The question of whether Charles Darwin accepted Christianity and rejected evolution is an emotional and intense one. To many Christians, Darwin is a villain who articulated a godless creation. To others, he is a brilliant hero who led the way to an enlightened view of where we came from. There are researchers and authors who have worked hard to prove and disprove any notion that he converted to Christianity and TruthOrFiction.com’s conclusion is that when all is said and done, there is not enough good evidence that the story is true. We stop short of declaring it fiction, but regard it as not sufficiently proven. The report about Darwin’s change of heart comes from one person, Lady Hope, an energetic Nineteenth Century Christian, while many members of Darwin’s family denied it and there is nothing from Darwin’s friends, colleagues, his own statements or writings to substantiate it. If Darwin did experience something so dramatic as a conversion to Jesus Christ and a complete revision of the theory of evolution that characterized his life and work, there isn’t a shred of evidence of it outside of the claims of Lady Hope.
The book THE DARWIN LEGEND by James Moore is one of the most recent and cautious analyses about the Darwin conversion story. For many years, detractors claimed that Lady Hope either didn’t exist or never visited Darwin. Moore demonstrates that she did indeed exist and may very well have visited him. He also concludes, however, that her account of what happened is not reliable.
A response to Moore’s book is TRUE SCIENCE AGREES WITH THE BIBLE by Malcolm Bowden. His attention to detail is valuable reading, but in trying to argue that the conversion story may be true, he has to do a lot of speculating about what Lady Hope, Darwin, or Darwin’s family might have been thinking.
[Added by Holwick:] J. W. C. Fegan, an evangelist who ran a ministry in Darwin’s town, and who worked closely with Darwin and was esteemed by the scientist, wrote in 1925 that he “had been appealed to over and over again as to the probability of this story, and have had no hesitation in pronouncing it to be fabrication on the part of poor Lady Hope.” Charles Darwin, said Fegan, “was an honorable, courteous, benevolent gentleman; but you may be sure that Sir Francis Darwin is right in saying that his father died as he had lived — an agnostic” [Wikipedia.org, “J.W.C. Fegan;” the quote can be found in Moore’s book].
For more information:
THE SURVIVAL OF CHARLES DARWIN, by Ronald W. Clark (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1985)
THE DARWIN LEGEND, by James Moore (Baker Books, 1994)
DID CHARLES DARWIN BECOME A CHRISTIAN?, Wilbert Rusch and John Klotz, (Norcross, 1988)
TRUE SCIENCE AGREES WITH THE BIBLE, Malcolm Bowden, Sovereign Publications, 1998