Crisis of Doubt

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.In the twenty years since Crisis of Doubt was first published, there have been striking shifts and developments in the conversation about faith, doubt, and secularization in the modern era. In addition to providing an expanded appendix which introduces new reconverts for the first time, this second edition situates itself in the current state of the discussion with a new preface by the author, as well as a new foreword by the eminent historian, Philip Jenkins.