Books in Brief: Extremism Left and Right

Extremism Left and Right, edited by Elmer West Jr. (Eerdmans, 152 pp., $2.95 paper). The publishing arm of the Dutch Reformed Church here presents eight essays by seminary professors, originally delivered at conferences of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it all adds up to a pretty tame handling of extremism. The extremist of the Left shows “authenticity … in that he rejects the dichotomy between being and act”; the extremist of the Right is “paranoid”; both are to be handled with eyes wide open and brimming with Love, and it will help if “the energy and skill expended to place man on the moon [are] turned to the less glamorous problems on earth.” Don’t let them immanentize the eschaton, let us.

CS

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C. H. Simonds

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Extremism Left and Right, edited by Elmer West Jr. (Eerdmans, 152 pp., $2.95 paper). The publishing arm of the Dutch Reformed Church here presents eight essays by seminary professors, originally delivered at conferences of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it all adds up to a pretty tame handling of extremism. The extremist of the Left shows “authenticity … in that he rejects the dichotomy between being and act”; the extremist of the Right is “paranoid”; both are to be handled with eyes wide open and brimming with Love, and it will help if “the energy and skill expended to place man on the moon [are] turned to the less glamorous problems on earth.” Don’t let them immanentize the eschaton, let us.