Mark Chapman provides what is probably a unique perspective on some aspects of Anglican theological self-definition from the Reformation to the present day. He discusses various stances on Anglican identity and the theology that articulates them. He aims to demonstrate that Anglican theology is and always has been complex and contested. He does not argue explicitly for any particular theological point of view, such as ‘reformed catholic’ or ‘liberal catholic’: his standpoint is historical narrative. The effect of the historical documentation, with Chapman's commentary, will be to educate the student in some of the internal debates of Anglicanism, mainly in the Church of England. The book derives in part from the author's lectures to ordinands at Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford – clearly Cuddesdon students have been exceptionally blessed in this respect – and it will be particularly useful in the training of Anglican ordinands and Readers throughout the Anglican Communion. The account flows smoothly; the style is clear and pleasing. The ever-industrious Mark Chapman is also an accomplished writer. The bibliography shows impressively wide reading, by no means confined to secondary studies.

This book is marked by an unusual method – one that brings out the contested, complex character of Anglican theology and particularly its debates about the sources of authority. Earlier periods are viewed through the lens of mid-nineteenth-century controversies: the Parker Society's publication of the works of the Anglican Reformers; the Tractarians’ publication of the early Church Fathers and of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglo-Catholic theology; the vision of the ‘Ecclesiologists’ about how churches should be designed and decorated. Chapman shows how Anglican scholars engaged with aspects of their tradition, rather than how they engaged with cross-confessional Roman Catholic or Protestant interlocutors, though these are not entirely absent.

However, this is a strangely selective work. Chapman acknowledges that there are gaps. Among the book's strengths is the fact that the Reformation is taken seriously, that Richard Hooker has a chapter to himself, that the Restoration of 1660–62 is seen as a watershed and the origin of Anglican ideology, that the difference between the comprehensive national church of Elizabeth I and James I and the established church that learned to tolerate other churches after 1689 is brought out, and that F.D. Maurice is here given the fair treatment that he does not always receive. But, to be weighed against these considerable strengths is the consideration that recognition of the deep pre-Reformation hinterland of Anglican theology is under-developed (the legacies of Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas and the failed Conciliar Movement, massive presences in Anglican theology, deserved to be expounded). The eighteenth century does not get its due (John Wesley is mentioned once in passing) and the more modern period is dealt with sketchily: there is no reference to Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort in the nineteenth century, though William Reed Huntington and Bishop Colenso are addressed. There is no mention of those giants Charles Gore and William Temple in the twentieth century (who had much to say about Anglicanism and its theological method), though Michael Ramsey, their disciple, is appropriately discussed.

Furthermore, Chapman himself acknowledges that he has not included ecumenical theological dialogue; but the phenomenon of ecumenical convergence is extremely significant for questions of ecclesial identity, and once ecumenical agreed statements, such as those of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), have been ‘banked’, they become new benchmarks for official Anglican theology. Altogether, the narrative seems to end prematurely: the account concentrates on the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, viewed through the lens of the nineteenth. This adds to the interest, but detracts from the substance when it comes to the past two centuries. However, it was probably better to deal in depth with selected areas of controversy, than to attempt a superficial survey of a vast landscape. Nevertheless, the book's title, apparently following the template for the series, is somewhat overstated. What the book does is to illuminate some key moments in the making of Anglican theology up to a certain point, while then effectively jumping to contemporary issues, especially the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant (on which Chapman has also written helpfully elsewhere).

There are some intriguing judgements. I am puzzled by the statement that a ‘theology of fallibility’ became the ‘dominant theology of the Anglican Communion’ after the first Lambeth Conference in 1867 (p. 180). The resolutions of the subsequent Lambeth Conferences come across as confident and clear about Anglican credentials and robust in their rejection of Roman Catholic claims to universal jurisdiction and infallibility, so the bishops were unlikely to attempt these two things in Anglican terms, but that does not make them hesitant or uncertain. The tentativeness that marks many Anglican Communion affairs is probably more a reflection of political caution than a legacy of Latitudinarian epistemology, as Chapman at one point suggests. But his ideas are always thought-provoking, even when he does not carry us all the way with him. Chapman also questions whether the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (1886, 1888, 1920) ‘is sufficiently formed to function as the basis for Anglican theology’. It is true that the Quadrilateral forms a component in the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant; however, it was never intended as a basis for Anglican theology, but rather as the minimum conditions for unity with non-episcopal churches. And it is not quite correct to say that the ‘English crown… still appoints’ the Archbishop of Canterbury (p. 201). There is a nuanced process for nominating the brave candidate from the Church to the Sovereign, via the Prime Minister, and from the Sovereign to the electoral College of Canons of the vacant See, as Mark Chapman well knows. But the crude shorthand of his way of stating it plays into the widespread ignorance that surrounds issues of establishment (which elsewhere Chapman has sought to clarify). But I like the way that the power struggles within the Communion, that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will have to face, are said to ‘masquerade as questions of biblical interpretation’ (p. 200). As Mark Chapman's estimable book shows, this has always been the case.