Book Reviews
his book, Reading for Preaching. He advises preachers to read “poetry… biography… journalism… essays,” and even “children’s literature” (p. 136), as this will make them wise pastors. The Pastor as Public Theologian is very accurate in its analysis of the modern pastorate and, in the opinion of this pastor, very helpful in drafting a way of recovery. It is, of course, only a draft, a proposal, and even the authors seem to be aware of this fact. This means that the books can be, at times, very condensed and cluttered. However, a reader is directed to many other books, both modern and historical, that speak in more length about various themes this book only briefly touches on. All Christians are called to be theologians in the sense of thinking deeply about “what is in Christ” and how it influences our life and witness, but this book is primarily aimed at and recommended to pastors, elders, seminary students and academic theologians for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, church members (especially ones involved in reviewing pastor candidates in congregational churches, but others as well) need to read this book in order to understand what they should (and should not) expect of their present and future pastors. And last but not the least, this book is highly recommended to pastors’ wives, who need to be encouraged to see their husbands’ reading and study time not as a leisure (no matter how much they enjoy it), but as a necessity. Miroslav Balint-Feudvarski
Keith Clements
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest World Council of Churches Publications, Geneva, 2015, pp. 326. In February 2015, the World Council of Churches Publications published the book Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest written by Keith Clements. Keith Clements is a British historian, theologian and ecumenist. He worked more than nine years as a general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, and he has previously written on the topic of ecumenism and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In 2010 he wrote The SPCK Introduction to Bonhoeffer; in 2011, A Patriotism for Today: Love of Country in Dialogue with the Witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; in 2011, in co-authorship with Barry Harvey, What Freedom?: The Persistent Challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and in 2013 he wrote two books, one on ecumenism, Ecumenical dynamics: Living in Several Places at Once, and one in co-authorship with Paul Spanringon Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Arnold Köster: Two Distinct Voices in the Midst of Germany’s Third Reich Turmoil.
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