They were perfectly explicable, I mean, in the sense that she was raised in a super anti-Catholic, anti-Dissenter environment; she lived during the age of Hypatia, which I guess is reason enough. But also, for someone who flirted with universalism as much as she did (“Surely [the soul] will never be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend. No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling; for it extends hope to all; it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss”) and also fell massively in love with official Catholic Person Constantin Heger, she was super addicted to saying the most outrageous shit about various Christian denominations this side of a Jack Chick tract!
And I sort of love it? Obviously I personally disagree with her about denominational yelling, but her constant flitting from all-shall-be-reconciled-by-the-hand-of-the-Father thoughts to get-that-foul-popery-away-from-me is weirdly precious to me. She was so judgmental, and there are few things I love more than a judgmental prude who is too dead to disapprove of me personally.
There’s a scene in Jane Eyre where Jane goes back to visit the cousins who alternately abused and neglected her as a child, and she’s somehow super-serene about this past trauma but can’t resist firing off a few shots when Eliza announces she’s converting to Catholicism:
“To-morrow,” she continued, “I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle – a nunnery you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.”
I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: “much good may it do you!”
When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some sense.”
I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t much care.”
WALLED UP ALIVE, I mean!
“And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure, white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some Catholic or Methodist.”
like some CATHOLIC
wait how did Anglicans pray, did they not kneel?
“One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricane shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed to their saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was roughly roused and obliged to live.”
This is the most magnificently bitchy thing Lucy Snowe ever said, and she said a great many magnificently bitchy things. “Yes, the Catholics were thrown into a panic by a bit of a hurricane, and clutched their inert icons to their fervent chests. I – the sole Protestant, the beacon of individualism – I chose to live.”
“A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains were taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each mind was being reared in slavery; but, to prevent reflection from dwelling on this fact, every pretext for physical recreation was seized and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to bring up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, ruddy, hale, joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. “Eat, drink, and live!” she says. “Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I hold their cure—guide their course: I guarantee their final fate.” A bargain, in which every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer just offers the same terms.”
If the word sheeple had been in common use at the time, I have no doubt that Charlotte Brontë would have used it here. I love that stern little Puritan Lucy Snowe so, so much. She considered putting butter on your bread a vile concession to sensualism. Eat rocks and sleep on nails, that’s the sensible, English way. People who eat and drink are Eloi and Lucy Snowe is the original Morlock.
“I was a Lutheran once at Bonn.”
“The little book amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting, sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this unlicked wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a guileless lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; they were flavoured with about the same seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had written it was no bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained cunning—the cloven hoof of his system—I should pause before accusing himself of insincerity.”
It doesn’t offend me, how wrong you are, like a Methodist. CHARLOTTE. You disingenuous little frowner!
“There she read old books, taken from her uncle’s library…mad Methodist Magazines, full of miracles and apparitions, of preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; the equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living; a few old English classics. From these faded flowers Caroline had in her childhood extracted the honey; they were tasteless to her now.”
It’s easy to overlook the anti-Methodism in her books for all the more overt anti-Catholicism, but please don’t miss it, it’s delightful. You faded flowers! You mad apparition-seers! You…you magazine writers!
“He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism.”
WELL THEN.
All I can think of now is our choir teacher yelling at us to stop singing like Methodists and commit.
Hey now, John Wesley’s Directions for Singing covers that in IV:
Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.
followed of course by V
Sing modestly…
http://exploringchurchhistory.com/john-wesley-hym…
We also got yelled at not to sing like Episcopalians. He wanted that good Anabaptist a capella sound.
Hard to argue with that!
He was a lovely man (and a Methodist turned Episcopalian). And we were a damn good choir.
Episcopalians all try to sing like Anglicans, except when they (usually all-white choirs) try to channel some good soulful Southern Baptist gospel and maybe attempt a step-clap. It never ends well.
My former Episcopal choir director wanted us to sing like Anglican boys. It was horrible and painful and I dropped out of that choir until he retired.
Been an Episcopalian. Yeah, there are things that can be said about underperforming. Mumbling, perhaps.
I, an Episcopalian, will take many slights. However, Episcopalian a capella is the best. We are natural lovers of four part harmony, inasmuch as no one may stand out too much, and we all learn at our parents’ knee, whether musically-inclined, or not. It’s as natural to us as coffee hour and silent auctions.
