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Religion in Modern Britain. By STEVE BRUCE. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press,1995. xii + 143 pp.
This volume in Oxford's Modern Britain Series presents a concise, socialscientific survey of modern British religious life. Bruce, a sociologist at the University of Aberdeen, has written extensively on religion in Northern Ireland. It is not surprising that he has a keen eye for that region's distinctiveness. However, most of this volume reviews terrain more familiar to most readers, and Bruce's findings will not be surprising. Taking a functionalist approach which highlights the "public and behavioural" aspects of religious life, much of Bruce's narrative concerns the impact of modernization and secularization on traditional ecclesiastical life. Of course the conclusion is that historic forms of Christianity, especially established ones, have declined markedly. Modernity has been marked by the decline of medieval supernaturalism and by the rise of pluralism and individualism. Religion's public role has...