Gregg R. Allison's 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology (Baker Books, 2018) is a systematic theology accessible to students and laypersons alike. In this single-volume work, Allison outlines 50 key doctrines, from creation to Christ to church, giving major affirmations, biblical support, major errors, and ways to live the doctrine. Allison also provides a breakout box of controversial questions surrounding the doctrine, which may work effectively in a classroom discussion setting.

Each doctrine is only devoted around four to six pages, but Allison packs each chapter with sound, ecumenical teaching, subscribing to a catholic and orthodox way rather than holding to a denominational dogma. Each chapter begins with a summary, main themes, and key verses, allowing easy reference, and the chapters end with a teaching outline for students to study and teachers to utilize for the main structure of each chapter.

Allison's new text is a welcome addition to introducing theology. Rather than using a bulky systematic theology textbook, Allison focuses on addressing key topics and how the can be applied to the Christian life. While there may be some doctrinal issues of dissent (i.e. He holds a somewhat flawed view on the doctrine of worship), the overall spirit of this book is designed to engage new students into the world of theological thought. This book is ideal for students in university or church settings. It would make for a fantastic text in a Sunday school or catechism class on basic Christian doctrine. While it is a thick book, its readability and relevance go beyond what most theology textbooks provide for introductory studies.

(My thanks is given to Baker for providing a complimentary review copy in exchange for an honest review.)

This book may be the best teaching on the essential beliefs of the Christian faith I have seen. It is an excellent systematic theology for the lay person.

Allison has good explanations of difficult issues. His explanation of how the Apocrypha came to be and why it is in the Catholic Bible and not the Protestant Bible was very clear. He also does a good job of presenting theological options, such as explaining both meticulous providence and general providence with respect to God's governing of the world. Likewise, he does a good job of objectively explaining the Reformed and Arminian views on salvation. He explained the different views on the Lord's Supper, even identifying the differences between Zwingli and Calvin within the Reformed tradition. He carefully presents the biblical evidence for each view but lets the reader make up his own mind.

I found new insights in this book too. For example, God says of His creation that it was very good. Allison writes, "This affirmation was not one of moral goodness, for evil had not yet entered the world. Rather, it was one of fittedness: the creation, as coming from the hand of God, corresponded perfectly to the divine design." (Loc 1762/7550) That brought some needed clarity to me.

The structure of the book is such that it can be read by a layperson and also used by laypeople and pastors as a guide for teaching. Allison includes suggested strategies for teaching each topic as well as an outline. I really like that he suggests that each view be clearly presented when teaching the topic. He also adds resources on each topic so those who want to investigate more deeply have a place to start. I also like that he identifies the errors associated with each belief. His concise summary, list of Scriptures, and explanation of each doctrine is very readable and informative.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to investigate the basic beliefs of Christianity in a format where variations in the doctrines are presented objectively.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

If you are looking for a book that gives you a primer on core doctrine of the Christian faith, this book would be a good one to take a look at. With that said, I feel that this book is written more for a person that is not a complete newbie to the faith as it does dive into some deep theological concepts. With the part of this book that covers the "teaching the doctrine" for each of these fifty doctrines, I feel that there is a leaning toward someone who is in a teaching or leadership role, which is exactly one of the goals of the author, Gregg R. Allison.

From a reading format perspective, I really appreciate how this book is set up. Each of the fifty doctrines follow the same format where we read a Summary of the doctrine, then the Main Themes of the doctrine, Key Scriptures. Then it follows with Understanding the Doctrine with Major Affirmations and Biblical Support. It then gives Major Errors that sometimes are seen within the specific doctrine, then Enacting and Teaching the Doctrine with a nice Teaching Outline and resources. It may sound like a lot, but actually the way it is laid out makes it flow very nicely.

This is not a book that you read like a novel by any means. There is a lot of meat in this book and in my opinion, it might be better to go through it one doctrine at a time to study it. Or, if you are wanting to teach doctrine, the teaching and outline portion are an invaluable tool for you to use.

The level of detail that the book goes into is very good for sort of quick reference guide if you want to look something up for teaching doctrine. Plus the resources that are provided at the end of each doctrine chapter are an excellent way to dive even deeper into that specific doctrine if you wish.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for this review from Baker Booksand all opinions are my own.

As a ministry student taking theology courses at the moment, this book could not have come at a better time! I'm extremely happy with this invaluable resource. Dr. Gregg Allison has done an astounding work for the minister, the Bible teacher, ministry student, and the new Christian.