I think just from the subliminal power of reading this thread, I have “Oh Happy Day” stuck in my head. I’m not complaining, it’s just there now.
And now it is with me also.
and with thy spirit
My girlfriend told me she quit the Methodist church in large part because, some weeks after inviting her to sing in their choir because of her strong voice, they took her aside and asked her if she could please just sing more quietly, please.
Ours (in a Catholic choir) informed us that our job was to “sing like Anglicans”.
And we did, and it was awesome.
I will now continue to believe this is a Choir Joke learned by Choir Teachers all around.
My Federal Income Tax professor apparently grew up in a strict Lutheran household because when he was explaining the rules for business expense deductions, he said “it’s like being Lutheran. If it’s fun, you can’t do it.” My (Methodist clergy) husband thought this was so funny that now whenever we need to be especially frugal for a period of time, he invokes “the Lutheran Rule”–if it’s fun, don’t do it.
It’s because enjoying something leads to the horrible suspicion that you’re being led to it by the weak desires of the flesh. If something is unpleasant, surely you can’t be doing it for any reason other than virtue and duty.
Iiiiii’m not sorryy-yy.
Anglicans totes kneel.
I was a Catholic once in Barcelona.
Right?? She makes it sound so PRURIENT.
I always thought that Anglicans + Protestants leaned forward onto the back of the next pew???
my (super-catholic) mum calls it the “Proddy Lean”
As someone who was raised (and still is) Jewish, I have never understood the “Catholics aren’t actually Christian” thing. Like, they believe in the whole Christ-as-messiah bit, so doesn’t that make them Christian? Like, that’s why Jews for Jesus aren’t actually Jewish?
Never underestimate the ability of Christians to get into KNOCK-DOWN-DRAG-OUT FIGHTS over incredibly minute differences!
Angels, pins, dancing.
It’s a WHOLE INDUSTRY
There’s a lot of ugly xenophobia and dubious theology around that idea, and I say it as someone raised to believe it (of course, no church other than our denomination was *really* Christian, but Catholics were doubleplus ungood not Christians). Basically what Mallory said.
My Baptist-raised mother worked at a Catholic funeral home for YEARS before she sheepishly admitted to me she was finally convinced Catholics are Christians, too.
Catholics are definitely Christian – this is basically an insult that Protestants like to sling.
Which is confusing to me because my Catholic school taught us that of course Protestants are Christian, so it appears to be a one-sided battle.
Specifically, fundamentalist Protestants. You won’t find, say, Anglicans saying this.
…Especially not the high-church Anglo-Catholics! Bless them in their lovely lace and fine brocade, and their slightly competitive genuflecting.
Or as we called it when I was growing up Episcopalian, Catholic Lite!
High church Anglo-Catholics make me break out in hives. Unfortunately, my bishop is one, so I have a lot of conflicted feelings and am very spiritually itchy.
Thanks for clarifying!
Seriously, I was brought up in a particularly conservative and insular form of Lutheranism and even we were taught that Catholics were Christians.
They didn’t do it quite right, just like every other Christian denomination out there in the world aside from our own, but they met the basic requirements.
(sigh)
Lutheranism is Catholic Lite with casseroles at potlucks.
At least they won’t say it out loud or among outsiders or before a few glasses of wine.
I love it when Anglicans shit-talk Catholics. It’s the driest shade possible.
The best is when they sling it in a casual, genuinely confused tone of voice during history lectures. “You keep saying they were Christians, but didn’t you say they were Catholic priests?”
I was raised Catholic and i don’t get it either. I definitely heard Catholics refer to themselves as Christian. I only found out that was even the case when a high-school classmate of mine told me he was sorry that I was going to hell and spent a good part of the next year trying to get me to become Christian Reformed.
Are you from Michigan by any chance?
If I can’t call other Christians WRONGITY WRONGITY WRONG how on earth will I ever be sure that I’m right????
Oh no, when did my cousin the minister start posting here?!
right, & then you get the Jesuits, and “well they’re not even really Catholic“, which is where I personally get confused and give up.
Well, the whole Jesuit mission statement is to extend one’s middle finger in the general direction of Rome, so I can see why people would think that.
well, sure. I think no one ever bothered explaining it to me because most of my catholic family went to Boston College, and so it was only brought up non-seriously as like, an inside joke.
anyways now the pope’s jesuit so haha, joke’s on everyone.
On the other hand, there’s also the competing conspiracy theory that the Jesuits have secretly been running the Church since they got started, even when the Church *actually banned the order * for several years.
