The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
The widespread penetration of the events into the print and broadcasting
media, and the demographic density of participation, could not have
happened if the discursive power of the evangelical narrative had been
seriously diminished. This was especially true of young women and girls
who made up nearly three-quarters of those who came forward. Their
discursive environment made them highly responsive to the Graham
crusades. Girls growing up in the fifties recall: ‘Christmas is cribs and paintings
of baby Jesus all over the school corridors and the inevitable daily
prayers with “Onward Christian soldiers”.’ 19 Not believing in God was
unpopular: a girl who proclaimed her unbelief in the school playground
recalled being taunted and called ‘a heathen’ by her classmates. 20 More
broadly, discourses on sexual morality were the commonest currency of
community policing and wounded the young. John Lennon’s mother ‘lived
in sin’, making him the object of persistent jibes and moralistic name-calling
(contributing, some have said, to his defensive and caustic personality),
whilst Carolyn Steedman’s mother hid her unmarried state and prevented
her daughter from proceeding from Sunday school to confirmation class
because of the absence of a baptismal certificate. 21
The ‘official’ culture of the decade has been described by one writer as
a ‘psychic dam’ 22 imposed by a stolid establishment through the Lord
Chamberlain’s censorship of the theatre, the courts’ censorship of literature,
and the Reithian ethos of intellectual elitism in radio and the new
medium of television. It was the generation of ‘conservative and respectable
ordinariness’: ‘The ordinariness of manners, or please-and-thank-you’d
politeness, of being a nice girl, who went to the Brownies and Guides, and
for whom the competitions in the annual Produce Association show
provided one of the most exciting occasions of the year.’ 23 Suburban
ordinariness reached its apogee, enjoyed by older generations as the prize
for enduring two wars and a prolonged economic depression. The values
remained the same – order, duty, thrift and respectability – endured by the
young in Sunday school respectability, the Cubs’ ‘Bob-a-job-week’ and the
Brownies’ ‘Purpose Day’. 24 The 1950s sought to recreate in the young
not just these values but the evangelical state of anxiety about worthiness:
‘I see now,’ wrote Carolyn Steedman three decades later, ‘the relentless
laying down of guilt.’ 25
At the same time there was an alternative discursive world in the making
in the 1950s. It was being manufactured by a bohemian and ‘delinquent’
minority, based around Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll from 1956, and
skiffle music in 1958–60, and centred on underground cafes, town hall
dances and art colleges. 26 The musical idiom, rather than the lyrics, became
signature tunes or symbols of rebelliousness in dress (notably black leather),
sexual activity and illegal drugs. To be such a ‘rebel’ implied important
things about religion. Paul McCartney recalled: ‘It was during that time,
A-levels time, I remember thinking, in many ways I wish I was a lorry
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