The Christian Theology Reader

by Alister E. McGrath

Regarded as the leading text in Christian theology for the last 25 years, Alister E. McGrath’s The Christian Theology Reader is now available in a new 5th edition featuring completely revised and updated content.

Genres: Theology, Reference, Christianity, Religion, Christian, History, Nonfiction

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Alister Edgar McGrath is a Northern Irish theologian, priest, intellectual historian, scientist, and Christian apologist. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005. He is an Anglican priest and is ordained within the Church of England.

Aside from being a faculty member at Oxford, McGrath has also taught at Cambridge University and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. McGrath holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford, a DPhil in Molecular Biophysics, a Doctor of Divinity in Theology and a Doctor of Letters in Intellectual History.

McGrath is noted for his work in historical theology, systematic theology, and the relationship between science and religion, as well as his writings on apologetics. He is also known for his opposition to New Atheism and antireligionism and his advocacy of theological critical realism. Among his best-known books are The Twilight of Atheism, The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, and A Scientific Theology. He is also the author of a number of popular textbooks on theology.

Reviews

[Davis Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fantastic resource—easily the most comprehensive there is if you want a large collection of the most significant writings on Christian thought (although there's maybe a bit too much liberalism and recent stuff). Many of the selections are very short and make one long for context, but it really only exists as a sampler and springboard to take a dive into these thinkers and ideas. It achieves that purpose superbly. Probably one of the first books I'd recommend for a pastor's library.

[Tung · Rating 4 out of 5]

This textbook is not a stand-alone text, but an accompanying reader – i.e. it does not explain any theological doctrines, but rather provides a tremendous sampling of the writings of various theologians throughout history on a variety of topics. We get to read excerpts from the earliest theologians like Origen and Iraeneus, to theologians from the Middle Ages like Augustine and Aquinas, to philosophers like Locke and Pascal, to contemporary theologians like J.I. Packer. They cover all of the essentials of Christian theology from theology to Scripture to Christology to salvation to eschatology. In addition to providing the excerpts, McGrath includes a few sentences highlighting the important doctrinal points being made in the excerpt and/or the excerpt’s historical relevance. McGrath even includes follow-up questions to ensure comprehension of the text. Overall, I enjoyed the variety in the chosen readings, and found the excerpt summaries eminently useful. Recommended.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read about 70 of the selections. This book has many primary sources that would be helpful in understanding theological issues. Each selection has an introduction and commentary afterwards. Sometimes the commentary is more helpful than the selection. This is because many of the selections are short excerpts and the comments are an explanation of the whole piece of writing,

[Gille Liath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only an Anglican would think it is possible to compile a book like this without favouring any particular point of view. It isn't, of course, and it doesn't; eg, on the sacraments there is one excerpt from Aquinas and four from Luther. On the whole I would say it leans towards Protestantism; even of the Catholic Fathers, the one most frequently cited is Augustine who doctrinally was something of a Prod precursor. On the other hand there are a few, like Hooker, who would probably not be interesting to any other denomination (it's a strange omission that there seems to be no reader of this kind concentrating on Catholic theology).

It's a book of mostly short excerpts obviously intended for students (my copy has a pencilled note saying 'good grief, you've lost me', besides a not-particularly-difficult passage of Augustine); the aim seems to be to provide them with easily-accessible quotes for their essays. They're so short that you'd be hard-pressed to get much out of them without the additional guidance of a set of lectures or a good textbook (of course, McGrath has helpfully also written a textbook).

It's certainly not 'a guide to salvation' as one review I saw says. It's like a treasure map in code: the goods are there, but how do you get at them? Maybe its best use would be to find out the books that might be worth reading in full, or at least in more substantial passages - as well as the excerpts themselves, there's a good 'further reading' section'. What drew me to this in the first place, though, is that original texts are expensive even 2nd hand, while this was only £2.50...

[Steve Irby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished "The Christian Theology Reader," by Alister McGrath.

It was really a great book. I found Augustine as the sane voice between Tertullian and Justin Martyr in the discussion of Hellenistic philosophy in Christianity. Tertullian was totally against it and Justin was all for it. Augustine was for using it like a spoil of war but to be uses correctly. Then Augustine seems to set out to contradict this viewpoint by resurrecting Plato with his unspecified statements of God being immutable and impassable. It would have done his arguments a world of good to preface his comments with "ontologically," because as we can see in scripture, economically, God does change and feel pain. (Awaiting my friends who take issue with the aforementioned statement to send me nasty texts.)

[Mike Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. McGrath has assembled a wide range of short readings from various perspectives on the core topics of systematic theology. I appreciated the short historical context given for each reading and the short summary at the end of each.

