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"A recent writer in the influential international journal Concilium has complained that Church historians even to-day neglect the experience of 'Third World Christians', and that 'a radical shift of perspective' is now required to make the Church conscious of 'the new centre of gravity of the People of God'. FATHER MARTIN JARRETT-KERR, C.R., has for some years been working on just such new perspective. It is the more relevant in that, as he believes, one of the bridges over the ever-widening gap between what is known as the 'Third World' and the rest is Christianity. The author has therefore taken a look at the history of Christianity as it was received from the missionaries through a study of the lives of individuals, trying to see it not from the usual Western point of view, but from 'within'. This invaluable study is the first of its kind to cut across all boundaries of church affiliation. Father Jarrett-Kerr has made a skillful selection from the vast amount of indigenous material now available, bringing out of obscurity the lives of men and women of varied temperament and conviction, several of whom have not been presented to the English-speaking world before." -Publisher

"With tables of the cases and principal matters" (varies).

"This study of Mauriac--a recent Nobel Prize Winner--is the first extensive critical assessment in English of a novelist whose reputation inside and outside of France appears to be both firmly established and highly debatable. François Mauriac is a Catholic novelist, not merely a novelist who happens to be a Catholic. The world in which his characters live and the moral law by which they succeed or fail are determined by theology. In a situation in which the judgement of the liberal critic may well be unsettled by the excessive desire to show himself aesthetically immune from theological irritations, this essay, written by a Christian theologian who is also a literary critic, must be of the greatest interest. Martin Jarrett-Kerr, after sketching the background and defining scope of Mauriac's novels, raises the problem of the apologetic novelists in the central section of his study. WIth the help of numerous examples he examines the crucial question of the authenticity of Mauriac's vision. Has Mauriac succeeded in embodying his theological convictions in a truly living world? Or are there points at which religious views and artistic vision remain apart, with the views intruding into the vision and upsetting its integrity? And, moreover, may not flaws in artistic creation reveal flaws in the underlying theological system? Literary examinations of this order are likely to profit from the double equipment, aesthetic and theological, that is at the disposal of the present writer" --