In this book, the second of his three-volume history, Gary Dorrien explores American theological liberalism in its heyday--at the advent of the research university and the institutionally identified school. He argues that in its prime theological liberalism effected a creative blending of theological schools, featured a tension between its evangelical and modernist impulses, and was fueled by its expectation of social and cultural progress, until its optimism was subjected to withering internal criticism in the 1930s.