A Journey Through Christian Theology

The history of Christian theology can be a daunting field for undergraduate students, who see neither the need for--nor the relevance of--rummaging through Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or Tillich's dry texts. Yet undergraduates pose lively religious questions, and most religious colleges require introductory courses on the Christian tradition.

This people-friendly volume, a full-scale reader in theological history, offers a non-threatening, occasionally humorous entrance into central texts from the Apostolic Fathers to Mary Daly. Highly accessible introductions to six periods precede brief introductions to, and texts from, forty-four key thinkers. Each is followed by reflection questions for the student to undertake that relate to personal, religious, and social topics. Incarnation, soteriology, spirituality, challenges to the institutional church, and sacraments are the key themes that re-emerge in each period. Some fifty cartoons lighten the presentation and soften some of the seriousness of the texts.

Texts from these theologians are highlighted: Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, Arius, Athanasius, Ecumenical Councils and Creeds, Augustine of Hippo, Pseudo-Dionysius, John Scotus Erigena, Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Johannes Meister Eckhardt, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Thomas Kempis, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, David Friedrich Strauss, Soren Kierkegaard, Albrecht Ritschl, Adolf von Harnack, Rudolf Otto, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gustavo Gutirrez, Mary Daly, Letty Russell, Regina Coll, James Cone, and Cornel West.