Premium
“Britain's Spiritual Life: How Can It Be Deepened?”: Seebohm Rowntree, Russell Lavers, and the “Crisis of Belief”, ca. 1946–54
Author(s) -
FREEMAN MARK
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2005.00259.x
Subject(s) - secularization , character (mathematics) , civilization , context (archaeology) , religious belief , period (music) , communism , religious studies , social life , christianity , sociology , economic history , history , political science , law , social science , politics , philosophy , epistemology , geometry , mathematics , archaeology , aesthetics
This article examines the response of two social investigators in the early post‐World War II period to the apparent secularization of British society. It explains how an unpublished survey that the two men carried out, along with the work of other Christian and non‐Christian commentators in this period, expressed the hope that religious influences would be strengthened through secular institutions, including communal organizations, workplaces, and the military. A revival of Christian belief, in some form, was seen as a bulwark against communism in the context of the Cold War in which the Soviet regime was seen to present a threat to the “Christian civilization” of the West. The “spiritual life of the nation” was synonymous with the “national character,” and for the information and opinion on which their study was based, Seebohm Rowntree and Russell Lavers turned to those who they believed were in a position to influence the “national character.”