Rage against the light

It's interesting to see the different pathways that people take into Christianity. And it's sadly ironic that Woolf was so furious about Eliot's conversion to Christianity. She acts like this is a great betrayal. Yet it's not as if she was the happy humanist. To the contrary, she was suicidally depressed, with bouts of psychosis, throughout her life:

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was a close friend of T.S. Eliot's but his conversion to the Anglican Church was met with outrage. She wrote to her sister Vanessa Bell in February 1928: "Then I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. 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." Once Eliot had found God, his contemporaries thought he was deluded and found his ignorance of social problems ongoing in England in favour of the Church strange with The Times Literary Supplement calling him "kind of a traitor." But for Eliot, there was no dramatic change, only "an expansion or development of interests." Eliot's situation immediately after 1927 echo the words of his new found saviour: "And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22). Was Woolf right to shun her friend's faith so aggressively? To some extent, her resentful attitude was not surprising or even new-found. Suzanne Hobson understands that for Eliot's generation "questions of religion and spirituality went far beyond the question of whether to attend church. That particular decision was often just the beginning of an individual's journey along the many byways of religion in the twentieth century." Whereas Pericles Lewis notes that religion and God were a dying, if not dead, concepts: "In a simplified retrospect, the Victorian era appears as the age of faith and its crisis - "the disappearance of God" (in the words of J. Hillis Miller) or "God's funeral" (the title of a poem of Thomas Hardy's and a recent study by A. N. Wilson) - while the twentieth century has already learned the lesson of the death of God and has no further need for Him." Friedrich Nietzsche's revolutionary phrase "God is dead" would have been natural and known to all in society during the early twentieth century, whether they believed it or not. Lewis adds, "Works like Ulysses, The Waste Land, and To the Lighthouse all share an impulse towards the re-enchantment of the world; they express the desire for a new form of spiritual experience independent of the Christian God and appropriate for the modern age." God was most likely driven out of the twentieth century by ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) theory of Evolution (On The Origin of Species, 1859), which were both strengthened in the preceding centuries. Even the growing philosophical schools of the twentieth century, like Logical Positivism, helped shroud the image of God. However, Lewis correctly identified that with the constant attention God and theology received in the twentieth century, "If God died in the nineteenth century, then he had an active afterlife in the twentieth." It was in this vein of God's "after afterlife" that Christians like C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) and Karl Barth (1886-1968) flourished. It is perhaps noteworthy to point out that Eliot and his contemporary, C.S. Lewis, shared somewhat of a similar story as they were both raised in religious traditions they did not enjoy: Unitarianism and Church of Ireland; both embraced non-religious thinking when they left for university: philosophy and atheism (or paganism); and finally, they both converted to Anglicanism in 1927, and 1931, respectively. In Surprised By Joy, Lewis understands his conversion having occurred like this: "I was driven to Whipsnade [Zoo] one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. "Emotional" is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake." This quote however, does not take into account the numerous instances before 1931 when Lewis had been getting 'Christianized' by J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and Hugo Dyson (1896-1975).

Unlike Lewis's mild conversion story, Eliot's story consisted of more drama. Gordon notes that Eliot visited Rome in 1926 with his brother and sister-in-law. What transpired there stunned Eliot's kin. He fell down onto his knees before Michelangelo's Pietà and adored it. It is not recorded how his kin reacted to this - other than being surprised - but had this been in front of his older generation, Eliot would have been mocked and scolded. Gordon understands that Unitarians were not keen on bowing the knee for any occasion. Eliot's cousin' wife, Mrs. Charles William Eliot, was said to have "wrote censoriously to a friend who had joined the Episcopalian Church: 'Do you kneel down in church and call yourself a miserable sinner? Neither I nor my family will ever do that!" But Eliot seemed to admire this gesture of worship through degradation. The young Eliot was raised in the upper-class religious tradition of Unitarianism, which was founded by his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot in 1834. Eliot said of his grandfather, "The standard of conduct was that which my grandfather had set out: our moral judgements, our decisions between duty and self-indulgence, were taken as if, like Moses, he had brought down the tables of the Law, any deviation from which would be sinful." Manju Jain and others state that the young Eliot "referred to himself as having been brought up "outside the Christian Fold, in Unitarianism"". Robert Crawford further acknowledges Eliot as proclaiming, "The Son and Holy Ghost were not believed in, certainly; but they were entitled to respect." Cleo McNelly Kearns understands that Unitarians held "a long tradition of resistance to the more hierarchical and mystagogic forms of the religious life, as well as to the rebarbative dogmas and internecine quarrels of their Puritan and Calvinist forebears." Gordon emphasises the strict nature of Unitarianism, as evidenced by Charles William Eliot's wife words earlier. Gordon claims, "The religion taught by William Greenleaf Eliot was strict rather than spiritual. He was not concerned with perfection, or doctrine, or theology, but with a code that would better the human lot." It seemed that Unitarianism wanted to prepare man's exterior for the Divine, rather than the important action of preparing man's interior, which the Divine is more concerned about as Isaiah said, "All flesh is grass, / And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field / The grass withers, the flower fades, / Because the breath of the LORD blows upon it" (Isaiah 40: 6-8). When Eliot fell on his knees before the figure of Mary cradling the wounded and dead body of her son, Jesus Christ, Eliot's interior was touched by the Divine, undoing the years of fruitless exterior preparation Unitarianism did for him. Jain further shows that in the early nineteenth century Unitarianism established their power further by gaining control of religious institutions in New England, the centre of Unitarianism in America being Harvard Divinity School. Harvard had strong Calvinistic ideas, but in 1805, Henry Ware was elected to the Hollis Chair which ushered out Calvinistic ideas present at the School and replaced them with Unitarianism. With such a strong presence of Unitarianism at Harvard, why did Eliot choose to study there if he wanted to escape the clutches of the tradition? Was it because it was a family tradition, since his grandfather and cousin studied there and maintained a strong presence in the institution? Or perhaps despite its Unitarian theology, did Eliot want to immerse himself into Harvard's renowned philosophy department which contained eminent scholars like William James, George Santayana and Josiah Royce? The latter seems more feasible, though the former cannot be disregarded, as it may have been that he was awarded a place at Harvard because he was an 'Eliot'. During this "golden age of American philosophy", Eliot had a golden ticket in the form of a place at Harvard to study under the best, with even Bertrand Russell claiming that Harvard had the finest school of philosophy in the world until James, Santayana and Royce left their positions.

