Once again, I’m delighted to receive today the latest volume in Studies in Church History, published by the Ecclesiastical History Society (and now with Cambridge University Press.)

I’m a great fan of Studies as a series, and have indeed published four articles in the series myself. Partly dependent on the theme that is chosen, the number of articles on the twentieth century very much varies from year to year, and this year is a lean one. Volume 51 last year had no fewer than ten articles on the twentieth century; this year there is just the one: Kirstie Blair on the religious sonnet in the nineteenth and twentieth century, including the poets Geoffrey Hill and Carol Ann Duffy.

This is not to criticise the Society: they may of course only publish the articles that are offered. But I wonder why it is that the theme of doubt seems to have exercised scholars of the twentieth century so little, given the scholarly energy expended on questions of secularisation.