The Passing of Protestant England
Secularisation and Social Change, c.1920–1960

An important account of the causes, courses and consequences of the secularisation of modern English society.

S. J. D. Green (Author)

9781107407657, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 September 2012

342 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

'Green weaves a fascinating narrative, bolstering his brief with a staggering number of telling case-studies, in the later years including Seebohm Rowntree's English Life and Leisure (1951), the 1944 Education Act, the debates of the fifties and early sixties, the changing role of women, sociological models, and 'contemporary visions of revival [that] proved to be brief delusions' … This is a rich, scholarly book, incorporating a lifetime's work.' The Australian Journal of Politics and History

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Christianity [HRC], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], British & Irish history [HBJD1]