Even today, says Spense (New Testament and theology, Burleigh College, Adelaide) too many Christians persist in reading New Testament documents as though the Church as it now exists were already a conceptual, if not social reality. He finds in those documents discussions of the struggle of a new religious movement to establish itself as an independent community. His emphasis is on the conflict between those who wanted to remain a sect of Judaism and those who wanted to be a cult of Rome. Distributed by the David Brown Book Company. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)