I’ve always thought it was a weird outgrowth of a) the wars of theocracy from the 1600s that had bunches to do with who came to live in the US in the early years and b) well, Catholics are French, Iberian, Italian etc., namely people with brown hair who tan & simultaneously Irish & Polish who are somehow too pale.
Catholics don’t think Christians are Christians, either, so, I guess it’s fair
Not true. Maybe hundreds of years ago, but these days most Catholics would say that any believer in Jesus as savior and the Son of God is a Christian. They’re just not Catholic.
To quote my (Assemblies of God) grandmother, “Catholics aren’t Christians because they haven’t been born again”. By that logic, most other Christians aren’t Christian either, but they’re still a far sight better than Unitarians like me (“Those Unitarians – they don’t believe in anything!”)
She sounds like one of those glorious characters in an L M Montgomery novel.
Quick Unitarian joke: what does the KKK do when a Unitarian family moves into the neighborhood?
Burn a question mark on their lawn.
The explanation I have heard that makes sense to me (I am also someone raised as and still basically Jewish) is that veneration of saints is thinly disguised idolatry, and idolatry invalidates anyone’s claim to be Christian. I don’t know if this is actually the doctrine of any particular branch of Protestantism.
It is one of the reasons I was given as a child, along with the veneration of Mary, the existence of the Pope and infant baptism.
I get the first two of those, but what’s the deal with infant baptism?
Everyone who got baptized in the Bible was an adult, so infant baptism “doesn’t count” and can lead to people being “improperly baptized” and then not getting dunked later and going to hell. In their opinion.
I think I remember the idea about idolatry being mentioned once in the rather liberal church I grew up in, but we didn’t believe that Catholics weren’t Christians, only that they were somewhat misguided Christians. I suspect that belief generally goes both ways.
I grew up in an Evangelical Protestant church and it was heavily implied that Catholics weren’t Christian because of the saints as idolatry. I do remember telling my youth group leader that we went to midnight Mass with my grandma and she kind of wrinkled her nose and said something about being surprised my mother allowed that since they pray to Mary instead of Jesus.
From what I remember from Catholic high school, I think the Catholics would say they don’t *actually* pray to Mary or the saints, they just ask them to chat with God on their behalf.
Yah, as I understand it that is the Catholic position, but some Protestants don’t buy it.
The reason that many Protestants don’t think that Catholics are Christian is because they don’t believe in salvation by grace. (Or at least Protestants believe that Catholics don’t believe in salvation by grace.) Rather than salvation being a free gift given to any undeserving soul who seeks it, Catholics believe that salvation can be earned–and at certain points in their history could be purchased.
At least, that’s the way that it has been explained to me…
That’s not entirely accurate. Catholics believe in salvation through grace and works – that is, it’s not enough to just believe in God. You have to also do good works and live a decent life. (That did get perverted in the pre-Reformation period with indulgences etc, but so it goes.) You do still have to have the belief/grace part as well though. (This all gets into Calvinistic predestination arguments, as so much Catholic/Protestant theological argument tends to.)
This led to the opposite confusion for me (raised in Ireland as a Catholic) from what most people in this thread are saying. When my American friends described someone as “very Christian”, I thought they meant she did an awful lot of charity work. It turned out they meant she prayed a lot and strongly disapproved of Dungeons and Dragons.
I think it’s a combination of:
1. Racism/cultural snobbery by northern Europeans against Those Suspicious Latins
2. A legacy of the Reformation, where various (sometimes hostile) Protestant sects found solidarity and alliance in a shared At Least We Aren’t Papist-ism
3. The weird nature of churches being in communion with each other, which is the religious version of cross-compatibility. If one church is in full communion with another, their rites (ordination of clergy, baptism, marriage, Lord’s Supper, etc.) are seen as completely legitimate by the other church, and if a worshipper switches from one to the other they have the same chance (all other things being equal) of making it to heaven. If two churches are *not* in communion none of those rites are cross-compatible switching between churches counts as a full-on religious conversion (i.e. you have to get baptized again, and probably take some remedial religious education) and in the eyes of your old church what you did was basically the same as becoming a foul heathen and you’re definitely going to hell.
Then there’s partial communion, which is… special. In this case, some rites apply but others don’t (like, if you’re a minister who switches from one church to another that’s in partial communion, you don’t have to get re-baptized, but you might not still be considered a minister in your new church). Churches in partial communion generally view each other as still basically the True Faith, our version is just a better true faith than your true faith.
