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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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
The Death of Christian Britain examines how the nation’s dominant religious culture has been destroyed. Callum Brown challenges the generally held view that secularization was a long and gradual process dating from the industrial revolution. Instead, he argues that it has been a catastrophic and abrupt cultural revolution starting in the 1960s. Using the latest techniques of gender analysis, and by listening to people's voices rather than purely counting heads, the book offers new formulations of religion and secularization.
In this expanded second edition, Brown responds to commentary on his ideas, reviews the latest research, and provides new evidence to back his claims.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book as its a requirement for my Open Uni course AA307 Religion and History (should be called History of Christianity in Europe).
Im on the first 30-40 pages and it seems to be slightly dragging and boring at times although it is a well researched work. Worth a read for people interested in secularization theory and its application to Britian
Im on the first 30-40 pages and it seems to be slightly dragging and boring at times although it is a well researched work. Worth a read for people interested in secularization theory and its application to Britian
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
great book
well written book, gave good information to help with my studies in my last year at university, to help me with my grade at History.
Published 11 months ago by spike
Death of Christian Britain
An interesting book but I found first several chapters rather boring and the whole analysis quite narrow in being concerned only with evangelical Christianity and therefore with... Read more
Published 20 months ago by A. K. Whitehead
Death of Christian Britain
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... Read more
Published on 3 May 2003 by Casper Denck
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