As Christians become more engaged with the reality of religious pluralism, many find themselves torn between two worthy goals - to be faithful to the lordship of Jesus Christ and to be open generously to possible truths found in other religions. In The First and the Last George Sumner offers a constructive way forward, showing how Christian theology can bring these two goals together. / At stake in the current debate over religious pluralism is the issue not only of evangelism and mission but also of the Christian claim to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Sumner leads readers through the challenges and possibilities raised by this debate, and he outlines a distinctive new method for assessing from a Christian standpoint the claims and practices of neighboring faiths. The crux of Sumner's approach is what he calls "final primacy," a position that (1) sets non-Christian religions in relation to the unique mediating role of Jesus Christ and (2) relates the truth claims of other religions to the overall scheme of grace. / Sumner goes on to demonstrate the effectiveness of this position in practical terms, using final primacy as a frame of reference for a number of twentieth-century theologies - namely, those of Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg - and as a way of examining both Indian and African theologies against their respective backgrounds of Hinduism and tribal practices. Additionally, the book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of interfaith thought: Sumner both surveys how religious pluralism has been handled in the past and illustrates how the position of final primacy at once redefines and promotes its most pressing issue - interreligious dialogue. / A provocative approach to religious pluralism sure to stir widespread discussion, The First and the Last provides valuable reading for anyone interested in theology, interfaith dialogue, and missions.

George R. Sumner is principal of Wycliffe College, Toronto, Ontario. He is also coeditor of Reclaiming Faith: Essays on Orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church and the Baltimore Declaration and The Rule of Faith: Scripture, Canon, and Creed in a Critical Age."

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Lamin Sanneh
— Yale Divinity School
"In the closing decades of the twentieth century Christian theologians in the West became increasingly concerned with religious pluralism and the viability of truth claims. George Sumner's work tracks the debate and shows how the pace is unlikely to slacken in the course of the twenty-first century. He links the grammar of faith to the truth claims of religion and with communities of practice and mission. In the absence of a knockout argument to settle the issue, Sumner returns to the sources of the tension with a fresh examination of truth claims as the basis of final primacy with a built-in openness to encounter. His book makes a cogent case against the view that truth claims are discontinuous with the demands of interfaith conversation."

R. R. Reno
— Creighton University
"Provides indispensable orientation to the crucial question of religious pluralism. Sumner shows how Western Christianity has often used religious pluralism to disguise or excuse its captivity to modern secularism, and he guides us forward with an irenic postliberal proposal that establishes a clear, Christ-centered bottom line: We are to engage the world with a faithful charity shaped by the biblical grammar of Christ's final primacy, his lordship over creation and history. The First and the Last is a must-read for anyone seeking to discern the mission of the church in an age of global consciousness."

Michael Barnes, S. J.
— Heythrop College
"This is not a book for the theologically fainthearted. Clear in its argument, robust in its critique, wide-ranging in its command of sources, The First and the Last offers a thoroughly incisive analysis of the key issues at stake in the theology of religions. One does not have to agree with everything George Sumner says to appreciate the force and cogency of his argument."

J. A. DiNoia
— Vatican City
"Exposing the distinctively Western historical roots of pluralist theologies of religion, Sumner offers a refreshingly 'postpluralist' account of the relationship between Christianity and other religious traditions. His important book shows that one can take the claims of other religious interlocutors seriously without displacing the grammar of the final primacy of Jesus Christ fundamental to all appropriately Christian theologies of religions."

CrossCurrents
"Sumner's sophisticated, rigorous, and theologically challenging work comprises a strenuous effort to move Christian discourse in interreligious dialogue past what he calls 'the quagmire of pluralism'. . . A courageous effort, one worthy of attention."