Faith & Spirit Quote by Benjamin Jowett

A theologian telling you to believe in God despite the clergy lands like a polite grenade. Jowett isn’t doing atheist cheek; he’s indicting professional religion from inside the guild. The line turns the usual chain of authority upside down: if priests and preachers are meant to be custodians of faith, why do they so often function as its best rebuttal? The sting is in that small phrase “in spite of” - belief becomes an act of resistance, not obedience.

Jowett’s context matters. As a leading Oxford figure and a key voice in the era’s liberal Anglican “Broad Church” current, he lived through Victorian England’s crisis of confidence: biblical criticism, Darwin, and a rising sense that inherited doctrine couldn’t simply bully modern minds into assent. Clergy, in this climate, could respond by tightening dogma, policing doubt, and confusing God with the institution that claims to represent Him. Jowett’s intent is to separate the object of faith from its loudest salesmen.

The subtext is also moral. “Clergy” here doesn’t mean individual pastors so much as a clerical culture: status, gatekeeping, and the temptation to use God-language to sanctify social hierarchy. The line flatters neither skeptics nor believers; it challenges both. Skeptics are invited to consider that bad religion isn’t proof against God. Believers are dared to ground faith in conscience and lived ethics rather than clerical permission slips. That’s why it works: it’s faith as adult responsibility, not institutional dependency.