Dickens and religion: A tale of two views

[rug]

By peggy fletcher stack

The Salt Lake Tribune
First published 50 minutes ago
Updated 20 minutes ago

A yearlong celebration of Charles Dickens’ life and works will begin on the 200th anniversary of his birth, Feb. 7, with a wreath-laying at London’s Westminster Abbey.

It seems a fitting gesture, given that the Abbey’s Poets’ Corner houses the famous writer’s remains. But it is also ironic in light of Dickens’ distaste for religious structures and rigid dogma.

Dickens, a member of the Church of England (Anglican), believed deeply in Jesus as savior and in his moral teachings, but many of the novelist’s most avowedly Christian characters represent the worst in religion: greed, hypocrisy, indifference to human suffering, arrogance, self-righteousness and theological bullying.

“He was more interested in the general spirit than the specific letter of the faith,” says Brian McCuskey, who teaches English at Utah State University. “Holding broad, loose beliefs, he had little patience for either institutional or evangelical Christianity.”

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/faith/53415096-142/dickens-christian-says-christianity.html.csp

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[LeftishBrit]

2. Very interesting

Dickens' books are fascinating - and unlike many writers about poor and disadvantaged people, he had some personal experience of the matter.

Several Victorian writers include villains who would fit well into the current 'Christian Right'. Some of Dickens' characters certainly would! Another example is Mr. Brocklehurst in Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre' - who was definitely based on a real person.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. A minor point

Because I agree wholeheartedly with the SPIRIT of this post - which deserves a rec by the way.

http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/charlesdickens.html

Although Dickens was baptized and reared in the Church of England and was a nominal Anglican for most of his life, he turned to Unitarianism in the 1840s as a Broad Church alternative. He associated with Unitarians until the end of his life. Early experience with Dissenters gave him a lifelong aversion to evangelical zeal, doctrinal disputation and sectarianism. Equally unsympathetic with High Church Anglicanism, he feared that the Oxford Movement might lead the English back to Roman Catholicism. Dickens, however, favored civil rights for Catholics and even once hoped his daughter would marry the Catholic Percy Fitzgerald, one of his literary protégés.

More from there

Dickens's religious beliefs were those of most 19th century British Unitarians. In his will he urged his children to adopt a liberal, tolerant, and non-sectarian interpretation of Christianity, "the teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit." He recommended they "put no faith in any man's narrow construction" of isolated passages. In The Life of Our Lord, written for his children and not published until 1934, Dickens summarized his faith as "to do good always." He believed humanity, created in the image of the divine, retained a seed of good. He preached the gospel of the second chance. The world would be a better place if, with a change of heart, people were to treat others with kindness and generosity.

My path was different - I was born and raised in the Southern Baptist faith - but in April 2004 I left and never looked back . . . because I found a home for my HEART in the UU Church. It's what we do here on this earth here that matters most. How we treat other human beings. The kindness we show others. And what we do when NO ONE is around to see us treat the last and the least that matters most. Not adherence to strict rules in dress, type of prayer, the food we eat, etc. etc.

[madmom]

4. I did not know

that I shared a birthday with Charles Dickens