Puzzled People Revisited: Religious Believing and Belonging in Wartime Britain, 1939-45

Abstract

The article investigates whether the Second World War was a significant factor in Britain's transition to a secular society. Quantitative data about the religiosity of adult Britons in 1939-45 are reviewed under five headings: faith, belief, affiliation, practice and opinions. These span the spectrum of institutional Christianity and implicit religion. The evidence derives from Church statistics and social surveys undertaken by Mass-Observation (which prepared the celebrated report on Puzzled People) and other agencies. Cumulatively, while some ground was lost in terms of religious belief and practice, especially during the first half of the war, there was hardly any irreversible collapse of religion. Such decline as occurred was often a continuation of pre-war trends and, in certain respects, relatively short term. The war is therefore not seen as a particularly major milestone in Britain's secularization history. Possible explanations for this resilience of wartime religion are advanced.