Politics and Society in Wales series

Series editor: Ralph Fevre

Religion, Secularization and Social Change in Wales

Congregational Studies in a Post-Christian Society

Paul Chambers

Contents

‘ . . . I commend this book warmly both to academics who are interested in the field, but also to those whose responsibility it is to plan carefully for the future of the churches in this part of Wales. Both groups will benefit from a careful reading of Chambers’s exemplary text.’ Grace Davie, from her Foreword to the book

‘The book is full of extremely helpful insights for all churches and church leaders . . . ’ Church Times

Since the high-water mark of the 1904 Welsh revival, religious belief and practice in Wales have been in gradual decline. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Welsh religious institutions are facing an increasingly uncertain future, but a future that nevertheless remains open.

Much has been written on social, economic and political change in modern Wales but relatively little attention has been given to the place of religion in contemporary Welsh society. Despite the historically high profile of religion in Wales, many religious institutions are now struggling to maintain themselves in what can only be characterized as a post-Christian landscape, where a culture of customary religious obligation is increasingly being superseded by a culture of choice and personal autonomy in religious matters. Marking the centenary of the last great religious revival in Wales, this volume seeks to explore the relationship between secularization and organized religion through a detailed study of the mechanisms of decline and growth as they affect the churches and chapels and their personnel. Throughout, the author seeks to relate these issues to the wider social, economic and cultural changes occurring in Wales and to recent theoretical developments within the sociology of religion. Written with the general reader as well as the academic in mind, this lucid, lively and informative account of religious change will be of interest to sociologists, students, religious professionals and all those with an interest in the future health of Christianity in modern societies.

Paul Chambers is a Sociologist of Religion and Research Fellow at the Centre for Civil Society Studies, University of Glamorgan, Wales, and is the author of several articles on congregational studies, religion and identity and the relationship between civil society, faith groups and politics.

Contents

Foreword by Grace Davie

1. Introduction

A brief history of religion in Wales
Secularisation and Wales
The structure of this volume

Religious decline – the evidence for Britain
Institutional Decline – facts and figures
Religion – believing without belonging
Summary
The Secularisation Thesis – an overview
Defining Secularisation
Secularisation – a contested thesis
Conceptualising secularisation
Summary
Theories of secularization and social and religious change
Secularisation – the Wilsonian perspective
Secularisation – universal process or historically contingent Pattern?
Relocating religion – secularization and the world of Individual meaning
Secularisation – a multi-dimensional concept?
Summary
Religion and the post-modern world
Secularisation and supply side models
Summary
Conclusions

The city and its people
Religion in Swansea
Religion in the recent past
The numerical health of churches
Anglicans and Roman Catholics
Nonconformity
Welsh medium Free Churches
English medium Free Churches
The evangelical churches
Summary
Social, economic and cultural change and its effects on the mainstream churches
Patterns of growth and decline among evangelical churches
Relations between the churches
Church and community
Church culture and social change
The Churches: prospect and change

The English Baptist story
Other voices
Secularisation and social and religious change

Origins
An evangelical sea change
Giving confidence back to the people
Religion, community and identity
Periphery and fringe
Turning the clock back

Maestref Baptist Church
Origins and recent history
The congregation
A challenge to change?
Resistance to change
Invisibiilty
Facing the future

Westside evangelical church
Origins and recent history
The congregation
Core members
Periphery
Local community relations
Managing change
Some leadership concerns
Relations with other evangelical churches
Setting goals for growth

The churches and socio-economic and cultural change
A provisional church typology
Church growth and decline; ecological, social and cultural Factors
The churches and their social environment
Churches and mission in late-modern society
Social closure, cultural identity and social networks
Understanding church growth and decline
Facing the Future

Foreword

It is always a pleasure to see a doctoral thesis turn into a book, the more so when the task of external examiner has been a particularly rewarding one. Such is the case with Paul Chambers’s careful analysis of Religion, Secularization and Social Change in Wales – a study which brings to life the ongoing process of religious change in Swansea.

Chambers works at two levels. First, he maps the religious scene in Swansea. Secondly, he looks in detail at four different case studies (bearing in mind that one of these is a composite story) in order to understand the precise mechanisms that take place in the lives of churches as they grow and decline. Both the initial mapping and the case studies themselves are set against the wider economic and social changes occurring in south Wales, a part of the world in which industrialization and urbanization led initially to religious growth as both the free church traditions and Catholicism catered – in many ways very effectively – for a newly urbanized population. The south Wales story is distinctive, a history that Chambers knows from the inside and understands well.

Secularization may have come late to south Wales, but it came fast. Post-industrialization has not been kind to the free churches in Swansea. As the communities, of which the chapels were a part, have collapsed, so too have the chapels themselves – as indeed have the associated political and industrial institutions that were part of the same evolution. A whole way of life has come to an end, leaving its last survivors bewildered and bereft. Parish-based churches have withstood the shock a little better, but many of these are communities of the old rather than the young, posing inevitable questions about the future.

This is not the whole story however. Life, including church life, goes on, but in different ways. In my own work, I have become increasingly aware of a shift taking place in the churches of northern Europe, right across the denominations. This is a shift from a culture of obligation in the religious field to one of choice or consumption. No church or chapel that relies on a sense of duty to bring people to church is likely to prosper in the new millennium; such an approach no longer resonates. Conversely, if a church or chapel can make it worthwhile for people to come, as a matter of choice or conviction rather than duty or obligation, that congregation can flourish. One of the most interesting aspects of Chambers’s work is explaining in some detail how this is done.

Modern Europeans are increasingly opting into their churches instead of opting out. The fact that this shift has taken place unusually fast in south Wales, including Swansea, is one of the reasons that makes this case study, or more precisely, this set of case studies, particularly fascinating. Swansea becomes a laboratory in which we see a speeded-up version of the shifts taking place in a late modern European society. On one hand, Chambers documents a process of relentless and rapid decline; on the other, he shows how particular congregations can, despite everything, move forwards and the factors that must be taken into account if this is to happen.

With this in mind, I commend this book warmly both to academics who are interested in the field, but also to those whose responsibility it is to plan carefully for the future of the churches in this part of Wales. Both groups will benefit from a careful reading of Chambers’s exemplary text.

Grace Davie
August 2004