SOURCE: “A Review of The Essential Tillich: An Anthology of the Writings of Paul Tillich,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 22, 1987, p. 4.

In the brief review below, Roth asserts that The Essential Tillich's “judicious selections allow Tillich to explain, interpret, and amplify his own themes.”

Opposed to Nazism, Paul Tillich (1886-1965) left his native Germany for the United States in 1933. His philosophical theology decisively influenced mainline American Protestantism during its heyday in the middle third of this century.

“God,” wrote Tillich, “is the answer to the question implied in man's finitude; He is the name for that which concerns man ultimately.” Tillich explored the uncertainties of human existence and, in spite of those conditions, helped people to discern the God who provides the courage to be.

This book's editor, F. Forrester Church, senior minister at the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City correctly...