REVIEWS
A Journey Through Christian Theology: With Texts from the First to
the Twenty-First Century, 2nd edition, William P. Anderson (ed.),
Fortress Press, 2010 (ISBN 978-0-8006-9697-9), xxii + 454 pp., pb $39
The content of Christian theology is nothing if not complex and
nuanced. Faith, in essence, may be something relatively simple; an
orientation of the heart, an intention of the will, a determination of
religious identity. But as soon as the person of faith takes up the
Anselmian challenge to seek understanding of that faith, problems of
where to start and how to proceed quickly become acute. Many easy
solutions are offered, of course, and most of those are of dubious
intellectual quality, short-changing both the integrity of the faith and
the veracity of its supposed cognition. They result most often in misin-
formed fundamentalism or other variants of stifling naïveté. But for
many Christian believers seeking to deepen their knowledge and
understanding by becoming students of theology there are many
worthy guides. This second edition of Anderson’s Journey is one of
particularly good value. It purports, in its preface, to offer a ‘trusty
companionship for the journey’ as well as to present ‘a hearty invita-
tion’ to undertake the journey in the first place (p. ix). And in an attempt
to make the journey as relaxed and enjoyable as possible the intellectual
demands along the way are lightened by the insertion of cartoon
comment that can, at times, provide critical insight and reinforcement
of a main idea by way of providing a shaft of humorous light. For some,
however, they may be more of a side-line distraction, and there are
times when it seems that without a deeper knowledge the point of a
cartoon may in fact be lost. Still, the overall impression is of a book that
deals with complex and heavy topics in a most appealing manner, and
succeeding in that on the whole.
One very interesting feature is that, although the book has been
written and structured in a historically developmental fashion, the
preface presents an alternate format whereby the book could be read
thematically. By a judicious selection of provided readings, nine dis-
crete theological topics – Faith and Reason, the doctrines of God,
Reviews in Religion and Theology, 19:1 (2012)
© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.