Subtitled ‘Reflections on the Gathering Cultural Crisis’ and described as dealing with social issues this is an interesting and unusual book of only one hundred and forty pages. The approach of the Editor is to use excerpts from three writers as the basis for his analysis of the current condition of the United States of America. He regards the USA as being in one of history’s classic storm corridors and that we should be on the watch as the storms signs mount. He says, “responsible unriddling of the signs of the times is a requirement of our day”. There are short selections that illustrate our urgent need to listen to the voices of prophets who warn of the impending cultural crisis. The first excerpt is from a novel by Reinhold Schneider, an author I had not heard of. He was a leading opponent of Nazism in Germany couching his criticism of that regime in a book in which a brave sixteenth century Spanish monk challenges his king concerning the manner of the conquest of the New World after Columbus. The main point is the necessity to oppose the attitude that the end is more important than the means employed to reach that end. Second comes an intimate portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn by a Times magazine correspondent. The whole thrust of this is to show the manner in which truth became the dominant theme for the life, character, and work of this twentieth century prophet. Finally we read the chilling short story by Shirley Jackson called ‘The Lottery” and the changing attitudes in the college classrooms of USA to the study of this story point vividly to the dangerous moral confusion which faces the western world. Many of us agree that the generation in which we live and the churches included need a prophetic word. This book provides such in an unusual format. Prophets are those that rip through the social complacency and spiritual confusion and moral weakness that plague the societies of their day exposing the ills and pointing to the remedies. There is thoughtful insight in this short book that will assist, along with other voices to confirm where the true issues lie in our day.
