A Telegraph Book of the Year 2025

'Allows us to understand the profound, and often profoundly beneficial, impact of Christianity' Anthony Seldon

'Superb ... Lively and erudite' The Telegraph

'Tremendous ... The arguments are truly profound' The Spectator

'A finely judged and beautifully written account' Peter Frankopan

Christianity in England is in decline. Congregations are dwindling and ever fewer young people believe. Should we merely shrug our shoulders and accept this as inevitable and even healthy, or is something important being lost?

Bijan Omrani argues that this decline is the most momentous change to occur in English history. He shows how a religion that has been part of our national story for over 1700 years was instrumental in the creation and development of the English nation, its codes of law and morality, and its structures of government and kingship. He demonstrates its profound cultural impact, in areas ranging from architecture and literature to our very landscape and the structure of our everyday life and language. Its influence, he contends, has been enormous, largely benign, and shouldn't be lightly abandoned.

Ending with a rousing call to retain Christianity, rightly understood, as a way of dealing with both the eternal questions of the human condition, as well as the malaises of modernity, this is an erudite and tender tribute to our Christian history and heritage.