This is not a book you read through like a novel in 3 days but should be carefully studied alongside the Bible. It's lengthy (about 410 pages). Dr. Allison provides explanations on 50 main beliefs of the Christian faith. The chapters are broken down into 8 sections: Doctrine of the Word of God, Doctrine of God, Doctrine of God's Creatures, Doctrine of God the Son, Doctrine of God the Holy Spirit, Doctrine of Salvation, Doctrine of the Church, and Doctrine of Future Things.

The chapters are not super long(which is good). At the beginning of each chapter, the author has included a summary and main themes to be discussed. And I like that he included key verses at the end of each chapter as well as teaching outlines (very helpful for the Bible teacher and those disciplining others ). There are further explanations for theological terms and phrases. There are some questions for further meditation and the author addresses current issues surrounding some controversial topics.

This work is very complete and thorough, very informative, and very easy to read. It's a great resource for the pastor and the Bible teacher. And as a ministry student and Bible teacher myself, this book has become a great supplement to my studies. Highly recommend!

I received a copy of this book from Baker in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

My Rating -If you are looking for something (if you've read other Systematics then pass)

Level -Fairly easy read, longer (400 pages) and a bit repetitive

Summary

This book is a mix of things - an intro to Systematic Theology, a teaching guide, and reference book to broad theological topics. Allison writes from a broadly Evangelical Protestant perspective. The author has broken the book into eight parts - the doctrines of the Word of God, God, God's Creatures, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Salvation, the Church, and Future Things. Each part has varying numbers of chapters, giving you 50 total.

As the subtitle states, the point of the book is to be a guide to understanding and teaching theology, and this leads to a somewhat unique structure to each chapter. It starts with a one or two sentence summary, then bullet points of the main themes, and a list of key scriptures. The largest section of each chapter is 'understanding the doctrine', which is broken into three sections - major affirmations, Biblical support, and major errors. After this is 'enacting the doctrine', which is basically what the doctrine looks like in our lives, followed by 'teaching the doctrine' which includes discussion points as well as a teaching outline. Each chapter ends with a list of resources, however only three Systematics are listed.

My Thoughts

I'll start out by saying I realize this is an ambitious book, attempting to be both an intro to theology as well as a teaching guide to Systematics. As an intro, I think Allison does an adequate job. Most full books on theology pass the 800 mark, many going in to the 1,200-1,500 range, if not multiple volumes, so I appreciate his attempt to condense it to about 200 pages or so. Unfortunately, it still manages to feel too redundant. Part of this is due to the structure, having a summary and bullet points then the body, but I think the publishers must have had the intent to make each chapter stand on it's own, as opposed to building on each other. This forces him to refer back to chapters (or state future points) and the points get repetitive. On the other hand, this is also a great way to learn and internalize the content, which may well have been the goal.

As a teaching guide, I think this could come in handy. The teaching outline presented at the end of each chapter appears to be quite helpful. The book could also function as a quick reference if you have other Systematics you like to use. If you broke out the teaching portions, you might end up with a 125-150 page book, which would likely be worth it on it's own. If you are looking for something to help you teach theology to other, and you are already familiar and have other books, I think this book would be worth a look. However, as far as a book to study theology on your own, you are probably better off finding something else.

I'll end the review with a couple theological points and issues regarding the book. First, the main reason I can't really recommend the book as a way to begin deep study into theology, is that he does argue much with counter points. He lists them as errors, but doesn't really state how/why others believe this or what their proof-texts necessarily are. If you are really trying to learn at a deeper level, you need to know more about the errors than just that they are errors.

My other problem, and I think this is worse, is that while trying to keep the book geared toward a broader theological level, he gives positive info an different theologies, some of which are completely incompatible. Certain points of Reformed and Arminianist theology cannot both be true. One of them has to be an error, and it is strange that he did not take a stand (though as you read his 'Biblical support' it is clear at times where he falls). Likewise, he lists all the points of Dispensationalist theology as equal to Reformed and other historic views of theology. While refusing to call this an error, he does come down on other things, such as calling Annihilationism a heresy. This is especially odd as he wrote a text book on Historical Theology and knows well that support for Annihilationism has much, much deeper historical roots that theologies such as Dispensationalism. I find it odd the doctrines for which he will take a hard stand, will promoting whole theological systems that are wholly incompatible with each other. It is a major failure of the book and one of the reasons I cannot recommend it as much as I would like. You'd be better served by are larger study that looks at points and counterpoints of each doctrine/theology or a study that takes a strictly orthodox view.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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