Grace Davie, Religion in Britain: a persistent paradox

The first edition of Grace Davie’s sociological account of religion in Britain since 1945 was published more than twenty years ago. A great deal has changed since then, and this edition has been restructured, comprehensively rewritten, and rechristened to reflect this. The ‘persistent paradox’ of the new subtitle encapsulates the issue at the heart of Davie’s analysis. On the one hand, the process of secularization has continued and the Christian churches have found themselves in even sharper numerical decline. On the other hand, far from irrelevant, the place of religion and the significance of faith within the public sphere have never been more visible, hotly debated, and politically important.