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.

As 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

‘Although decline is undeniable, the story is not entirely negative. For a start, although fewer people now attend church, those who do tend to be more committed and less nominal.’

a sea change. Religious illiteracy is rife, and there is little understanding of the Christian faith (or any other faith), let alone the Church. If Christianity is simply all about being nice (as many assume), why bother properly learning about it? Even by 2010, less than 4% of Christmas cards had a nativity scene, or any reference to the Bible: and the once popular Songs of Praise has been relegated to an early afternoon slot. As ministers conducting weddings and funerals soon discover, very few hymns are now well-known; and the prevailing mood is one of indifference more than outright hostility, not least among ‘the new university-educated professionals who work for the state in education, in welfare, in health and in government, who tend to be self-consciously irreligious’. Perhaps this partly explains why the influence of the Christian Church in particular, and religion in general, has largely disappeared. Few children now attend Sunday School; and in many actual schools religious education really means philosophy and ethics, while collective worship does little to reflect the fact that religious traditions in the country are in the main Christian. Even in Oxbridge, college chapels attendance has dropped noticeably since I was an undergraduate (or perhaps that is just when I am the preacher!). If you visit some towns, such as Glastonbury, you might be forgiven for supposing that New Age spirituality has taken over where the Church has left off. Certainly, this syncretistic pick-‘n’-mix exploration of the supernatural with its evident appeal to post-modern consumerism has seen considerable growth in recent decades. It is all about personal experience and my truth – but its popularity and spread doesn’t begin to compensate for the decline of rather more mainstream religion. What is more, a combination of growing religious diversity and declining internal community cohesion contribute to that decline. In essence, we have not been passing on the faith either to our children or our neighbours in such a way (or in sufficient numbers) as to counteract ever- diminishing returns. According to Bruce, who does not himself profess any particular religious belief, even the Church itself has ‘shifted in a secular direction, increasingly concerned not with pleasing God but with therapeutic improvement in the lives of believers.’ All of which is perhaps summed up by changes to the Girl Guide promise: from ‘loving God’ to ‘doing my best and being true to myself and my beliefs’. However, although decline is undeniable, the story is not entirely negative. For a start, although fewer people now attend church, those who do tend to be more committed and less nominal. On top of that, there has been a remarkable growth in so-called Fresh Expressions of Church, which now involve about 3,000 people just in Cumbria where I live and that focus on ‘going to where people are rather than waiting for them to come to us’. And there have been various ecumenical developments, not least here, which have been motivated by theology as well as pragmatism. The Church of England is still the established Church of this country, and each day in the House of Lords we begin with prayers. What’s more, the crucial work of Chaplains, especially in hospitals, prisons and the Forces, has come to the fore during this year of pandemic; and attendance at cathedrals has increased as more and more people long for aesthetic beauty and spiritual transcendence. Not to mention the extraordinary growth of Christianity in other countries, including China, South Korea, and parts of Africa. I would also hesitate to call our society ‘Godless’, which might seem to imply (though that wasn’t, of course, Joe Mullins’ intention) the absence of God. God is interested in and involved with everything he has made, which includes all of us, and goes on believing in us even when we cease to believe in Him or Her. This means that there is no clear distinction between sacred and secular, and God continues to create and redeem regardless. Since Christians believe that God is love, it also means that wherever love is, God is at work; and we have seen plenty of evidence of that work during the pandemic with examples ranging from foodbanks to telephone calls. In addition, as Tom Holland has pointed out in his recent book, Dominion, our values as a society are still firmly rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Clergy are, on the whole, regarded as non-partisan brokers in and for local communities, and faith groups continue to respond well to particular crises (including, in our case, foot-and-mouth disease, floods, the Cumbria shootings of 2010, as well as Covid 19). God is by no means absent. So, despite the argument that many people nowadays believe without belonging, I conclude that we are indeed living in an increasingly secular society here in the West; but that it is not entirely godless; nor will it ever be.