I once edited a book that in part with the religious denominations of the middle-sized city of Rochester, NY in the late 19th century. In essence, the urban working class rarely attended church. Sunday was truly their day of rest after a six-day week (in theory) of often 10-hour work days. Church membership and attendance was a mark of being middle class.
Class is a large part of all this.... I understand that the current thinking is that working-class people in Britain in the 19th century were proportionately less likely to be religiously observant, but the working-class population was so large in absolute numbers that they were still well represented in the congregations.
Just to complicate any definition of "religion," I will throw in Jonathan Z. Smith's famous line: "Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no existence apart from the academy."
In short, churchgoing was effectively optional from the 18th century. That was the point at which, to use a metaphor that has been used in the literature, the balance of power shifted from the producers of Anglicanism to the consumers. The consumer is king. To a large extent, this meant that Anglicanism was competing with other varieties of Christianity. From the 1790s, a (small) explicitly secularist movement got going. You also get the first experiments with paganism in roughly this period. But the ultimate challenge to hegemonic Christianity in Britain came not from Nonconformity, Catholicism or organised atheism, let alone from paganism, but from apathy and indifference. That is - I think - something that is a product of the later 19th century.
I believe it was a dead letter by then. It was essentially in the 18th century that the Church of England stopped in practice being protected by mechanisms of legal coercion. That's when you get religious freedom in practice for ordinary people. You essentially had to be a radical anti-Christian campaigner (like Tom Paine) to get into legal trouble after then. Notably, the first pagan revivalists were left unmolested by the law.
Highly recommend “The spiritual revolution” by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead on this subject. They make the point that religion is becoming a personal spiritual experience instead of a collective cultural one. I think that’s the real shift, rather than secularization.
I once edited a book that in part with the religious denominations of the middle-sized city of Rochester, NY in the late 19th century. In essence, the urban working class rarely attended church. Sunday was truly their day of rest after a six-day week (in theory) of often 10-hour work days. Church membership and attendance was a mark of being middle class.
Class is a large part of all this.... I understand that the current thinking is that working-class people in Britain in the 19th century were proportionately less likely to be religiously observant, but the working-class population was so large in absolute numbers that they were still well represented in the congregations.
Just to complicate any definition of "religion," I will throw in Jonathan Z. Smith's famous line: "Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no existence apart from the academy."
https://www.learnreligions.com/jonathan-z-smith-on-the-definition-of-religion-251039
I’m also curious about when churchgoing stopped being compulsory. That must play into the decline of churchgoing too.
This came up on Bluesky recently: https://bsky.app/profile/robincdouglas.bsky.social/post/3ld6vwx7mic2u
In short, churchgoing was effectively optional from the 18th century. That was the point at which, to use a metaphor that has been used in the literature, the balance of power shifted from the producers of Anglicanism to the consumers. The consumer is king. To a large extent, this meant that Anglicanism was competing with other varieties of Christianity. From the 1790s, a (small) explicitly secularist movement got going. You also get the first experiments with paganism in roughly this period. But the ultimate challenge to hegemonic Christianity in Britain came not from Nonconformity, Catholicism or organised atheism, let alone from paganism, but from apathy and indifference. That is - I think - something that is a product of the later 19th century.
Thanks! That makes sense. I didn’t realize that it was still legally required until as late as 1969 though (even though it was no longer enforced).
I suppose the point when this law actually ceased to apply was when the fines were repealed in 1846.
I believe it was a dead letter by then. It was essentially in the 18th century that the Church of England stopped in practice being protected by mechanisms of legal coercion. That's when you get religious freedom in practice for ordinary people. You essentially had to be a radical anti-Christian campaigner (like Tom Paine) to get into legal trouble after then. Notably, the first pagan revivalists were left unmolested by the law.
One exception to this was that it was illegal to call a church Unitarian until 1831.
Highly recommend “The spiritual revolution” by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead on this subject. They make the point that religion is becoming a personal spiritual experience instead of a collective cultural one. I think that’s the real shift, rather than secularization.