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The thing that bothers me the most about William Placher's "Readings in the History of Christian Theology" (volume 1 of 2) is that his ecclesiology (Protestant, invisible) leads him to say dangerous things about Christology that, at best, are confusing. I guess when you don't/can't construe determinations of a valid Ecumenical Council (with no clear definition or necessity to define what that actually means, see paragraph 884 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) as true as such, you end up with 'gems' like this: "'Monophysite' Christians still survive in the Coptic Church of Egypt, and 'Nestorian' Christians spread throughout much of Asia, but the Chalcedonian compromise set the terms of orthodoxy for most Christians." (49) Are you trying to be equivocal on the meaning of the word "Christian"? It's not by accident that monophysitism is a heresy. Good grief. Look, I get it; not even all 'Nestorians' are actually Nestorians nowadays. I'll do you one better: Not every person who holds a heresy (if unintentional, and by invincible ignorance) is doomed to eternal hell-fire. I'll walk something else back, too: No Protestant minister I ever met would write anything that dumb. But don't anyone dare ask me why I'm Catholic.

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