Some Christians turned away from existing denominations andset up new churches of their own. ‘House churches’ originated in the1960s as a by-product of the charismatic movement.

eligious broadcasting,firston radioandthenontelevision,hadgiventhechurchestheopportunitytoreachcongregationsofunprecedentedsize,butitalsoenabled peopletosatisfy theirreligiousneedswithoutbelongingtoaphysicalreli-giouscommunity.‘SongsofPraise’,whichwasfirstbroadcastin1961,stillattractedsomefourmillionviewersforty yearslater.Ithasbeenestimatedthat overaquarterofthesewerenotchurchgoers.

Mass attendance was half of what it had been twenty years earlier.A nationwide census of church attendance conducted every ten yearsfrom 1979 revealed that in that year between eleven and twelve outof every hundred people went to church on an average Sunday. Tenyears later the number had fallen to just under ten and by the end ofthe century only 7.5 per cent of the population was in church on anyone Sunday