This study provides the first postsecular account of the moral
revolution that Britain experienced in the 1960s. Beginning from the
groundbreaking premise that secularity is not a mere absence, but an
invented culture, it argues that a new form of British secularity
achieved cultural dominance during an abrupt cultural revolution which
occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This moral revolution had
little to do with affluence or technology, but was most centrally a
cultural response to the terrors of the Cold War, which pitted
Christian Britain against the secular Soviet Union. By exploring
contemporary prophecies of the inevitable arrival of 'the secular
society', Sam Brewitt-Taylor shows that, ironically, British
secularity was given decisive initial momentum by theologically
radical Christians, who destigmatized the idea of 'modern secularity'
and made it available for appropriation by a wide range of Sixties
actors. Further than this, radical Christians played a significant
contributory role in deciding what kind of secularity Britain's
Sixties would adopt, by narrating Britain's moral revolution as
globalist, individualist, anti-authoritarian, sexually libertarian,
and politically egalitarian. In all these ways, radical Christians
played a highly significant role in the early stages of Britain's
Sixties.
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The Hope of a World Transformed
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780192561855
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
OUP Oxford
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter