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Christian Theology: An Introduction Third Edition

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Alister McGrath has become a publishing industry. He churns out books and articles, popular as well as scholarly, at a dizzying pace. His outpouring of words speaks to his evangelical zeal. He's a man on a mission, intent on revitalizing Anglicanism in particular and Christianity in general. Whether one totally agrees with his own theological perspective, this is an admirable aim. Moreover, he carries around an incredibly wealth of theological knowledge. But the swiftness with which he publishes also makes for a certain amount of sloppiness. His books tend to be poorly proofed and highly repetitious.

The third edition of McGrath's _Christian Theology_ reflects all of these characteristics. McGrath's target audience is clearly seminarians, the very people he hopes will evangelically enliven the Church. It is breathtaking in its sweep. One can't but admire the incredible learning displayed by McGrath. And it is poorly proofed and at times tediously repetitious.

In all fairness to McGrath, the book really does fill a much-needed need for a single-volumed overview of Christian theology that isn't overtly sectarian. McGrath's book is roughly divided into two sections: historical and systematic theology. In the first section, he gives an overview of the historical roots and development of Christian doctrine. In the second section, he systematically discusses all the topics one would expect, ranging from the Trinity to eschatology.

As an Anglican evangelical, McGrath has obviously been terribly influenced by the Reformed tradition, and the authors he most frequently cites in the book are in that camp, from Luther and Calvin to Barth and Moltmann. But in this edition, he's gone out of his way to also discuss Roman Catholic and Orthodox perspectives. Granted, the Orthodox perspective is still minimal. But it is represented.

There are some interesting holes in the overview: for example, process theology is scarcely mentioned, existential theology is limited almost exclusively to Bultmann (Macquarrie and Tillich both receive short shrift), and postmodern theologizing is absent. These omissions may reflect McGrath's own theological perspective, but they also could reflect the fact that no single person is an authority on everything, and that only so much can be crammed into a single book.

The repetitions are less forgiveable. McGrath prefaces the text by admitting the redundancies, claiming that he's repeated himself at times for those persons who choose to selectively read in the book rather than going straight through it from beginning to end. But these deliberate pedagogical repetitions to one side, the book is filled with clearly unintended ones. McGrath will repeat himself not only on the same page, but even in the same paragraph. But one of dozens of examples: on the bottom of page 172, McGrath lists the Quadriga, the fourfold mode of interpreting Scripture that was popular in the Middle Ages. Then, at the top of p 173, he lists them again.

It should also be noticed that the first section of the book that deals with historical theology is basically an abridged repetition of a smallish book on historical theology published in 1998 by McGrath. The book is still in print, and so McGrath is, in a sense, going for a twofer here.

Proofing is also sloppy. Page references are frequently incorrect and there are numerous typos. All of this suggests that McGrath writes at such whitehot speed that he doesn't edit as well as he might. And if sloppiness from speed is present in the composition, one worries about parallel sloppiness in the ideas.

Still, these are minor caveats. McGrath has offered a good overview of Christian theology for those who which to learn something about the subject.

This is one of the best single-volume broad-scope introductions to Christian theology available today. Currently in its second edition, it will most likely have more editions, and there are frequent reprintings of the edition as it continues to be a field-specific best seller in the English speaking academic and seminary communities.

One of the things that makes this book such a useful text for teaching, reference and study is that is contains three primary sections that deal with the foundation issues of all subsequent Christian theology: one must be aware of the history and what has been done before; one must know the how, where and why of theology; and one must have a basic outline, pattern or understanding from which to begin.

Landmarks: Periods, Themes, and Personalities
The pattern of historical development on Christianity is presented in a fairly objective manner by McGrath. He deals with a broad overview of the major periods, looking at key theological developments as well as key persons, events and geographic groupings and distinctions. Most chapters follow the same pattern of setting out a clarification of terms, a brief overview historically, a presentation of key theologians, an examination of key theological developments, a section on key names, word and phrases, and a section of questions and further suggested readings.

The Patristic Period is the time of the Church Fathers, post-apostolic but while `the world' was still a Roman world. Key in this period is the fixing of creedal formulations of doctrine, the establishment of the biblical canon, and various issues of church, grace, and tradition. Key figures McGrath highlights are Justin Martyr, Ireneaus of Lyon, Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, and Augustine. If there is one criticism of this section and the book as a whole, it is that it pays far too little attention to those parts of the Christian tradition that were not mainstream and historically victorious. One could easily be fooled into thinking controversies such as the Arian beliefs were fairly minor.

