Chris Webber replies to Doris Howe on VW's atheism:

>Not quite an atheist.  He often described himself as agnostic, never
>anything stronger.

Actually, there's a story from Bertrand Russell about VW's Cambridge days,
reprinted in Kennedy.  VW had the reputation around campus as "the most
frightful atheist" and would come into common rooms with the challenging,
"Who believes in God nowadays, I should like to know?"

The most that the mature VW might have been was an agnostic, but he was
never a formal believer once he left childhood.

>The clue is that in setting Pilgrim's Progress, he renamed Bunyan's
>hero from "Christian" to the non-specific "Pilgrim".  Having said which,
>he wrote and lived squarely within the Anglican Christian tradition all
>his life.  Maybe he was hedging his bets!

He identified very strongly with a culture that had deep Christian roots,
particularly as far as musical traditions and venues were concerned.
Also Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress had, during VW's formative years, become
a major text of British Socialism.  A friend of his once described him as
a "cheerful Christian agnostic." I have no evidence for what I'm about to
say, but I do get the feeling that he had much in common with Hardy's view
of man and the universe, although not as unrelentingly "down" as Hardy.
Hardy was a major artistic resource (as was Whitman) throughout his life.
Neither one was squarely within the Anglican Christian tradition.

Steve Schwartz