oa Why were the 1960s so Religiously Explosive?

The 1960s were a time of dramatic religious change throughout the Western world. These years were religiously explosive because of the convergence of major social changes with new currents of thinking and the impact of specific events, notably the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War and Vatican II. The social changes included unprecedented affluence, changes in family relationships and especially in the position of women, and the weakening of collective identities, rooted in confessional and ideological sub-cultures. New currents of ideas included a growing political and theological radicalism, culminating in 1968, and increasingly influential concepts of individual human rights.