Many critics and readers have interpreted "Prayer" as a commentary on religion and spirituality in the modern world. The poem, published in 1993, reflects on the tensions between the United Kingdom's secular twentieth century, and the remnants of a once-dominant Christianity that continues to resonate with those raised in it. Moreover, it suggests that religious instincts can exist independently of organized religious life, manifesting through other passions and interests such as poetry and appreciation of the natural world. Indeed, Carol Ann Duffy, the author of "Prayer," was raised in a Catholic family but—like one of the people described in the poem—later rejected the church. However, she has noted that she finds poetry and prayer similar. But what exactly is the nature of religion in the United Kingdom today, and why? Here, we'll discuss the historical forces and contemporary realities that form the religious backdrop of "Prayer" in order to better understand the poem's themes.
Throughout the middle ages, England was a Catholic country, and the Roman Catholic church had a great deal of political and economic power. Monasteries played a central role in the country's infrastructure, particularly in its cultural and intellectual life. Following the Protestant Reformation in the 1600s, England painfully transitioned from Catholicism to Protestantism, though not without the bloodshed of a civil war (generated at least in part by religious tensions in the middle of that century). Monasteries were abolished, and eventually the Anglican Church became England's primary religious body. Anglicanism was marked by an emphasis on communal ceremonies rather than mandated belief systems. However, Scotland, the country of Carol Ann Duffy's birth, actually embraced a relatively strict, Calvinist Protestantism nearly a century before, in 1560. Meanwhile, Ireland's population—with the exception of some English landowners—remained Catholic. By the start of the eighteenth century, Britain's population was dominated by Irish Catholics, Scottish Presbyterians, and English Anglicans. Certain religious minorities, such as Jews, enjoyed a relatively high degree of religious freedom as well.
The enlightenment in the eighteenth century certainly altered attitudes towards religion and science. Many of the great thinkers of the period were deists, an orientation considered relatively scandalous because of its view of a more lax and less-involved God. Still, by the height of the Victorian era, Christianity in its various forms remained the basis of British morality, social norms, and intellectual movements. The Church and the calendar of Christian holidays were at the center of social life in most of Britain. As the British empire spread around the world, Christian missionaries imposed their faith on non-Christians in British colonies. At the same time, fissures began to form in Christianity's hegemonic status. The Industrial Revolution had transformed British economic life, creating new structures of wealth and power outside of the church's influence, and turning a once-rural country in which village churches played an irreplaceable role into an urban one. Meanwhile, new scientific developments disrupted Christian theological assumptions. The greatest of these was Darwin's theory of evolution, which prompted a reconsideration of a foundational belief: the origin of life itself.
Two world wars further reshaped religious life in the twentieth century, prompting both increased secularism and increased religious diversity. The violence and upheaval of World War I prompted many to lose or reevaluate their faith, and the number of Britons who attended any Protestant church declined starting in the interwar period (Catholicism fared marginally better, but numbers of Catholics declined as well). By the mid-1990s, only about 15% of British adults reported regularly attending a church. Indeed, by the end of the twentieth century, the United Kingdom was an overwhelmingly secular country in many ways. However, many people identified as Christian even though they were not active in religious life, with nearly 60% of the United Kingdom's population doing so in the 2011 census. At the same time, even as Christianity declined, adherents of other religions increased. Many immigrated to the United Kingdom from countries that had once been part of the British empire. Thus, the same census counted 2.7 million Muslims and over 800,000 Hindus, as well as smaller numbers of Sikhs, Jews, and other religions.
Carol Ann Duffy's "Prayer" takes place within a culture that has secularized quickly, so that the imprints of recently dominant Christian denominations remain, creating both nostalgia and unease. At the same time, the Britain of Duffy's poem is a newly diverse one, with once-marginal religious practices and belief now playing a far more prominent role. Duffy's characters are in a sense non-religious, reflecting new secularism. Yet, at the same time, they find spiritual significance in non-Christian arenas, perhaps reflecting the growth of non-Christian religious and cultural life in modern Britain.
