History of Christianity in Britain
The history of Christianity in Britain covers the religious organisations, policies, theology and popular religiosity since ancient history.
The
Following the Reformation, adherence to the Catholic Church continued at various levels in different parts of Britain, especially among
Roman Britain
People in
England
Celts
The late
Anglo-Saxons
In comparison to its uninterrupted continuity in the culturally
Normans
Christianity in post-conquest England was generally separatist in character, with the right to appoint bishops belonging to the king despite papal objections.[19]
By the 11th century, the
Even before the Conquest,
English Reformation
For the next 150 years, religious policy varied with the ruler:
1689–1945
The religious settlement of 1689 shaped policy down to the 1830s.[24][25] The Church of England was not only dominant in religious affairs, but it blocked outsiders from responsible positions in national and local government, business, professions and academia. In practice, the doctrine of the divine right of kings persisted,[26] old animosities had diminished, and a new spirit of toleration was abroad. Restrictions on Nonconformists were mostly either ignored or slowly lifted. The Protestants, including the Quakers, who worked to overthrow King James II were rewarded. Toleration Act 1688 allowed Nonconformists who have their own chapels, teachers and preachers, and censorship was relaxed.[27]
Anti-Catholicism
Harsh penalties on Catholicism remained until the threat of a French restoration of the Catholic Stuart kings ended, but they were seldom enforced, and afterwards were slowly lifted until
The Evangelical Revival
The
The Church of England remained dominant, but it had a growing evangelical, revivalist faction: the "Low Church". Its leaders included William Wilberforce and Hannah More. It reached the upper class through the Clapham Sect. It did not seek political reform, but rather the opportunity to save souls through political action by freeing slaves, abolishing the duel, prohibiting cruelty to children and animals, stopping gambling, and avoiding frivolity on the Sabbath. They read the Bible every day. All souls were equal in God's view, but not all bodies, so evangelicals did not challenge the hierarchical structure of English society.[32]
Census of 1851
As part of
Missionary activity
During the 18th century heyday of the First British Empire, Anglican and Methodist missionaries were active in the 13 American Colonies. The Methodists, led by George Whitefield, were the most successful and after the revolution and entirely distinct American Methodist denomination emerged that became the largest Protestant denomination in the new United States.[35] A major problem for colonial officials was the demand of the Church of England to set up an American bishop; this was strongly opposed by most of the Americans and never happened. Increasingly colonial officials took a neutral position on religious matters, even in those colonies such as Virginia where the Church of England was officially established, but in practice controlled by laymen in the local vestries. After the Americans broke free, British officials decided to enhance the power and wealth of the Church of England in all the settler colonies, especially British North America (Canada).[36]
During the
All the main denominations were involved in 19th-century missions, including the Church of England, the Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Nonconformists. Much of the enthusiasm emerged from the Evangelical revival. Within the Church of England, the Church Mission Society (CMS) originated in 1799[37] and went on to undertake activity all around the world, including in what became known as "the Middle East".[38][39]
Missionary societies funded their own operations that were not supervised or directed by the Colonial Office. Tensions emerged between the missionaries and the colonial officials. The latter feared that missionaries might stir up trouble or encourage the natives to challenge colonial authority. In general, colonial officials were much more comfortable with working with the established local leadership, including the native religions, rather than introducing the divisive force of Christianity. This proved especially troublesome in India, where very few local elites were attracted to Christianity. In Africa, especially, the missionaries made many converts. By the 21st century there were more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England, and they were culturally and theologically much more conservative.[40][41]
Missionaries increasingly came to focus on education, medical help, and long-term modernisation of the native personality to inculcate European middle-class values. They established schools and medical clinics. Christian missionaries played a public role, especially in promoting sanitation and public health. Many were trained as physicians, or took special courses in public health and tropical medicine at Livingstone College, London.[42]
1900–1945
In the 20th century, the
A curious case was
Although the overall population was growing steadily, and the Catholic membership was keeping pace, the Protestants were slipping behind. Out of 30-50 million adults, they dropped slowly from 5.7 million members in 1920, and 5.4 million in 1940, to 4.3 million in 1970.
