Throughout the Victorian Age, the perspective of religious followings had been an area of controversy and contradicting beliefs. Much has been written and discussed about pro religious beliefs although, through some sectors of society, there were various concepts defined as unbelief, infidelity, irreligion, honest doubt or free thought. Following these ideals were apposed traditional religious beliefs. “Recent research on secularization in later Victorian Britain has emphasized the proliferation of substitute religions as a compensation for the decline in the Church of England’s – and by extension Christianity’s – intellectual and ethical authority” (Lomas-Ledger1). The digression from religious beliefs was partly due to trains of thought at that time. Timothy Larsen states, “The rhetoric of honest doubt is often tinged with the notion that a full appreciation of the fruits of modern thought and scientific inquiry would almost automatically lead to the abandonment of religious views; it is not just “honest” in the sense of candidly avowed and not derived from unworthy motives, but, rather, it is as if an “honest” examination of the facts could lead only to religious doubt” (Larsen1).
The groups of “free thinkers” that followed the concept of unbelief was a small percentage of the Mid Victorian generation which proved to be somewhat negligible. Furthermore, those who followed this concept also found later a change in perspective due to the dead end prospects of their anti-Christian beliefs. This resulted in many of them returning to their religious beliefs. The “free thinkers” participating in discussions of “honest doubt” were mainly of the elite status. The elite believed that the intellectual concept of the unbelief was a luxury and that the lower class could not comprehend it and was invariably ignorant of such discussions. “Taking natural selection seriously meant thinking differently about traditional understandings of divine providence, omnipotence, the reality of evil, the nature and purpose of miracles, human origins, original sin, the nature of free will, and even the uniqueness of Christianity” (Bevans1). The Victorian Secularists convincingly claimed that the abandonment of religion was the product of advancement of knowledge and was an irreversible commitment.
Contrary to the claims made by the Victorian Secularists, some of the “free thinkers” reconverted back to their Christian faith. This was hard for the Secularists to comprehend, “No man who has once dared to think for himself; who has had the courage to strip the Bible of all its traditional awe, and to look upon it merely as a book; who, having set himself carefully to examine it, has discovered in it contradictions and absurdities… would have the audacity to maintain that this book was the word of God” (Secularist Robert Cooper/Larsen3). The reconverts were accused of returning to their religious beliefs due to a desire to gain financial advantage, was an unsavory character and therefore was asked to leave the “free thinkers” and had insufficient time to become intellectually convinced of their free thinking ideals. The Secularists would never admit that the true reason for the reconversion of the “free thinkers” was based on a genuine and reflective pursuit of truth of their religion.
In retrospect, the reconverts often reflected on their reasons for initially straying away from their Christian beliefs. Their strongest argument for joining the “free thinkers” included personal, physiological, relational and emotional factors. The reconverts also admitted that their deviation from their religious beliefs also stemmed from them being convinced their knowledge and cleverness surpassed that of religious authorities who were looked upon as their mentors. Another reason for their prior non belief was due to clashes with religious authorities that grew into a dislike of Christianity in general. For the younger Christians, the strong source of skepticism of their Christian belief stemmed from the forbidding of free inquiry. They believed that this could be avoided by the proper presentation of religious ideas rather than the suppression of the exposure to non beliefs.
The “free thinkers” found themselves returning to their religious beliefs claiming that they had experienced their fill of unbelief and found it to be bleak, gloomy and solely destructive. Their rationale for becoming reconverts was due to them eventually realizing that the beliefs they embraced as a non believer were purely negative, and did not provide a solid foundation for vital human hopes and efforts. They rationalized that there had to be a greater being to produce the human body and its complex functions. The reconverts rationalized a return to their faith by explaining that savage tribes have no conception of God and no sort of religion. This being true, an atheist’s highest ideal of man would have to be a savage. Since all civilized races have religious beliefs, not derived from scientific explanations, a society of free thinker’s would consist of a lower form of being.
Sources
(Pic) Campbell, C. Jean. "Figure 3." Heliotropia 7.1/2 (2010): 73. Image Quick View Collection. EBSCO. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.
Bevans, Stephen. "RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN THE VICTORIAN AGE: CHALLENGES AND RECONCEPTIONS." Theological Studies 69.4 (2008): 956-957. Religion and Philosophy Collection. EBSCO. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.
Larsen, Timothy. "The Regaining of Faith: Reconversions among Popular Radicals in Mid-Victorian
Ledger-Lomas, Michael. "Unitarians and the contradictions of liberal Protestantism in Victorian Britain: the Free Christian Union, 1867–70." Historical Research 83.221 (2010): 486-505. Religion and Philosophy Collection. EBSCO. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.
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