Alistair McGrath is an impressive fellow. A longtime professor at Oxford who now teaches at the University of London, McGrath writes intelligently on history, biochemistry, and theology. No small feat. And he writes often. A quick look at his Amazon page shows eleven books issuing from his pen since 2004. Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth is the latest.

Heresy, says McGrath, has been “sprinkled with stardust” because a (largely mistaken) notion of heresy fits the cultural mood (p. 1). Orthodoxy is thought to be pedestrian and reactionary, nothing more than the theology of the conquerors, who, no doubt, oppressed those whom they arbitrarily deemed heterodox. Heresy, on the other hand, is exciting and liberating, a subversion of authoritarianism and a vindication for victims of the past. The accomplishment of this book is that McGrath patiently demonstrates that this assumed narrative is terrifically misguided. Heretics were sometimes more patriarchal, more ascetic, and more authoritarian than their orthodox rivals. The good guys weren’t always so bad, and the bad guys weren’t always that good. Somebody tell Dan Brown.

The book, compromised of ten chapters with an introduction and conclusion, divides into four parts. In Part One (What is Heresy?), McGrath defines heresy as “a doctrine that ultimately destroys, destabilizes, or distorts a mystery rather than preserving it” (p. 31). He explains that heresy is not unbelief. Heretics are confessing Christians who threaten the church from the inside by (usually) unintentionally leading people into unsafe theological pastures.

In Part Two (The Roots of Heresy), McGrath sets his sights on the Bauer Thesis. Originally raised by Walter Bauer in 1934, the thesis asserts that “heresy” and “orthodoxy” were both present from the beginning of Christianity and that “heresy” was the predominant form of Christianity down to the end of the second century when Rome suppressed it. Although revisionists scholars like Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman continue to proffer versions of the Bauer Thesis, the boat won’t float anymore. McGrath shows why: (1) Rome didn’t have this kind of power, and (2) a shared core of theological beliefs—a proto-orthodoxy—existed in the church’s earliest days. McGrath goes to considerable lengths to show that though doctrine developed in the early church, its growth was “as a seed, over an extended period of time. All the fundamental themes that would be woven into the fabric of orthodoxy were there from the beginning” (p. 79).

Part Three introduces the major heresies of the first four centuries: Ebionitism, Docetism, Valentinism (Gnosticism), Marcionism, Arianism, Donatism, and Pelegianism.

Part Four is a hodge-podge. Chapter Eight provides a succinct five-point summary of why heresies happen: cultural norms, rational norms, social identity, religious accommodation, and ethical concerns. But the following chapter on the history of heresy from the patristics to the present revisits too much of the same Walter Bauer ground. The last chapter—on Islam’s understanding of Christianity—is intriguing, but talking about the Qur’an’s rejection of heretical versions of Christianity feels like a strange parting gift.

Heresy is valuable because it overturns a number of popular misconceptions (like “heresy is the orthodoxy that lost” or “early Christianity had no orthodox core”) and evangelical myths (like “heretics were clandestine devils intent on destroying the church” or “the doctrine of the church has never changed”). McGrath’s arguments are always careful and nuanced. He covers the important heresies and deals with the most crucial debates. And he does so as “a classic protestant” obviously sympathetic to the orthodox faith.

The book, however, is not without flaws. First, I wish McGrath had done more to relate ancient heresies to current distortions and had championed orthodoxy more explicitly. The book closes with McGrath saying the real challenge is to demonstrate that orthodoxy is “imaginatively compelling, emotionally engaging, aesthetically enhancing, and personally liberating.” Amen to that. But here’s the very last line: “We await this development with eager anticipation” (p. 234). Talk about anticlimax.

Second, the writing, while lucid, bogs down in repetition. It felt like the chapters were written at intervals far apart so that the ground covered in distinct chapters was easily forgotten. The propensity to end sections or chapters with “to which we now turn” is a pet peeve of mine (e.g., pp. 13, 159) as is the (scholarly? editorial?) habit of telling the reader often that you will later tell them something (pp. 59, 97, 172, 179, 191).

Third, Heresy, by McGrath’s own admission, breaks no new academic ground, but only synthesizes current scholarship (p. 11). This is perfectly fine, but the book is still too academic (36 pages of end notes) for a wide popular audience. I can’t fault McGrath for not writing the kind of book I would have written, but I can wish that it were more accessible, especially if it doesn’t aim to be cutting-edge scholarship.

These small criticisms notwithstanding, Heresy is a very good book, provided you understand what kind of book it is. The best audience will be theologically-minded pastors and students. They will find that McGrath concisely introduces the major heresies, debunks popular misconceptions about orthodoxy, and makes a compelling and even-handed case for the importance, viability, and antiquity of the historic Christian faith.

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