three indexes: a list of places where dissertations on the author are to be found entered, an index of persons and an index of subjects. (All references are to the entries, which are numbered, there being no page numbers.) Then follows the major part of each section, a list of secondary works, alphabetically by author, containing all essential details of the publication. There is some coverage of reviews of the works of the three authors. 2823 works on Barth are listed, 774 on Bonhoeffer and 2048 on Bultmann.

Book Reviews : Glowing Footprints

All printed sermons are in a sense only so many foot-prints in the sand; traces left by men, messages and moments that cannot be re-captured. But in Come Holy Spirit, sermons by Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen (Mowbrays, £).75, pp. 287), not only is the pulpit now empty, the service over and the worshippers gone, yet another World War has been fought and we are left only with the echoes of its aftermath. Meanwhile, too, the preacher’s original ’marginal note’ as he called it has burgeoned into a corrective theology (’Theologie des Korrektivs’) extending into many learned volumes. Yet even in cold print well over fifty years later these sermons still strike the armchair-reader ’vertically from above’ (’Setikrecht voti Obetz’), as Barth would have it, and still glow with signals-oftranscendence. This in itself is some measure of the