A lot of Protestant churches are in full or partial communion with each other, but not with Catholicism (and vice versa) so the whole “your rites are illegitimate and basically paganism and you’re super-ultra-definitely going to Hell” thing has generally applied on both sides (except when it hasn’t). So there’s historically been some theological (and political) grounds for Protestants to say “Protestants are Christian [i.e. somewhat cross-compatible with my church] but Catholic’s aren’t.”
4. There was a lot of weird Enlightenment rationalist theology and philosophy that tried to boil down Christianity to its basic, essential doctrines and ingredients and five secret spices, and because of the above reasons, one of the five secret spices tended to be “not being Catholic.”
5. In more modern, pluralist societies there’s been a lot of bridge-building between churches, but (some of) Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy but I’m leaving that aside for now) has historically been somewhat “meh” (or outright hostile) about pluralist bridge building. Which has left the door open for would-be-bridge builders to respond with “well FINE, it’s not like you’re EVEN REAL CHRISTIANS anyway!”
Fascinating!
(not that Catholicism has been faultlessly tolerant and pluralistic and a completely passive victim of Protestant intolerance, DEFINITELY NOT THAT, but the topic under discussion is Protestant not-a-real-Christian-ing of Catholics, so I’m leaving out a lot)
I have never been to a church service in my life and this is FASCINATING.
Is it also that the more fresh the schism, the more that the new church asserts it’s “one true path to God” message, whereas over time the older churches take on ecumenism as a way to welcome th next generation back?
This is largely true, although I’d say the causality may be backwards there- difference in belief over the “one true path” is often one of the chief driving forces of a schism, and also a key ingredient in the survival of a young religion/church (people have to want to commit to keep things spinning), whereas an older, established church is in a less precarious position and doesn’t necessarily require the same strict branding to remain solvent- it has legacy members and the air of legitimacy any institution develops with age.
By self-selection, members of a brand new splinter sect are somewhat more likely to believe that this splintering was a necessary step on the road to salvation, whereas members of an established church may have been born in to it and not have the same passionate certainty about it.
“you have to get baptized again”
See, in the flavor of Protestantism I grew up with (conservative Lutheran), that’s not the case. If you were baptized in the name of the Trinity, that was IT, it totally counted, and you better not even think about trying to do it again because that would be definitely and unspecifically EVIL.
True! It is of course massively more complicated than I presented it.
Of course, if you were baptized nontrinitarian (Jehovah’s witness, LDS, certain types of Pentecostal) all bets are off.
Interesting! My dad was raised Southern Baptist and took every baptism he could get in on (all as a Baptist) just to make extra sure. Then again, he ended up becoming an atheist, so clearly that method is fail.
My old ELCA church tried switching to communion only once a month at some point, on the grounds that taking communion every week was…excessive and prideful? IDK, I was 12 at that point.
I do think this leaves out the fact that “Catholics aren’t Christian” is almost entirely an evangelical, and fairly modern thing. To be honest, I’ve only ever even seen it in an American context. Bronte certainly doesn’t suggest her Catholic characters aren’t Christian. (This is not to deny the existence of serious anti-Catholic sentiment, but you can still get pretty het up about people doing Christianity WRONG, without believing they’re not doing it at all.
There is a bit towards the end of Villette where Lucy manages to get one more dig in at Catholicism while simultaneously praising M. Emmanuel for not dropping it for her: “In him was not the stuff of which is made the facile apostate.”
Part of the argument is that the pope is really the anti-Christ so all Catholics are actually Satan-worshippers.
I had been told this so many times by other kids in school that I wasn’t a Christian, because I was Catholic, that I thought it was true.
Because of this, I announced that I wasn’t a Christian when we were going to sing “We are all Christians” at Girl Scout Camp. When I said I was a Catholic, the counselor gave me a confused look and said, “what? of course Catholics are Christians.”
After reading through this thread, I’m wondering if it’s an American vs European thing. I’ve never heard a European say that Catholics aren’t Christians. The people who believe that seem to be American Evangelicals. Actually I feel that identifying as a Protestant is somewhat American in itself? Or, maybe it’s a thing in the English-speaking world in general, because I assume that the question is important in Ireland and the UK.
