Most people are not familiar with the name Mary Augusta Arnold, but she was a successful novelist in the early 19th century. One of her books, Robert Elsmere, 1888, was a bestselling book for ten years. It spoke of an Anglican clergyman’s conversion to something similar to the Unitarian belief system.
I am not impressed with her theology, but find her method fascinating. Essentially, she used the novel as a means of doing theology and philosophy. Her work reminds me of Ayn Rand’s work on objectivism, Atlas Shrugged. For years I have considered how to best communicate theology. I know the optimum model is incarnation. Can the novel be used to incarnate theological truth?
