CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. A BRIEF HISTORY

Written by Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper (eds) Reviewed By Gerald Bray

This is a short introduction to the historical study of Christian theology. It is broadly divided into ‘east’ (Greek Orthodox etc.) and ‘west’ (Roman Catholic and Protestant), and is subdivided into chronological periods, each of which is treated independently by a specialist in the field. Given that the editors have set themselves the impossible task of covering two millennia of complex thought in a space of less than ten pages per century, theirs is a remarkable achievement. The major historical contributors to the evolving Christian tradition are all treated fairly, and the difficult controversies in which they sometimes engaged are elucidated with remarkable clarity and precision. For those beginning a theological course, for lay people in churches and for sceptical relatives who wonder what theology is all about, this is a good starter! It is also of use to theology students, particularly when it covers areas that are not part of the ordinary university course. The ‘eastern’ tradition has been given unusual weight, and the chapters devoted to Syriac and Armenian Christianity will be especially welcome, even to advanced theologians who specialise in other areas. The book also serves the valuable purpose of putting things in an overall framework, so that we can grasp the relative importance of people like Aquinas or Karl Barth, who are too often read outside their context.

Each chapter has a good, up-to-date bibliography of more specialised treatments to be found elsewhere and that too will be a valuable lead for many a student essay-writer. The contributors to the volume lean towards the Catholic and Orthodox ends of the Christian spectrum, although there are some Protestants among them as well, but this does not interfere unduly with their objectivity. The chapters on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example, display an admirable balance between competing theologies and different scholarly points of view, and they bring out similarities which characterise the period and differ from anything current today among the respective inheritors of these controversies. This is altogether a good and useful little book, to be highly recommended for the purposes stated above.


Gerald Bray

Gerald Bray is research professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, where he teaches history and doctrine. He is a minister in the Church of England and the editor of the Anglican theological journal Churchman.