For the non-resident reader who did not experience the lates 1960s and 1970s in Britains, it is hard to convey how [the] self-appointed religious leaders were reduced to abject mockery in the press and daily culture. Liberal Christians as much as secular people parodied and joked about them, not mainly in a malicious way... but in a form of affectionate contempt, but contempt nonetheless.
As a 'non-resident reader' who didn't experience the 60s and 70s Callum Brown's detailed history was an amazing eye-opener. It gave me a deeper sense of what formed the nonreligious mind of my parents, growing up as they did in the 60s and 70s. I was given an insight into what they were up against when it came to even trying to consider the Ultimate claims made by Christianity.
A striking image from the era was of Vernon Mitchell in the dressing room of strip club talking to the performers (above). His job was to visit the clubs, watch the shows and decide which bits should and shouldn't be censored. Christianity from the 1920s-70s was one that most considered concerned itself mainly with the moral rectitude of the nation, it was a Christianity that seemed determined to play the parent treating the nation like infants.
Since we humans are ultra-social animals it would appear that the cards are may be stacked against us when it comes to objectively discovering spiritual truth, especially if that truth seeks to restrict or set limits on our appetites.
As far as we're shaped by others, fear of ridicule and social shame is a powerful force making exploring truth in terrain that would leave us vulnerable to such realities an unattractive proposition. In a famous study on conformity Solomon Asch asked participants which of the lines on the right was most similar to the target line on the left. In control groups where all but one person was a 'stooge' tasked with lying 32% of participants went along with and conformed with the clearly incorrect answers being offered by the group.
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| John Cleese & Michael Palin defend 'The Life of Brian' before Mervyn Stockwood Bishop of Southwark and Malcolm Muggeridge |
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| Mick Jagger after leaving prison is flown in to face a panel of moral and religious leaders |
To grow up in an environment like this, where Christianity is seen as the enemy of progress, joyless and oppressive, inevitably hinders a person's ability to consider it with an open mind. It is probably a fair conclusion to draw that many people didn't reject Christ but Christianity. They threw the baby out with the bathwater.
In his book Dominion historian Tom Holland points out that objecting to Christianity's lack of progress or oppressive attitudes is odd since Christianity gave the world both the concept of history as progress, and ideas of universal equality and worth we assume are self-evident.
It was a time of massive social change where deep currents finally broke in waves on the surface and the Christianity of the 60s and 70s was completely unprepared or unable to respond. Christianity had become entwined with public bodies of authority and power and had assumed a position of privilege and power it was now being toppled from. The tone of the journalist interviewing the most popular preacher of the time, Martyn Lloyd Jones, in 1970 is further evidence to how estranged popular culture had become from the institutionalised Christianity of our nation's history. Basic and foundational Christian beliefs clearly bewildered her.
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| Joan Bakewell interviews Martyn Lloyd Jones in 1970 |
At a time when young people were listening to the Rolling Stones & The Beatles, when Stringfellow's was becoming a household name and 6 million people were visiting Blackpool each year to sample its freedoms and freak shows Christianity was the overbearing parent seen as trying to stamp out the fun. People had tired of its lectures, and tired of its parishes with their assumptions of christendom. Since its creation in the 1920s the BBC was allied with British (and therefore Christian) ideas. In the mid 1960s it put out over 30hrs of religious broadcasting a week and held a tight leash on what ideas were allowed to be expressed.
For most people growing up in the 60s and 70s it was the humanists and atheist icons who displayed the most honesty and artistic integrity and held the celebrity status. We admire and listen to people who best make sense of life and help bear the weight of living, something that Christianity seemed to offer very little help with, embodied as it was by ageing men too privileged or too remote to be considered in touch with life's complexities.
It was believed (or at least promoted by the establishment) that it was our Christian morality that made the British Empire great and so in a post-war era rightly worried about the atheist communists it wasn't perhaps unreasonable for government officials to favour Christianity the way it did. Nevertheless in a generation traumatised by WWII and all to familiar with life's fragility and at a time when the Empire was contracting and Britain diversifying all the more, room was left for expressing a vision of what would make the future country worth inhabiting. At this point enter Secular Humanism ready as it was to replace the stranglehold of Christian moral judgements. It had been preparing itself for this day, muscling for more of a voice. Its ascendency seemed inevitable, the masses and especially the young had tired of their parents religion. In 1969 Roy Jenkins, architect of the 'liberal hour', said:
The permissive society... a better phrase is a civilised society, a society based on the belief that different individuals will wish to make different decisions about their patterns of behaviour, and that, provided these do not restrict the freedom of others, they should be allowed to so within a framework of understanding and tolerance.
Jenkins summed up the vision of Humanism by tying it to the concept of civility. Civilised, mature, grown up people are humanists. It is ironic and perhaps a testament to the dominance of Christian thought however that he could promote Christian values as an alternative to Christianity; like using an axe hewn from the tree he now sought to chop down.
Christianity was perceived to be a tool of the state to control and restrict the population, to hinder their self-expression, to keep the wealthy in their place and the poor in theirs. Humanism by contrast was seen as a compassionate force for society's good and in the 'liberalising hour' of the late 60s pushed for the decriminalisation of suicide and homosexuality and the legalisation of abortion, and contraception. Humanism seemed to speak for the people while Christianity seemed committed to keeping heavy burdens on the backs of people they demonised rather than helped. It was a Christianity people felt deserved all the mockery it got, a Christianity that had held power for too long and was now reaping the fruit of having become too entangled with the establishment.
Young people in the 60s and 70s never stood a chance when it came to considering the truth of Christianity. They ran from it and found freedom in the arms of the progressive liberalism they created. I don't blame them. As a child of a liberal and progressive family and society I am grateful for the freedoms I take for granted, grateful that I can choose what I watch and where I go and grateful that I am able to make moral decisions for myself. I am grateful too that I never knew Christianity as something trying to restrict my freedoms and curtail my fun. I knew it as awkward and unpopular but not restrictive. I had a neutral enough view of it that I was willing to pick up a New Testament and read it. Here I found water for my soul and wisdom that spoke deeply to me and a Christ who astonished me.
I have every sympathy for my parents' generation, I'd have reacted in exactly the same way. Now that time has passed however I wonder if it's time to reconsider the place we consigned Christ to. In recent years there has been a growing number of non-Christian intellectuals uncovering our indebtedness to Jesus' legacy and expounding on the wisdom of his movement. From Psychology professor Jordan Peterson to Philosopher Roger Scruton, Historians Tom Holland & Niall Ferguson and Columnists Douglas Murray and Matthew Paris Christianity is less a source of derision and increasingly one of pilgrimage.
Talking with a friend recently who was a pastor in the 70s & 80s he said: 'it is arguably easier to share the gospel with people now than it was then.' We are, after all, meaning making beings who aren't being well nourished by many of the options available to us. Food for thought.