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, McGrath highlights Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Erasmus. Key theological issues include a re-examination of grace (one will notice that certain issues remain in the forefront of Christian consideration and are constantly re-appraised), sacramental theology, patristics, formal theological systematics, and the issue of biblical translation.

In the Reformation and Post-Reformation section, McGrath highlights Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, and looks at the issues of the various Reformations, including the Counter-Reformation of the Roman Catholic church. The Modern Period section looks at the Enlightenment and its influence on Protestant and Catholic development, but much moreso the former. Various theological schools highlighted include Romanticism, Neo-Orthodoxy, Postmodernism, Liberation theology, Postliberalism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostal and charismatic movements, and the influence of various political developments such as Marxism on theological thought.

This is a rather sweeping examination of the history of Christian Theology, done in a mere 130 pages. It is good for an introduction, and one would do well to take McGrath's recommended readings lists to heart, as so much is glossed over with barely a mention in much of this treatment, by necessity. This is a theology text, not a history text.

Sources and Methods
McGrath in this section addresses the tools and methodologies, as well as the primary and secondary sources of theology. He shows the architecture of Christian theology to be comprised of biblical studies, historical theology, pastoral theology, philosophical theology, and systematic theology. These work together to form a broad framework of support; no one will be complete without addressing elements of the others.

In examining Sources of Theology more directly, McGrath looks at the issues of revelation. How precisely is revelation to be defined, and how does it work? He looks at issues of natural theology, scriptural revelation and authority, the importance and limitation of reason as a source of theology, the various ways in which tradition gets used as source material, and the issues and controversies surrounding direct religious experience as a valid source of theology. The reader will be introduced to some key debates in these topics, such as the Barth-Brunner debate over natural theology, and Feuerbach's critique of religious experience as a basis for theology.

Christian Theology
The third part of McGrath's text is the longest, dealing with all of the key issues of a systematic theology. First perhaps a definition is in order. Systematic theology is not a type of theology per se, but rather it is a type of types of theology. For instance, a Liberation theology work can be systematic or not; a Process theology work can be systematic or not. The various `doctrines' set out are not set pieces of a creed here, but rather areas for examination. In looking at the Doctrine of God, the issues of gender, relationship, creativity, omnipotence and the like are all examined. McGrath gives the picture of God portrayed in the writings of theologians through history; for instance, in examining the issue of evil, McGrath highlights the work of Irenaeus, Augustine and Barth in particular, with a nod to more recent contributions.

Conclusions
The book can be easily adapted for use in an order other than what is presented here; however, McGrath recommends for the self-taught that the book be followed in the order of the Table of Contents, and I would tend to agree with that recommendation. There is a glossary, a good section on sources of citations, a handy reference section for theology resources on the internet, and a well-developed index.

The text is a broad-based approach. It is rather Protestant in its developmental approach and the subtle bias is always in that direction, but it is not so apparent or intrusive as to detract from the true value of this text as a major guide toward theological investigation.

Alister McGrath has written an excellent, helpful volume in this introduction text to Christian Systematic Theology. Here's a quick partial listing of what the book includes and how it's structured:

Part 1: Landmarks: Periods, Themes, and Personalities of Christian Theology
-includes chapters on The Middle Ages, Refomation, Modern Period, et. al.

Part 2: Sources and Methods
-includes chapters on Preliminaries, Sources of Theology, Knowledge of God (Natural and Revealed), Philosophy and Theology, et. al.

Part 3: Christian Theology
-includes chapters on the Doctrine of God, Doctrine of the Trinity, Doctrine of the Person of Christ, the Doctrine of Salvation in Christ, Christianity and World Religions, et. al.

Overall, the book is an excellent starting point for coming to an understanding of Christian theology. McGrath is suprisingly unbiased in his overviews of all the topics in the book: only on occasion is it possible to see his own opinions peeking out through the wealth of information provided.

McGrath's book is fair because it has such a huge breadth to it: it would be hard to claim that any one group or believe in particular has been short sighted.

In addition, because of the book's highly structured layout, this serves as an excellent reference book for nearly any area of theology for at least a basic overview. Furthermore, each chapter ends with a secion for "Further Reading" in which McGrath provides a listing of other works on the individual topics presented in each chapter.

