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How would I accurately write a (historical) character with a Christian background?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tuur" data-source="post: 77613079" data-attributes="member: 445885"><p>To get an idea of how your character sees things from a religious perspective, a good place to start would be to learn what Congregationalists in mid 19th Century New England believed. There might be public domain sources at archive. org. It would be good to read what they themselves wrote at that period of time. You might also want to read about their order of service. Both denominational beliefs and order of service can change over time, and what holds true now may not hold true then.</p><p></p><p>There is also the issue of how a person can go to church and yet not be a staunch believer. There is one notorious figure in US history who is recorded having attended at least one camp meeting service, but apparently he didn't take what he heard to heart. In any Christian denomination you can have members that are Christian in name only, or nominal believers, or staunch believers, or anything in between. If the character is a nominal believer, what he encounters might make him uneasy about his own level of faith, or the lack thereof. On the other hand, if he's simply a church member and not a Christian, he might behave the same way an an unchurched non-believer. Then again, he might cling to what he was taught in his denomination while not really believing any part of it. A staunch believer might find himself troubled to find he's not as staunch as he thought he was. There's all sorts of things depending on the character.</p><p></p><p>Since you mentioned the U.S. Civil War, you may want to look for a book by Bell Wiley, <em>The Life of Billy Yank</em>. In his <em>The Life of Johnny Reb</em>, Wiley details religion among the Confederate soldiers and he may have done the same for Union soldiers in <em>The Life of Billy Yank</em>.</p><p></p><p>Something you may want to do is to look for a Congregationalist of the same period who is roughly like your character and base your character on him, especially where it concerns compromises in religious belief. Keep in mind the adage, "The past is another country; they do things differently there." How a mid-19th Century New Englander thinks is going to be different that a 21st Century New Englander.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tuur, post: 77613079, member: 445885"] To get an idea of how your character sees things from a religious perspective, a good place to start would be to learn what Congregationalists in mid 19th Century New England believed. There might be public domain sources at archive. org. It would be good to read what they themselves wrote at that period of time. You might also want to read about their order of service. Both denominational beliefs and order of service can change over time, and what holds true now may not hold true then. There is also the issue of how a person can go to church and yet not be a staunch believer. There is one notorious figure in US history who is recorded having attended at least one camp meeting service, but apparently he didn't take what he heard to heart. In any Christian denomination you can have members that are Christian in name only, or nominal believers, or staunch believers, or anything in between. If the character is a nominal believer, what he encounters might make him uneasy about his own level of faith, or the lack thereof. On the other hand, if he's simply a church member and not a Christian, he might behave the same way an an unchurched non-believer. Then again, he might cling to what he was taught in his denomination while not really believing any part of it. A staunch believer might find himself troubled to find he's not as staunch as he thought he was. There's all sorts of things depending on the character. Since you mentioned the U.S. Civil War, you may want to look for a book by Bell Wiley, [I]The Life of Billy Yank[/I]. In his [I]The Life of Johnny Reb[/I], Wiley details religion among the Confederate soldiers and he may have done the same for Union soldiers in [I]The Life of Billy Yank[/I]. Something you may want to do is to look for a Congregationalist of the same period who is roughly like your character and base your character on him, especially where it concerns compromises in religious belief. Keep in mind the adage, "The past is another country; they do things differently there." How a mid-19th Century New Englander thinks is going to be different that a 21st Century New Englander. [/QUOTE]
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How would I accurately write a (historical) character with a Christian background?
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