British Gods: Religion in Modern Britain

by Steve Bruce

Overview

The big picture is well-known: over the last century, religion in Britain has lost power, popularity, and plausibility. Here, Steve Bruce charts the quantifiable changes in religious interest and observance over the last fifty years by returning to a number of towns and villages that were the subject of detailed community studies in the 1950s and 1960s, to see how the status and nature of religion has changed. Drawing on both detailed data on baptism rates, church weddings, church attendance and the like, and on his extensive fieldwork, he considers the broader picture of religion today: the status of the clergy, the churches' attempts to find new roles, links between religion and violence, and the impact of the charismatic movement. Along the way, Bruce encounters and engages with the contemporary rise of secularism, considering our everyday secular tensions with religion: arguments over moral issues such as abortion and gay rights, the effect of social class on belief, the impact of religion on British politics, and the ways that local social structures strengthen or weaken religion. Analysing the obstacles to any religious revival, he explores how the current stock of religious knowledge is so depleted, religion so unpopular, and committed believers so scarce that any significant reversal of religion's decline in Britain is unlikely.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192595959
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	08/28/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	916 KB

About the Author

Steve Bruce has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen since 1991. An internationally-known expert on religion and politics, he is a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Previous Oxford University Press publications include: Secular Beats Spiritual: the Westernization of the Easternization of the West (2017); Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory (2013); and Sociology: A Very Short Introduction (2000). His book Scottish Gods: Religion in Modern Scotland 1900-2012 (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), won the Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year Award, 2014.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. The Big House: Elite Patronage of Religion
2. Ties That Bind: Community Cohesion in Scotland and Wales
3. Social Roles of the Clergy: Cumbria and Devon
4. Old Rivals Merge; New Divisions Emerge
5. Modernising the Faith: the Charismatic Movement
6. Migrant Christians and Pentecostalism in London
7. Worktown and Muslims
8. Gods of the Common People: Folk Religion and Superstition
9. Spiritualism, Spirituality, and Social Class
10. Religion and Politics
11. Can the Decline be Reversed?

Editorial Reviews

"In the course of a long and distinguished career, Bruce has carved out a place for himself as the doyen of secularisation theorists" — Linda Woodhead, Modern Believing

"An important study of the ubiquitous and continuing dynamic of secularization in liberal democracies like Britain and the UK." — J.H. Rubin, CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8

"British Gods is therefore a book particularly suited for nonspecialist readers who want to approach the specific position of a renowned academic on a never-ending subject of debate as well as a pleasant rereading of an equally renowned thesis, rooted in a diverse array of sources and middle-ranging case studies." — Ilaria Biano , Reading Religion

"Steve Bruce is one of Britain's best-known sociologists of religion...this is probably a book that anyone interested in religion in Britain (or the Western world more broadly) would really benefit from reading-students and established scholars alike. Those of us who study new religions can sometimes forget how small and uninfluential such groups typically are in the grand scheme of things. A book like British Gods serves as an important corrective to such attitudes." — Ethan Doyle White, Nova Religio

"British Gods has considerable value as an update on community studies which for long were staples of sociology courses and, as always, for the clarity and consistency of Steve Bruce's arguments." — Bernice Martin, The Times Literary Supplement

"British Gods is written with Bruce's characteristic verve, lucidity, logic, and wit, and in an accessible style, minimizing the use of sociological and other technical jargon." — Clive Field, Ecclesiology

"For those desiring a well-rounded, three-dimensional statement of both the argument and the evidence for [secularisation], British Gods is the new go-to." — Stephen Bullivant, The Tablet

"[ British Gods ] does have lessons to teach us. Members of the Church of England concerned with evangelism and church growth would do well to read it." — Paul Richardson, Church of England Newspaper

"British Gods provides a lively addition to the scholarship." — Laura Ramsay, Journal Of Ecclesiastical History

From the Publisher