The Death of Christian Britain

The Church is dying, says Callum Brown. So, what's new? The difference, according to The Death of Christian Britain is in how long it's taken to reach the point of no return. Secularisation theory--which emerged with the social sciences in the 19th century--was obsessed with the numbers of people (not) attending church, and was seized upon by Christians as the Industrial Revolution spread to illustrate how godforsaken our cities were becoming, even then. Yet Brown argues this "authorised version" is mistaken. According to him, secularisation began when the Beatles were releasing their first single in 1962. Instead of counting heads, he draws on anecdotal and cultural references to argue that Christianity was alive and well until the swinging sixties. It just wasn't going to church...

He sheds fascinating (and sympathetic) light on the history of conversion, of social action and the Church's public role in the nation. And his use of gender theory in the study of religion could be revolutionary. This may be a text book, but it engages the mind and the soul. Sociologists and Christians in particular will be positively challenged to think harder. For "the Britain of the new millennium is showing the world how religion as we have known it can die". This is bound to unnerve Christians. Many might even take issue with the title, and refuse to read on. But to do so would be folly: a week spent immersed in Brown's book could reap substantially more fruit than a series of revival meetings. --Brian Draper

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Why religion died in the UK - Rated
As an ex-christian I occasionally take an anthropological look back at the current status of Christianity. This book opened my eyes to a completely different perspective in religious studies, an oral history, post modernist, feminist analysis (Brown's own description of his method). Despite misgivings about the two latter movements as having credentials for such an analysis he convinced me that religion died in Britain because peoples' self description as existing within a religious discourse ended when women ceased to accept their role as keepers of the faith in the feminist swinging sixties. Put like that it sounds a bit simplistic but Brown backs up his analysis with impressive statistics and excerpts of oral history. The weak point in the argument comes when one tries to apply it outside Europe. Brown admits this and asks the obvious question, why hasn't religion died in North America? Well I hope that is the topic of his next book.

Shows secularism is a recent phenomena - Rated
The author Callum Brown is an oral historian based at the university of Strathclyde. The overall thesis of the book is that contrary to the prevailing secularisation paradigm rooting British religious decline in the enlightenment Britain remain Christian until relatively recently; it was the post-1960s era that spelled the death of Christian Britain and the advent of vigorous secularisation. Consequently there is an emphasis on working-class religion and its mass popularity/propogation (ie. evangelicalism). By Christian Britain therefore, Brown does not mean the religious affiliations or otherwise of the statute makers and policy formers but primarily that of the working classes. Consequently Brown offers a vigorous analysis of both religious and secular media to highlight the prevalence of evangelical moral assumptions in forming the parameters of `respectability’ for population at large. An important analysis is his two chapters on gender roles in Britain’s religious life showing that Britain’s women sustained the moral (Christian) worldview of evangelical/Victorian Britain more than its men. Consequently the realignment of women’s sensibilities in post-1960s Britain has spelled the death of Christian Britain.

Overall this book should prove interesting for all those interested in the secularisation of Britain, Church history, the history of interaction of gender and religion/society and those interested in the history of evangelicalism. Read in Conjunction with Shaw and Kreider (Eds) Culture and the Noconformist tradition this is a useful book.

However, whilst I understand the need why the book basically comprises of three-quarters pre-amble before one reaches the actual point (ie the 1960s and secularisation) which at times did grate. Also, it would have been interesting to see a wider ecclesiastical survey than the evangelicalism offered. For instance, to have seen a discussion on the more radical movements such as Quakerism and Pentecostalism (although this would, admittedly only have been a early 1900s phenomena) with their more overtly egalitarian emphasis. This said, however, The Death of Christian Britain is an interesting book that usefully counterbalances the prevailing assumptions of the securalisation paradigm as applied to the British context.