I’d say that the average European Christian seems to either identify as a Christian, or as a certain flavour of Christian (Lutheran, Pentecostal, Jehova’s Witness, Catholic, Greek Orthodox etc). But a Lutheran doesn’t necessarily feel closer to a Pentecostal or a Baptist than to a Catholic just because they’re Protestants, and they would probably identify more with a Catholic than with a Mormon. I think it all comes down to similarity and familiarity rather than shared history. Look at the quotes – Charlotte Brontë certainly doesn’t seem to think she has more in common with Methodists than with Catholics, and her beef with both of those faiths is that they’re culturally different from her values of emotional repression and stiff upper lips, not that they’re interpreting the Bible wrong.
Maybe the 30 Years War just took the fun out of uniting all Protestants together against Catholicism…
Yeah I’m English and I’ve never heard anyone here say that Catholics aren’t Christians- the whole Protestant v Catholic thing obviously gets a bit more heated in Ireland and Scotland though.
Much less in Scotland now than even 15 or 20 years ago, is the impression I get when I go back there.
Yes, that’s my experience too. (Although British people do/did identify as Protestant, in Villette Lucy certainly uses that word all the time).
It’s also worth noting there’s a strong element of pull as well as push in her response to Catholicism which both restrains the prejudice and fuels it. There’s a wonderful scene in Villette where Lucy’s horribly isolated and undergoing devastating depression and goes into a confession booth and talks to a Catholic priest, who is kind to her. She remembers him with gratitude, and is all “He made me feel a little better, and if I’d let him be nice to me for literally one more minute I would be a nun right now so THANK GOD I GOT MYSELF OUT OF THERE TO BE MISERABLE ALONE.”
I have been a Catholic for many decades now and I have never heard such a (misguided and vicious) slur. Furthermore, Catholics are extremely polite about the wayward ecclesial Communities of the Reformation of the 16th century, and I have never heard it suggested that members of those sects are not Christian. (Though as noted by all other commenters, You’re just Doing It Wrong is a universal dig.)
I was a Catholic once in Italy. Forgive me, upright high Anglicanism of my mother.
I was an Anglican once, in Oklahoma of all places, because my grandmother accidentally took me to an Anglican church (“It looked Catholic!”) She didn’t realize the difference until mass was almost over.
That’s a way better story than mine. We accidentally walked into a church in Florence during mass and it felt disrespectful to leave so we just stuck it out. The nuns were really nice.
Anglicans kneel to pray, too, but they do it with a glass of sherry in hand.
NOT SIDNEY CHAMBERS YOU TAKE THAT BACK
And Methodists don’t kneel to pray. At least, judging by my raised-Methodist spouse, who, when he couldn’t get out of going, has sat through many a Mass with butt firmly in pew and knees nowhere near the kneeler.
Methodists don’t kneel in public, anyway. Maybe it’s acceptable when it’s just you and Jesus on a moonlight night.
This totally clarified my understanding of my Methodist grandfather who married into a family of Catholics. He was an obstinate non-kneeler to his dying day.
Methodists, I would think, can kneel to pray.
But they can’t kneel during the parts of the Catholic Mass where they would be kneeling to the Sacrament, because they do not believe the host is the body of Christ — they would be kneeling to bread.
But bread is pretty awesome. I’d kneel to bread before I’d kneel to a deity.
Is “I was a Lutheran once at Bonn” like “I was a lesbian once in college”?
Youtheran is the new hasbian!
If my Lutheran youth group adventures are anything to go by, it’s EXACTLY like that.
Had Jack Chick been this magnificently freezing, subtle, and shady maybe I’d want HIS words on a tote bag.
Instead, I’ll take 50 with “I was roughly roused and obliged to live” in large print Helvetica, thanks.
Mad Methodist Magazine never really caught on until they went non-denominational and changed the name.
I choose to read that last one as being about “Methodist Mad magazines”, and none of you can stop me.
“…full of miracles and apparitions, of preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and those two spies who keep blowing each other up.”
“… and snappy answers to stupid missals.”
Nothing brings my Irish American Catholic raised heart more joy than a good Catholic burn. They make me laugh at their accuracy but also feel superior because in that exact moment they are the ones being the bad mocking Christians and I am morally superior. So it’s a two for one of joy.
I literally have switched to Anglican church and I understand this exact feeling. (also raised Catholic in an Irish/American household)
As a recovering Catholic, there are few things I enjoy more than complaining about papists.
