Publication
SPCK Publishing, 2009.
Collection
Status
Available
Description
In Heresy, leading religion expert and church historian Alister McGrath reveals the surprising history of heresy and rival forms of Christianity, arguing that the church must continue to defend what is true about Jesus. He explains that remaining faithful to Jesus's mission and message is still the mandate of the church despite increasingly popular cries that traditional dogma is outdated and restricts individual freedom.
User reviews
LibraryThing member LudieGrace
In this book McGrath sets out to define and explore the concept of heresy non-polemically, as "a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilizing, or even destroying the core of Christian faith" (pp. 11-12). He does a good job of refuting the
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(outdated but persistent!) Walter Bauer thesis that the line between orthodoxy and heresy is arbitrarily drawn by the politically powerful. As such, this is a good book for someone looking for an introduction to the topic -- it is reasonably accessible -- though in that case I think reading parts One and Three would really suffice. McGrath closes with an odd, brief chapter on Islam and how the Qur'anic views of Jesus and the Trinity were likely influenced by heretical Christians in the Arabian Peninsula, and what this could mean for Muslim-Christian dialogue today (my own thought: not a great deal, since we already knew this, plus the orthodox Christian views of these matters are still closer to the ancient distortions than to the Islamic views). Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9780281062157