Dear Editor,
Thank you for the book review by Ann Benton if Charles (February en) asking Dickens can be regarded as a Christian? I notice that Ann did not commit herself to the book’s thesis. But let me add a few things.
Charles Dickens developed a dislike for the church in his youth and had all the prejudices of his time. He had, for instance, that dislike of defined dogmas, which really means a preference for unexamined dogmas. Stephen Rost notes that Dickens became involved with a system that attracted many fellow intellectuals: Unitarianism. It enabled him to live without the dogmatic creeds of historic Christianity, yet affirm the existence of God and the humanity and divine mission of Jesus Christ.1