The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
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— Postscript —<br />
an older concept <strong>of</strong> sociology, even civil religion) and in so doing, whilst the<br />
decline <strong>of</strong> conventional forms and measure <strong>of</strong> religion has to be acknowledged,<br />
there is a mutated vicarious religion surviving. 149<br />
This search for new models <strong>of</strong> religion is something that is strongest and<br />
most diverse amongst <strong>Christian</strong> scholars (both sociologists and historians).<br />
Many are adhering to the concept championed by Charles Taylor <strong>of</strong> the rise<br />
since 1945 <strong>of</strong> the popular and cultural search for religious ‘authenticity’, in<br />
which tradition and rules in <strong>Christian</strong>ity were interrogated (and in many<br />
cases bypassed) in a drive which amongst other things spawned new age<br />
spirituality both within and outwith the <strong>Christian</strong> churches. 150 In this, as<br />
Mathew Guest has started to explore, the congregation itself has heightened<br />
the drive for ‘authenticity’ – searching for new forms <strong>of</strong> meeting, ranging<br />
from small house churches to larger ‘mega-churches’ – in which the liturgy<br />
and experience resonated more with people than did tradition and older<br />
ritual; this may even signal at one extreme the formation <strong>of</strong> the temporary<br />
congregation in what is mostly a ‘churchless faith’. 151<br />
Some sociologists <strong>of</strong> religion, such as Steve Bruce, remain sceptical <strong>of</strong> such<br />
arguments. 152 And I do too. <strong>The</strong> extent and observable trajectory <strong>of</strong> de-<br />
<strong>Christian</strong>isation in British society since the 1960s needs, it seems to me, to be<br />
restated vigorously in the light <strong>of</strong> the most recent evidence. Churchgoers,<br />
church members and religious rites <strong>of</strong> passage have all continued to dive since<br />
2000, sustaining straight-line graph gradients <strong>of</strong> declension in formal<br />
<strong>Christian</strong> religion in <strong>Britain</strong>. A study in 1999–2000 examining the religious<br />
lives <strong>of</strong> three generations born in 1946, 1958 and 1970 showed a steep decline<br />
in observance; by the turn <strong>of</strong> the century, only 8 per cent <strong>of</strong> 42-year-olds<br />
attended church weekly, and 5 per cent <strong>of</strong> 30-year-olds, with more women<br />
than men attending. 153<br />
Finally, there is a moral dimension to <strong>Christian</strong> critiques <strong>of</strong> secularisation.<br />
Some have sensed from my book that I took it that the loss <strong>of</strong> <strong>Christian</strong><br />
culture in the 1960s introduced a moral vacuum, or as some would have it<br />
pejoratively as a ‘moral relativism’. Some commentators criticised me for not<br />
attempting to tot up the moral losses <strong>of</strong> de-<strong>Christian</strong>isation – alleged to<br />
include growing violence, crime, suspicion and selfishness; some accused me<br />
<strong>of</strong> succumbing to ‘the relativistic spirit <strong>of</strong> our age . . . evident in the conduct<br />
<strong>of</strong> Brown’s own argument’. 154 In this sense, some have falsely approved <strong>of</strong><br />
my thoughts, because I do not and did not subscribe to this ‘moral vacuum<br />
hypothesis’. In the first place, I have argued elsewhere that relativism is a<br />
moral good <strong>of</strong> enormous proportions – something to be gloried in, fought<br />
for and utilised by the historian, and something whose absence poses enormous<br />
dangers for democracy, reason and tolerance (including in the history<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession). 155 In the second place, even David Herbert, who otherwise has<br />
a very good and insightful understanding <strong>of</strong> how my work relates to that<br />
<strong>of</strong> others, has possibly misunderstood me on this issue. I do not see the<br />
1960s as undermining morality or moral narratives in British or European<br />
231