Essentials of Christian Theology

Essentials of Christian Theology William C. Placher, ed. 422pp.

William C. Placher has put together a marvelous collection of essays in Essentials of Christian Theology. The book is organized as an exploration of Christian thought from a variety of angles. Curiously, the text’s strongest aspect also calls attention to its great weakness. 

Essentials of Christian Theology lacks a strong central viewpoint to organize the text. By selecting his sources from such a wide variety of theological traditions, Placher has put together a phenomenal introduction to the breadth of thought in the discipline. As such, it is easy to finish Essentials and feel ready to dive into more focused, single point-of-view texts. I appreciated this greatly, being given an understanding of the language used in Theological discourse, as well as a smattering of some of the issues currently being tossed around by theologians was a wonderful entry into the field. This does come up a touch weak for me at the end of the book, when I was given a wide series of differing views, all presented equally and in constant dialogue with each other. I felt that I had more questions to answer and resolve than a greater understanding and answer on any single issue, though perhaps that is the point.

At this point, I’m going to end the review for this book, I’ve tossed around about a dozen different ways of discussing some of the chapters, but I really don’t feel that I can do them justice. So, Essentials of Christian Theology is a great introduction to the field, but a little hard to walk away from feeling confident in any one viewpoint.

Would I recommend Essentials of Christian Theology? Yes.

Score: 3.7/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? Yes.

-Mr. Cheddar