Books

The Thiselton Companion to Christian Theology, by Anthony C. Thiselton

This doorstop of a reference book was written entirely by Thiselton, professor emeritus of Christian theology at the University of Nottingham. The single authorship has the advantage of yielding a consistent style, but compared to multiauthor works, it lacks the expertise of specialists on the various topics. Most of the entries are quite short. How­ever, there are a number of longer articles on key Christian loci: God, Chris­tology, the Holy Spirit. Thisel­ton’s own area of ex­pertise, herme­neutics, gets longer treatment as well. The book’s one great weakness is its lack of diversity. The theologians covered are largely white, male, and European or North American. In­cluded is a useful chart listing key events and figures in the history of the church, again marked by lack of diversity, with a strong Western bias.