The 2014 INPE McLaughlin Lecture explores the emergent concept of the "postliberal" and the increasing frequency of its formal and informal uses in the languages of educational theory and practice. It traces the origins of the term "postliberal" to certain strains of modern Christian theology, maps its migration into liberal democratic theory and examines its important role in the discussion of religious schooling as led for a time by Terry McLaughlin himself. Acknowledging the looseness of the concepts "liberal" and "postliberal" in much current educational polemic, the article nonetheless argues that recurrent adoption of the term "postliberal" in Britain especially signifies a change in attitude towards "progressive" versions of liberal education with which philosophers and theorists must engage.