I would guess that spontaneous personal prayer of the “upright in your bed” sort seems more Methodist or Catholic than Anglican if you go about your Anglicanism as my family did. I was raised by my Anglican grandmother, and she was never a “let’s pray for guidance in this daily situation” type of person. She saved up all her biggest problems to pray about in the pew on schedule, and the rest of the week you looked around at your problems, you figured out what had to be done, and then you did it. If she believed in spontaneous personal prayer, she kept it very private.
Undignified to publicly importune the Almighty, I guess.
This reminds me of the joke that Anglicans only refer to Jesus by his last name: “Christ.”
And indeed, it always makes me suspicious whenever someone refers to him as Jesus, as though it were overly familiar.
Just here to post my favorite Bronte vid: Bronte Sisters Power Dolls! Oh, how I wish they were real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610
I am constantly saddened that I will never be in possession of a Brontesaurus
I am just now halfway through Villette, hard on the heels of Jane Eyre, thanks to The Toast. I’ve been hoping for some Brontë commentary.
(BTW — anyone else think Wuthering Heights is better? Though I’ll admit watching how silly Charlotte can get with grandiloquent language is amusing… *ducks*)
no
Though your curt and succinct refutation of my as-yet nascent premise does arrest its development before such endeavour could be properly begun — encasing the tender, tiny, pale-green bud in a sheen of coldest ice, piercing its heart with needles of cold, never to thaw — still I will extract such satisfaction as I can from this exchange, for lo! Mallory Herself has seen fit to endow a reply to such a lowly and unknown personage as myself! And if, in the depths of chilly night, under a sky black and unfeeling, weak Sentiment begins a plaintive mewl of entreaty for yet more crumbs of manna from Heaven, I shall appeal to cold and stolid Reason to bend my head once more to Earth, and to fix my attention on such dull and dreary internet writings as are my lot.
Good Lord, a very severe case of charlottebronteitis! (and beautifully executed if I may say so).
Medic!
Incredible.
I looove Wuthering Heights. Mostly because it inspired the song by Kate Bush, which is perhaps one of the best five songs of all time. And, castigate me now, I couldn’t finish Villette because I was listening to it on tape and found it snoozy. Jane Eyre was great though, perhaps the greatest. But it’s been ages since I read it.
Wuthering Heights? Better than Jane Eyre? NEVER.
But seriously, though Jane Eyre is one of my top favorite books of all time, I recently read Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall AND COMPLETELY FELL IN LOVE. So much more sly humor. I actually laughed out loud several times. And absolutely have to go read more by her.
Are you me? Never could get into Wuthering Heights. Have adored Jane Eyre since I was about Child Jane’s age, or younger. Read Anne’s novels a few years ago for the first time, and her writing was an absolute revelation. I was waving the library books around, hollering “WHY IS NOBODY READING THIS?!”
If you want comedy-Bronte, go for ‘Shirley’; it’s the only one that has ACTUALLY made me laugh out loud. In public. On public transport. Properly snorting through my nose. It has a whole chapter entitled
‘XVIII: Which the Genteel Read is Recommended to Skip, Low Persons being here Introduced’.
I really admire the bizarre extremity of Wuthering Heights, mixed with its – practicality? The way that it’s so outlandishly dark, but the violence can’t sustain itself. I think it’s also deadly funny; some readers go into it with an expectation of, or desire for, earnestness. I *love* Charlotte Brontë’s work more – Wuthering Heights is more strange than strangely comforting to me – it is completely unique, though.
It was such a paranoid anti- Catholicism. Lucy saw all the Catholic’s she met as a a junta to keep her away from the man she loved.
That…would make a lot of sense of Charlotte’s position. Thanks.
Finally, web content that speaks to my hideously specific interests.
Since I was a child who devoured the Anne of Green Gables series, I have been perplexed by these minute differences between the denominations. Does anyone have a handy chart? Points if it’s from LMM years.
Yeah, when it comes to denominational burns, Charlotte has nothing on Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
I just remember Mrs Lynde complaining of some prospective minister who pronounced “Presbyterian” as “PresbyTARian” and was therefore beyond the pale.
Methodists say “amen” a lot during sermons. (The Story Girl)
Methodist ministers also wander. (Anne of the Island. It’s also noted by Miss Cornelia in Anne’s House of Dreams, in an anti-Semitic way.)
