SOURCE: A review of Christianity, in Hudson Review, Vol. L, No. 4, Winter, 1998, pp. 697-98.

In the following excerpt, Bawer traces the different shifts in Christianity which Küng's Christianity presents.

Godsey, Taylor, and Borg seek to help readers move beyond narrow dogmatism to an understanding that the essence of Christianity is not about dogma but about spiritual experience. This is also a key part of the message of Hans Küng's Christianity: Essence, History, and Future. Küng, the Swiss architect of Vatican II who may be the greatest theologian of the century but who is currently persona non grata at the papal palazzo, has produced a magisterial, scholarly 900-page treatise that is at the same time thoroughly accessible to general readers. Though it covers a lot of historical and theological ground, the book's main point is a simple one which recalls Brian Taylor's observation that “religion is...