The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
pointed upward with her thin, wasted hand. ‘Hark, the music is
s-o-u-n-d-i-n-g,’ she added. ‘G-o-o-d n-i-g-h-t! J-e-s-u-s, I a-m
c-o-m-i-n-g.’
Her son Jack, like the other miners, was a natural drinker, consuming vast
quantities in the pub. But he heard the call at a religious meeting, and,
though he tried to live a religious life, he suffered the taunts of his fellow
miners. But there was an explosion at the pit with many dead and injured,
and a long rescue operation. Under the stress, Jack lost God, returning to
his old temptations. However, after a long struggle, he reconverted in the
end. 104
The male-centred evangelical narrative had important characteristics.
There were two structures in use between the 1850s and 1930s: the ‘son
structure’ and the ‘husband structure’:
The ‘Son Structure’ The ‘Husband Structure’
A. Son lives with virtuous, A. Husband lives with virtuous
struggling mother wife
B. In late teenage years, son B. Husband is drunkard/gambler/
feels temptation of drink/ wife-beater
gambling/womanising C. Wife and children suffer in
C. Son becomes sinner, leaves poverty
home D. Chance event (often an
D. Mother becomes ill or son accident to husband)
meets virtuous woman- E. Wife nurses husband in
reminder of mother Christian way
E. Son converts F. Husband converts
F. Chance event, threatening G. Family happier, if not richer
conversion
G. Conversion reaffirmed
As with the structure of the women’s narrative studied in the last chapter,
the narrative order might change, especially the chance event which could
move up or down the sequence. The event was sometimes a mother’s death,
or an accident to the central character. In a story of 1924, a young Irishman
called Jock was raised by his struggling mother, but he disappointed her
despite her continuous prayers: ‘Jock grew up to be a man; but alas, got
in with bad company, and there he learned to drink and gamble. She never
went to bed till he came home . . . She felt sure prayer would be answered
for her boy.’ 105 Yet ‘Jock went deeper and deeper into sin’, enlisted as a
soldier and left home, where he fell in with barrack-room sin of every
description and neglected to write to his mother. When a message came
that she was very ill, he was shocked and given leave to return home, but
arrived at his mother’s deathbed moments too late. As a result, he found
106