The central thesis of this book has two poles. One is that Christians should fully accept a pluralistic state, and should do so on Christian, not pragmatic, grounds. Free choice is God’s gift to us which he always respects; this is the context in which the Gospel can be freely preached and responded to; and it also provides the only conditions for bringing about a genuinely just and peaceful society. The other pole is that, within this pluralistic society, Christianity must not be ashamed to be essentially other, strange and even alien. Christianity is essentially “cultic”, a word Hobson uses deliberately and provocatively, for at its heart is the ritual performance of the Eucharist.This is the “good” liberalism which Hobson approves of. But, he argues, there