In the generation that has passed since the great Liberal landslide of 1906, one of the greatest changes in the English religious and social landscape has been the decline of Nonconformity. Partly that decline has been due to the general weakening of the hold of Christianity on the English people, partly it has been due to the comparative irrelevance of the peculiarly Nonconformist (as a part from Christian) view of the contemporary world and its problems.[51]
One aspect of the long-term decline in religiosity was that Protestants showed increasingly less interest in sending their children to faith schools. In localities across England, fierce battles were fought between the Nonconformists, Anglicans, and Catholics, each with their own school systems supported by taxes, and secular schools, and taxpayers. The Nonconformists had long taken the lead in fighting the Anglicans, who a century before had practically monopolised education. The Anglican share of the elementary school population fell from 57 per cent in 1918 to 39 per cent in 1939.[52] With the sustained decline in Nonconformist enthusiasm their schools closed one after another. In 1902, the Methodist Churches operated 738 schools; only 28 remained in 1996.[53]
Britain continued to think of itself as a Christian country; there were a few atheists or nonbelievers, and unlike the continent, there was no anti-clericalism worthy of note. A third or more prayed every day. Large majorities used formal Church services to mark birth, marriage and death.[46]: 280–90 The great majority believed in God and heaven, although belief in hell fell off after all the deaths of the World War.[54] After 1918, Church of England services stopped practically all discussion of hell.[55]
As anti-Catholicism declined sharply after 1910, the Catholic Church grew in numbers, grew rapidly in terms of priests and sisters, and expanded their parishes from intercity industrial areas to more suburban locales. Although underrepresented in the higher levels of the social structure, apart from a few old aristocratic Catholic families, Catholic talent was emerging in journalism and diplomacy. A striking development was the surge in highly publicised conversion of intellectuals and writers including most famously G. K. Chesterton, as well as Christopher Dawson, Maurice Baring, Ronald Knox, Sheila Kaye-Smith, William E. Orchard, Alfred Noyes, Rosalind Murray, Arnold Lunn, Eric Gill, David Jones, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Manya Harari, and Frank Pakenham.[56]
Since 1945
Present debates concern the ordination of women and the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and clergy. The established church continues to count many more baptised members, although immigration from other countries means that the restored Catholic Church in England and Wales now has greater attendance at its weekly services.[57][58]
Whilst identifying significant decline in statistical data of church attendance from the 1950s onwards, Paul Backholer, author of Britain, A Christian Country, found notable exceptions to the decline, which includes the up to two million people who attended Billy Graham's United Kingdom campaigns from 1954-55. With Wembley Stadium filled to overflowing with 120,000 people, Graham's meeting on Sunday 23 May 1954 was called, "Britain's biggest religious meeting of all time."[59] Subsequent renewal movements include the Pentecostal movement, the Charismatic Renewal and more recently, rapid growth in ethnic minority churches. Whilst church attendance continues to decline, he concludes Britain remains, "Historically and culturally Christian in nature," something he notes is recognised by significant leaders of minority faiths in Britain, as an expression of tolerance.[60]
Roman Catholics
English Catholicism continued to grow throughout the first two thirds of the 20th century, when it was associated primarily with elements in the English intellectual class and the ethnic Irish population. Rates of attending Mass remained very high in stark contrast with the Anglican church and Nonconformist Protestant churches.[61] Clergy numbers, which began the 20th century at under 3,000, reached a high of 7,500 in 1971.[62]
By the latter years of the 20th century low numbers of vocations also affected the church[63] with ordinations to the priesthood dropping from the hundreds in the late 20th century into the teens in 2006–2011; 20 men were ordained to the diocesan priesthood in 2011 and 31 in 2012.[64]
The upward social movement of Irish Catholics out of the working-class into the middle-class suburban mainstream often meant their assimilation with broader, secular English society and loss of a separate Catholic identity. The
Scotland
Early history
Scottish Reformation
During the 16th century, Scotland underwent a
