Christianity: A Guide for the Perplexed

Dan Francis · August 2017

Christianity: A Guide for the Perplexed.

We have under 30 days to get this under contract before it is pulled from pre-pub.

From the sample pages this seems very interesting ... One reviewer referred to it as more or less a brief systematic theology from a liberal perspective. From that review and the sample pages I decided it was worth a shot, Not to mention picking up the paperback version would be $18, A short systematic theology from a modern Anglican perspective seems laudable. So I think it is worth the chance for $10. I do tend to find SPCK a very reputable publisher and while the reviewer called it liberal the publisher history would suggest moderate Anglican (SPCK is not exclusively so but does seem to publish mostly on the more evangelical side of theolgy) which for some might be liberal for me it probably sits closer to conservative. I have not read it beyond the sample pages, but it stuck me as something I would like to read. It also struck me as a volume that should find a home in the Logos Anglican Library's Bronze and higher.... For these reasons I want it.. perhaps there are not enough others interested in it to make it worth Faithlifes time but I hope there is. Please consider it.

-dan

PS:This is a close to a duplicate post from the announcement thread but thought it deserved it's own thread.

Dan Francis · August 2017

Here are two reviews gleaned from the internet:

Professor of theology at Oxford University and no stranger to informed public debate on profound and controversial subjects, Ward offers a book that is witty and accessible, prodigiously erudite (quotes, textual references, a bibliography but no footnotes) and loaded with heavy ammunition to defend the existence of God. The author of 10 other books of theology, he cites and deftly arranges 3,000 years of arguments for, about and occasionally against God, drawn mostly but not exclusively from the Western tradition. A tour guide through the intellectual history of God-talk, Ward makes all the major stops—Plato, the Hebrew prophets, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Whitehead, etc.—with side trips to some lovely English classic poetry as well (Herbert, Spenser, Arnold). Even while he makes university don-ish jokes about philosophers, Ward takes seriously a topic that has engaged the elite and the common for hundreds of years. Like an old-fashioned, evenhanded teacher, he manages a tone of sympathetic analysis that steers clear of endorsement. This guide begs for comparison with fellow Briton Karen Armstrong's A History of God. Ward's is primarily Christian rather than Abrahamic in scope, but it is equally accessible and solidly learned. Wry but delightfully non-ironic, intelligent and clear, this book is a blessing for a theist camp that is sick of a postmodern universe empty of meaning but stuffed unto death with trivia. ---publishersweekly.com

At the beginning of the 21st century, God has become boring and irrelevant, states Keith Ward in this thought-provoking text. Ward presents an investigation of the history of ideas about God that is marked by radical views, erudition and wit. He provides a journey through the philosophical and cultural heritage of the last 2000 years, drawing on such rich and diverse sources as the myths of the Greek gods on Mount Olympus, through the philosophy of St Augustine and Sartre, to wet Sunday afternoons and the movie Alien. The intellectual and theological legacies of almost every renowned thinker - believers and non-believers alike - are considered, from Aristotle to Ayer, Hegel to Heidegger, Al Ghazali to Sankara. ---goodreads.com