The title of this book, Conservative in Theology, Liberal in Spirit, comes from a 1927 answer given to an American journalist, Charles Selden, who was enquiring whether or not the PCUSA missionaries in Thailand were fundamentalists. The answer given by the executive secretary of the PCUSA mission in Thailand, Paul Eakon, reads, “Mr. Selden, I should say that almost all of our Mission, both old and young, are conservative in Theology, and liberal in their spirit” (p. xxi). The book is an exposition of that quotation in many ways. Eakon, in the modernist-leaning camp, was very careful in what he crafted and tried to hold the unity of the mission in his statement. During the period under study, the various PCUSA mission fields were complicated to categorise, with many ambiguities and diversities between fields. As this book also shows, this quotation is an excellent way to get a handle on these years of transition in one field.

This work was originally a PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Brian Stanley, professor emeritus of world Christianity, who has also provided the foreword for the published book. The thesis has had some reworking, which have been made more accessible for a wider audience. The first chapter, “What It Means to Be ‘Modern,’” establishes the context of the rise of modernism, which then allows for that relationship to theological modernism to be acknowledged in the next chapter. This often neglected contextual and logical approach is helpful. In chapter 4, “Modernization in Buddhist Thailand, 1820 to 1941,” Dahlfred also includes an excellent contextual grounding for surveying modernism within Thailand’s culture and main religion.

I found chapter 7 particularly interesting as here Dahlfred examines three foreign visitors, Charles Selden, Donald Grey Barnhouse, and John Sung, and how they interpreted and interacted with what they found in Thailand through “the lens of their experience with modernism and fundamentalism in the United States and China” (p. 147). Selden was a Unitarian. Barnhouse’s tour reveals the complexities within a divided American fundamentalism, particularly within the Presbyterian fold. And for readers unfamiliar with John Sung, this will serve as a good introduction to this noted Chinese evangelist, who had studied for a time at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

The conclusion, “Six Reasons the American Presbyterian Mission in Thailand Experienced Little Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy,” would make for an excellent seminar discussion class in select programs of study on Presbyterian mission history. Dahlfred shows that the fundamentalist-modernist controversy did not impact the Thailand field to the same degree as it did in China or the USA and offers six credible reasons as to why. Nonetheless, the controversy was there. In part, it revolves around how one interprets “the degrees of controversy.” For example, the PCUSA field in Cameroon also had controversy with the rise of modernism, namely the resignation of Charles Woodbridge, who left to join the new Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions. Perhaps that is a higher degree of controversy; such a level of controversy did not happen in the Thailand field.

2025 has seen significant changes in the PC(USA) and World Missions (WM) as WM has come to an end as a separate denominational entity (Megan Fowler, “Presbyterian World Mission Closes, Lays Off Dozen of Missionaries,” Christianity Today, 1 May 2025, https://tinyurl.com/366secyv). No doubt historians of missions will be concerned with tracing the trajectory of the shifts in the PCUSA/PC(USA) concerning foreign missions from the 1920s and 1930s to today. Therefore, Dahlfred’s book comes at a very timely juncture when a serious historical study needs to be undertaken about this denomination and world mission. It will add another source to consider and will help to broaden the picture, giving exposure to researchers as to how the early shifts were impacting the Thailand field. As I was reading, I wished to know more about post-1941 Thailand through to today.

One small quibble with the printing: my copy clips the page numbers, chapter titles, and book title, which should appear in the header at the top of each page. Hopefully, this was just a minor problem on a few copies. The book has several helpful maps and illustrations to complement the text. It clearly opens up a study into an often-neglected historical study of a Presbyterian mission field, combined with a thematic, theological, and missional study in which the fundamentalist-modernist controversy was working itself out in various fields. As noted above, this book comes at a time when fresh assessments are being made. The author is well qualified to author this work, having been a missionary in Thailand for over two decades already and the author of a short biography on Daniel McGilvary: Missionary Pioneer to Northern Thailand. Conservative in Theology, Liberal in Spirit is well researched and written, captures the shifts taking place in theology and in mission focus, and shows the ambiguities that were and are there.