British Writer A.N. Wilson returns ‘home’
Dictionary of Literary Biography on A(ndrew) N(orman) Wilson
“A. N. Wilson, one of Britain’s most prolific and visible literary figures, has in the past decade attracted much attention as both a novelist and biographer. Wilson’s work in both genres demonstrates that he is an erudite, witty, and often provocative writer much interested in literary, political, and religious issues. Indeed, as a biographer, Wilson has shown himself particularly attracted to writers well known for their own intense religious views. He is certainly ambitious. Wilson’s Tolstoy: A Biography (1988) and C. S. Lewis: A Biography (1990), his most important works of nonfiction to date, show him willing to look comprehensively–and controversially–at two of the century’s most widely studied and influential literary figures.”
Destined originally for ordination in the Church of England, Wilson entered St Stephen’s House, the Anglo-Catholic theological hall at Oxford, but left at the end of his first year. He later became a convert to Roman Catholicism, but reverted to the Church of England. In the late 1980s he publicly stated that he was an atheist, and published a pamphlet Against Religion in the Chatto & Windus CounterBlasts series; however, religious and ecclesiological themes continue to inform his work. In 2009 in the New Statesman he announced that he had returned to a Christian faith.
From Centre For Public Christianity ‘CPXtra’ (23/04/2009)
A.N. Wilson returns home
British writer A. N. Wilson has announced his return to Christian faith. After decades spent publishing some of the most sceptical biographies of the 20th century, the self-proclaimed doubting Thomas has done an apostle Paul. He’s stopped persecuting and started praising. Writing in the UK’s Daily Mail last week, Wilson said, “With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy, like having spots or wearing specs.”
Having reached his late 50s, being sexy has started to seem less important than being honest and facing reality. As Wilson ‘matured’, he began to feel more attracted to the faith he had so often ridiculed: “But the more I read the Easter story, the better it seems to fit and apply to the human condition”. Wilson began to sense that what he instinctively felt was the case—that human beings are spiritual, and not mere “animated pieces of meat”—was most likely to be true. It’s hardly a knock-down philosophical argument for Christianity, and he admits as much, but it’s where he has come to in his own reflections. I feel a bit like the older brother in the Prodigal Son story of the Gospel of Luke chapter 15, sulking as the wayward one returns home to be embraced by the Father with open arms. Isn’t that just like God, to forgive insulting biographies and smug unbelief? Still, I can forgive him, too. He does write well.