A Short History of Christian Thought

by Linwood Urban

What do Christians believe and why do they believe it? What are the historical roots of modern Christian doctrines, and what logical connections link them together? This concise introduction to Christian thought provides thorough yet succinct answers to these and other important questions, incorporating expanded discussions of the sacraments, the Church and the ministry, recent ecumenical movements and trends, and women's ordination. Avoiding a strict chronological approach, the author traces the development of each great issue that formed Christian theology. Questions of doctrine such as the Trinity and the Incarnation are dealt with in full. Also addressed are the important issues in natural theology such as the existence of God, miracles, freedom of the will, and the problem of evil. The text shows which issues in Christian thought constitute the "common denominators" of Christian belief, and traces the roots of Christian doctrine to their sources, explaining why certain
doctrines are logically essential to Christianity and were thus adopted. By analyzing the significant issues in Christian thinking from their early formulations to contemporary re-examination, A Short History of Christian Thought demonstrates that classical Christian doctrines are reasonable articulations of basic convictions and that Christian thought is relevant to the full range of human experience.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Theology, Christianity

480 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 1986

Reviews

[Caleb Egolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some chapters are historical or philosophical, which is of interest and explained well. Chapters on extended debates around ritual and the metaphysics of sacraments are a good showcase of achedemic Christianity's tendency to chasing down answers to questions that don't matter at all to Jesus's teaching.

[Jonathan Jang · Rating 2 out of 5]

This really should be a 1, I just can’t bring myself to give it that. As a historian, Urban is OK. He goes over some ancient church, medieval, and largely modern liberal thought regarding the Christian faith. But the line is blurred between how much it id scholarship and how much his own views on faith. As a Christian, I would deem him subpar, influenced by the liberal movement.

The killing point for me came when he made Karl Rahner sound orthodox at some points… Urban values non-Christian thinking and religions far too much to be considered a “priest” and can’t really define what the ease of Christianity is so far as to argue for many of the heterodox doctrines that he tries to include as being part of the “history of the Church.” There are also clearly holes in his knowledge and you can easily tell where his influences lie as well as his better read fields. He loves the liberal thinkers of Schleiermacher, Boltmann, etc. His treatise on atonement was sad and lack luster, half of the topics were not even the most important ones he could have covered. Subpar at best, there’s a reason you’ve never heard of it before.

Edit: his metaphysics is not bad.

[Del Herman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good treatment of the historical issues presented both to and within the Christian faith, beginning with the perspectives of the different Biblical writers to issues in doctrine and dogma such as Christologies, The Trinity, and Original Sin to philosophical issues such as arguments for the existence of God all the way up to current issues facing the faith (not that the previous have gone away by any means though!!!!): Christianity's relationship with other faiths, liberation theology, and feminist perspectives. Good survey by conservative Episcopal priest Linwood Urban, once a Professor of Philosophy at the renowned Swarthmore College.

[Benedict · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd call this the "good-enough" introduction to theology. Urban takes a historical approach to describing the major topics that theologians have investigated over the centuries, which I find helpful in many ways. That said, the amount of depth given to any particular topic will vary, depending (it seems) on the author's interest and awareness of it.

It will introduce a student or reader to most of the major topics, doctrines, and historical battles, and certainly show what to look into if someone wanted to do further reading. Like many historically-oriented texts, it is stronger in its presentation of earlier conversations, and takes less time with the most recent movements. The most recent editions attempt to include contemporary debates, but other sources are stronger.

It's pretty readable if you want to go once-through the history of theology from a fairly traditional Western perspective, but I think there are better texts for any given project.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

a decent introduction to Christian thought, though Roger Olson's chronological history is more comprehensive and detailed. Urban is not a fan of Calvinism!