La Due offers an evenhanded and accessible survey of the history of theological thought related to eschatology. He begins with the witness to the idea of eschatology in the Bible and then traces its early development from the early Church councils to the late nineteenth century. He devotes the next chapters to a consideration of various twentieth century New Testament theologians and systematic theologians. Included are Bultmann, Tillich, Rahner, Kung, Pannenberg, Moltmann, Hick, Cone, Ruether, and Elizabeth Johnson. In a day when the Left Behind series has focused everyone's attention on...

The forms and shapes of the Christian churches in the last millennia have indeed been varied. La Due applies the scheme he applied to Jesus, the Trinity, and eschatology to the Church in this new historical overview of ecclesiology.
He opens with a short description of the various models of the church found in the New Testament and follows that up with a review of what early Christian theologians such as Augustine had to say about the Church.
La Due proceeds to examine the medieval papacy and the impetus it had for the Protestant Reformation, and he analyzes the...