The American Quest for the Primitive Church, ed. by Richard T. Hughes, and: The Primitive Church in the Modern World ed. by Richard T. Hughes (review)

BOOK REVIEWS131 It is rare to have soUd information about the evolution of Hungary in principal languages. This is a reason why this volume is to be appreciated. The authors as weU as the pubUsher are aware that some time needs to elapse for the historian to make a scholarly examination; so in this report they wanted to give only a basic evaluation of the facts enumerated from the point of view of contemporaries . The interviews enable us to have an insight into these years and to understand the conditions of Christians under Communist rule. The rawness of this report and the lack of detaüed analysis as weU as imprecise formulations do not reduce the merits of the volume. It is important to reaUze that in the period between 1945 and 1964 three-fourths of the Bishops' Conference were persecuted: two of them kUled, two of them deported, fourteen imprisoned. Three hundred and sixty diocesan priests (10% of the total) were imprisoned or deported, as weU as 940 reUgious priests (66%), 200 reUgious brothers (16%), and 2,200 sisters and nuns (22%). Adam Somorjai, O.S.B. Collegio di Sant'Anselmo Rome American The American Questfor the Primitive Church. Edited by Richard T. Hughes. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1988. Pp. ix, 257. $14.95 paperback.) The Primitive Church in the Modern World. Edited by Richard T. Hughes. (Urbana : University of Illinois Press. 1995. Pp. xviii, 229. $14.95 paperback.) Trying to transform the present through recapturing the strong, pure time of origins—EUade's myth of the eternal return—represents a seductive theme Ui American reUgion. These coUections demonstrate how powerful the puU of primitive purity is from many perspectives. Edited by Richard Hughes, whose career has centered on analyzing primitivist and restorationist dimensions Ui American reUgion, the volumes resulted from conferences at AbUene Christian University (1985) and Pepperdine University (1991). The American Questfor the Primitive Church contains aU the papers and responses from the first; The Primitive Church in the Modern World features most presentations from the second conference. The second volume, more theoretical than the first, is more inteUectuaUy tantaUzing . For example, Scott Appleby and George Marsden both ask whether contemporary fundamentaHsms are properly perceived as efforts to restore an idealized past; both conclude that the label is problematic. Franklin LitteUJohn Howard Yoder, and James WiUiam McClendon look at the Reformation era, par- 132BOOK REVIEWS ticularly its "left-wing" or "radical" side, to probe whether appropriation of an ideal past necessarily denies the value of history. Underlying them is the dUemma of attaching the labels "restorationist" or "primitivist" to any reUgious movement that sees either a time of origins or an idealized past time as models for the present—in terms of beUef, practice, or structure. Other essays in The Primitive Church in the Modem World are case studies of particular traditions popularly classified as restorationist. David E. HarreU looks at the cluster of movements emerging from the Stone-CampbeU matrix (Disciples of Christ, Churches of Christ), Susie Stanley at the Church of God (Anderson), Grant Wacker at Pentecostals, Thomas G. Alexander at later nineteenth-century Mormons, and Theron Schlabach at American Mennonites and Amish. AU insist that despite claims to the contrary, every use of the past is filtered through the present. So they aU Ulustrate how what Stanley caUs "bumping into modernity" has subtly modified the possibiUties ofrestoring any aspect ofthe past or of origins. TheU value is precisely their reminding us that not only historians, but also leaders of reUgious communities are people of theU own times and that even the questions they pose of that mythic primal time emerge from a contemporary context. The older volume, foUowing a more traditional historical approach, echoes the structure of the scholarly conference that gave it birth. Contributors are more insistent that there are restorationist or primitivist features to movements that range from Puritanism (T Dwight Bozeman) to EpiscopaUan evangeUcaUsm (David Holmes). If anything, this coUection reveals how sUppery any use of labels can be. For some, any appropriation of the past legitimates classifying a movement as primitivist or restorationist.When labels become so multifaceted, as HenryWarner Bowden points out, they lose any meaning. One hears...