In George’s introductory chapter, “The Husband and Father,” religion (specifically Christianity) is presented as something which has been forcibly removed from his identity by his experiences with slavery. Christianity seems to be the belief system of the peaceful and obedient; Eliza declares that she “always thought [she] must obey [her] master and mistress, or [she] couldn’t be a Christian” (22), which George agrees with to a certain point given her positive experience with the Shelbys. He, however, openly states that he is not a Christian like her, as his “heart’s full of bitterness” and “[he] can’t trust in God” (23) because a true loving God would not have allowed him to undergo the brutality of his enslaved life. Eliza remains the moral heart of that conversation as she begs him not to toss God aside so quickly, but while it is not Stowe’s intention to actually discard Christianity as a religion of failure and complacency, this interaction serves to drive the point home about how utterly disenfranchised George has become. He is deprived of his own agency and humanity to the point that he has not only lost his hope for the future, but the actual matter of his faith.
It is later on, on their way to Canada, that George revisits the idea of Christianity. It is his intention to “try to act worthy of a free man [and] try to feel like a Christian” by putting away “every hard and bitter feeling” so he can read his Bible and “learn to be a good man” (193). His plans for himself and the eventual African nation he sets his mind to both involve religion, now that he’s able to access his humanity again. Instead of Christianity being tied to Eliza’s subservience, it becomes caught up in George’s honor and drive and desire to live a better life than the one he’s been trapped in.
While Uncle Tom and Eliza both represent the idealized submission of Christianity, willing to martyr themselves and be obedient to whichever powers they consider greater than themselves, George is more of a holy warrior. Not a crusader with plans to overthrow and eviscerate the system and its perpetuators, but a man who is willing to fight for his freedom when acceptance simply will not get the job done. Stowe is generally anti-violence in her writing, and while George still aligns with that by never stooping to outright aggression, he still stands out as someone who does, rather than is done to.
I think your perspective on George’s characterization is really insightful. In particular, how George has been oppressed to such an extreme that his faith has been suppressed. When George was first introduced, I was interested in his lack of faith because I thought it to be more realistic as compared to the optimism that Eliza or Tom holds. Yet, I did not take into account Stowe’s purpose with this novel, which in part is to show Christianity (or her interpretation of it) as a tool to destabilize the institution of slavery. As you point out, George aligns with Stowe’s anti-violence and is still able to present as a “holy warrior” who is taking the steps to actively resist slavery. Like many characters, it is their shift to Christianity that makes them better (or a good person) or closer to freedom, and often times, they becomes more human in Stowe’s characterization.