Eliot's Conversion (in 1920)

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Lest we forget how shocking that conversion was to his peers, consider Virginia Woolf's bitter lament to a mutual friend: "He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church … . A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there's something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God." She adds, "we must consider him dead to us from this point on." (From an article in Books and Culture)

The academic and literature culture of the 20th century is sure tough on Christianity and has been at least since the 1920s.

Comments

Derandk said…
I think it's amazing that after the Great War we find that the world, in a state of unified upheaval, makes a dramatic turn not to God but instead back into itself. Choosing human thought and emotions as the prevailing culture over God's culture. And Eliot, part of the pioneering group of authors in the resurgence of modernism, I'm sure was lost to everyone once he stepped into the christian faith.
May 6, 2009 at 6:31 PM
jaypercival said…
Very good comment. It is shocking. And Eliot's "The Idea of a Christian Society" reads like someone crazy ... he actually proposes that all may well be lost if we don't consider allowing Chrisitianity to publically temper our morality (not that everyone has to become a Christian, but we attempt a return to "being a Christian nation". He obviously felt the situation was desperate.
May 7, 2009 at 6:20 AM
amy catherine said…
I think its sad that so often God is seen as limiting the individuality and expression in art. I think that's so wrong and see God as a way to move beyond our own selfishness out to others in a real way...unfortunately Virgina Woolf's process of creating and writing and expression is often still imitated even with the tragic conclusion to her life--suicide.
May 7, 2009 at 7:00 AM
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