Gary Dorrien honors “all the questions and some of the values of liberal theology” while maintaining a commitment to “liberationist solidarity with the oppressed and the vulnerable” (4). Theology is “inherently idealistic metaphysically and ethically” (4). For Anglicans, this means theology is centered on the Logos and the search for God, especially in struggles for justice and ecumenism. Inevitably, here is a reading that privileges Anglo-Catholics, socialists, and liberals. It too is a reading that unveils white supremacy. Dorrien argues that the best of the tradition(s) is ecumenical, idealist, democratic socialist, and incarnational.

He begins by signaling an intent for decolonization while defining Anglicanism as a form of Western Christianity. A brief narrative of English Catholicism includes its relationship to feudalism, slavery, antisemitism, and war. Reform centered on royal supremacy and theology at times remained on the right and at times veered towards the left. Much blood was spilt and martyrs made under Henry (r. 1509–1547), Edward (r. 1547–1553), Mary (r. 1553–1558), and Elizabeth (1558–1603).

One might detect the influence of Catholic revisionist historiography at work in chapters two and three, but this does not occlude Dorrien’s skill as a sensitive narrator. Thomas Cranmer (1533–1556) was “compelled to bear too much.” In the end, “broken by terrified trauma,” his faith in royal supremacy “turned against him” (87). Along with a familiar overview of Elizabethan settlement, strategies for hegemony, and the thought of key apologists (especially John Jewel [1522–1571], John Whitgift [1530–1604], and Richard Hooker [1554?–1600]), Dorrien’s particular contribution is to throw light on the Anglican propensity for self-regard, arrogance, and oppression.

Chapter four tackles Lockean liberalism in the context of Caroline divinity. While Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1645) became the voice of “third-way Anglicanism” (158), William Laud (1573–1645) “ratcheted up” the subjugation of opponents (165). During the civil wars, Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) appealed to tolerance on the basis of Logos reason. Restoration brought “reactionary Anglicanism” (176) though liberal attitudes were discernible in John Bramhall (1594–1663), Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683), and John Tillotson (1630–1694). John Locke’s (1632–1704) toleration claimed to uphold the “Anglican troika of Scripture, tradition, and reason,” but his empiricism nurtured a minimalist faith. It would only be the “wild subjectivity” of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) that would “repair the Lockean deficit” (191).

In chapter five, a “desacralized” world (199) is met with arguments for the reasonableness of Christianity by Joseph Butler (1692–1752) and William Paley (1743–1805). An abolitionist, Paley’s religion and utilitarian ethics would challenge scripture and tradition, but for William Wilberforce (1759–1833) and Coleridge, such “rationalistic moralism” was not enough (217). In developing a version of post-Kantian idealism, Coleridge would turn the “liberal stream” in a “direction it did not want to go” (218). Coleridge, the political conservative, brought the best of German idealism, Kantian moralism, and Romanticism to bear on English theology.

Anglo-Catholic conservativism and Anglican socialism are dealt with in chapters six and seven. The antiliberal Tractarians adjudged that the church had become captive to a secular state. Repelled by their attitudes to the Reformation, and inspired by a vision of catholicity, F. D. Maurice (1805–1872) discerned an affinity between faith and socialism. Never a radical, his views would nonetheless result in censure. Similarly, Essays and Reviews (1860) caused outrage that resulted in a “ten-year culture war” (291). The appointment of essayist William Temple to Canterbury (1942) would signal the acceptance of liberalism. Diversity would not be something to be “tolerated,” it would become “the Anglican way” (300–301).

Chapter seven surveys a range of socialist organizations and figures, including Thomas Hancock (1832–1903), Henry Scott Holland (1847–1918), W. D. P. Bliss (1856–1926), Vida Scudder (1861–1954), and the Christian Social Union. Charles Gore’s (1853–1932), editing of Lux Mundi (1889) provided a doctrinal heart to the social gospel and controversy in the church. Dorrien draws lessons from this history. Socialists willing to enter into alliances could gain power and make societal impact. Those not willing to entertain coalitionism, but who retained commitments to grassroots power and cultural pluralism, had less societal impact but were correct in their analyses and vision.

In chapter eight, Dorrien lays bare a progressivism (associated with Hastings Rashdall [1858–1924] and W. R. Inge [1860–1954]) that promoted classist, racist, and eugenic views. Though not because of supremacist views, liberals would be investigated by a Doctrine Commission. By the time the Commission reported (1938), liberals had their own college and an Archbishop. William Temple’s thought, however, could not be straightforwardly progressive. His Logos idealism would be dialectical realist in a bid to take account of the real world. For Temple, a modernist theology would require a modern metaphysics, and this was supplied by process philosophy.

The post-war figures of Michael Ramsey (1904–1988) and Norman Pittenger (1905–1997) are the focus of chapter nine. Ramsey sought reconciliation between Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals in the service of a “Gospel Catholicism” that could empower a broad ecumenism. Pittenger sought to reconcile process thought with theology. For Ramsey, neither idealism nor liberalism could bear the life-giving gospel. The church’s first call is to witness to the crucified Christ and the crucified life and not to lead in social or political affairs. For Pittenger, process notions of relationality and becoming cohered with evolutionary science and brought divine love to fresh expression.

Chapter ten begins with reference to the first Lambeth Conference (1867) as a signifier of growth and division. Questions about Anglicanism’s integrity were raised as theology from beyond the West came to the notice even of British leaders. Dorrien cites Arvind Nirmal’s (1936–1995) Dalit theology and John Mbiti’s (1931–2019) African theology. Mbiti is introduced somewhat as a foil for a tradition of U.S. American Black theology that found solidarity with African liberationism. Desmond Tutu (1931–2021), like Mbiti, appealed to the social character of African anthropology as Ubuntu theology intersected with his catholic and left-leaning sensibilities. Here was contextual and liberative witness that might take Anglicans “beyond colonialism”.

That a study of this length, with space for contextualizing materials or excurses, does not get beyond the 1980s, may disappoint readers. Centering European philosophical thought creates some tension in a text that names decolonizing the tradition a priority. There are other ways of telling an Anglican story that foreground earlier intercultural engagement, resistance to whiteness, and liberative potency. For example, Colenso is presented as actor but little acted upon by African thinkers. His most important interlocutor, William Ngidi, goes unnamed. One might think of a range of Anglicans engaged in contextualizing work who might be precursive of postcolonialism. Such endeavors may not have been dominant, or clearly decolonizing, but they do raise questions about historiographies that privilege dominant voices. Though Dorrien promises a second volume, prefiguring such a strand of witness would have eased the tension in the text and worked against the impression that such endeavor only emerged in the twentieth century.

Sometimes Dorrien’s lucid style may create misunderstanding. There are places in the text that give the impression that mission is imperialist simpliciter; Dorrien claims Anglicanism was “born ecumenical” (2); John Bramhall (1594–1663) is misidentified as “bishop of Ireland” (178); the first Lambeth Conference (1867), is erroneously labeled a “synod” (477); Barth’s theology of crisis is “wild” and “angry” (403); and it is not the case that The Episcopal Church was “expelled” from the Communion in 2016 (478). On a very minor issue, I would have preferred, as I have done in this review, that Dorrien adopt the convention of providing dates for the figures he engages.

Mostly a work of synthesis, this study stands in continuity with Dorrien’s previous work, including Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealist Logic of Modern Theology (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). The particular contribution of Anglican Identities is the way in which it situates Anglicans amid philosophical and political developments. Especially laudable are the ways Dorrien identifies Anglican complicities in white supremacy, slavery, antisemitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia. That alone makes this text necessary reading.