Description: This series offers a range of authoritative studies on people who have made an outstanding contribution to Christian thought and understanding. The series will range across the full spectrum of Christian thought to include Catholic and Protestant thinkers and to cover East and West, historical and contemporary figures. By and large, each volume will focus on a single "thinker", but occasionally the subject may be a movement or a school of thought.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a remarkable theologian who was as much at home in a philosophical discussion as he was in the pulpit, and as keenly interested in art and politics as in his life-work as a professional theologian. Tillich's attacks on Nazism led to the banning of his books, his dismissal from Frankfurt University, and ultimately his departure for the United States in November 1933. His many points of contact with key thinkers in theology and philosophy (including Heidegger, Otto, Bultmann, Adorno, and Barth) make him a compelling figure for those interested in the history of ideas in the twentieth century.

J. Heywood Thomas critically reviews the philosophical background to Tillich's achievement as a philosophical theologian, examining his ontological approach to Christology and salvation, and his understanding of the church as a spiritual community. Thomas concludes with an exploration of Tillich's contribution to the changed situation of theology today.

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