Table Of ContentSECULARIZATION IN THE LONG 1960s
Secularization in
the Long 1960s
Numerating Religion in Britain
CLIVE D. FIELD
1
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,4/1/2017,SPi
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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
