Langdon Gilkey's writings have long been profitably studied by students of theology who have discovered there illuminating insights, pioneering thoughts, and even a healthy agony with which every serious thinker can identify. Now we have a systematic and critical exposition and appraisal of the theology of Langdon Gilkey. Editors Pasewark and Pool rightly insist that this is more than a Festschrift: these essays do "celebrate the life and work of Langdon Gilkey, but specifically in the context of examining the major contours of Gilkey's own theological labors". In practical terms, these essays written by a corps of Gilkey's students comprise an insightful and helpful commentary on the work and writings of Gilkey. With these pages in hand, the next generation of students surely will find reading Langdon Gilkey on the "understanding of ourselves in time" to be even more rewarding.

For more than forty-five years, Langdon Brown Gilkey has helped shape the direction of contemporary theology. From 1963 until his retirement in 1989 he taught theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.