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curiousreader's review
“Charles Elwood or The Infidel Converted” follows a man who is an atheist, living in a small town of avid Christians, who are one after the other trying to convert him. The atheist man - or infidel, alternatively unbeliever, as he is called by himself and others - is a man who grew up as a Christian, but after he starts questioning things regarding religion and God, he ends up being shunned by those around him and ultimately turns his back on Christianity. Still, he keeps having these conversations with religious people - all with their own interpretations of God’s words, will and intent - and each with their own lifestyle in accordance to his or her world view. These conversations make up the bulk of the book, and are the stepping stones that leads Charles Elwood himself to form his own belief, world view and faith.
Ultimately, he is converted. It’s not surprising, judging by the title. What is interesting to me as a modern reader is the openness the writer of this book, Brownson, shows in his character’s conversations and discussions of God, the Bible, existence, the mind, reason, and more. While the first characters Elwood speaks to, people of the church markedly, have a very conservative and strict way of looking at both their own profession, their place in the world and their God, the man who most influences Elwood is a man he meets long after his journey started, Mr Morton. Their conversation is long, and it is in many ways more open to an idea of individual interpretation of God and of religion as being less important in the form that it takes, but rather in the essence it encapsulates. They talk of pantheism, among other things, and while Mr. Morton stately distances himself from pantheism, there is as I see it certainly an openness to such an idea as he points to God as spirit, as an energy in every thing or being, any matter, and therefor the idea of the universe and all it contains as divinity seems at least in part compatible with his other points.
The book is a journey of one unbeliever, as he and others sees him, towards a Christian faith. It is a collection of conversations about God and religion, both in the minute details and the grander questions that will haunt even the atheists. Within this larger narrative there are themes of nature, creation and design, reason and logic as a human trait above all else, the essence and the immaterial, the matter and the spirit, the relative and the absolute, the real and the imagined, the constant and the ever changing, purpose and intent. While it is clear that there is an idea of the writer that this book affirms Christianity as the true faith, that in the end Christianity is the truth§ as the character more or less states directly to the reader in the closing paragraphs; it is interesting as a book of fiction with philosophical questions and discussions even as an atheist, both in challenging thoughts about religion and in inspiring questions about the world around us and its nature - whether it leads to an idea of religion or not.
Ultimately, he is converted. It’s not surprising, judging by the title. What is interesting to me as a modern reader is the openness the writer of this book, Brownson, shows in his character’s conversations and discussions of God, the Bible, existence, the mind, reason, and more. While the first characters Elwood speaks to, people of the church markedly, have a very conservative and strict way of looking at both their own profession, their place in the world and their God, the man who most influences Elwood is a man he meets long after his journey started, Mr Morton. Their conversation is long, and it is in many ways more open to an idea of individual interpretation of God and of religion as being less important in the form that it takes, but rather in the essence it encapsulates. They talk of pantheism, among other things, and while Mr. Morton stately distances himself from pantheism, there is as I see it certainly an openness to such an idea as he points to God as spirit, as an energy in every thing or being, any matter, and therefor the idea of the universe and all it contains as divinity seems at least in part compatible with his other points.
The book is a journey of one unbeliever, as he and others sees him, towards a Christian faith. It is a collection of conversations about God and religion, both in the minute details and the grander questions that will haunt even the atheists. Within this larger narrative there are themes of nature, creation and design, reason and logic as a human trait above all else, the essence and the immaterial, the matter and the spirit, the relative and the absolute, the real and the imagined, the constant and the ever changing, purpose and intent. While it is clear that there is an idea of the writer that this book affirms Christianity as the true faith, that in the end Christianity is the truth§ as the character more or less states directly to the reader in the closing paragraphs; it is interesting as a book of fiction with philosophical questions and discussions even as an atheist, both in challenging thoughts about religion and in inspiring questions about the world around us and its nature - whether it leads to an idea of religion or not.
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