Secularization in the Long 1960s: Numerating religion in Britain PDF
Preview Secularization in the Long 1960s: Numerating religion in Britain
SECULARIZATION IN THE LONG 1960s Secularization in the Long 1960s Numerating Religion in Britain CLIVE D. FIELD 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,4/1/2017,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©CliveD.Field2017 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2017 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicence,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016954553 ISBN 978–0–19–879947–4 PrintedinGreatBritainby ClaysLtd,StIvesplc LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. Preface The long 1960s have become increasingly central to charting and explaining the religious transformations experienced in the West during the past half- century,including,notjustinGreatBritain,butacrosslargetractsofcontinental Europe,as well as NorthAmerica andAustralasia. Tomany contemporaries, thisextendeddecadeappearedofseismicimportanceintheimmediacyofits perceived impact on the social role of religion and the fortunes of religious organizations. Viewed retrospectively, and with the benefit of hindsight, few scholarswouldstilldenythis wasareligiouslysignificant period,particularly as regards the waning institutional and cultural influence of Christianity, a process which has been variously described as secularization, dechristianiza- tion,ortheendofChristendom.Butthereislessconsensusabouttheorigins, magnitude, and legacy of these religious changes and therefore about the extentto whichthere was,as Callum Brownhas argued,a‘religious crisis’ of truly ‘revolutionary’ proportions in the 1960s, marking it out as a critical turning-pointinthehistoryofreligion. Inthisbook,usingBritainasacasestudy,wewilltakethespiritualpulseof that decade using a balanced portfolio of statistical measures embracing the fullspectrumofreligiousbelonging(Chapters2and3),behaving(Chapters4 and5),andbelieving(Chapters6and7),aswellasindicatorsofinstitutional Christianity (Chapter8). This is a much broader quantitative evidence base than is conventionally drawn upon, which has often been limited to church membership and attendance. Wherever possible, the data cover the years 1955–80, in order to ensure that the 1960s are appropriately contextualized in terms of what happened just before and afterwards, and to allow for differing interpretations of when the 1960s actually began and ended. Atten- tion is especially concentrated on developments at the national level, both Britain and its constituent home nations of England, Wales, and Scotland; although regional and local examples are frequently cited, for illustrative purposes, no claim is made for comprehensive treatment of the subnational scene. The sources used are introduced in Chapter1, alongside the religious historiography of the 1960s and an explanation of chronological and other parameters. The outcome of the research, in the form of a religious balance-sheet of the 1960s(Chapter9),suggestsamuchmorenuancedpicturethanisofferedbysome historians and sociologists, notably Callum Brown. It comprises elements of continuity with preceding eras, some instances of more sudden change (asso- ciatedwith,butnotnecessarilyoccurringduring,the1960s,narrowlydefined), vi Preface andothercaseswherelarge-scalereligiousdeclinedidnottakeplaceuntillater. Whilestillidentifyingsomecomponentswhichmightbedescribedintermsof crisis,quantitativeindicatorsprovideacorrectivetothemoredramaticaccounts ofthe1960swhichareoftentobefoundincontemporarywritingandsubsequent memoirs and oral history. This conclusion is consistent with the gradualist secularization which is implicit in the author’s earlier micro-period studies of religionintwentieth-centuryBritain.1 August2016 1 All the following by C. D. Field: (1901–14): ‘“The Faith Society”? Quantifying Religious Belonging in Edwardian Britain, 1901–1914’, Journal of Religious History 37 (2013): 39–63; (1914–18):‘KeepingtheSpiritualHomeFiresBurning:ReligiousBelonginginBritainduringthe FirstWorldWar’,WarandSociety33(2014):244–68;(1918–39):‘GradualistorRevolutionary Secularization?ACaseStudyofReligiousBelonginginInter-WarBritain,1918–1939’,Church HistoryandReligiousCulture93(2013):57–93;(1939–45):‘PuzzledPeopleRevisited:Religious Believing and Belonging in Wartime Britain, 1939–45’, Twentieth Century British History 19 (2008): 446–79; (1945–63): Britain’s Last Religious Revival? Quantifying Belonging, Behaving, andBelievingintheLong1950s(Basingstoke:PalgraveMacmillan,2015). Acknowledgements This book has drawn to a considerable extent upon unpublished primary sources supplied to the author over several decades, especially by organiza- tions or individuals which conducted or commissioned fieldwork during the late1950s,1960s,1970s,andearly1980s.Theyarefartoonumeroustolistin full,but,withouttheirgenerosity,mostofthesesourceswouldnowbelostto scholarship since they are otherwise extremely poorly archived, many of the originals having been destroyed. Particular thanks are due to Bob Wybrow andGordonHeald,formerlyofGallup,thepollsterwhichwasmostactivein investigatingreligionfromthe1950stothe1990s.Specialtributemustalsobe paidtoTonySpencerwhohaskepttheflagofsocio-religiousresearchflyingin the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales since the 1950s, with minimal official assistance, and who has copied or lent sundry reports from the Pastoral Research Centre Trust’s Newman Collection, in the process of transfertoDurhamUniversity.Unlessaspecificrepository iscited,allmate- rialdesignatedas‘unpublished’inthefootnotesisheldbytheauthor. A small grant from the British Academy in the 1980s assisted with initial research into opinion polls on religion. Further sources were identified through the British Religion in Numbers project, which was supported for three years (2008–10) by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council and is now a British Academy ResearchProject.However,theresearchfor,andwritingof,thisbookitselfhas beenself-funded. Ben Clements of the University of Leicester kindly prepared customized analyses from many of the datasets at UKDA, which are referenced in this volume,andadditionallycommentedonfirstdraftsofthechapters. MywifeVerenahascontinuedtoprovideahighlysupportiveenvironment withinwhichtowork,notwithstandingthesignificanthealthchallengeswhich shefacedduringtheperiodwhenthisbookwaswritten. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,4/1/2017,SPi Contents ListofTables xi ListofAbbreviations xv CategorizationofSocialGrades xvii 1. Introduction 1 Historiography 1 Sources 8 Parameters 19 2. Belonging—AggregateMeasures 23 ReligiousProfession 23 Self-AssessedReligiosity 33 ReligiousMembership 37 SundaySchoolEnrolments 42 ReligiousCommunity 46 3. Belonging—DenominationsandFaiths 50 AnglicanChurches 50 RomanCatholicChurch 55 OrthodoxChurches 64 OtherChurches 64 Non-ChristianFaiths 76 OrganizedIrreligion 79 4. Behaving—Churchgoing 81 Introduction 81 NationalChurchData 82 LocalChurchCounts 90 NationalSampleSurveys 95 LocalSampleSurveys 102 5. Behaving—OtherPractices 105 RitesofPassage 105 ReligiousBroadcasting 115 OtherReligiousPractices 122 6. Believing—BeliefsandExperience 129 MeasuringReligiousBeliefs 129 BeliefinLifeForces 133 BeliefinLifeafterDeath 137 AlternativeBeliefs 141 ReligiousExperience 147
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