When Eliot came to England, Anglicanism was not the primary religion which interested him. According to Kearns, after studying the Indic religions and learning Sanskrit at Harvard, Eliot developed an intense desire for Buddhism. However, Lewis states that it was both, Buddhism and Hinduism, which Eliot wanted to pursue, not just Buddhism. England gave Eliot a freedom, America never could: the freedom of faith. Kearns states that "Religion meant for him [Eliot] not just and not even primarily a system of beliefs but rather the sum total of the ritual, cultic, and related social practices of a given society, each of them in more or less functional relation to the others." The Buddhist magga or path seemed to be the road Eliot was destined for before his 1926 Pietà moment. What was it then about Buddhism that attracted Eliot to it? Kearns understands that, "Buddhism attracted Eliot for its profound recognition of the pain inevitably associated with human desire, and its insistence that all merely personal self-identity is constructed upon lack, and has no essential subsistence except as a provisional, sometime enabling, though often blinding illusion." However, Eliot never officially converted to Buddhism in his life but maintained a lifelong fascination with the tradition with Kearns suggesting that "Four Quartets for instance is in some respects a great poem of Buddhist wisdom, able to render extremely subtle concepts such as that of sunyata or divine emptiness in such memorable images as the lotus rising from the empty pool." This is strongly supported by Staffan Bergsten's view that after conversion Eliot saw the Indian religions as forming a "preparatory stage or an introduction to the full Christian revelation, and although not wholly compatible with the revealed truth, they contain many philosophical elements that can be embraced by a Christian." This shows that Eliot held onto his Buddhist views even after conversion and may have wanted to integrate the ideals of the Indian religion into Western Christianity. So, why did Eliot not convert to Buddhism? Firstly, it may have been for a practical reason as he was unable "to make much of Oxford's Buddhist Society." Secondly, and on a deeper level, "that Eliot did not "become" a Buddhist, a devotee of Robert Graves's pagan goddess, a Hindu or even (like Ezra Pound, Irving Babbitt, and I.A. Richards) a Confucian, was due to the pragmatism and sophistication with which, after his philosophical investigations, he tended to treat all such decision." Jain agrees with this view.

