John Zizioulas on Christian Dogma

Today it is no longer possible to consider oneself even reasonably educated in theology if one has not read John Zizioulas, a Greek Orthodox theologian of such erudition and influence that he is almost always introduced as “the most brilliant and creative theologian in the Orthodox Church today” (in the words of Kallistos Ware printed on the front cover of this new book). And yet, for many, it is no easy thing to read Zizioulas. I have wanted my students to read more of him, but have hesitated because he writes and thinks on a plane higher than almost any undergraduate today—and not a few graduate students. Now, however, we need hesitate no longer for here in this recent book, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, we have four lectures that make the last three decades of his theologizing wonderfully accessible. I have already assigned this text in two courses, and will continue to do so in the years ahead.

This text is very cogently written and smartly edited, and eschews tangents, footnotes, or other distractions. One can still “hear” the text’s oral provenance and imagine how thrilling it must have been to sit and listen to a master at work as he gave lectures on the nature of theology (ch.1), the nature of God (ch.2), the nature of creation and salvation (ch.3), and the nature of the Church (ch.4).