Bradford Littlejohn argues that consideration of the thought of Richard Hooker can clarify the relationship between the Reformation and the rise of liberal democracy and also provide prescriptive guidance for Christian political engagement today. His first chapter sets the stage by exploring the challenges and tensions facing modern liberal society from several perspectives. One important facet is the tension between the liberty of each individual to behave as she sees fit and the liberty of communities to function as communities, which entails establishing norms of behaviour.

The middle five chapters present Hooker's vision of Christian freedom, particularly in relation to society, contextualised within the framework of both foundational Protestant ideas and disputes between Elizabethan Puritans (or ‘precisionists’) and conformists. Littlejohn outlines three dimensions of adiaphora that developed from Luther's foundational concepts of sola fides and sola scriptura. Because faith was the only thing necessary for salvation, all other aspects of life became soteriological adiaphora, freeing the justified individual to serve God in gratitude rather than fear. There was also epistemological adiaphora – areas of life regarding which Scripture did not provide precise guidance, leaving the individual to determine proper behaviour in specific situations according to the rule of charity. Finally, an area of moral adiaphora opened before the Christian, situations in which a variety of behaviours was acceptable.

In the Elizabethan Church, however, these concepts were subverted by a precisionist ‘code fetishism’, exemplified by Thomas Cartwright, based on an extreme form of sola scriptura that negated epistemological and moral indifference. The Bible (as interpreted by precisionist ministers) provided detailed commands regulating every aspect of Christian life. In addition, precisionists linked assurance of election to strict observance of commands found in Scripture, negating soteriological indifference in the subjective experience of the individual. The conformist response, provided by John Whitgift, reemphasised soteriological adiaphora, but only to call for unquestioning obedience to any command of the prince not directly contrary to an essential tenet of the faith.

Entering into this conflict, Hooker championed soteriological adiaphora but rejected Whitgift's claim that the ordering of the outward life of the Church was arbitrary. While establishment of one divinely-mandated church order was not essential, laws governing the Church should be conducive to sanctification, providing criteria according to which Christian subjects could assess church laws. Hooker also rehabilitated the authority of reason (especially corporate reason embodied in parliamentary statutes), inviting readers to apply probable standards of rationality when assessing English church laws rather than contorting Scripture to provide detailed guidance in matters it did not directly address. The classification of issues of church order outside the realms of soteriological and epistemological necessity allowed Hooker to accept the probability associated with recognising rationality as a guide in such matters.

Hooker's rationalism remained, however, firmly Christian. He was clear that only revelation could guide people to eternal salvation, and he presented natural law and divine law as mutually interpretive in clarifying moral duties in this life. In addition, Hooker rejected Cartwright's ‘Nestorian’ separation of Christ's on-going relationship to the world into Christ as the incarnate Word (head of the Church, the order of redemption) and Christ as God the Creator (sovereign over the state, the order of creation). For Hooker, Christ as both fully God and incarnate Word ruled as redeeming creator over both Church and State. Consequently, the political order, informed by revelation as well as reason, should in its own way witness to the redemption wrought by Christ.

The concluding chapter returns to the broader issues of religious liberty with which the book began, engaging contemporary ethicists and political theorists to consider various conceptions of liberty animating debates in modern society. Here Littlejohn argues that facets of sixteenth-century Protestant thought, particularly as articulated by theorists like Hooker, did prepare the way for modern conceptions of liberty. In addition, Littlejohn presents Hooker as providing a vision that can inspire and guide Christian political engagement today.

Considered as a study of the thought of Richard Hooker, this is an excellent work. Littlejohn argues convincingly that Hooker recovered Protestant notions relating to Christian liberty that had been obscured or negated in Elizabethan conformist-precisionist debates, while adding insightful commentary on related topics including Hooker's ecclesiology and Christology. The detailed arguments and extensive engagement with secondary literature will appeal to Reformation scholars but may make the middle chapters difficult terrain for non-specialists. Littlejohn seems to sense this, peppering these chapters with helpful summaries of where the argument is going and where it has been.

Littlejohn's presentation of the prescriptive value of Hooker's thought is insightful but truncated. Hooker's Christology is presented as calling Christians to political engagement in the on-going task of working for societies that embody true justice. At the same time, Hooker's recognition of natural law opens Christians to see the value of contributions by non-Christians to the pursuit of justice. It is not clear, however, whether Littlejohn intends merely to call Christians to political engagement in the interest of justice or to issue a more radical call for efforts to establish a political order that is explicitly Christian (albeit leaving room for toleration of non-Christians). To clarify this point (and Hooker's prescriptive value more generally), it could have been helpful to explore specific issues raised in Littlejohn's opening chapter. For example, how might application of Hooker's principles help to arbitrate between community and dissenting conscience in controversies surrounding same-sex marriage? Hooker could be particularly useful in disputes of this type that not only reveal divisions between Christians and secularists but also between Christians who differ in their interpretations of Scripture. Readers whose primary interest is contemporary ethical and political theory may wish that Littlejohn had explored the prescriptive dimension of Hooker's thought in more depth, but they will appreciate the reflections that they do find. Scholars whose primary focus is the Reformation will find this book even more rewarding.