FEAR, LOVE AND WORSHIP

Fear, Love and Worship, the Seabury Lenten Book for 1962, is written with the avowed purpose of showing the relevance of worship to fear, the mediation of love that casts out fear. The author, C. Fitzsimons Allison, professor of Church History at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., efficiently realizes his objective. He points out that fear is frequently the subject of a treatise, but most generally treated from the standpoint of psychology or psychiatry. Worship is the subject of many tracts on liturgy and even theology. Prof. Allison feels the very close interrelationship between fear and the theory and act of worship is consistently ignored. The medicine for fear is God's love, but God's love properly evaluated. It is not to be waved before Christians as though it were a carrot, a bite of which will be given them if they behave. Though divine love is a constant in life, its application must depend upon individual seeking. Its healing power cannot be received until we know our fears. The fear of being honest; of caring; of being humble; of being human; of failure; of love and of death are the major fears that shut man out from the love of God. Dr. Allison gives many practical examples and appropriate quotations from great writers to illustrate his thesis, and the result is a most useful book for both clergy and laymen.