SEDO

This issue is largely devoted to the review by ONE's leading reviewers of some of the increasing numbers of books dealing with homosexuality and sexual matters generally.

The Five-foot bookshelf

THE ETHICS OF SEX by Helmut Thielicke, Harper & Row, 1964, $4.95, 338 pp.

Ordained in 1940, Helmut Thielicke's anti-Nazi sermons caused him to be put under "protective custody." In 1945 this German pastor became Professor of Theology at Tubingen and in 1960, he was appointed Rector of the University of Hamburg, the fist Protestant theologian to hold that post. The Ethics of Sex was first presented as a lecture series at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago last fall. Professor Thielicke is rapidly becoming one of the leading Protestant voices in the world today.

Coming so soon after the publication of Towards a Quaker View of Sex this scholarly book, and especially its chapter on "The Problem of Homosexuality," helps to refute those critics who have been saying the 11 Quakers were on the wrong track. Not only is the Professor both a deep thinker and a fearless spokesman for what he believes, but he constantly strives to keep his proach within the context of the parish situation. This is no classroom dissertation nor is it a moribund theological treatise. It challenges church people and citizens to meet sex as it is lived within the local community. The author is acquainted with homosexuals and their way of life. His is the concern of a Pastor

one

ap-

for a parishioner, a redemptive relationship.

66

The book seeks to approach the vast area of human sexual expression from the standpoint of Christian ethics and to offer not only observations and comparisons but concrete action and ministry. He is never far from a Biblical foundation yet able to write in the Preface, cannot understand the extraordinary changes which have taken place in man's view of sexual ethics unless one sees them in the context of the changed view of man and his understanding reality. 'Borderline Situations' (including homosexuality)

one

which are often passed over in silence in Christian ethics are here discussed in extenso." pp v, vi. His translator comments that the book's value" lies in its confrontation

of the subject with the whole complex of relevant factors, Biblical, historical, social and cultural, medical, psychological, and legal." p viii.

No longer can homosexuals or heterosexuals say that no one has developed a rational theological approach to homosexuality. Dr. Thielicke has here written for the clergy, the professors, the church leaders, with a soundness that can only be accepted or rejected, it cannot Le disputed. I was pleased to note he used the word "afflicted" in referring to the homosexual rather than the more frequent "sick" used by less

6