Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780199287871)

The Victorian crisis of faith has dominated discussions of religion and the Victorians. Stories are frequently told of prominent Victorians such as George Eliot losing their faith. This crisis is presented as demonstrating the intellectual weakness of Christianity as it was assaulted by new lines of thought such as Darwinism and biblical criticism. This study serves as a corrective to that narrative. It focuses on freethinking and Secularist leaders who came to faith. As sceptics, they had imbibed all the latest ideas that seemed to undermine faith; nevertheless, they went on to experience a crisis of doubt, and then to defend in their writings and lectures the intellectual cogency of Christianity. The Victorian crisis of doubt was surprisingly large. Telling this story serves to restore its true proportion and to reveal the intellectual strength of faith in the nineteenth century.

Author: Timothy Larsen
ISBN-10: 0199287872
ISBN-13: 9780199287871
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 01/18/2007
Pages: 330
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 5.80h x 8.64w x 0.93d

Review Citation(s):
Books & Culture 07/01/2007 pg. 9
Christian Century 07/24/2007 pg. 41
Christianity Today 08/01/2007 pg. 57