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Book Review: AMERICAN LIBERAL THEOLOGY Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. $49.95. pp. xi + 653. ISBN 0—664—22356—7)

the third volume in Gary Dorrien’s chronicle of American Liberal theology, this book culminates an endeavor best described, by all accounts, as ‘magisterial’, ‘definitive’, and ‘authoritative’.’ subtitled ‘Crisis, irony, and postmodernity’, it covers the period 1950–2005. After Dorrien, it is doubtful that any one else will need to undertake the history and interpretation of Liberal theology in America between 1805 and 2005. Disputed readings may arise and new accounts of post-2005 developments will be needed, but they will be derivative from Dorrien’s comprehensive history. Defined as a third way between the extremes of conservative orthodoxy and secular disbelief, liberalism in all its modern and postmodern phases reconceptualizes the meaning of Christianity in light of contemporary knowledge and values, chiefly that of historical criticism and the natural sciences. in a narrative as nuanced as it is sweeping, Dorrien covers the theology of personalist idealism that flowed from Boston University; the new process metaphysics that flowed from the Chicago school; the challenge of Liberation theology in both its Black and feminist registers; the rise of process theology as the ‘anchor’ of liberal theology, centered at Claremont, California; and the contribution of the Catholic liberal imagination in America. Chapters 5, 6 and 8 discuss a host of independent authors not easily classified. the final evaluation in Chapter 9 focuses on the ‘irony’ of American liberal theology, something Dorrien locates in the rise of a ‘hidden’ or ‘unnoticed renaissance’ occurring in the rich and sophisticated work of a new generation, following the long era of crisis and purported demise of liberal theology. paradoxically, even as liberalism slid into decline in comparison to other movements, it renewed itself from within. Dorrien observes that the vitality of the new scholars who continue to teach and write liberal theology, alongside the work of the recently retired generation, confirms the necessity and enriches the discourse of the liberal option in theology. Complicating this judgment are the voices of numerous critics, both to the left and to the right, whom Dorrien treats with perspicacity.