Critics like Anthony Thwaite put forward the view that “Church-Going” is a “veiled plea in support of Christianity.” This, however, is not true. Philip Larkin in his interview “Four Conversations” substantiates it when he declares: “I don’t bother about that kind of thing”, and “I am deliberately ignorant of it.”Andrew Motion suggests that the speaker in “Church-Going” begins the poem by banishing any signs of holy dread. The speaker comes across as a blasé person introducing religion with absolute disregard and sheer callousness. He reduces the holy institution of the church to a list of material entities-matting, slats, stone, little books, withered flowers, ,small neat organ. etc. One wonders whether it is to foreground his views as a skeptic or, to reduce religion to mere aesthetics.

The “large-scale verses” seem to glare at him and frighten him into believing them. He categorically puts the reciting to an end asserting:” Here endeth.” For him this is not only the end of that particular chapter, but also the end of the chapter of Christianity. It undoubtedly refers to the social context of the poem. The period was marked by the deterioration of faith. The year after 1945, saw a decline in the religious attendance at churches.…