The current issue of the Journal of British Studies focuses on religion in Britain, “from the medieval to the modern periods.” The topic seems very timely and relevant to contemporary political and social issues. Unfotunately the editor notes that they did not receive submissions on Islam or Muslims in time for inclusion in this issue, but several articles on Islam are promised for a future issue.

In the editor’s introduction, Anna Clark mentions Callum Brown’s Death of Christian Britain. When I read this book a few years ago I was impressed by the way that Brown tried to pinpoint by several different measures when Christianity peaked and began to decline in Britain. Brown gave quite a bit of quantitative evidence in the form of Sunday School attendance and other measures of religiosity in order to precisely answer the question. Although any attempt to measure something that is ultimately a matter of personal sentiment and conscience (Sunday School attendance, for instance, just because people were attending more, does that mean they were there because they were religious or for other reasons) is going to be somewhat difficult, I appreciated the way that Brown assembled statistics.

Clark mentions Brown’s overall argument that religion remained relatively strong in Britain until the 1960s and only then began its decline (which challenges the more conventional belief in a longer, and less precipitous, decline commensing in the 19th century). She describes the way that Brown’s work, although controversial and open to criticism, sparked a new debate about religion in Britain. The current JBS issue contributes to that conversation.

Three major themes emerge in this special issue on religion. First, British religion should be put in the context of developments on the continent. Second, the relationship of religion to the state remains an important theme. How much power and motivation did state authorities have to control religious ideas? How did religion define national identity? How did denominations outside the Church of England react to and interact with state power? Third, religious discourses can be studied as material texts, as scholars examine how they are produced, modified, censored, read, and shared.

The complete article by Anna Clark, “Editor’s Introduction”