ABSTRACT
This chapter has two sections. The first is relatively short and assumes a chronological approach. It suggests three periods in the religious life of this country since 1945. These are (a) a period of reconstruction (1945-60); (b) a decade and a half of ‘relevance’ (1960-75), characterised by a tendency to minimise the distinction between the sacred and the secular; and (c) (from the mid-1970s onwards), a re-emphasis on the sacred as a distinctive category, both within and outside the mainline denominations.
