Within the Eastern tradition of Christianity, the eikon, or religious image, has long held a place of honor. In the greater part of Western Christianity, however, discomfort with images in worship, both statues and panel icons, has been a relatively common current, particularly since the Reformation. In the Roman Catholic Church, after years of using religious statues, the Second Vatican Council’s call for “noble simplicity” in many cases led to a stripping of images that in some ways helped refocus attention on the eucharistic celebration itself but also led to a starkness that has left many Roman Catholics unsure of how to interact with the saints or with religious images at all. Today, Western interest in panel icons has been rising, yet we lack standards of quality or catechesis on what to do with them. This book makes the case that icons should have a role to play in the Western Church that goes beyond mere decoration. Citing theological and ecumenical reasons, Visel argues that, with regard to use of icons, the post–Vatican II Roman Catholic Church needs to give greater respect to the Eastern tradition. While Roman Catholics may never interact with icons in quite the same way that Eastern Christians do, we do need to come to terms with what icons are and how we should encounter them.

The purpose of the ASM Series is to publish, without regard for disciplinary, national, or denominational boundaries, scholarly works of high quality and wide interest on missiological themes from the entire spectrum of scholarly pursuits, e.g., theology, history, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, health, education, art, political science, economics, and development, to articulate but a partial list. Always the focus will be on Christian mission. By "mission" in this context is meant a cross-cultural passage over the boundary between faith in Jesus Christ and its absence. In this understanding of mission, the basic functions of Christian proclamation, dialogue, witness, service, fellowship, worship, and nurture are of special concern. How does the transition from one cultural context to another influence the shape and interaction of these dynamic functions? Missiologists know that they need the other disciplines. And other disciplines, we dare to suggest, need missiology, perhaps more than they sometimes realize. Neither the insider's nor the outsider's view is complete in itself. The world Christian mission has through two millennia amassed a rich and well-documented body of experience to share with other disciplines. Interaction will be the hallmark of this Series. It desires to be a channel for talking to one another instead of about one another. Secular scholars and church-related missiologists have too long engaged in a sterile venting of feelings about one another, often lacking in full evidence. Ignorance of and indifference to one another's work has been no less harmful to good scholarship. The promotion of scholarly dialogue among missiologists may, at times, involve the publication of views and positions that other missiologists cannot accept, and with which members of the Editorial Committee do not agree. The manuscripts published reflect the opinions of their authors and are not meant to represent the position of the American Society of Missiology or the Editorial Committee of the ASM Series. We express our warm thanks to various mission agencies whose financial contributions enabled leaders of vision in the ASM to launch this new venture. The future of the ASM series will, we feel sure, fully justify their confidence and support. William J. Danker, Chairperson ASM Series Editorial Committee

A historical and anthropologic retrospective on the evolution of politico-religious politic man from the time of Adam until today. The two most important aspects of man’s developmental civilization and his continuance are politics and religion. In a historical sense the two have gone hand in hand, regardless of the modern concept of separating church and state. It is the author’s premise that politics and religion should be in juxtaposition as they were in the Byzantine period. The author does not overlook the fact that both politics and religion have had their character stained. But the stains are superficial and fade from view when the substantive qualities of both axiomatic systems are brought into focus. One of the interesting tools the author uses in bringing these substantive qualities to light is discussing the two systems in terms of their paternalistic and maternalistic behavior and thereby setting up, through empirical evaluation, a natural order of things according to what paternalism and maternalism make of man. For the historical and social testing ground the author especially looks into the Byzantine period for testing the good and evil precepts of his theory. From this study comes a oneness, an Ecumenical Legacy, the author calls it, of politics, religion and ethics, a divine direction for man, “Synodically” oriented, that is realistic and optimistic, too, a joining of those normally interpreted opposites seldom seen these days.

Twelve centuries of endless warfare by Vatican’s high priests and their associates, the international banking nobility, are concentrated to subdue the Christian Orthodox Peoples into some new order of things. The erroneously touted “age-old animosities in the Balkans” is a fiction of age-old alien enemies. The conflict in the Serbian lands and the rest of the Balkans today is a mini pre-image of the coming Great Secular War III. The coming collapse of Vaticanism, Scottish-Grand-Orient Freemasonry, Zionism-Massoreticism, Debt-Banking, Oil Power, and Muslimism is heralded. Jugoslavia bravely resists their lackeys, the “Military-Industrial-Church Complex,” in turn using NATO as their front, as their mighty image and prestige is exposed and scattered to the winds.