Contemporary Conversations

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that Woolf was highly informed about the ways in which Christianity continued to be an important cultural and political influence throughout her lifetime. Acknowledging that Christianity took many different forms – including progressive as well as conservative trends – the chapter shows that Woolf’s reaction varied accordingly. Woolf’s life and career is considered in four stages: the years of her adult life before the First World War; the War years; the 1920s; and the 1930s. In each section, the chapter sets out ways in which the public face of Christianity shifted, and how Woolf reacted to it (for example in Three Guineas), along with exploring ways in which Woolf responded to the faith and witness of people she knew. As the chapter demonstrates, Woolf’s close female friends – Violet Dickinson, Vita Sackville-West and Ethel Smyth – all played a role in shaping her spirituality and her views on religion. The chapter also shows that Woolf was aware of contemporary debates about the existence and nature of God, seen not least in her famous statement in ‘A Sketch of the Past’ that ‘certainly and emphatically there is no God’.