This collection is likely to be an essential marker in the historiography of modern British religious history. It challenges the secularization paradigm put forth in works such as Callum Brown's The Death of Christian Britain (New York: Routledge, 2002) and Steve Bruce's God is Dead: Secularization in the West (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2002). Instead of exploring the accepted narrative of the decline of Christianity in the modern period and the acceleration of this process in the 1960s and 1970s, the essays in this volume seek to study its transformation. The authors have set out a new research agenda that focuses on the key concepts of authenticity, generation, and virtue. Their conclusions provide a rich and nuanced explanation of the place of Christianity in British national life and should lead other scholars to reconsider a simple narrative of secularization in the modern period.

This work has its origins in a two-day workshop at St. John's College, Oxford, in 2005. The volume is divided into three parts—one for each of the new categories of analysis. Within each category there is a series of case studies. Two aspects of authenticity are considered: experience and performance. Liturgy, music, and community are integral to the Christian's experience, and hence each of these is considered in separate essays. Alana Harris considers the changes to the liturgy in both the Roman Missal and the Book of Common Prayer. She demonstrates that both the proponents of reform and those who argued for the status quo grounded their arguments in the assertion that their view provided a more authentic representation of the practices of the early church. Ian Jones and Peter Webster examine church music and show a similar contested view of authenticity. They also chart a subtle though important shift away from located “authenticity” within the music itself to an emphasis on the attitude of the worshiper. Matthew Guest explores shifting understandings of Christian community and authentic fellowship. He highlights the possibilities and challenges posed by the Vurch and other online communities. These three essays together illuminate the need to consider fluid and varied understandings of both individual and group experiences.

Performance is another important category for analyzing authenticity. William Whyte looks at the faithful expression of one's identity in his consideration of homosexuality and the priesthood. Distinctions between orientation and action and between role-playing and one's true self have become crucial in the determination of authentic performance. Mark Chapman's essay provides a preliminary look at whether authentic Christian expression could be found in the traditions and language of the Established Church and the move toward new forms of ministry, especially in the unchurched areas of the inner city. Grace Davie provides a look at the paradoxical decision of Prince Charles to postpone his marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles so that he might join the archbishop of Canterbury and the prime minister as part of the official delegation representing Britain at the funeral of Pope John Paul II. No heir to the British throne, archbishop of Canterbury, or prime minister had ever attended such an event before, let alone prioritized it over a royal wedding. This essay is tantalizing in setting out a question but somewhat disappointing in not providing at least some preliminary answers to the issues it raises.

A second key category for analysis in this volume is generation. The essayists argue that intergenerational transmission and generational transformation involve “more than just tracing how cohorts hand on an unchanging and stable tradition” (124). The more dynamic definition that they assert suggests a much slower and more piecemeal transformation of women's roles and moral attitudes. Hugh McLeod, Charles Taylor, Callum Brown, and others have placed particular emphasis on the 1960s generation as pivotal to the declining influence of Christianity in the second half of the twentieth century. William Whyte, Holger Hehring, and Jane Garnett challenge this supposition in interesting ways in their essays on women's liberation, the campaign for nuclear disarmament, and the Internet.

A study of Christian language is central to any consideration of modern belief and practice. Essays on art (George Pattison), children's literature (Bernice Martin), and architecture (William Whyte) provide a perspective on how Christian language might be variously interpreted and redefined. In their work, we see that Christian language remains very strong even within the secularizing narrative. This is clearly demonstrated in the enormous popularity of works like Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996], The Subtle Knife [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997], and The Amber Spyglass [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000]) and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003). Bernice Martin argues that “something more and intriguing is happening in popular culture than can be caught in terms like ‘secular’ or ‘post-Christian’” (187).

The final key concept for the new research agenda set out by the essayists in the volume is that of virtue. Harriet Harris points to a keen interest in virtue theory at present but a decided lack of attention to any virtues themselves. There is much more that might be developed in this part of the research agenda. Education and economics are briefly touched upon in somewhat inconclusive essays. The final set of case studies considers the common good. Here it is argued that the public role of Christianity in Britain is an under-explored topic. Essays by Raymond Plant on liberalism, religion, and the public sphere, Matthew Grimley on public intellectuals, and Robert Tobin on the evolution of national and religious identity in Ireland all provide wonderful forays into this question. It is hoped that much more work will be done in this area. Conceptualizing the common good has certainly been contested ground, yet it may be argued that this is an area of Christian discourse that has wide acceptance far beyond a professedly Christian community. What are the implications of this for a secularization paradigm?

The contributors to this volume were clearly limited in terms of the length of their pieces, but many of the ideas and arguments introduced here hold much promise for further work. This is a collection that should be seriously considered by all scholars of modern church history.