Nineteenth-century liberalism within the Church of England together with the opposition of Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings of the church created a confusing and volatile religious environment for many of its adherents. In the twentieth-century English modernism, adding scientific naturalism to the mix, rejected Christian creedal assertions which were seen as mere dogmatism. As the century progressed many Anglican scholar-clerics began the struggle to find a theological via media which accepted liberalism’s use of the historico-critical approach to the Bible but not the rejection of Anglican creedal affirmations. Alan Richardson was one of these and this article will examine his neo-orthodox development of a faith principal which rejected the modernist dichotomy between theology, science and history that he believed was undermining public faith.
