BOOK NOTES of the RESEARCH LIBRARY 3041 Broadway, New York, New York 10027

May 1967 Vol. XXVIII. No. 5

THE CHURCH IN ITS ECUMENICAL DIMENSIONS

CHRISTIANITY IN THE NON-WESTERN WORLD. Charles W. Forman. ed. Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Inc.. 1967. viii + 146 pp. $1. 95. Paperback. This study. consisting of a series of extracts from accounts of the history and work of the Church in many lands and periods will deliver the reader from any provincial or West-centered understanding of the Christian faith. The author. who is professor of Missions in the Divinity School of Yale University. provides illuminating comments on each selection.

SOCIAL HISTORY AND CHRISTIAN MISSION Max Warren. London: SCM Press. Ltd.. 1967. 191 pp. 29/-. The chap- ters of this book. prepared for various academic engagements. deal with a considerable variety of topics. But. as the author says in his introduction. they also form a unity in that they all show the interaction of political. social. economic and religious factors in the development of modern missions. To some degree his thought parallels that of Bishop Stephen Neill in his recent Colonialism and Christian Missions. although that was not published in time to be used by him. But much of the book utilizes hitherto uncharted materials.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOUTH INDIA. ECUMENICAL STUDIES IN HISTORY. Michael Hollis. Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press. 1966. 82 pp. $1. 95. Paperback. A detailed account of the formation of the by one who was the Anglican Bishop of Madras in the period just before its establishment and who afterwards became its first Moderator. He strongly defends the scheme which was there realized and shows its relevance for those engaged in union negotiations in other situations.

UNITY IS NOT ENOUGH: REFLECTIONS AFTER A VISIT TO THE CHURCH OF SOUTH INDIA. Mark Gibbard. Society of St. John the Evangelist, Oxford. London: A. R. Mowbray & Co.• Ltd., 1965. ix + 145 pp. 8/6. Paperback. Father Gibbard visited South India in 1964 at the invitation of the Moderator of the Church of South India. Six months later he made another trip to Ceylon at the request of the Anglican Bishop of Colombo, During both tours his time was spent mainly in conducting retreats for the and in visiting theological seminaries. During this period he had opportunity to observe the working of the Church of South India, about which many in the Church of had had serious doubts. His judgments turn out to be very favorable, and although the title of his book might seem to indicate that he found that something more was to be desired, there is very little stress laid upon the shortcomings of the Church in the text itself. Such shortcomings as he found had in many cases already been emphasized by spokesmen of the C. S.l.

UNITY IN NIGERIA. T. S. Garrett and R. M. C. Jeffery. London: Edinburgh House Press, 1965, 64 pp. 4/-. Paperback. A brief account of the history of Christian work in Nigeria with a statement of the chief points in the Church Union scheme in that country. This has been influenced by the plan followed by the Church of South India, One of the authors had been a theological teacher in that country before coming to Africa. It is unfortunate that the consummation of the Ni- gerian scheme which had been planned for 1965 has had to be postponed.

CHANGING FRONTIERS IN THE t-.lISSION OF THE CHURCH. Barry Till, ed. London: S. P. C. K.• 1965. xii + 164 pp. 7/6. The changing frontiers referred to are not primarily those of geography but those which the Church finds in its relations with industrialization. urbanization and the many other features of the modern world. The editor's method is to put to- gether brief essays written at his request by nationals of the countries in which new experiments of church life are being tried. To these he adds introductory and explanatory notes of his own. so that the whole becomes a well-integrated study. Among the countries from which reports are brought are Nigeria. India. Scotland. Australia. South Africa. Tanzania. Uganda, Iran, Hong Kong. the South Pacific. Burma and Japan.

CHRISTIANITY IN THE ASIAN REVOLUTION. Harry Haas. London: Sheed and Ward, 1966. x + 116 pp. Paperback. The writer, a Roman Catholic priest. has had contact with Asian students in Holland and Germany. and has also served in a rural district in Ceylon for four years. He writes a very perceptive analysis of the situation which confronts the Church in Asian lands. Although much of its energies are spent in education he is quite critical of the failure of many of those engaged in school work to take account of the environment in which their pupils live.

THE WORLD MISSION OF THE CHURCH. Adrian Hastings. London: Darton, Longman and Todd. Ltd.• 1964. 61 pp. 3/-. The author is a Roman Catholic missionary in Africa. In this brief book he traces the mission of the Church from apos- tolic times to the present. At first his presentation appears simple and almost elementary, but when he comes on to the medieval and modern periods he has keen comments on the failures of the mission ventures of his Church. He attributes these in part to colonialism. an undue attempt at centralization and uniformity. mistaken objectives and a defective presentation of the Christian message.

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