This is a collection of essays originating in a conference; its contributors are almost all Anglican historians working at Oxford University. The preface is by Sarah Foot who admits to being the ‘holder of one of Oxford's “established” professorial chairs’. So this is very largely a discussion within Oxford Anglicanism. On this evidence, Oxford Anglicanism is broadly at ease with the establishment of the Church (would you believe it?) – but there is also some appetite for moderate reform.

The most argumentative contributor is Nigel Biggar (another established professor, though he does not draw attention to the fact). His essay is called ‘Why the “establishment” of the Church of England Is Good for a Liberal Society’. A state cannot be merely ‘liberal’, he argues; it needs a meatier narrative. Nor can it be neutral on religion; if it does not in some way affirm religion, it is bound to define itself in opposition to it. Were Britain to reject its old constitutional recognition of religion, new secular public rituals would be needed, on the French model, and there is no popular desire for this. The established Church is the way in which Britain's particular liberal tradition is grounded: those who value ‘liberal humanism’ should be glad of it.

But is establishment compatible with liberal principles? Yes, Biggar says: in Britain's case, ‘the privileging of a particular religion [is] compatible with the liberal right to religious freedom’. The days of non-Anglicans being second-class citizens are long gone. But isn't there something wrong about the theoretical privilege? No: every form of liberal state will leave certain groups unsatisfied (in the US, he says, a sort of ‘ecumenical monotheism’ is established, which irritates both atheists and many religious conservatives). There is no perfectly liberal constitution, so let's not worry about the technical offence to liberalism: ‘Inequality can still be equitable’.

Is Biggar right that there is nothing really illiberal about establishment, in its current form? Iain McLean and Scot Peterson, in a jointly written essay, dispute it: ‘English establishment, as it currently stands, is unstable and incompatible with modern liberal democratic values.’ They argue that the Church must imitate the Scottish model, in which the Church is fully autonomous, and has no representation in parliament. It should retain the ‘dignified’ parts of establishment, and ditch the ‘efficient’ parts. But they do not flesh out their initial assertion of establishment's illiberalism. This is a shame, for this is the heart of the matter. Is an established Church illiberal, even if it retains little of its old political power? The dominant answer, in this volume and generally, is no: the offence (authoritarian anti-pluralism) has been removed, and only virtue remains, in the form of the Church's commitment to serve the entire nation. As William Whyte puts it: establishment ‘can be defended precisely because the Church has now had its privileges stripped from it’. The point is backed up by the contributions of Martyn Percy and Elaine Graham: they both praise establishment's ability to keep religion ‘public’, and to raise the status of all faith communities. (Percy is in the moderate reformist camp: he tentatively agrees with McLean and Peterson that the ‘efficient’ side of establishment should be re-thought.)

The question of establishment's compatibility with liberalism cannot be settled, for ‘liberalism’ is too slippery. One liberal tradition insists that the separation of church and state is crucial to religious liberty, and so firmly rejects establishment. Is this a superior form of liberalism? It has a rigour, energy and idealism that English-style liberalism lacks. But so what? The English model is liberal enough: if it were not, surely secular liberals would have abolished establishment long ago. Besides, the other, fuller liberalism can lead to intolerance of religious minorities, and general disparagement of religion by the state (though defenders of establishment are apt to overstate the danger). Almost all of these contributors seem to reason as follows: because British culture at large accepts establishment as compatible (enough) with liberalism, the Church has no cause to be too worried about the issue.

I consider this response inadequate. Theological anxiety about the issue is very appropriate, irrespective of secular indifference. Establishment means that the Church of England remains symbolically in tune with the era of its pre-liberal ascendancy. Yes, it has lost almost all of its old power, but it has not broken with, or repented of, the aura of this power. This aura remains active; it still informs its practical life. The Church, to put it poetically, remains possessed by the ghosts of empire. This affects Britain's idea of what Christianity is: it seems to be something that belongs to the pre-liberal, monocultural past. This is a serious matter, if you believe that the communication of the gospel is of absolute importance. The Church is guilty of putting an obstacle between liberal people and the gospel. Instead of worrying about this, the Church conspires not to ‘go there’. It plays it cool, bullish, sanguine. It refuses to admit that there is a latent crisis here, in the tension between its archaic formal identity, and liberal reality. This refusal is reflected in this book: there is no contribution that expresses discomfort, impatience, angst. The reform advocated by McLean and Peterson is couched in prosaic, technical terms: there is little sense of theological principle.

Why is there not a pro-disestablishment lobby within the Church? Is it not a famously ‘liberal’ institution? Only up to a point. As Mark Chapman's contribution shows, Anglo-Catholicism had a pro-disestablishment wing during the twentieth century – but this was ambiguous; it was not exactly rooted in liberal principle but was more a Tractarian hang-over. The issue reveals the Church's liberalism to be surprisingly weak, vague, ad hoc. It has produced almost no thinkers who seriously worry about the clash between establishment and liberal principle. From one perspective, its habitual pragmatism has thwarted the serious, risky work of ideological renewal.

Would disestablishment unsettle Britain's liberal tradition, and lead to narrow secular triumphalism, as Biggar claims? No: the American model shows that full liberalism is compatible with a deep national respect for religion. This model, it should be noted, has English roots – it should perhaps be ‘brought home’. The chief problem with this book is that it reflects the general lack of urgency and anxiety in English Anglican reflection, the failure to acknowledge a major symbolic crisis. A couple of other deficiencies: it has almost nothing to say about education, though this is perhaps the main public face of the established Church, on the ground. And it does not address the question of international Anglicanism. If international Anglicanism is a coherent phenomenon, then the establishment of one province begins to look anomalous. Perhaps this is the way that disestablishment will finally come: through a campaign for a coherent global Anglican identity.