While attending Amherst College, Emily Dickinson became fascinated with Dr. Hitchcock's philosophies. Dr. Hitchcock was the originator of the American Scientific Association and President of Amherst College. Dickinson loved to read "Flowers of North America," along with other works by Hitchcock. She would attend his lectures, not knowing that one of his sermons would change her views on Christianity for the rest of her life. Pollitt writes that "In Dr. Hitchcock's philosophy of a natural religion as opposed to the purely scriptural doctrine, Emily's mind took it's first stride"(Pollitt 34).
             He believed that 'the spiritual body will transcend the natural body; that it will have means of receiving knowledge far more delicate, certain, and rapid; that it will be possessed by an activity incapable of fatigue and eminently fitted for abstraction; that the memory will be perfect... an organization so exquisite as never to mislead or allure from duty... There will be recognition in heaven, all marriage vows dissolved, and the lover and his beloved will become but angles of God (Pollitt 35).
             Such a sermon was too convincing and too striking for her to ever forget it. Two of Emily Dickinson's critics, Francis J. Molson and Dorothy Huff Oberhaus, have contradicting views on Dickinson's Christianity, which are reflected throughout her poetry. I believe that Dickinson can neither be named a conventional Christian, nor can she be labeled a disbeliever.
             Growing up, Dickinson was forced to attend church; however, "she rejected all that made man insignificant and helpless before the crushing force of God" (Molson 404). Dickinson was also forced to accept God. When she was young, Dickinson visualized the orthodox God as a "kind, stern old man, who would help her in her need, provided she prayed to Him..."(405). At first Dickinson was willing to believe in Chr...