Albrecht Beutel's intellectual biography presents one of the leading theologians of the German Enlightenment. Spalding's life spans almost the whole of the eighteenth century, from 1714 to 1804, and as Propst (provost) at St Nicolai at Berlin from 1764 to 1788 and Oberkonsistorialrat (highest councilor of the consistory) from 1764 to 1791 he was the highest representative of the Lutheran Church in the kingdom of Prussia. From its foundation in 1783 he was for several years member of the illustrious enlightenment circle the Mittwochsgesellschaft (literally, Wednesday Society), where intellectuals who saw themselves as Freunde der Aufklärung (Friends of the Enlightenment) gathered to exchange ideas. The preeminent enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn was an honorary member and the journal Berlinische Monatsschrift was its influential mouthpiece in which Kant, Mendlessohn and others published their diverse and famous answers to the question ‘what is enlightenment’. With impressive competence and mastery, Beutel develops the biographical, social, political and intellectual context in which Spalding's writings must be situated. His Vertraute Briefe die Religion betreffend [Intimate letters concerning religion] of 1785 are presumably his most important contribution to the enlightenment scrutiny of the relationship between religion and society. Within Protestantism, but also within Catholicism, different strands of theology emerged in the Holy Roman Empire during the eighteenth century, of which the so called Neologie played the leading part in the ‘diverse theological and confessional endeavors for enlightenment’ (p. 16). Spalding was the widely appreciated leader of this reformative enlightened theology, and Beutel's masterful study of his thought convincingly demonstrates the extent to which literary, philosophical and theological enlightenment attitudes mutually influenced each other. This book adds a crucial – and often ignored – aspect to the existing scholarship on the German Enlightenment, its diversified genres and rich concepts.