How a Christian Worldview Animates Jane Austen’s Fiction

In my Jane Austen seminar this fall, students were excited to study Austen’s most famous and romantic novels, such as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Many students were well versed in the history of the Regency era and Austen’s deft portrayals of life, particularly feminine life, during that time.

Their interest picked up when we began the semester with one of Austen’s prayers, which led to a discussion of her Christian faith. They were fascinated to discover not only that Austen revolutionized the genre of the novel but that she did so with a devoutly Christian worldview shaped by her upbringing.

Today marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. She was born into a highly reverent and robustly Christian home on December 16, 1775, as the seventh of eight children (and the second daughter). Her father, George Austen, was the cornerstone of this devout and faith-filled family. He served as the rector of Steventon parish throughout Jane’s life. And her brother Henry, whom she favored, also joined the ministry and was ordained in 1816. Austen read many Christian authors; Henry noted that “her favourite moral writers were [Samuel] Johnson in prose, and [William] Cowper in verse.”

Under her father’s guidance and with Henry’s influence, Austen learned the importance of daily prayer and communion with her Lord. The Austen family participated in the Church of England’s practice of both morning and evening prayers, which they often did as a family. Three of her written prayers have survived; they give us a window into the devotional life of one of the greatest authors in the English language.

Gratitude Expressed Through Prayer

Austen’s prayers reflect a steady Anglican focus on the gradual growth of faith rather than an evangelical emphasis on dramatic conversion. In one prayer, she writes,

Above all other blessings, O God, for ourselves, and for our fellow creatures, we implore Thee to quicken our sense of Thy mercy in the redemption of the world, of the value of that holy religion in which we have been brought up, that we may not, by our own neglect, throw away the salvation Thou hast given us, nor be Christians only in name. Hear us, Almighty God, for His sake who redeemed us, and taught us thus to pray.

Austen stresses the blessing of salvation and the call to faithful service, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer in the tradition of the Book of Common Prayer.

She also expresses gratitude for daily mercies:

We bless Thee for every comfort of our past and present existence, for our health of body and of mind and for every other source of happiness which Thou has bountifully bestowed on us and with which we close this day, imploring their continuance from Thy Fatherly goodness, with a more grateful sense of them, than they have hitherto excited.

In these glimpses into Austen’s daily prayer life, we witness her awareness of the Lord’s omnipotence and omnipresence as she emphasizes God’s blessings in her family’s lives. These prayers paint an encouraging picture of the nature and strength of Austen’s faith.

Faith Anchored Through Adversity

Yet life wasn’t easy for the Austen family. Two of Austen’s brothers, Francis and Charles, served in the British Navy for many years, leaving the family perpetually wondering about their whereabouts and their safety. Her prayers likely reflected concern for their safety and protection.

In these glimpses into Austen’s daily prayer life, we witness her awareness of the Lord’s omnipotence and omnipresence.

And when George died, the family had to move out of the Steventon rectory and quickly find other housing with a much-reduced income. The three women of the family—Jane, Cassandra, and their mother—eventually settled at Chawton Cottage in 1809 but were forced to live on a strict budget. Despite life’s challenges, Austen did some of her best work in the years that followed, revising Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, and writing Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion.

It’s easy for scholars to focus on the way life circumstances influenced the literary output of an author like Austen. Yet it’s more important that we see the longing for contentment amid the difficulties of life in her prayers.

For example, she writes, “Give us a thankful sense of the blessings in which we live, of the many comforts of our lot; that we may not deserve to lose them by discontent or indifference.” This prayer echoes Paul’s encouragement not to be “anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). This is a prayer we could all benefit from saying from time to time.

It seems that God answered her prayer to continue in faithfulness. After her death on July 18, 1817, her family celebrated her devotion with a burial marker stating that those who knew her best “are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her Redeemer.” A profound testimony to a life of robust faith.

Devotion Illustrated Through Literature

As new generations of readers discover characters like Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, Fanny Price, and Edmund Bertram, they should be attentive to the ways that faith imbues Austen’s novels.

In Mansfield Park, for example, Edmund is represented as a faithful Christian with steady and reasonable principles. Fanny’s disposition wouldn’t allow shirking any duty she was aware of. Duty and conscience were Christian moral ideals during Austen’s time, and she embeds them in two of her most overtly Christian characters. These positive portrayals are striking when compared to the negative way Christians are often depicted in modern novels.

Meanwhile, Austen is also credited with popularizing the domestic setting in her novels, thus normalizing stories set in the drawing room. Her books helped to transform the culture because they gave women a platform from which to express concerns about the societal restrictions on women and the domestic power structures.

As new generations of readers discover Austen’s characters, they should be attentive to the ways that faith imbues her novels.

For example, in Sense and Sensibility, the Dashwood women’s experience closely parallels the challenges the Austen women faced. When Mr. Dashwood dies, his female relatives are forced to move from their home to Barton Cottage due to the entailment of the estate. Austen was distinctly aware of the challenges of women in her day, as she wrote in a letter to her niece, “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor—which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.”

It took a long time for change to come, but Austen’s fiction contributed to a more equitable legal standing for women in the Western world.

A quarter century after Austen’s birth, as her popularity continues to increase, demands for her novels and the enormous cottage industry of spin-offs eclipse almost any other British author. Yet for Christians, there’s more to celebrate than literary excellence and cultural nostalgia; we also have the opportunity to celebrate a life of faith well lived.