Even in the industrial nineteenth century, age-old theological disagreements were the cause of religious and cultural conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. This book asks why these ancient divisions were so deep and have prevailed and how novelists and poets, theologians and preachers, historians and essayists reinterpreted the religious debates. Michael Wheeler explains how each side misunderstood the other's deeply held beliefs about history, authority, doctrine and spirituality, and, conversely, how these theological conflicts inspired creativity in the arts.