Christianity: A Beginner's Guide

Schnelle Lieferung, alles in Ordnung

excellent copy

This is a refreshing and challenging overview of the key doctrines of Christianity which does not settle for simply repeating the tired and unconvincing mantras of traditional orthodoxy but recognises that there are competing views on almost all the important questions and sets them out relatively simply for the uninitiated. Buy a copy for yourself and one for any of your conservative evangelical friends who would certainly benefit from the wisdom it contains. Do not be misled - this is NOT just for beginners - it contains enough challenging and informative material for those already familiar with basic Christian theology. (NB It is the same book as Christianity A Short Introduction)

ok

I bought this book because I really liked Keith Ward's essays in another book ("The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis") and because I'm looking for a good, simple, clear book that could be recommended to new Christians or seekers. Unfortunately, for each chapter in this book Ward gives three different viewpoint--usually a traditional conservative view, a standard liberal view, and what might be called a third-way or progressive option. To me this results in a confusing, disconnected experience for the reader. I wish he would have instead divided the book into three sections, where each section would cover all of the points from start to finish for each of the three viewpoints. I also wish he would have omitted terms like "perichoresis" and "pleroma" and just kept the language simple.I found the Atonement section particularly disappointing. He didn't spend enough time here in making a persuasive or plausible case for any of the views or models of the atonement. By comparison, S. Mark Heim, in his book, "Saved from Sacrifice," gave concise, persuasive, compelling summaries of all of the various traditional atonement models (and Heim made compelling cases for each model even though he isn't satisfied with any of them as they are traditionally understood).Bottom line is that I'm still looking for a good, simple, clear introduction to Christianity. I will read more of Ward's books, though, because I think he does have some very interesting ideas regarding theology and philosophy.