Reformed theology receives excellent and extensive treatment in this significant handbook. The editors have chosen stellar scholars to produce thirty-seven chapters while Swain has written an introduction and Allen a conclusion. This is an outstanding reference book, comprehensive in coverage, accessible and interestingly organised.

The three main parts are ‘Contexts’, ‘Texts’ and ‘Topics and Themes’. This is sensible and helpful. ‘Contexts’ outlines the development of Reformed theology through historical essays beginning with ‘Reformed Theology and the Church Fathers’, and running through major periods: medieval, Reformation, scholasticism and Enlightenment to modern biblical criticism, and Reformed theology in Modern Europe, North America and Global Christianity. These richly textured pieces provide an overview that is historical and theological in scope. This enables main elements and voices of the Reformed theological tradition to be introduced and important trajectories to be established.

This book stands out in providing twelve essays on main texts of Reformed theology. This is especially useful as a means of study since these treatments show how Reformed theology has functioned on important theological issues. The texts are classics which have given shape and foundational stability through the centuries. Main Reformed theologians including Bucer, Calvin, Bullinger, Edwards, Schleiermacher, Barth and others are represented in these analyses as are Reformed confessional traditions: ‘The three forms of unity’ for the Dutch Reformed family of Churches; the Westminster Standards, for Presbyterians; and a piece on the Belhar confession, a confession from the 1980s that developed out of the church and theological struggles in apartheid South Africa. The inclusion of these confessions marks a distinctive strength of Reformed theology as a theology for Reformed Churches in providing guidance for what to believe and how to live as the Christian community and as Reformed Christian persons.

Part iii features fifteen pieces on ‘Topics and Themes of Reformed Theology’. These splendid doctrinal essays are clearly organised and witness to the convictions of Reformed theology as these are expressed in varying ways within the tradition. The writers convey, at points, their own assessments and prospects for the future of the topic in relation to historic and developing Reformed theological perspectives. This is helpful in bringing contemporary outlooks on a theme and also in acknowledging the developmental character of Reformed theology for the present day and beyond.

An example of this is Daniel J. Treier's chapter on holy Scripture. Scripture has been a key – but contested – part of the theological loci in Reformed theology. Treier helpfully expounds a Reformed account of holy Scripture by narrating ‘the development of key concepts’ and relating them to John's Gospel for biblical support’ (p. 546). He begins by relating ‘Word’ and ‘Spirit’ since Scripture is ‘living water’. He writes: ‘That the living water of the Spirit of Christ might flow freely, with the love of the Triune God welling up within hearts that hear the Word – that is what animates the Reformed accounts of scripture’ (p. 548).

Treier designates John Calvin as ‘The font of the tradition’. Calvin's conviction was that ‘scripture is the Word of God’ (p. 549) and the Holy Spirit's ‘illumination’ is necessary for Scripture's authority to be recognised. In Calvin's ‘exposition of faith, the Word is its essential support, and the Spirit seals it to our hearts’ (p. 550). The controversial question of Calvin's relation to ‘The flow of the tradition: the confessions and scholasticism’ is explored (pp. 550–2) before Treier presents ‘four major tributaries’. These show diverse emphases in Reformed theology through theologians and are associated by Treier with Johannine texts. These are ‘Westminster: communication of revealed truth’ (John xvii.17); ‘Amsterdam: comprehensive harmony with creation’ (John i.1, 3); ‘Basel: personal revelation in Jesus Christ’ (John i.14, 18); and ‘The margins: liberating truth’ (John viii.32). Treier presents a ‘new tributary’, drawing on works by Michael Horton and Kevin Vanhoozer: ‘The drama of saving wisdom’. This means, says Treier: ‘hearing the Word of God in human words, expecting that the Spirit will ultimately help us to hear God's transforming grace in Jesus Christ’ (p. 558). Treier's essay is an effective reading of Reformed theology on Scripture, recognising Reformed contextual voices, and historic particular emphases.

Most broadly, as Michael Allen discusses in his conclusion, Reformed identity – in its varied expressions – has called for theological judgements. He writes: ‘Its varied exponents from the Puritans to Karl Barth have called for a distinctly theological approach to liturgy, life, and church government, as well as to the cultivation of habits of mind and tenets of doctrine’ (p. 624). A ‘signal element of Reformed identity’, says Allen, ‘remains its commitment that we are being reformed by the Word of God’ (p. 625). An emphasis is on the ‘divine passive’– in theology and the Church – to emphasise ‘the reforming work of God’ (p. 625). ‘The future prospects of Reformed theology’, Allen writes, ‘will hang on the extent to which the reformatory work of the Word of God shapes the ongoing development of thought forms, of conversational frameworks, of abiding questions’ (p. 629). He concludes by noting that

This volume conveys Reformed theology's ongoing vitality and its continuing conversations. Within its own heritage, says Swain, there are ‘disagreements and debates’ as ‘a tradition of inquiry and between theology and rival traditions of inquiry. These disagreements and debates are integral to the discourse of theology and the cultivation of theological understanding’ (p. 2). A goal of Reformed theology was long ago expressed by Franciscus Junius (1545–1602): ‘God is wisdom's goal, and that glimpse of God Himself is saving and filled with glory, toward which we strive with this wisdom as our guide’ (p. 2). This fine volume enhances the study of Reformed theology toward that goal.