POLITICAL EVANGELISM by Richard Mouw; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Paper $1.95. Reviewed by State Representative Ed Fredricks of Holland, who represents the 54th District in the Michigan Legislature. Mr. Fredricks is a Graduate of Calvin College, a former Vice-Consul at the American Embassy in Seoul, Korea and political officer in the United Nations section of the U.S. State Department.
The purpose of this book is to define political action as part of the evangelical task of the Church. This is certainly a relevant topic in our harried, confused and embattled times.
We sense that unless our society adopts the solution of Christ for its many ills, it will degenerate eventually into a chaos from which the freedom to preach Christ may not emerge. This gives our message urgency.
As Mr. Mouw acknowledges, this book is a “progress report on a personal quest.” He is attempting 10 define a position of progress for someone who has never taken a course of his; it may be difficult to provide an analysis of the book without a thorough knowledge of his concept of where we have been and where we are going. This book deals more philosophically than specifically with where we should go.
This book is timely. With our present difficulties in foreign policy, with widespread unease in the world, we wonder where we are trending. What is the future of the Church in the world? Although we strongly believe in separation of Church and State, we must seek a Christian accent in society to, at least, preserve a climate which permits the preaching of the gospel. Who knows but that, had the Church been more vital in South Vietnam and Cambodia, those nations may have been able to forestall the Communist advance—which may now have dropped the curtain of a dark age for the Church there.
The Church will either grow or decline. At present, we Sloe a decline. At the end of World War II , during-surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay, General Douglas Mac Arthur sounded the warning: “Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in tum failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem is basically theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character . . . It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”
The Church has a vital role to play. Books like this are needed. We must speak up while we still may speak.
THE REVIVAL IN INDONESIA by Kurt Koch. Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1970. 310 pp. $2.95, paper. Reviewed by Rev. Jerome Julien, pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church, Pella, Iowa.
BaSically, this book chronicles the reviv;)l which slHead through Indonesia during the 1960’s. Koch gives the background and religious development of the islands, first, so that the reader can see the revival in perspective.
This is an interesting and very readable account but it is an account of strange events, to say the least. If you like stories of the unusual and about how people come to know salvation you will like this, but it won‘t contribute much to your spiritual growth.