This books is burdened by a flowery, cheery prose style. Tries too hard to sound contemporary, cool. This gets better as the book goes on. Also problematic, large sections at beginning are basically quotes from famous men with brief asides by McGrath. This is hard to follow, but fits in with the breezy style.
I disagree strongly with two of McGrath's major theses, 1) Early Christianity was a set of 'orthodoxies,' a melee of diversity (pg. 56ff). How could it be that diverse and still be Christianity? How could the apostles have planted a bunch of doctrinally diverse Churches? 2) Doctrine developed slowly over time (69ff). Actually, McGrath doesn't agree with himself on this. He contradicts this thesis out of logical necessity a couple of times. Doctrine did not develop: it was restated in contextually appropriate ways vis a vis challenges from heretics. It's not so much that doctrine was incomplete; rather, it had to be applied to new challenges. There are no new doctrines, only new heretics.
Also, beware of his historical and logical fallacies (ex. Appeal to majority, pg. 69), and the position of historical skepticism. McGrath basically calls several of the Church Father's liars by saying that they misrepresented heretics.
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