by by
miss poppy 
Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton begins with a story about a man who sailed away from his home country and then discovered a new land, only to realize he had rediscovered his old home. Chesterton argues that the man would be happy rather than sad because he had come to see his home in a new and glorious way.
The rest of the book is Chesterton's explanation of how he did exactly the same thing as that man. Without meaning to, he arrived at the traditional tenets of Christianity through his own philosophical journey.
The book is well worth reading by anyone who is interested in understanding why faith makes sense. It is an almost paradoxical combination of whimsy and razor-sharp logic. Fairy godmothers and postmodernism make appearances, as do toaster ovens and evolution.
Unlike some works of apologetics, Chesterton's book is far from dry. It is humorous and witty, but more than that, it paints the world in bright colors and as the handiwork of a God who is not only sovereign, but happy.
After reading
Orthodoxy, I feel more grounded in the logical basis for Christianity and in my understanding of why Christianity is good for the world while naturalism and postmodernism are not. Written in 1908, the book contains striking predictions of the future of thought if postmodernism prevailed, and those predictions have become astonishingly true, especially in the past few years.
My favorite thing about the book is Chesterton's worldview. He argues that Christianity is full of wonderful paradoxes and that it is the only system of beliefs that can contain all the extremes without breaking apart. For instance, Christians love the world as God's creation and also violently hate what it has become under sin's rule. Also, Christians place the highest value on mankind but the lowest value on man's individual goodness. Chesterton even argues that the differences in individual Christian practice (i.e. those who are very conservative in lifestyle and those who are more liberal in lifestyle) make Christianity balanced and healthy.
Some things to watch for: Chesterton was Catholic. He doesn't harp on it, but it might bother some. Also, he was against modern Calvinism.
It's ironic that in a book chock full of wisdom and insight, Chesterton chose to talk a great deal about fairy tales. I hope you will read his masterpiece to find out why.
Are you familiar
Orthodoxy or any of Chesterton's other works?
Comments (13)
I love Chesterton's Orthodoxy. (Though I don't know why talking about faerie should be "ironic," faerie tales being some of the wisest and most insightful oral stories out there.)
I highly recommend Chesterton's fiction as well, particularly "The Man Who Was Thursday" and "The Ball and the Cross." The Father Brown mysteries are great too.
I was going to quote this book in a discussion I"ve been having, but you beat me to it.
Chesterton talked about the atheists of his day not being nearly as solid thinkers or strong debaters as those of the generation before. This would be even more true in our extremely postmodern world 100 years later.
In discussing worldview, he says it's possible for a man to explain the world from the perspective that he is a chicken, but it will be a very small world.
Wonderful language, wonderful images, fascinating argumentation. I also recommend his fiction (The Father Brown mysteries, The Man who was Thursday, The Club of Queer Trades).
I love everything I've ever read by Chesterton; Orthodoxy is no exception. And it should be no surprise that he was Catholic. Every European Christian who breathed was Catholic for the first 1,500 years of the Church.
Is it necessary to warn people that an author is Catholic? I didn't know being Catholic was a warnable thing. J.R.R. Tolkien was Catholic...
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - I have no problem with the fact that he was Catholic, but I wanted potential readers to be aware that he definitely takes things from a Catholic perspective. I don't have an issue with that, but some denominations do. I just wanted people to know.
@MysteriumFidei - Actually, at the time Chesterton became Catholic, the Anglican church was much more popular in England. That is what I have read, at least. When he was baptized into the Catholic church, it was an unusual thing to do.
Chesterton is arguably the best Christian author out there, with the possible exception of George MacDonald (I'd mention C. S. Lewis, but he kind of goes without saying.) Orthodoxy is the book I recommend to anhyone who wants to get a good idea of what Christianity is really all about. It's everything you say, and more; he can say more in one witty sentence than many authors can say in a whole book.
It is perhaps worth noting that, though a Catholic, GKC confines himself in this book to the doctrines that all Christians believe (i.e. the Apostles' Creed).
Other good GKC titles: The Everlasting Man is the most brilliant presentation of the Christian worldview (C. S. Lewis said it helped him more than any other recent book). The Father Brown are classics. The Man Who Was Thursday will seriously mess with your head. And Manalive is an overlooked masterpiece, quite simply the most exhiliarating book of any kind I've ever read.
Thanks for the book recommendation!
Hmm, I usually prefer dry, long-winded books that you have to fight through half the words in each sentence... but this does look like an interesting read ;)
Greetings all,
I thought I'd provide an alternative review from the perspective of a non-believer: Enjoy.
Ben
i love his stuff. one of my fave. quotes comes from gk chesterton.
"The Declaration of Independance dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man."
@WAR_ON_ERROR@xanga - AWESOME REVIEW! :)
cool - i've been meaning to read something by him. i feel like Ravi Zacharias quotes him all the time. thx for the review!