The Church and the Body Politic by Franklin H. Littell (review)

370 BOOK REVIEWS close to the Catholic teaching on original sin as Trooster is. His difficulty is the perennial one that original sin cannot be sin at all because there is no personal responsible action. Any Catholic student could have told him the answer to his difficulty by making the necessary distinctions. However, this book will be of interest to the historian of the nonCatholic theology of original sin. Old Testament scripture students will be interested in his interpretations of Genesis. It is disappointing in its scanty reference to possible parallels of the Fall story in Indian religions and philosophy. (This, of course, is a personal regret because a fuller treatment would have been helpful for one teaching the theology of original sin in India!) One wonders how great the contribution to theology by a man of Tennant's obvious intellectual stature and culture would have been had he the positive and certain guidance of the Magisterium to encourage him. I feel he would have made a splendid attempt to reconcile evolution and the traditional teaching of the Church. His attempt, such as it is, anticipates many of the best insights of present-day Catholic theologians. Of course, he was a scientist and a theologian and not just one or the other, or worse, neither,-which seems to be the case with some contemporary writers on original sin. St. Charles' Seminary Nagpur, India BEDE McGREGGOR, 0. P. The Church and the Body Politic. By FRANKLIN H. LITTELL. New York: The Seabury Press, 1969. Pp. 175. $5.95. Every adult Sunday school class and study group will find much to discuss and to challenge them in The Church And the Body Politic by Dr. Franklin H. Littell, eminent educator, historian and President of Iowa Wesleyan College, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. Churches must stop expecting government, schools, public welfare agencies or the medical profession to be official organs of Christianity, he warns. Two-thirds of the world are under communism; Europe is no longer a secure base for Christianity, and the Supreme Court of the United States has at last faced up to the First Amendment of the Constitution which established America as a society of many faiths-none of them connected with the government. Yet, Dr. Littell sees no cause for despair if Christians and churches, armed with new programs and direction, realize that the present situation provides unparalleled opportunities to get about the Lord's business. " After all," he says, " Christ died for the world, not for the church! " He questions those who would train church members to be lay clerics, urging the dignity of the laity as such. He urges churches to make BOOK REVIEWS 371 membership more difficult and cites examples of the accomplishments made by those who demand effort and commitment above attendance and donation. To those who say the church should stay out of politics, Dr. Littell shows that, historically, in cases where the church stood mutely by. totalitarianism took over-as in Russia and Nazi Germany. He says the time has come to abandon the over-emphasis on mass evangelism-which has brought American church membership from 6.9% in 1800 to a constituency of 96% of the population today-and get down to work. In conjunction with higher membership standards he feels work-study groups should be organized around members' vocations so that religious ethics can be strongly and boldly advocated where they are needed most-in every part of and at all levels of a community's daily life. A former professor of church history at The Chicago Theological Seminary, Southern Methodist University and Emory University, Dr. Littell avoids preaching in his book and relies on examples, statistics and a broad base of historical fact to call American churches to action. The church should take a strong position on public issues and in politics, he says, and not let government and technicians direct American life. " The most awful figure of the modern world is," he states, " the technically competent barbarian-the master of persuasion who sells his services to the highest bidder or the careful bookkeeper who counted dead bodies at Dachau and Auschwitz." lCYWa Wesleyan College Mount Pleasant, Iowa BILL BAXTER John Knox...