In this volume a powerful mind sets out to present a basic and introductory text. He is mostly successful. This work slightly more accessible than Grudem or Erickson and would provide a competent introduction to a beginning student of theology. It is actually more of a joint introduction to historical and systematic (since he does not actually begin to tackle the systematic categories until 205 pages in) and it works well as such, but it leaves him very limited room to build a comprehensive "Christian Theology".

My main critique of this is that despite his space limitations McGrath often gets sidetracked, devoting large chunks of text to advanced or non-central topics (which, to be fair, I often enjoyed) that detract from the general, introductory appeal he claimed to be persuing. This is most egregious under the doctrine of God where the debate over the suffering of God, theodicy and God's gender comprise nearly half the text. Still, if you are looking get a joint intro to historical and systematic theology while "only" investing 500 pages (rather than the very worthwhile 1000 + or - of Grudem or Erickson) McGrath is a fantastic guide and this text would fit those purposes well.

McGrath is a great alternative to other systematic theology texts which have permeated seminaries and colleges for the past fifty years. McGrath takes a fresh look at the origin of essential church doctrines, and where they fall in current debates. A wee bit conservative overall but still very usable. Particular strengths would be McGrath is able to trace theological debate and discourse with a keen eye and enough detail for you to not lose your head.

On the doctrine of Christ he could have done a lot more in rebutting/refuting the Jesus Seminar / Historical Jesus Quest issues, but this does not take away from a very solid work. I recommend this book to lay people, teachers, and pastors. B

Joseph Dworak

This book is one of the most handy theological surveys one will encounter in Christian academia. McGrath's book is good because it gives one a pretty comprehensive outline of major theological themes in a pretty straightforward manner. The book is not large but the information contained in it is pretty dense. The best thing about this book is that it is useful in various settings: seminary classrooms, lay theology seminars in churches, at home, and in the pastor's library. One will find this book fair and balanced because it does not really tow to a particular party line. If one is looking for a theology book that will try to be argumentative, then one will be disappointed. On the other hand, if one is looking for a book that just provides the information, this book is for you.

Alister Mcgrath's introduction to Christian Theology is a broad, even-handed overview of Christian thought. The most appealing aspect of this text is that it is devoid of sectarian bias and the desire to "tell its readers what to believe," as Mcgrath writes in the preface. Mcgrath's inform and enlighten approach, letting the reader make his/her own conclusions, stands in stark contrast to the majority of theological texts available, which are more concerned with the preach and convert method.
For those who desire to understand the foundational underpinnings upon which Christianity is built, without a denominational slant or overly fundamentalist tone, this book is highly recommended. The books approach and content warrant 5 stars; however, as another reviewer pointed out, there are several proofreading/typographical errors that cry out for correction.

I teach Christian theology and have worked through "Christian Theology: An Introduction" several times (as well as numerous other introductions to Christian theology). Without a doubt, this is the best introduction for beginners that I have read. McGrath is clear and his presentation is well organized. He seeks to be fair to a number of positions and traditions, and, I believe, succeeds in doing so.

I assume that anyone reading this review is either a formal student of Christian theology or at least VERY interested. If you are a student, this is probably a required text so you MUST buy it whether you want to or not.

If you are not a student, but want a deeper understanding of Christian theology than can be found in most of the spiritual "fast food" sections of your local Christian bookstore, you have come to the right place.

Alister E. McGrath is tops in his field. You are learning from a master teacher.

This book is tops in its class. It manages to address major doctrines, debates, and trends through church history in a way that treats all positions respectfully, but stays true to the central core of the Christian faith.

You will get the most by reading this book cover to cover, but the index and table of contents are so well planned you might be tempted to just look up the issues you are interested in. Either way, you won't lose if you buy this book. It will be one to keep on your shelf for future reference.

When one thinks about a book on Christian Theology, one expects to find a book about Christian doctrine as outlined in the Bible, i.e. a discussion of the basic principles of Christian belief. That's what I was expecting. This book is not what I expected. But it's much more. This book explores at an introductory level all the various forms of what can be considered Christian Theology including that which is developed from reading scriptures as well as other ideas.

One might wonder what profit there is in studying an idea that some guy made up 1,200 years ago or some belief that was derived from a misreading or incorrect translation of the Bible. But I think it's important to understand where these false beliefs came from. For that reason, it's a valuable resource. It's a book that all Christians should read.