Prophetic Ministry (review)

Book Reviews119 and relations of the church administrative agencies to the government and other church groups. Of the two works, the study of the Mennonites is both the more readable and the more interesting. The author has handled his material more dexterously and has allowed his sense of humor at points to lighten material which otherwise might have become somewhat plodding. Furthermore, his chapter on Canadian CO's adds unusual information which is not so easily available elsewhere. The Mennonite Draft Census Study from which Melvin Gingerich quotes on pages 91-93, gives a very interesting analysis of factors that caused some Mennonites to go into CPS and others to enter the Armed Forces. The task that the authors have set for themselves is to record the role of their respective churches in the Civilian Public Service program and this aim has been well carried out. After reading these specialized studies, however, one feels that one still has only a somewhat parochial view. One looks forward to the appearance of Philip Jacob's and Mulford Sibley's study of CO's in the Second World War, the publication of which has unfortunately so far been delayed. This, in all likelihood, will supply the more comprehensive information with which one would like to supplement the Eisan and Gingerich studies. It also will probably meet the need of those who are looking for a study of the civil status of the CO in the United States from 1940 to 1947. To this reader it appears that considerably greater emphasis might appropriately have been given to the waste of training and skills possessed by the men in Brethren and Mennonite CPS but not put to use at a time when many valuable social services were having to be neglected because of the war. Another point that might usefully have been more fully developed is a study of the relations of the church agencies with the various government technical services responsible for the direction of the CPS work projects. Since the church agencies had such a variety of experiences in dealing with government technical agencies, detailed comments on the imagination and resourcefulness shown in the use that the technical agencies made of CPS men might be quite instructive. Towards the preparation of a relatively complete history of the experience and work of conscientious objectors, these two studies are useful contributions. Others of a similar nature are also needed to cover the experience of conscientious objectors in other areas. American Friends Service CommitteeCharles R. Read Prophetic Ministry. By Howard H. Brinton. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill. 1950. 28 pages. 35 cents. This pamphlet is the Dudleian Lecture delivered by Dr. Brinton at Harvard in 1949. He points out that every religious group has some- 120Bulletin of Friends Historical Association one who exercises either a priestly function, a teaching function or a prophetic function. As Friends originally concentrated in large degree upon the prophetic function, and the lecture is largely concerned with it, this is our chance to learn what this conventional phrase means. "Prophetic ministry" is inspired ministry, dependent upon neither time, place nor compensation, but uttered "with the same kind of inspiration with which prophets and apostles spoke in Bible times." In the eighteenth century under the influence of Elders, "the priestly type of mind took precedence over the prophetic." Prophetic ministry has been further modified by higher education of Friends and by the current social gospel. Nowadays we owe a good deal to "the Hellenic ancestor of Christianity" and the older ministry of Hebraic ancestry would no longer seem profitable to the present generation. But the scholar and the prophet might still be integrated to advantage. It is still true to say that "prophetic religion is the religion of Jesus, rather than about Jesus," and that is what the world needs. Of course Dr. Brinton took the opportunity to tell his Cambridge audience a good deal about Philadelphia Quakerism. For no one will appreciate the value of prophetic ministry unless he has some sympathy with the insistence of Philadelphia Friends upon a free ministry in an unprogrammed meeting. That the present-day free ministry varies in value, and that some of it is positively...