ABSTRACT
As New Year approached at the end of 1961, the Protestantpaper the British Weekly said in an editorial that it was ‘the end of another of the uncertain years’.1 In a matter of months, the perplexity was to turn to unrelenting religious panic. The sixties was the most important decade for the decline of religion in British history. Pop music, radical fashion and student revolt were witness to a sea-change in sexual attitudes and to the dismissal of conventional social authority. There was a cultural revolution amongst young people, women and people of colour that targeted the churches, the older generation and government. In this maelstrom, traditional religious conceptions of piety were to be suddenly shattered, ending centuries of consensus Christian culture in Britain. In its place, there came liberalisation, diversity and freedom of individual choice in moral behaviour. In every sphere of life, religion was in crisis.
