The Passing of Protestant England
The Passing of Protestant England
In this book S. J. D. Green offers an important account of the causes, courses and consequences of the secularisation of English society. He argues that the critical cultural transformation of modern English society was forged in the agonised abandonment of a long-domesticated Protestant, Christian tradition between 1920 and 1960. Its effects were felt across the nation and among all classes. Yet their significance in the evolution of contemporary indigenous identities remains curiously neglected in most mainstream accounts of post-Victorian Britain. Dr Green traces the decline of English ecclesiastical institutions after 1918. He also investigates the eclipse of once-common moral sensibilities during the years up to 1945. Finally, he examines why subsequent efforts to reverse these trends so comprehensively failed. His work will be of enduring interest to modern historians, sociologists of religion, and all those concerned with the future of faith in Britain and beyond.
- Up-to-date, wide-reaching and readable analysis of the process and impact of secularisation
- Multidisciplinary approach, linking historical and sociological perspectives
- Highly relevant to contemporary arguments about faith and society in Britain
Reviews & endorsements
"Highly recommended." -Choice
"This is an important study of the interplay of Protestantism and society in mid-twentieth-century England. It offers the reader a well-researched and deeply analytical look at how the English became a secular people and how pleasure and self-gratification replaced spirituality. Many may question where English society is headed in the future, but this book will give them a fine view of how the English got to where they are." -Michael McCabe (Washington University in St. Louis), Journal of Church and State
"His book will prove a starting point for understanding religion in Britain over the past fifty years." -TLS
"an immensely sophisticated and rich contribution to the scholarship." - Jeremy Morris, Historical Journal
"Green has produced a rich and detailed work, which, in the sum of its parts, adds significantly to the historiography of secularization. This is a book that shows the importance of the political in shaping and effecting religious change and that the religious changes that occurred across the twentieth century avoid easy explanation." -Stephen G. Parker, Journal of British Studies
Product details
September 2012Paperback
9781107407657
342 pages
229 × 152 × 18 mm
0.46kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Part I. Outline of the Problem:
- 1. Towards a social history of religion in modern Britain: secularisation theory, religious change and the fate of Protestant England
- 2. Religion in the twilight zone: a narrative of religious decline and religious change in Britain, c.1920–60
- Part II. Disclosures of Decline:
- 3. The 'soul of England' in an 'age of disintegration': Dean Inge and the 'trial of the churches' in the wake of World War I
- 4. The strange death of Puritan England
- 5. Social science and the discovery of a post-Protestant people: Rowntree's surveys of York and their other legacy
- Part III. Resistance, Revival and Resignation:
- 6. The 1944 Education Act: a church-state perspective
- 7. Was there an English religious revival in the 1950s?
- 8. Slouching towards a secular society: expert analysis and lay opinion in the early 1960s
- Conclusion: the passing of Protestant England.
