Master narratives of imperial missions

Jeffrey Cox

pp. 3-18

in: Jamie S. Scott, Gareth Griffiths (eds), Mixed messages, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Abstract

The two most important stories about Western religion during the last 300 years are the progressive de-Christianization of Europe and the expansion of Western religion beyond the boundaries of Europe. In Europe the decline of Christian institutions, and the abandonment of religious faith, reached new and unprecedented levels in late twentieth century, requiring a reevaluation of the timing of the decline of religion in Europe. In The Death of Christian Britain, Callum Brown identifies the 1960s as the decade of secularization in modern British history (Brown 2001, chapter 8). Scholarly discussion over the de-Christianization of the Christian heartland has focused for the most part on questions of timing rather than fundamental explanations, largely because of the pervasiveness of the master narrative of secularization in both scholarly and journalistic discussion of the problem of decline.