ABSTRACT
‘Britain’, according to a Times headline in November 1989, was among the ‘most godless nations in the Western World’. In support of this startling assertion the newspaper cited a recent comparative social attitudes survey indicating that 34 per cent of the sample professed to have ‘no religion’, a figure exceeded only in the Netherlands. The comparative point may of course be valid, but nevertheless the statistic can be viewed as a glass two-thirds full rather than a third empty. The fact that 66 per cent of the sample, even at the end of our period, were prepared to acknowledge at least some kind of religious affiliation might rather be interpreted as a sign of substantial continuing godliness. Certainly, as the article went on to point out, only 20 per cent of the population professed to attend religious worship regularly (at least once a month), but to deny the reality and quality of the religious life of the 46 per cent who apparently acknowledged a religious affiliation without regularly practising it would be to beg a whole host of questions (The Times, 6 November 1989).
