Customer Reviews

A Layman's Guide to Protestant Theology

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I was introduced to this book by my pastor, who used it as a seminary textbook. Don't let the ugly cover and mass-market paperback format fool you: this is surely the most readable and compact exposition of Protestant theology from Luther to the late 20th century that you will find. It's even-handed, good-tempered, and refreshingly free of fads and axe-grinding.

William Hordern was one of my theology professors at Garrett Evangelicsl on the Campus of Northwestern University.

Hordern writes in a manner that is so clear and logical that one finds it difficult to disagree with what he is saying. He is able to take complex ideas and make tahem easy to understand, a quality that not many authors have, or if they have it, they don't use it.

This is an old book by now but the information in it is pretty much up to date. Wouldn't mind reading it again. Quote from it frequently.

A layman will have no difficult reading this book and will get a lot out of it.

J. Robert Ewbank, author of "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

Since this book's first edition in 1955, this has been a great resource. The current edition, like previous ones, provide an understandable presentation of all the current and important options in Protestant theological thinking. Simple, but not simplistic. He does justice to all theologians he presents.

Useful for the Seminary student or the Sunday School student.

William Hordern has hit the nail squarely on the head with this book. It is an extremely helpful book for the layman as well as the minister. Took classes from Hordern at Garrett Evangelical years ago and read the book even though we did not use it in class. Hordern has a way of taking various ideas and exquisitely clarifying them without doing damage to the original.

He has a way of writing that seems to simplify and clarify all without making the other persons thought a scarecrow or unreal.

He is an excellent read in this book as well as all of the other books he has written. This is one of the most helpful and readable books that one could find for the layman to read to understand protestant theology. It is a little old, but still packs a wallop.

J. Robert Ewbank, author of "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

A layman's guide to protestant theology is a well written book by William Hordern who goes in depth on Orthodoxy,liberalism, and Neo-Orthodoxy

I read this book for a required "intro to religion" course back in 1975. I knew very little theology but was so fascinated by Hordern's chapters that I read the whole book immediately, something I never did with any other college text! Subsequently I embarked on a theological career of my own. Hordern does an excellent job delineating the trends of 19th and 20th century theology. While the book may be a little dated now, it's still an excellent book to help clarify theological issues of the last two centuries of Protestant thought.