Introduction

A number of events press for a strong and informed public conversation about religion and belief, such as: 9/11; the rolling back of welfare states and the turn to faith groups to plug the gaps; and new law on equality that includes non-religious beliefs, like atheism and humanism, alongside traditional religion, like the world religions, as well as nonreligion, like environmentalism and veganism. However, as Davie (2015: xiii) observes, we find that we have largely lost our ability to talk about them: ‘At precisely the moment that British people need them most, they are losing the vocabulary, concepts and narratives that are necessary to take part in serious conversation about religion.’

This chapter focuses on the origins of this loss of religion and belief literacy, which it locates in two public spheres: welfare and education. After all, almost everybody goes to school, and most of us use welfare and care services of some sort at one time or another. Coupled with the fact that both have their roots in organised religion, this gives these spaces enormous public traction in relation to religion and belief, despite so much of it having been forgotten. The saintly names of so many schools and hospitals are one echo of this memory; the wimpled headwear of nurses, though now (just) gone, is another.

What this especially denotes is that the period before the loss of religion and belief literacy in Britain and the West was, by its very nature, almost entirely Christian. Although there was a degree of plurality, and an awareness of some other religions, these were largely treated as essentially exotic. Yet, at the very moment that we stopped paying (much) attention to religion and belief, they entered a period of dramatic change. This has meant massive declines in Christianity, increases in other world religions, a huge growth in atheism and nonreligion, and a shift towards informal and revival forms of religion and belief, especially associated with varying ideas of spirituality. All of this has been happening while the public sphere has been largely looking away.