Conclusion

Abstract

This book set out to assess how the attitudes of religious groups in Britain have changed or shown evidence of continuity across recent decades. It aimed to provide a detailed ‘bottom-up’ perspective to complement existing research which has often adopted a more ‘top-down’ focus on the historical and contemporary interconnections between religion and politics, studying the role of religion in shaping parties and the party system, the involvement of religious actors in the policy process and public debate, and relations between religious institutions and parties in office. In so doing, the study focused on a range of different aspects of public opinion – religious authority, party-political support, ideology, social-moral issues, abortion and homosexuality and foreign policy – in order to provide an extensive and wide-ranging analysis. Of course, no single monograph can provide a near-exhaustive treatment of the socio-political attitude and beliefs held by particular sectors of society or the general population as a whole. But given the wider historical backdrop of religious change in British society, the ongoing debates over the extent and nature of secularisation, and claims about the growing salience of religious issues and faith groups in politics in recent years, the book has tried to provide a reasonably comprehensive treatment of attitudinal change and continuity over time across religious groups.