One person who, like Woolf, was a thorn in Eliot's acceptance of Christianity was, Ezra Pound. Gordon notes that when Eliot met Pound in 1914, "Eliot was writing quasi-religious poems." As impressed as Pound was with Eliot's poetic brilliance, he was dismissive of his religious poetry and growing inquisition into Christianity as Gordon states, "Eliot's preoccupation with questions of Christianity, theology, and evil was undercover because he remained in doubt.In July 1917 he acknowledged that life was poor without religion, but as yet he was unconvinced it was the greatest of all satisfactions and so worth the effort." Pound may have been the reason that Eliot did not turn to Christianity sooner than 1927. "Christianity has become a sort of Prussianism, and will have to go," Pound thought, adding, "It has its uses and is disarming, but it is too dangerous. Religion is the root of all evil, or damn near all." On another occasion Pound was seen to be attacking monotheism: "I consider the Metamorphoses [by Ovid] a sacred book, and the Hebrew scri ptures the record of a barbarian tribe, full of evil." When Eliot eventually took up the offer of Anglicanism as the cure for his cultural despair, Pound commented, "His diagnosis is wrong," and added, 'His remedy is an irrelevance.' In 1927, when Eliot converted to Anglicanism, his contemporaries and scholars today agree that it was as a last resort. Gordon claims, "Eliot accepted the morality of damnation, and could not save himself without help. It seems that at this time he felt no fervour, and was driven to the Church almost as a last resort." Kearns agrees with this view. Donald Davie understands that "when it came to deciding what Christian sect he should join, it was of the utmost importance to him that he choose what should seem to be not a sect at all but a nation norm, its normality shown in that it was backed by the secular and institutional forces of the nation-state." Conversion was not solely about joining an organization but about finding an identity which had been distorted by Unitarianism, Eastern religions, myths and personal problems. It also symbolised a release of self-control and be driven by the Divine, or as Gordon states, Eliot assumed himself "prepared to close the gap between human frailty and superhuman perfection." This gap could only be eliminated by the Church of England as "Eliot saw in the English Church decency, common sense, and a moderation that, he felt, might provide a corrective to the faddist modern mind." The gap which Eliot described further is morphed into a wide and deep river in a letter addressed to W.F. Stead. After Eliot's first confession took place in December 1928 he told Stead that "he had finally crossed a very wide and deep river, never to return". After his conversion, Eliot was said to uphold typical Anglican beliefs and act in accordance with them. Bergsten states that Eliot's emphasis laid on the Incarnation of Christ, which is a major theme in Four Quartets, is a well-known characteristic of Anglican theology. Eliot professed: "I take for granted that Christian revelation is the only full revelation; and that the fullness of Christian revelation resides in the essential fact of the Incarnation, in relation to which all Christian revelation is to be understood." Along with the importance of the Incarnation, Eliot grew a strong respect for sexual purity. "Lust seemed to him the most corrupting of all sins and, as a young man, he wished the flesh could be denied, burnt away by that refining fire he so often invoked," claimed Gordon. Soon after his conversion he wrote savagely that those who 'suffer the ecstasy of the animals' [Marina, SP, p. 93] may look forward only to death. Eliot's proclivity to purity puts him in a long strand of Christian thinkers like Maximus the Confessor (580-662) who like Eliot, emphasised asceticism ; and St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), who, in the words of St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), stressed to "preserve the white robe of purity from the flames of sensual pleasure".

Eliot was known to be a reserved man but after his conversion he turned more radical as he urged Anglicans for a stricter theology, discipline and asceticism, "not watered down and robbed of the severity of it demands." Of the three, correct theology was of utmost importance for Eliot because "In accepting the Christian position, he willed to believe that there really is a Centre, a shared Centre," which perhaps he was cautious of other people misunderstanding. It is not known if he was certain that his Anglican theology was the correct one but he seemed to act as if it were the only truth in terms of Christian understanding, and was not afraid to remind those who he though did not possess similar understanding. Eliot knew the St. Louisian author, and literary critic Paul Elmer More (1864-1937) who was one of "the two wisest men" (emphasis Eliot) in his life, the other being the Harvard professor, Irving Babbitt. More was raised a Presbyterian, but converted Anglicanism. Though Eliot praised More for actively seeking the "the concentrated mind of God", he was however critical of More's failure to recognize the continuity of the Church and the importance of mysticism and mystics like Julian of Norwich. In advancing his idea of Christian theology, he even criticized his former teacher, Babbit, in a 1937 essay titled 'Revelation'. Eliot criticizes his former teacher for having failed to discern the inherent truths of Christianity, truths which, Eliot suggests, place it above all other religions and philosophies." Along with his theology, Eliot's sense of community strengthened too after 1927. This is evident from three lines of 'Choruses from The Rock' (1934): "What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life that is not in community, And no community not lived in praise of God." (II, lines 38-40, SP, p. 104) Alan Marshall understands that "what Eliot seems to be saying here is that all communities are Christian in tendency." This view perhaps did not persist during his time writing The Waste Land and other poems as there is no sense of a community in The Waste Land, only fragments of situations and conversations witnessed by the narrator. To some extent this shows that Eliot's sense of community was formed after his conversion which Marshall agrees with. However, Timothy Materer clarifies that though Eliot admires Christianity, it is solely a Christian community that he speaks of: "In After Strange Gods, as well as The Idea of a Christian Society (1940) and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1949), a unified religious background means Christianity alone, since Eliot believes that for Western civilization the only alternative to a Christian society or culture is a pagan one." In keeping with this view, Eliot joined a Christian discussion group, the Moot, established by the Scottish missionary J.H. Oldham (1879-1969) in 1939, to bring together leading Christian thinkers from London and surrounding areas. The aim of the group was to discuss possible Christian solutions to the failure of democracy as seen in the World War II. Hobson states that, "although he was never quite convinced, either by the Moot's message or by its methods, Eliot was in accord with the idea that Christianity was the solution to an urgent problem.

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