Christianity and Social Service in Modern Britain

Few subjects bring out so well the differences between ourselves and our ancestors as the history of Christian charity. In an increasingly mobile and materialist world, in which culture has grown more national, indeed global, we no longer relate to the lost world of nineteenth-century parish life. Today, we can hardly imagine a voluntary society that boasted millions of religious associations providing essential services, in which the public rarely saw a governmentofficial apart from the post office clerk. Against the background of the welfare state and the collapse of church membership, the very idea of Christian social reform has a quaint, Victorian air about it.In this elegantly written study of shifting British values, Frank Prochaska examines the importance of Christianity as an inspiration for political and social behaviour in the nineteenth century and the forces that undermined both religion and philanthropy in the twentieth. The waning of religion and the growth of government responsibility for social provision were closely intertwined. Prochaska shows how the creation of the modern British state undermined religious belief and customs ofassociational citizenship. In unravelling some of the complexities in the evolving relationship between voluntarism and the state, the book presents a challenging new interpretation of Christian decline and democratic traditions in Britain.

Frank Prochaska has made an impressive contribution to late modern British history, A thoroughly enjoyable book: a highly informative history and a refreshing polemic., This is a well written book. Any future studies on the decline of Christianity in modern Britain should include Prochaska's argument., The issues raised here could not be more important to the future of British democracy ... Each part of this thrilling analysis should disturb the dreary complacency now engulfing the debate on the future of British democracy., ...A very welcome interpretive study...

Frank Prochaska is a distinguished historian of modern British history, whose books include Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (1980), The Voluntary Impulse (1988), Philanthropy and the Hospitals of London: the King's Fund, 1897-1990 (1992), Royal Bounty: the Making of a Welfare Monarchy (1995), and The Republic of Britain, 1760-2000. He teaches at Yale University and holds an Honorary Fellowship at theInstitute of Historical Research, London University.