An Exploration of Christian Theology

It's been a stellar week in my quest for solid theology textbooks that will work with our Micronesian English-as-Second-Language students. The other day I mentioned how I got a great bargain on Alister McGrath's Christian Theology: An Introduction. The fourth edition is in circulation but I got the third edition for $6 from one of the Amazon secondary vendors.

That's a great book that our students could use -- although the thickness might freak out a few of them.

Then yesterday, An Exploration of Christian Theology by Don Thorsen arrived with one of the Amazon shipments. And I can't believe it but I'm thinking that this book could be even more appropriate for our students.

The reading level seems a hair lower (better for ESL students) . The content is blocked into lots of smaller sections. And the pages are laid out with generous amounts of white space and cute illustrations (drawn by Thorsen!).

Like McGrath, Thorsen is very irenic and broad -- looking at the various sides of each issue without taking unkind jabs at people or their views. He perhaps doesn't probe quite as deeply into each subject as McGrath (which is okay for undergrad students -- and that provides an opportunity to include supplemental reading from original sources) but he does seem to be pretty comprehensive. There are study questions and there is a glossary. About 400 pages.

It's nice when there are several great choices.