paganism, felt that the answers to such questions were obvious.
‘The subjects of this book’, he remarked, ‘need no apology for
their importance’ (Lane Fox 1986: 7). Not everyone today would
share this confidence, as we shall soon see. There can be no
straightforward answers to the questions set out above, and any
answers will be contingent on when, where, and by whom the
questions are asked, and who gives the response. Indeed, even
Lane Fox knew that his own approach to the subject was pecu-
liarly personal, the product of his upbringing and education (Lane
Fox 1986: 8). I have no doubt that this is as true for the answers
that I am about to give as for those offered by others who have
approached the subject.
Today, I feel, we cannot dispense with the apology that Lane
Fox deemed unnecessary. The religious contours of our society
have changed considerably since the early 1980s, when Lane Fox
was writing. In many parts of the modern industrialized world,
especially in its Anglophone regions, religion in general – and,
some might feel, Christianity in particular – seems to have been
on the retreat in the face of growing secularization. This phenom-
enon embraces the effects (not necessarily coextensive) of more
widespread education, greater popular awareness of science, polit-
ical disengagement from or suppression of religion, and the rise
of materialist consumerism (Park 1994: 48–54; cf. J. Taylor 1990).
In such circumstances, religion, having once occupied a central
place in society and its debates, moves to a more marginal posi-
tion. Writing this book against an Irish backdrop has thrown these
trends into sharp relief. In the late 1980s, when I became a univer-
sity student, the Roman Catholic church was still a very powerful
force in Irish politics and society. Since then, however, its influ-
ence has waned precipitously. A succession of scandals has
undermined the church’s moral eminence, while the economic
prosperity associated with the rise of the Celtic Tiger has enabled
Irish people to pursue their personal goals independent of reli-
gious precepts. Hand in hand with this have come wide-ranging
changes in public morality, such as in attitudes to marriage (and
divorce), contraception, and the place of women in Irish society.WHAT IS EARLY CHRISTIANITY?
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