Reinventing Liberal Christianity

In this provocative book Theo Hobson addresses the current crisis of liberal Christianity. In past years liberal Christianity challenged centuries of authoritarian tradition and had great political influence. It played a major role in the founding of the United States and gave rise to the secular liberalism that we take for granted. But liberal Christianity today is widely dismissed as a watering-down of the faith, and more conservative forms of Christianity are increasingly dominant. Can the liberal Christian tradition recover its influence?

Hobson puts forth a bold theory about why liberal Christianity collapsed and how it can be reinvented. He argues that a simple revival is not possible, because liberal Christianity consists of two traditions — a good tradition that must be salvaged and a bad tradition that must be repudiated. Reinventing Liberal Christianity untangles these two traditions with a fascinating survey of Christian thought from the Reformation to the present and, further, aims to transform liberal Christianity through the rediscovery of faith and ritual.