Knox, having escaped the galleys and spent time in Geneva as a follower of Calvin, emerged as the most significant figure of the period. The Calvinism of the reformers led by Knox resulted in a settlement that adopted a (partial) Presbyterian polity and rejected most of the elaborate trappings of the medieval Church. The reformed Kirk gave considerable power to local lairds, who often had control over the appointment of the clergy. There were widespread, but generally orderly outbreaks of iconoclasm. At this point the majority of the population was probably still Catholic in persuasion and the Kirk found it difficult to penetrate the Highlands and Islands, but began a gradual process of conversion and consolidation that, compared with reformations elsewhere, was conducted with relatively little persecution.[70]: 121–33
In the 1690s the Presbyterian establishment purged the land of
18th Century
The early 18th century saw the beginnings of a fragmentation of the
Long after the triumph of the Church of Scotland in the Lowlands, Highlanders and Islanders clung to an old-fashioned Christianity infused with
19th century
After prolonged years of struggle, in 1834 the Evangelicals gained control of the General Assembly and passed the Veto Act, which allowed congregations to reject unwanted "intrusive" presentations to livings by patrons. The following "Ten Years' Conflict" of legal and political wrangling ended in defeat for the non-intrusionists in the civil courts. The result was a schism from the church by some of the non-intrusionists led by Dr Thomas Chalmers known as the Great Disruption of 1843. Roughly a third of the clergy, mainly from the North and Highlands, formed the separate Free Church of Scotland. The evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly in the Highlands and Islands, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.[75] Chalmers's ideas shaped the breakaway group. He stressed a social vision that revived and preserved Scotland's communal traditions at a time of strain on the social fabric of the country. Chalmers's idealised small equalitarian, kirk-based, self-contained communities that recognised the individuality of their members and the need for cooperation.[76] That vision also affected the mainstream Presbyterian churches, and by the 1870s it had been assimilated by the established Church of Scotland. Chalmers's ideals demonstrated that the Church was concerned with the problems of urban society, and they represented a real attempt to overcome the social fragmentation that took place in industrial towns and cities.[77]
In the late 19th century the major debates were between fundamentalist Calvinists and theological liberals, who rejected a literal interpretation of the Bible. This resulted in a further split in the Free Church as the rigid Calvinists broke away to form the
20th and 21st centuries
In the 20th century existing Christian denominations were joined by other organisations, including the
Wales
Early history
Welsh Reformation
Bishop
Nonconformity
Nonconformity was a significant influence in Wales from the 18th to the 20th centuries. The
The Welsh Methodist revival also had an influence on the older Nonconformist churches, or
The 1904–1905 Welsh revival was the largest full scale Christian revival of Wales of the 20th century. It is believed that at least 100,000 people became Christians during the 1904–1905 revival, but despite this it did not put a stop to the gradual decline of Christianity in Wales, only holding it back slightly.
Secularisation
Historians agree that in the late 1940s Britain was a predominantly Christian nation, with its religiosity reinforced by the wartime experience. Peter Forster found that in answering pollsters the English reported an overwhelming belief in the truth of Christianity, a high respect for it, and a strong association between it and moral behaviour.[84] Peter Hennessy argued that long-held attitudes did not stop change; by midcentury: "Britain was still a Christian country only in a vague attitudinal sense, belief generally being more a residual husk than the kernel of conviction."[85] Kenneth O. Morgan agreed, noting that: "the Protestant churches. Anglican, and more especially non-conformist, all felt the pressure of falling numbers and of secular challenges....Even the drab Sabbath of Wales and Scotland was under some threat, with pressure for opening cinemas in Wales and golf-courses in Scotland."[86]
Harrison reports that the forces of
By every measure (number of churches, number of parish clergy, church attendance, Easter Day communicants, number of church marriages, membership as a proportion of the adult population) the Church of England was in decline after 1970. In 1985 there were only half as many parish clergy as in 1900.[87] Also, while in the 2001 census still 72 per cent of British population identified as Christians, in 2011 only 59 per cent did so.[88][89]
According to the 2018 British Social Attitudes Survey, which asks "Do you have a religion, and if so what is it?", Britain was majority irreligious.[90] The 2021 United Kingdom census, which asks "What is your religion?", recorded lower numbers than the BSA for the non-religious, but also that Christianity had slipped below half the population.
