Gertrude Bell’s “Religion”

There is a line from chapter five of Janet Wallach’s Desert Queen that has stuck with me for weeks. It states, “She, an atheist, had faith only in her family and the British Empire. Her doctrine lay in the righteous destiny of England, her conviction in the belief that the British were chosen to lead the world.” This line is filled with so much contradiction and complexity that it could not be described as anything other than human.

For starters, as stated, Gertrude Bell was a staunch atheist. Despite this, the line is overtly religious in tone, littered with words like faith and belief. While this wording is not used to describe a relationship with any sort of god, I find it strange to apply this language to a person who subscribes to a worldview built on the absence of faith. Moreover, I have kept wondering where this belief that the British were chosen came from. If you do not believe in a god, who exactly chose you? It would not make much sense to assign nature as the chooser. Biologically and even phenotypically, there is no real difference between the French, Germans, British, etc. Yet, Bell was certain the rulers of the world had to be British.

As I continued to think over this line and its seemingly uncharacteristically religious nature, I began to think about how Bell could reject the choice to observe a personal religion but could not escape the religious world she inhabited. The time period that Bell was more religious by far. In Western Europe, specifically, Christianity was so ingrained in society that many of what were considered social norms were directly from the religion. Considering her already high standards, I wonder, if Bell were born today, would she even have any desire to marry.