[Ross is a lecturer in historical theology at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago and Mundelein Seminary of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois. In the following review, he asserts that Küng's Christology in Christianity derives from his desire to reconcile Christianity with Judaism and Islam.]

Hans Küng is both predictable and unpredictable. He is scholarly yet populist, fascinating yet shocking, hopeful yet desperate. And his latest book[, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future,] gives every indication of being one more Küng battlefield. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be neither pleased nor amused. The very first page sets the book's tone and direction: “Don't many people even in our ‘Christian’ countries and especially Catholic countries associate Christianity with an institutional church greedy for power and lacking in insight, with authoritarianism and doctrinaire dictatorship, which so often breeds anxiety, has complexes about sex, discriminates against women, refuses to engage in dialogue and treats with contempt those who think differently?”

Though all the Christian traditions are Küng's target, he saves his most destructive and loudest salvos for his own, the Church of Rome—as he has for more than 25 years. Many things he writes here repeat what he has said in previous books and articles.

Küng sees massive crises in the whole of Christianity, and where there is no real crisis he does his best to create one. The solution for all these problems must be radical: unshakable faith in the person of Christ. But the churches, Küng contends, have replaced Christ with the Roman system, Orthodox traditionalism and Protestant fundamentalism—indeed, with ecclesiasticism in general.

For Küng the churches have made a cat's breakfast of Christianity, and only the sacred scriptures can give us the essence of Christ's vision. He is hardly the first to claim the Bible for the renewal of Christianity. The Friars of the 13th century, Luther in the 16th and the Second Vatican Council in the 20th all went back to a biblical base. But the rub, as any historian knows, is the interpretation of these scriptures. What is the correct interpretation?

Küng gives the impression that he and many in the Tübingen school have seen the light. Theirs is the true biblical eye-opener. Much of the first quarter of the book involves conclusions drawn from scriptural interpretation. But these conclusions are very much influenced by Küng's goal in writing the book: he aims to create a synthesis of the three great monotheistic religious systems—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He has written a volume titled Judaism. After this book, he plans to complete the trilogy with Islam. Küng wants all three faiths under one umbrella. Locating paradigm shifts is the essence of his method, and his interpretation of scripture is crucial to give his synthesis credibility.

The person and nature of Christ is the key to Küng's theory. He goes to great pains to ground Christology in the Christ of the Jewish Christians. In Küng's low Christology, Christ was not pre-existent with the Father in the act of creation or in anything else. This view of Christ is key to reconciling Christianity with Judaism and Islam. Though Küng's theory is exciting, he railroads any authorities whose positions contradict his own, even if these are inspired writings accepted as canonical by the faith community.

His three whipping boys are the papacy (as would be expected), the idea of a pre-existent Jesus, and the Gospel of John, whose prologue comes under special fire. He gives the creeds a very low priority because they oppose his interpretation of certain passages of the New Testament. He would go so far as to say that the Koran's Christology is more accurate than that of the Greek councils.

As usual, Küng is brilliant and exciting, but many of his positions, such as his defense of Gnosticism, reflect his hang-ups and bêtes noires. He sees Gnosticism as a healthy reaction to the privileged and dominating hierarchy of bishop, priest and deacon.

Using paradigm shifts, Küng unfolds the whole story of Christianity. Many of his observations are fascinating and challenging, especially his contrast of Luther and Erasmus, his accusations against Luther for replacing argument with ardor and wrath, and his criticism of Luther for expecting too much from the church (does Küng recognize himself in that observation?). Calvinism and Anglicanism are among the other traditions that come under his scrutiny.

Küng's insights on the contest between faith and reason that marked the Enlightenment are excellent. In analyzing the trauma of the French Revolution, as well as the Restoration, he shows a church struggling with modernity. Science and scientists, philosophy and philosophers are studied for the most part in the context of the church's weakness. He sees the church as judge, but not as victim.

Despite Küng's many virtues, the reader is constantly tempted to tell him what Riviere told Claudel: “Show me that the church and not just you holds this. What am I to make of a church misunderstood by all except one?”