Twentieth Century British History Advance Access originally published online on September 26, 2007
Twentieth Century British History 2007 18(4):481-513; doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwm027
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
‘Disturbing the Complacency of Religion’? The Evangelical Crusades of Dr Billy Graham and Father Patrick Peyton in Britain, 1951–54
Wadham College, University of Oxford
Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
* alana.harris{at}wadh.ox.ac.uk; ** martin.spence{at}ccc.ox.ac.uk
 |
Abstract |
|---|
This article explores some little-examined aspects of the widespread revival of religion in Britain in the 1950s through a close examination of the evangelistic crusades of the Baptist minister Dr Billy Graham and the Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, Fr Patrick Peyton. Against the backdrop of the ‘secularization debate’, which continues to dominate the existing historiography of the period, it suggests that a re-examination of the role of religion in English society might provide new and valuable insights into the broader social and cultural preoccupations of the post-war era. Employing a cross-denominational approach it argues that, much to the surprise of some contemporary commentators, the considerable appeal of these religious crusaders lay in their ability to articulate common fears and anxieties about the individual, the family, and Cold War society within a religious context. Moreover, from a contemporary historical perspective, it questions whether the appeal of Graham's and Peyton's evangelism is better viewed not as an instance of an ‘illusory’ religious revival of old-fashioned Christianity before a plunge into ‘secularism’, but rather as an illustration of a broader and hitherto unexplored shift in post-war England towards new configurations of religiosity.