Methodists, according to Miss Cornelia, don’t have much religion, either. (AHoD)
And they allow women to preach. (AHoD)
It’s speculated that Methodists buried their bad people like they’d bury a cat. (Rainbow Valley)
When Rev. Dr. Cooper preached at Glen St. Mary’s Presbyterian church, he prayed before taking the collection as was the fashion at the Methodist church. (RV)
GSM’s Methodists were uber sensitive about the Merediths playing in their graveyard. (RV)
And it was Miss Cornelia, NOT Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who mentioned “PresbyTARian” in conversation…
“Well, all I hope,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, “is that when I’m dead nobody will call me ‘our departed sister.’ I took a scunner at this sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen. I hadn’t any use for him from the start. I felt in my bones that there was something wrong with him. And there was. Mind you, he was pretending to be a Presbyterian—PresbyTARian, HE called it—and all the time he was a Methodist…. (AHoD)
(Doesn’t seem that Mrs. Rachel Lynde had anything to say about Methodists in the books.)
Oops, my bad re Rachel Lynde/Miss C!
Methodists and Calvinists (Presbyterians) do not get along, much like pirates and ninjas. Though a lot of Methodists and Presbyterians today would probably not know this.
The major source of the dispute lies in two doctrines: Limited Atonement and Unconditional Election on the part of the Calvinists, vs. Free Will and Atonement for All on the Methodist side. Calvinists believed that God elected some people to salvation and most people to damnation when the universe was created, and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. Following this, Jesus necessarily died only for those few elected. Methodists believed that Jesus died for everyone, so grace is open to all, and you chose whether or not you would participate in God’s salvation thanks to free will. It comes down to how you think God’s sovereignty works, really.
So Miss Cornelia believes Methodists don’t have much religion because they don’t see God, Jesus, and salvation the way she does. But LMM has a lot of negative feelings herself toward aspects of Calvinism, which were expressed in a lovely article published on this website. Mixed bag.
Does that help?
Don’t forget that in 1925, during Montgomery’s lifetime, Canadian Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists formed the United Church of Canada. This may have fueled some of the inter-denominational digs of her later books.
All I remember is the part where Anne’s son is made to cry by a man who says there’s no God.
(I once told a girl at a bus station that I was an atheist and she burst into tears.)
““He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism.””
GPOY
I dont know much about christanity, but Bronte’s brand of protestantism seems to be the same brand that my family still somehow subscribes to as third-generation atheists.
“She was so judgmental, and there are few things I love more than a judgmental prude who is too dead to disapprove of me personally.”
SAME.
I feel like Mallory has captured an inherent and previously well buried part of my soul right here.
mad Methodist Magazine
SHIT I can’t decide between two not very good jokes about this. let’s just say I preferred it to Mad Methodist TV.
edit: oh I was beaten to the joke. but alfred e. neuman’s ‘Predestination MADly considered,” how’s that
I was briefly an Episcopalian in New York, and can confirm that Episcopalians do quite a bit of kneeling. Not as much as the Catholics, perhaps, but still a fair amount.
But do they kneel NEXT to their beds, or ON their beds? That’s what I’m getting out of the quoted passage.
No prayers at bedtime. We save it up for post-communion and pre-service prayers in the pew, or calling out (surprising!) during the prayers of the people.
I think Bronte’s talking about being all showy about religiousity, when religion should be sober and without drawing attention too much.
I too love Bronte’s individualism. SPOILER
When Mr Rochester is trying to persuade Jane to be his mistress, he actually says that it’s ok for her reputation to be ruined because she is alone in the world, and “nobody cares for you” (ie about you or what you do).
This is followed by one of the most empowering phrases I’ve ever read, from Jane:
“I care for myself!”
Seems to me a very deep feminist battle cry. We are not defined by our relation to others, we do not exist only in the eyes or frameworks of others, we are ourselves and can take a wonderful responsibility for that.
Yes, that part is so, so, so good.
And Mr Rochester is so, so, so flummoxed by it.
Can we talk about how predatory Rochester was toward Jane, the whole, entire time?
Totally, my head-version of that book ends with her hearing his voice over the moors or whatever and then just being like hmmm, “Well, that’s strange, but whatever, I’ve got my own life to live. I’ll be off having adventures now.” Which considering it’s been about 20 years since I read that book, maybe that’s the real ending. Certainly not going back to check.
I re-read it pretty recently, after watching the 2011 movie version on Netflix, and then re-watching the 1996 version. (I was on a kick, what can I say.) Coming back to the book was such a strange experience. I’d read it many times in my younger days, and it literally never occurred to me that Mr. Rochester’s interest in Jane was messed up at all. But looking at it now, he clearly sees her as a perfect victim? target? woman? IDK. From the beginning, he’s all like “got any family? no? good. got any friends who might care about you? no? good. got any money of your own? no? good. how old are you again? 17? perfect.
