The Identity of Christianity: Theologians and the Essence of Christianity from Schleiermacher to Barth

What is Christianity? Do the differences between Christians matter? Professor Sykes demonstrates that there has been conflict inherent in the Christian Church at every stage in its life and that this disagreement is not accidental or occasional but intrinsic and chronic. But the solution does not lie in finding neat doctrinal definitions. On the contrary, the author shows that conflict, far from being an evil, is actually desirable, and is inseparable from the actual form and content of Christianity. It can be seen in the origins of the movement in the New Testament itself. The different views of Jesus and the inward and personal nature of religious experience raise the problem that no theological definition about the external aspects can be immune from the challenge that it fails to do justice to the real substance of the faith. Professor Sykes discusses the issue of the power of the theologian, concluding that there is a great danger in the prominence which theology has acquired in its attempts to solve doctrinal disputes. The core of the book consists of an examination of the discussions on the essence of Christianity by the 'early moderns'; Schleiermacher, Newman, Harnack and Loisy, Troeltsch, and Barth, Stephen Sykes concludes that theology can only be freed from playing a tyrannous part in the resolution of the identity of Christianity when identity is being strongly maintained by the Church in its worship.