Few books purporting to be serious historical and theological analyses miss the mark as widely as Thomas G. Sanders' Protestant Concepts of Church and State, a “study” sponsored by the National Council of Churches and the Fund for the Republic. Far from clarifying Protestant thinking in this area, the author compounds the confusion and does little to enhance the reputation of either the sponsoring agencies or the publisher. Both sponsoring agencies have sufficient resources to have provided the author with competent counsel, and it is usual publishing practice to submit manuscripts to outside readers for criticism in order to avoid obvious gaffes. Apparently this responsibility was not taken seriously.