Elements of Christian Thought: A Basic Course in Christianese

In the spring of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted classrooms around the world, teachers scrambled to convert their lectures and presentations into a format more conducive to online and distance learning.

For Eugene Rogers, this meant transcribing as closely as possible the spoken lectures that have made his Introduction to Christian Thought course at UNC Greensboro, a course he has taught some forty times, justly famous.

The result is this book: an insightful, winsome, and engaging introduction to the history of Christian thought by a teacher at the height of his craft.

For Rogers, the history of Christian thought is the story of a language--it's "Christianese," if you will--that participants use to frame their agreements and their disagreements alike. From Anselm to Wyschogrod, Rogers introduces us to the most interesting speakers of Christianese and their importance, enabling us to both listen in on and take part in the living conversation about God's activity in and for our world.

Eugene F. Rogers is professor of religious studies and faculty in women's and gender studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has taught at Princeton, Yale, Shaw University Divinity School, among others, and has held numerous fellowships. He is author or editor of five books and many articles and translations. In 2010, The Christian Century named his book Sexuality and the Christian Body among "essential reading" published in the past twenty-five years.