I learned a fair bit from this text and appreciated the range of authors. However, the selections tended to be quite short, and I didn't feel like I got the whole picture of any single selection or author. I would personally have preferred less readings, but longer ones.

[Toria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of writings by theologians from over the many years of the Christian church. Everything is grouped in chapters by topic and there are lots of references to help find other related writings in the book. There are descriptions, summaries, and questions for each writing provided.
It is a hard read, in that, it is very in-depth.

[Chloe Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

McGrath did an excellent job compiling, editing, and commenting on these Christian historical theological writings. I appreciated that each section was organized by topic and further organized chronologically within each section. His introductions and comments on each historical writing are intriguing and aid understanding while remaining unbiased.

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Used as a textbook. Gives source documents with McGrath's commentary. Helpful if you need a deep dive into the theological material, but for a limited audience.. I got more from McGrath's explanations of the material than from the original source material itself.

[Kristi Stewart Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent source for original Christian texts, but in an accessible way.

[Dayo Adewoye · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of theological texts and readings. It was a delight working trough the different sections. Highly recommended.

[Bret James Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to preface this review by saying I do not like this type of book. Readers contain snippets of various works so you can get a feel for various issues on a given subject--theology, in this case. As usual, there is not enough room to really get a feel for the information, so you have to go and find the original if you want to do anything beyond skimming the surface. All the readers I have were bought because I had to for school. The only thing I use them for is padding out bibliographies for papers. Okay, that' s enough of front matter.

McGrath has done an average or slightly above average job on this book. He generally provides pro and con views of a matter, which is fairly standard. His selections are mostly acceptable, and it is easy to find information. Frankly, what else is there to do? I rank it four stars for being a decent example of what it is. It is not spectacular, but it is better than some I have seen. I fault it for assuming Roman Catholic dogma/doctrine represents Christianity, and I fault it because I just don't like it.

[Pamela Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

If one is learning Catholism and Theological terms this is the book for you. It begins with the Roman Catholic Fathers and ends in the Modern Technological age with stress on Liberalism Theology.
It has some really good points, but there are some typo's and a couple of strange sentence structures claiming oneself to be a god. I do not think they meant for it to come out that way but the sentence actually states this.

Generally it is a very thick book and comes with the Christian Theology which one can use this for reference to actually writings of quotes used by the theologians for the past 2000 years.

[Jeff Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given I only read 73 of the 300+ sections but they were the 73 that were assigned from class. This book is a collection of some of the greatest minds, thinkers and theologians in the history of Christianity. The downside is some of the selections are very short; so short, in fact, that they don't so much other than the introduction to each section does. The reality is that it is too expensive for publishers to use larger excerpts and I understand that but at some point it's not worth printing short sections at all. Overall, this is great introductory material including some very important pieces.

[Christopher Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An expansive and somewhat representative collection of excerpts from the most important Christian theologians. Much to be preferred to the companion Christian Theology: An Introduction, which I found to have a number of weaknesses. The presentation of apatheia seems to misunderstand the intent of the doctrine entirely. The author also has a fondness for the "Suffering God" theology that Moltmann made popular, which may account for the poor account of apatheia.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as helpful as other theology books. But has good quotes from various sources on different theological issues. Includes such authors as Karl Barth, St. Augustine, John Calvin, Justin Martyr, Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, and Sallie McFague. Includes the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, and the Westminister Confession of Faith.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource for those who want to sample the primary sources of theology who simply don't have the time or inclination to collect and read hundreds of books. The selections are diverse and fair and will hopefully compel readers to dig deeper into the subjects that interests them while doing theology.

[Drew Van Gorder · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a book that gives a great overview of how Christian Theology and thought have unraveled through the last 2,000 years, this is your book. From Martin Luther, to Augustine, Justin Martyr, and many more.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book! Great layout with a tremendous idea, to trace the thoughts and ideals behind historical figures in Church History as they wrote about evolving theological issues. Must read for any serious church history or doctrines study.

[Chet Duke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was our readings textbook for Systematic Theology. Awesome! I dont know how McGrath has time to put something like this together! He not only presents the material with brief introductions, but each section provides summaries and study questions. I plan to keep this book for a long time.

[Craig Prather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! This supplemental text is great in terms of giving a simple overview on the doctrines of patristic and modern theologians.

[Sam Eccleston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhaustive, bordering on repetitive, selection of the key contributions of great Christian thinkers.

[Ben Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very helpful resource.

[Natasha Witmer]

A compilation of this sort is a great way for an amateur to get exposure to a variety of theological viewpoints from primary texts.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro. providing access to some of the primary sources of Christian theology.

[Adam Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend "Christian Theology: An Introduction" as a companion.