The Healing Ministry in the Church, Bernard Martin, Lutterworth Press, London, England-Book House: A. R. Mobray and Company, 28 Margaret Street, London. TJ.S. Agent: John Knox Press, 8 North 6th Street, Richmond 9, Virginia, 1960, 125 pages, 15 shillings (approximately $2.25).
The Ministerial office recently received some excellent books from publishers in America and overseas. We appreciate workers outside of America calling these to our attention, especially such books as bear investigation and have an orthodox trend and quest.
Bernard Martin, pastor of the Reformed Church, Geneva, is of Swiss birth. Along with his parish ministry he works at a psychiatric clinic in his city, presides at a monthly service for the sick in his parish, and is a member of the Order of St. Luke— a spiritual fellowship of the healing ministry of the church. The publishers state realistically: "There are many books on healing, but this one keeps close to the Biblical evidence and the life of the Church as a healing community."
The Ministerial Association has responded to the request that this book be evaluated and reviewed in The Ministry. Few books are without points that we as a denomination do not entirely accept, and some will be found in this book. However, this pastor is a sincere Christian without a bias or fanatical burden to make the healing ministry the only approach to the needs of the soul. With us he has become conscious that divine healing is Biblical, timely, and urgent today, not confined to hospitals and clinics. Factually, there is a larger service awaiting the worker in making personal and home contacts and in prayer groups.
Some authors sincerely believe that healing is a necessity in connection with evangelization, public or personal; they point to the emphasis made by Christ and the apostles on this matter. It is not to be expected that all ministers have the rare gift that an occasional "healing evangelist" may have. In God's purpose the New Testament clearly teaches a variety of "gifts" and "helps," and warns the gospel worker not to think he has a "corner" on a method! In the books of Bernard Martin, and also those of John Pitts, last-day phenomena in the practice of the healing arts are broadly discussed and Biblically dealt with. Martin awakens interest in the humility of the worker who feels his dependence on God and senses empathy with the sufferer, in the doctor who labors inconspicuously in an attempt to bring relief to his patients. The following truth remains: The entire gospel team must spend itself for Christ.
Louise C. Kleuser
Faith Healing: Fact or Fiction? John Pitts, Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey, 1961, 159 pages, $3.00.
John Pitts is well known through his active ministry in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and the Bahamas. He is a college and seminary professor and author of several books in the field of psychology and religion. The reader will gather confidence from the following statement in the preface of his work: "This book has also grown out of a bitter personal experience, though I hope that I have not been embittered by it. In view of the positive conclusions set forth in the following chapters, it may evoke some surprise to be told that they were written from a wheel chair. Some years ago a 'medical accident' (to put it charitably) made it necessary for me to exchange the swivel chair of my study for a wheel chair, in which, for some time past, I have been obliged to carry on my work as a minister. As may be guessed, this has sometimes been far from easy." Pitts continues: "And even when bodily healing does not come (as in my own case) through either physical methods or spiritual techniques, or the combination of both, it does not follow that the spiritual factor was inoperative or ineffective." He concludes that "the burden of physical disability, of bodily pain, can be borne more courageously, and a sane attitude to life be more securely maintained, when the sufferer's inner life is nourished and sustained by prayer and faith."
Throughout the book the reader senses that a man of God is speaking out of a rich personal experience and from a broad background of knowledge. Here are balanced, well-documented data that bring the entire problem before the reader in logical array. We consider it one of the best books personally studied this year and a masterpiece in this particular field. Here the joint services of the minister and doctor blend without each losing his distinctive identity. Because this is today one of a number of urgent emphases, we recommend this book for Seventh-day Adventist ministers and doctors. When a new idea of methodology receives strong enough emphasis, caution is necessary to hold it in symmetry, so it will not eclipse other techniques also important in their place. The author is conservative in his presentation, but he makes the reader conscious of the challenge of the hour—that doctors and ministers work together to meet the needs of suffering humanity, recognizing the distinctive calling of each while supplementing their God-given gifts.
Louise C. Kleuser
How the Catholic Church Is Governed, Heinrich Scharp, Herder and Herder, 1960, New York, 168 pages.
The subject of polity is one that interests most churchmen. To Protestants one of the distinguishing features of the Roman Catholic system is its military-type hierarchical government. The counterpart of this system is found in the dictatorships that have developed on the civil government scene.
This little book will help to answer many questions that come to the mind of the thoughtful student of papal institutions. Such questions as "What is a cardinal and what power does he have?"; "Must a pope be elected by means of a secret ballot?"; "How is the day-to-day business of the Papacy conducted?"; "How does the pope spend his daily life?"
Annelise Derrick translated this version from the author's original Wie Die Kirche Regiert Wird. Miss Derrick uses the British idiom. The book is surprisingly frank while at the same time bearing the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, which indicate that it is considered by the appropriate censors to be free from doctrinal or moral error.
We would recommend this little volume to anyone who wishes to learn more about the topmost level of Roman Catholic government. It tells us nothing about how the bishops outside of Rome conduct their business except to point out that they are more or less autonomous within their dioceses. Sydney Allen