Reading (at the bookstore or on reserve)
(Warning: Beware the used or library textbook with highlighting. Do the human race a favor and don't highlight your books.)
Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God, Paternoster, 1998.
This influential little book has been called "one of the
ten best ecclesiologies of the twentieth century," and it deserves
the honor. Newbigin describes the Catholic, Protestant, and "Pentecostal"
forms of Christian institution. He is not trying to decide which is right,
but diagnose how division has left each camp both dysfunctional and yet
unable to reconcile with the others. Newbigin's descriptions will acquaint
you with the midcentury shape of each of these Christian traditions and
introduce the grave problem of their estrangement, a problem they came
to address through much of the twentieth century.
Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty
Centuries of Tradition and Reform, IVP, 1999 (on reserve).
This is a readable guide to the history of Christian theology.
Of its 35 chapters, we will only be reading the last four (thus the volume
is a reserve reading rather than a text for you to purchase). There Olson
will introduce us to the major movements and figures of modern academic
theology and provide some of the content that will bring the rest of our
readings into perspective (and Frei's to much greater intelligibility).
Hans Frei, Types of Christian Theology, Yale, 1994. 
Western Christianity's fundamental confrontation since 1700 has been with
the modern world. Frei characterizes five basic types of stances
Christian thinkers have adopted toward their common rival. He helps readers
see a more important spectrum of Christian theology than the tired liberal-conservative
range with which most of us are familiar. Along the way he introduces
us to some of the most important Protestant and Catholic thinkers of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in a way that is all the more helpful
for being unusual.
Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity,
Oxford, 2001.
From her beginning America trained herself to look to Europe. That habit
increasingly misleads us Christians as Europe becomes more and more post-Christian,
and the world outside Europe becomes more and more Christian. Jenkins
highlights trends that have been obvious for decades to all except those
whose gaze is transfixed across the Atlantic (and often those eyes have
belonged to American theologians teaching courses on "contemporary
Christian thought"). European liberal Christianity is dying, and
traditional, Pentecostal, and innovative Christianities are growing. Jenkins
will help us look forward while we look back.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Doubleday, 1994.
One of the most important texts of twentieth century theology is this
training manual on the Christian faith for all teachers in the Catholic
tradition. Beyond being the culmination of two centuries of historical
and constructive theology, it offers our class a magisterial introduction
to the Christian faith. Since for many of you our class will be your only
formal introduction to Christian theology as such, it is fitting that
our central text be an actual twentieth century systematic and pastoral
theology, and a very good one at that.
William F. Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style,
3rd ed., Macmillan, 1979, or 4th ed., Allyn & Bacon, 2000.
In this class you will regularly write and review others' writing.
For decades "Strunk & White" has been a favorite guide to
good writing. It is concise, accessible, and powerful: just like your
writing will need to be. If you cannot identify (for instance) a run-on
sentence, sentence fragment, split infinitive, or appositive on sight,
or confuse "its" with "it's" – or see why I care
– then consider this book essential.
Telford Work, Clutter, http://www.westmont.edu/~work/clutter.html
I maintain a "weblog," an on-line web journal, where I write
about theology, converse with others, meditate on Scripture, and respond
to current events in and beyond the Christian world. It is a little self-indulgent
to ask you to read this. However, checking in every few days will give
you a glimpse into the way I think, react to events and texts, and merge
my teaching, learning, and living.
Further books for optional reading on your own or in directed study:
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: A Selection, Westminster.
Gregory Baum, ed., The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview.
Odo Casel, The Mystery of Christian Worship.
Gary Dorrien, The Remaking of Evangelical Theology.
Gary Dorrien, The Word as True Myth: Interpreting Modern Theology.
David Ford, The Modern Theologians.
Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World.
Brad Kallenberg, Live to Tell.
Ann Monroe, The Word: Imagining the Gospel in Modern America.
Nancey Murphy, Beyond Fundamentalism and Liberalism.
Ephraim Radner, The End of the Church: A Pneumatology of Christian
Division in the West.
R.R. Reno, In the Ruins of the Church.
N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus. 
