[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 just a form”—namely, that while Christianity's predominant form has undergone many radical shifts over the centuries, from the early Christians' apocalyptic paradigm to the early Church's Hellenistic paradigm (which survives in today's Eastern Orthodoxy) to the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm (which led to present-day Catholic authoritarianism) to Reformation Protestantism (which bequeathed us Protestant fundamentalism) to the “Enlightenment modern paradigm” (which is embodied in liberal modernism), the “abiding substance of faith”—namely, the person of Jesus Christ—has remained the same.

These paradigm shifts, Küng argues, have been necessitated by changes in human society; his purpose is to suggest the nature of the shift needed to bring Christianity successfully into the new millennium. Too often, he notes, past paradigm shifts have occasioned acrimony and bloodshed; Küng seeks peaceful transition into a period of global ecumenism when Christians, Jews, and Moslems (he has written substantial books about each of these faiths) live together in mutual respect, understanding, and edification. Drawing on its author's voluminous knowledge of religious history and showcasing his enormous erudition, this book mounts a cogent argument for the proposition that radical theological change, far from representing a betrayal of the Christian past, has been the rule throughout the annals of Christianity and is unavoidable today if the essence and vitality of the faith are to be preserved.

Additional coverage of Küng's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Contemporary Authors, Vol. 53-56; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 66; and Major 20th-Century Writers, Vols. 1, 2.