Product Description

Is Christianity in Britain nearing extinction? Is the decline in Britain emblematic of the fate of Western Christianity? "The Death of Christian Britain" uses the latest techniques to offer new formulations of religion and secularization and explores what it has meant to be 'religious' and 'irreligious' during the last 200 years. It challenges the generally held view that secularization has been a long and gradual process beginning with the industrial revolution, and instead proposes that it has been a catastrophic and abrupt cultural revolution starting in the 1960s.This second edition includes a new chapter that repositions the book's argument in light of criticism and new research. It addresses the reactions to the treatment of the 'old' Christian culture of modern Britain, the sixties in religious history, gender and the mutation of Christianity and demonstrates the validity of the Death of Christian Britain in understanding contemporary religion and culture. Topical and controversial, "The Death of Christian Britain" is a bold and original work that will bring some uncomfortable truths to light.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12461 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

From the Back Cover

Is Christianity in Britain nearing extinction? Is the decline in Britain emblematic of the fate of Western Christianity?

The Death of Christian Britain uses the latest techniques to offer new formulations of religion and secularisation and explores what it has meant to be 'religious' and 'irreligious' during the last 200 years. It challenges the generally held view that secularisation has been a long and gradual process beginning with the industrial revolution, and instead proposes that it has been a catastrophic and abrupt cultural revolution starting in the 1960s.

This second edition includes a new chapter that repositions the book’s argument in light of criticism and new research. It addresses the reactions to the treatment of the ‘old’ Christian culture of modern Britain, the sixties in religious history, gender and the mutation of Christianity and demonstrates the validity of the Death of Christian Britain in understanding contemporary religion and culture.

Topical and controversial, The Death of Christian Britain is a bold and original work that will bring some uncomfortable truths to light.

About the Author
University of Dundee, UK

Customer Reviews

Shows secularism is a recent phenomena
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.

Why religion died in the UK
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.

Sex invented 1963: Christianity dies
It happened in 1963. That's when Christianity in Britain died. Till I read this book I had wrongly thought in terms of a slow erosion of faith. In the late 19th C the unholy trinity of Darwin, Freud, and Marx had injected enough poison into European thought to kill the roots of traditional Christian faith even in Britain, the land of the Puritans and Wesley, and this was speeded up by liberal theology eager to bring religion in line with modern thinking. So by the outbreak of the First World War, the greenery was still visible, but the roots were weak. The first war, followed by the great crash, fascism, another war, and the holocaust then shouted from the rooftops, what the roots had long suggested: Christianity was dead. And so we move into the post Christian era. Brown shows this scheme of things to be wrong. Focusing on the period from 1800 to 1950 both the statistics and more importantly the print media - novels, magazines, tracts - he proves that Christianity was absolutely the dominating cultural force in Britain, and in contrast to the idea of an erosion of faith after the second war, church attendance actually rose in the 1950's, what he calls between 1945 - 1958, a `return to piety'. So what happened in 1963? The Hull librarian poet Larkin has part of the answer:

Sex was invented in 1963, between the Chatterley trial and the Beatles' first LP.

But it's a little bit more complicated than more sex and people turning their backs on traditional Christian morality. That has been happening furtively since the beginning of time. What was different in 1963 was the reaction of women. Brown shows that in the Christian culture women had played a crucial role of being the ones who tamed men and brought them into the church. In novels and magazines the women were always the domestic saints, the men the potential prodigals. In the 1960's women were no longer ready to be the guardians of the Christian home, and this rejection of `pious femininity destroyed the evangelical narrative'. Traditional magazines that used the old story of steadfast women taming men failed to sell, new ones like `Jackie' giving women an independent agenda did. With this rejection came a massive exodus from the church...and so, along with the better known forces of secularisation at work, it was the daughters of Eve who ate the Apple label, and let Christianity die. It's a stimulating thesis and well worth reading - but I don't think the author gives enough credit to the impact that two world wars between two `Christian' nations had on everyone's psyche. It wasn't just women swapping church for the Beatles. It was also a deep distress that somehow Christianity hadn't worked which the children picked up from their parents. The tragic irony is of course that in fact Christianity, even the lukewarm Anglican fare of the 1930's had worked. It had inspired a generation to combat Nazism. This makes the liberal fascist revolt of the 1960's an even worse betrayal.