"In a move reminiscent of the 'new academic hagiography' advocated by historian Rick Kennedy, Treloar seeks to rehabilitate this era, casting it as a time not of narrowness and rancor but of breadth and creativity. Instead of two hardened camps, fundamentalists and modernist, lobbing rhetorical shells between their respective seminaries, Treloar describes a wide spectrum of evangelicals with most of its vitality at the center. 'Not all fundamentalists were the same; liberals varied in the degree of their liberality; and the centre was broad,' he writes. This perspective rescues little-known figures from obscurity, both expanding the roster of evangelicals and marking finer shades of differentiation among them."

"All those who wish to be informed about a period in evangelical history that has not been studied as fully as it deserves will find Treloar's work invaluable."

"This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the story of evangelicalism. While many books have been written about World War I, particularly as related to religion, this book offers a surprisingly fresh and cogent analysis that builds upon the latest research about evangelicalism, most notably through creative uses of the Bebbington quadrilateral, as a valuable contribution about evangelicalism in its own right."

"In sum, here is a book that holds out great explanatory power. If we are predisposed to think that the theological polarities which so dominate church life in the Western world today have been perpetual fixtures, Treloar helps us to see that the first half of the twentieth century was an era which—for all its tensions—still had Christian people of clearly differing tendencies in conversation with one another."