A Secular and Godless World? Following last year’s letter from Joe Mullins (C1 1934-38), the Bishop of Carlisle, James Newcombe (Priory and TU 1966-71), wrote a response with his views on our current religious world.
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s well as Marlborough and ordination, Joe Mullins and I shared the same Oxford College of Trinity, albeit at slightly different times. So, I was fascinated by his recent comment about our ‘increasingly secular and godless world’. It has prompted me to reflect carefully on my own experience of 43 years of ordained ministry in the Church of England, and also to read a recent book by Steve Bruce, Professor of Sociology at Aberdeen University, entitled British Gods. He argues strongly that we have been witnessing a process of secularisation in this country (and most other liberal democratic societies, including the USA) over the last 150 years; and if that equates with a decline in churchgoing and religious involvement, certain things would appear to be indisputable.
One is that there has been a steady decline in numbers since 1851. Churchgoing, which used to be regarded as normal, is now quite rare; and whereas even in the 1960s about 70% of weddings in England were religious, now that figure is around 30%. The number of regular church attenders has roughly halved since 1951; 97% of 16-34 year olds do not attend; and, in Bruce’s words, ‘Christianity was once powerful, persuasive and popular. Now it is none of those things.’ For most 21st-century Britons, religion ‘is what other people do’. London has bucked that trend: but the recent growth of churchgoing in our capital has been largely due to migrants who have brought the religion of their homeland with them. Alongside this, the public perception of religion and its role in society has undergone
The Marlburian Club Magazine
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