These are encouraging days for the discipline of systematic theology. Recent seasons have seen the publication of a number of one-volume accounts of Christian dogmatics, with parts of various multi-volume offerings also appearing with regularity. This exuberance for serious enquiry into the meaning, coherence, and implications of Christian doctrine has been present not only in those areas of theological inquiry which have consistently exhibited a long-standing passion for such endeavor; an important feature of recent trends is a passion for systematic work also becoming evident in confessional domains which on occasion in the past have treated such activity with indifference or even suspicion. The result is an increasingly rich and contoured landscape in contemporary dogmatic theology, hopefully to the benefit not only of the academic scholar but of the churches both challenged and sustained by such work.