RobertTobin: Privilege and Prophecy: Social Activism in the <scp>Post‐War</scp> Episcopal Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022; pp. xiv + 372.

Privilege and Prophecy is a masterly account of what the author calls the defining feature of the domestic agenda of the Episcopal Church in the United States in America (ECUSA) from 1945 to 1979: a “prophetic” mission to challenge unjust and dehumanising social structures. It is “focused on the liberal white men who dominated the Episcopal Church after the Second World War” (p. 8) and their many programmes, committees, church societies, projects, missions, ministries, and publications that shaped and served the denomination's social activism. Dr. Tobin's thesis is that, however worthy their causes and effective their ministries, their activism was too frequently narrowly defined, divisive, and ecclesiologically shallow. As a result, they helped transform ECUSA from a socially prominent church unified by a shared sense of purpose into a socially marginalised church, rent by internal rivalries and struggling with a muddled identity. Dr. Tobin has probably chosen ECUSA in large part because he knows it well; he is an expat American who serves as a priest in the Church of England, from which ECUSA is descended. But it is also a particularly strategic choice for illustrating the principal theme that interests him: what happens when prophecy depends on privilege, that is, when a church that seeks to confront and change social structures depends on its entitled place in those very structures for the authority and financing that its social programmes require? ECUSA is a perfect case study because, among American churches, it has probably been the most entitled. According to Pew Research, members of ECUSA have the highest average household income of any Christian denomination. It has given the country more US presidents than any other denomination, and, in modern times, more Army generals as well. It has been overwhelmingly white, and its few African-American members have usually been reasonably well off. Many of its most influential leaders in the period of this study were networked into the higher echelons of government, media, industry, and finance, partly through friends whom they had come to know in their expensive private schools and selective liberal arts colleges. Dr. Tobin quotes the sociologist Peter Berger: even though Puerto Ricans, Jews, and Episcopalians each make up 2 per cent of the population, “guess which group doesn't think of itself as a minority?” (p. 248). But although ECUSA during this period was unique among white mainstream Protestant denominations in its social pedigree, it was probably representative of them in its institutional trajectory. In the 1950s, not just in ECUSA but in its peer denominations as well, worship services and Sunday schools were full; new churches were being started in the expanding white suburbs, while churches in the decaying inner cities were being closed; the profession of clergy enjoyed considerable prestige; authority structures were clear and hierarchical; social ministries addressed individual needs with no radical challenges to the status quo; and issues of racial justice were just beginning to emerge, ruffling feathers. As the 1960s progressed, church attendance and finance were beginning to falter; denominations were divided, often bitterly, by disagreements over civil rights, the war in Vietnam, the role of women, and homosexuality; denominational headquarters were growing, but were not entirely trusted; church doctrine was being widely questioned; authority structures both in the church and in society at large were being challenged; ecumenism was on the agenda. By the end of the 1970s, churches had withdrawn to the margins of a post-Christian society; denominational identities felt blurred; leaders could not count on respect simply by virtue of their office, but had to earn it personally; identity politics had arrived; and ecumenism was off the agenda. All this is to say that readers with little background in ECUSA may find this book more engaging than they expect and will likely appreciate its granular close-up of a particular denomination in the broad landscape of white American mainstream Protestantism. Dr. Tobin excels in identifying key figures, summarising their backgrounds, following their careers, and reporting their contributions, innovations, rivalries, and pronouncements. He is remarkably even-handed in discussing the controversies of the day: between the northern whites impatient for integration and the southern white gradualists who resented their interventions; between the racial integrationists among African-Americans and the racial separatists; between the advocates of a centralised church and the defenders of local independence; between those who forged ahead with the ordinations of women and gays before policies were approved and those who wanted to wait for governance processes to run their course; between those who saw parish churches as the chief instruments of mission and those who had given up on them; between those who reflected theologically and those who preferred secular social analysis and political thought; between those who wanted to focus on one great rousing cause at a time and those who, like the Sioux Anglican Vine Deloria Jr., wanted to extend the church's justice work beyond those in the news. The author's examples show how difficult it was in this context to be ethically pure. The conservatives wanted the church to minister love, pastoral care, and perhaps some piety, and did not see why justice should be part of that. The radicals targeted one single-minded purpose at a time, and accepted that, in their rush to their goal, those unfortunate enough to stand in their way would be trampled. The church's social liberals usually felt closest to secular social liberals, with the result that they set aside theology, and seldom had deep pastoral and personal relationships with those whose oppression and dehumanisation concerned them. Nevertheless, there are exceptions. Dr. Tobin does not identify them as models or heroes, but the reader senses that he admires their integrity. C. Kilmer Myers, who ended his career as bishop of California, had a passion for a progressive inner-city ministry that was grounded in his Christian sacramental vision and characterised by radical hospitality and personal engagement. His Anglo-Catholic convictions sometimes led him in different directions from less theological, more ideological liberals. He also had the humility sometimes to change his mind. William Stringfellow, a lay theologian, exposed the double-thinking of liberals who wanted the church to help the world without changing itself. Their assumption, he thought, was that without money, position, and access the church would be unable to help the world; in fact, he said, almost the opposite was the case (p. 82). The breadth of Dr. Tobin's research is stunning, as evidenced by many hundreds of endnotes citing diverse sources. But the text does not at all read like a patchwork of sources; it is lucid and engaging. And his thoughtful evaluations earn the reader's trust.

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