See also
- Religion in the United Kingdom
- Freedom of religion in the United Kingdom
- Religion in England, Scotland, & Wales
- Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom
- Catholic Church in the United Kingdom
- Catholic schools in the United Kingdom
- Christianity in Cornwall
- Disestablishmentarianism
- English Covenant
- History of Christianity in Sussex
- Irreligion in the United Kingdom
Notes
- ^ First attested in William of Malmesbury's On the Antiquity of the Glastonbury Church, which was written during the 1130s, although the passages dealing with Joseph seem to be later additions to the text.[11]
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- ^ As permitted by William of Malmesbury.[9]
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- ^ Chadwick, Owen (1966). The Victorian Church, Part One: 1829-1859. pp. 363–69.
- ^ Mann, Horace (1854). Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship in England and Wales. Ge. Routledge. p. 87.
- ^ Noll, Mark A. (2010). The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys.
- ^ Porter, Andrew (1999). "Religion, Missionary Enthusiasm, and Empire". In Porter, Andrew (ed.). Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. 3. pp. 223–24.
- ^ Ward, Kevin (2006). A History of Global Anglicanism. Cambridge University Press. p. 34.
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- ^ Etherington, Norman, ed. (2008). Missions and Empire. Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Porter, Andrew (1999). "Religion, Missionary Enthusiasm, and Empire". In Porter, Andrew (ed.). Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. 3.
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- ^ Adrian Hastings, A History of English Christianity: 1920-1985 (1986) pp 60-63
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- ^ Sidney Dark, Archbishop Davidson and the English Church (1929) pp 214-20.
- ^ a b c d Ross McKibben, Classes and Cultures: England 1918-1951 (1998)
- ^ David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (2005). p 214.
- JSTOR 1849549.
- ^ Vickers, John A. (ed.). "Methodist Union". DMBI: A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
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- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. Statistics are for "full members of certain churches in England and Wales." The 1929 edition records 2,294,000 Anglicans, 1,939,700 other Protestants (Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, etc.), 1,930,000 Catholics, and "about 300,000" Jews. The 1953 edition records 3,186,093 Anglicans, 2,528,200 Catholics, 1,709,245 other Protestants, and "about 400,000" Jews.
- ^ See statistics
- ^ Duffy, Eamon (11 September 2010). "Pope visit: A visit that reflects our changing times". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 14 September 2010.
- ^ "Ordinations in England and Wales: an apology". Catholic Voices Comment. 30 April 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
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- ^ Pepinster, Catherine (18 March 2006). "Britain's Top 100 Lay Catholics". The Tablet. pp. 25–32.
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- ^ "Red-Capet Catholic" The Tablet 28 February 2009, 18
- ^ Dawson, J. E. A. (2007). Scotland Re-Formed, 1488-1587. Edinburgh University Press.
- ^ a b c Wormald, Jenny (1991). Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 102–4.
- ^ Graham, M. F. (2000). "Scotland". In Pettegree, A. (ed.). The Reformation World. Routledge. p. 414.
- ^ Divine, T.M.(1999). The Scottish Nation.
- ^ ABC-CLIO. pp. 416–7.
- ^ a b c Ditchfield, G. M. (1998). The Evangelical Revival. p. 91.
- ^ .
- ^ Stewart, J. Brown (1982). Thomas Chalmers and the godly Commonwealth in Scotland.
- ^ Mechie, S. (1960). The Church and Scottish social development, 1780–1870.
- ^ "Kirk rejects move to form 'super Church'". The Scotsman. 20 May 2003. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
- ^ "Analysis of Religion in the 2001 Census", The Scottish Government, 17 May 2006, archived from the original on 7 June 2011
- ^ "Religious Populations", Office for National Statistics, 11 October 2004, archived from the original on 4 June 2011
- British Humanist Association, 24 June 2004, archived from the originalon 6 August 2011
- ^ Morgan, D. Densil (2009). "Calvinism in Wales: c.1590-1909". Welsh Journal of Religious History. 4: 22–36.
- ^ Vickers, John A. (ed.). "Welsh Calvinistic Methodism (or Presbyterian Church of Wales)". dmbi.online. DMBI: A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
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- ^ Hennessy, Peter (1993). Never Again: Britain in 1945–1951. p. 436.
