Vicars are roundly accused of keeping quiet about the 'sins of the flesh' in a book out next month from a senior Anglican cleric... Canon Norman's fierce denunciation appears in Secularisation, a controversial new study of the decline of institutional religion in Britain. --Yorkshire Post, 26/02/02
A tightly written book. --The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2002
An assessment of a fading religious language. --Church Times, 1 March 2002
Falling attendances and a declining influence on our lives - few would doubt that the fortunes of the Church of England are on the wane. But few would also go so far as to say that not only is this decay irreversible and terminal, but that it is the fault of the church itself . . . The reason for the church's imminent demise, according to Canon Norman, is that it has moved away from the Christian teachings on sin and forgiveness, and instead concentrated on ways of making our lives more comfortable. As a church leader, chancellor of York Minster as well as a distinguished theologian, with his latest book, Secularisation, his 18th on the problems of the relations between church and society, he does not exempt himself from responsibility, but the blame is very firmly laid at the doors of the church itself. --Northern Echo, 12 / 03 / 02
The Chancellor of York Minster is one of our clearest thinkers. And he does not waste words in this diagnosis of the state of the Church and nation. --King Charles Clarion, May 2002
It grips the reader. . . . Normans undoubted knowledge and remarkable skill in pulling together such a wide ranging assessment of the churchs task today . . . --Borderlands: 1, Summer 2002
Every so often a book appears whose argument is so elegant and provocative that, instead of criticising it, all a reviewer wants to do is reproduce as much of its substance as possible. Edward Norman's Secularisation belongs in this category.--Catholic
I have come to the view that very important questions are being raised here which cannot be ignored by Christians of any tradition who are serious about their engagement with post-modern society.--Rev. Brian Nicholls, Baptist Times 26/09/02
It would be easy to read this book as a rant. The author's confident faith balances this aspect. The book should occasion real theological and sociological debate rather than merely be dismissed. --Studies in World Christianity