Look he has a WOMAN in his ATTIC. He is NOT NORMAL.
Sorry, meant to add that while your ending is better, she totally goes to him and marries his wife-imprisoning ass.
Have you read Wide Sargasso Sea? It’s a retelling of the story from the perspective of the “madwoman in the attic.”
Yes! My amazing high school English teacher, who also made us read Pedagogy of the Oppressed, had us read them back to back. It was an amazing syllabus move.
WIDE SARGASSO SEA IS A BAD BOOK THO
Yes, yes, but he is BLIND and CRIPPLED so she can totally lord everything over him now.
Do not watch the movie. I still have no idea what they were aiming for there. So fucked.
I love that quotation too, but Jane does not say it in response to Rochester, but rather one of her internal voices questioning who will care for her.
You’re right! – I just always heard it out loud! The flummoxment of Mr R is there though, he simply can’t believe she would turn him down for her own reasons.
I’ve just re-read that whole scene and he really is a piece of work.
Glorious.
When I was in seminary, I had a document on my computer of “Terrible things pre-1900 theologians have said.” It was quite the collection of sick burns.
Every now and then I still copy down one by a critic who was a contemporary of some writer I’m studying. My favorite is the man who snidely remarked that Eliot’s “Ash-Wednesday” is “an oily puddle of emotional noises.”
Did it include the names Martin Luther called Henry VIII?
If you ever want to post this document online somewhere, I would totally read it.
I would pay literal cash money to own this in a book.
“They called me mad at Divinity School! But now, with my miraculous Apparition Projector, I will rule both Heaven and Earth! They shall kneel before me!!!”
–“Missionary of Doom,” by Elle Rowe Hubbard; Mad Methodist Magazine, April 1836
I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t much care.”
The antipathy is so cold it burns
I’ve always had a desire to write Eliza-in-the-convent fanfic. I’m not sure why.
Can you organise a religious burn competition between Charlotte Bronte and Evelyn Waugh please Mallory?
This post and the ensuing comments have MADE MY DAY.
And isn’t it hard NOT to briefly be a Catholic in Italy? The basilicas are just so darn pretty….
Anglicans are drawn like moths to the flames of the votary candles, in my experience. They often want to light one. I”ve done it myself in Notre Dame.
me too, and I’m an atheist….
“the donation helps with the upkeep of this historical building” say I, an atheist, as I do that in every single Italian church I went in over three weeks while staring tearfully at stained glass windows and wondering if the priests would mind me talking to them…
Thank you, I now have a post hoc explanation of why I was completely overcome by pretty much everything about Notre Dame. It was a VERY historical building.
Methodists exciting people to fanaticism? That would be fun. These days all we seem to do is bore people to death in committee meetings.
“I was a Lutheran once at Bonn.”
^ So was Peggy Peabody, and look at her now!
Gives new meaning to the term LUG.
Always here for sick denominational burns. #teampapist
Raised as a Presbyterian, I was always taught that Catholics are Christians, but we reformed away from their hierarchy and our faith was our own responsibility. I never liked that the international press saw the Pope as the spokesman for all Christians, or that his decisions were expected to be important to Protestants. When the child rape scandals broke, I remember hoping that it would bring more corruption to light, maybe causing a mass migration away from the church. Now I do not consider myself a Christian any more. Christ, protect me from your followers!
the main part of being anglican is -looking down on- catholicism, the other part is worrying if you're being too romish.
Fixed it for you.
You should hear my otherwise lovely anglo family a few drinks in on idolatry and saint-worship.
All I remember is the part where Anne's son is made to cry by a man who says there's no God.
(I once told a girl at a bus station that I was an atheist and she burst into tears.)
I would pay literal cash money to own this in a book.
My family is Methodist and I can remember literally nothing of church except being bored out of my skull and writing Sailor Moon fanfiction in my head.
Most of them anyway. There are still some Free Presbyterians around. My late mum attended a Free Presbyterian church after we all left home. At 91 she was not the oldest member of the congregation.
They shared/rented the church to a Caribbean congregation and had some events together, where Mum discovered that she really liked Curry Goat. Even after she found out it was made with goat.
Eh, we're Scots. We happily eat haggis.
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