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Further reading
- Bebbington, David W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (Routledge, 2003)
- Brown, Callum G. The death of Christian Britain: understanding secularisation (2nd ed. 2009) excerpt
- Brown, Callum G. "Secularization, the Growth of Militancy and the Spiritual Revolution: Religious Change and Gender Power in Britain, 1901–2001" Historical Research 80#209 (2007), pp. 393–418.
- Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church: Vol 1 1829-1859 (1966); Victorian Church: Part two 1860-1901 (1979); a major scholarly survey
- Cox, Jeffrey. The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (2008).
- Davie, Grace. Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without belonging (Blackwell, 1994)
- Davies, Rupert E. et al. A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (3 vol. Wipf & Stock, 2017). online
- Gilley, Sheridan, and W. J. Sheils. A History of Religion in Britain: Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to the Present (1994) 608pp excerpt and text search
- Hastings, Adrian. A History of English Christianity: 1920-1985 (1986) 720pp a major scholarly survey
- Morris, Jeremy. '"Secularization and Religious Experience: Arguments in the Historiography of Modern British Religion" Historical Journal 55#1 (2012), 195–219, online
- Obelkevich, J. Religion and Rural Society (Oxford University Press, 1976)
- Shaw, Duncan, edt al. "What is Religious History?" History Today (1985) 35#8 online, commentary by 8 scholars
- Soloway, Richard Allen. “Church and Society: Recent Trends in Nineteenth Century Religious History.” Journal of British Studies 11.2 1972, pp. 142–159. online
England and Church of England
- Gilbert, Alan. Religion and Society in Industrial England. Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740 – 1914 (Longman, 1976).
- Glasson, Travis. Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World (2011).
- Hastings, Adrian. A history of English Christianity, 1920-1985 (HarperCollins, 1986).
- Hylson-Smith, Kenneth. The churches in England from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II (1996).
- Marshall, Peter. "(Re)defining the English Reformation," Journal of British Studies, July 2009, Vol. 48#3 pp 564–586
- Martin, Mary Clare. "Church, school and locality: Revisiting the historiography of 'state' and 'religious' educational infrastructures in England and Wales, 1780–1870." Paedagogica Historica 49.1 (2013): 70-81.
- Thomas, Keith. Religion and the decline of magic: studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England (1991) highly influential study of popular religious behaviour and beliefs
Scotland and Presbyterianism
- Brown, Callum G. The social history of religion in Scotland since 1730 (Methuen, 1987)
- Brown, S. J., "Religion and society to c. 1900", in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford University Press, 2012)
- Henderson, G. D. Religious Life in Seventeenth-Century Scotland (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
- Piggott, Charles A. "A geography of religion in Scotland." The Scottish Geographical Magazine 96.3 (1980): 130-140.
Wales
- Chambers, Paul, and Andrew Thompson. "Coming to terms with the past: religion and identity in Wales." Social compass 52.3 (2005): 337-352.
- Davies, Ebnezer Thomas. Religion in the Industrial Revolution of South Wales (U. of Wales Press, 1965)
- Jenkins, Geraint H. Literature, religion and society in Wales, 1660-1730 (University of Wales Press, 1978)
- Morgan, Derec Llwyd. The Great Awakening in Wales (Epworth Press, 1988)
- Walker, R. B. "The Growth of Wesleyan Methodism in Victorian England and Wales." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 24.03 (1973): 267-284.
- Williams, Glanmor. History of Wales, Vol. 3: Recovery, Reorientation & Reformation: Wales, c. 1415-1642 (1987) 528p.
- Williams, Glanmor. The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (University of Wales Press, 1976)
- Williams, Glanmor. The Welsh Church from Reformation to Disestablishment: 1603-1920 (University of Wales Press, 2007)
- Williams, Glanmor, ed. Welsh reformation essays (University of Wales Press, 1967)
- Yalden, Peter. "Association, Community and the Origins of Secularisation: English and Welsh Nonconformity, c. 1850–1930." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55.02 (2004): 293-324.