Chesterton on the Folly of Recreating the Wheel
“No one can think my case more ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him: I am the fool of this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne. I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished in the fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths: but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of civilized religion.”
“People have fallen into the foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad.”
All honest attempts in pursuit of the transcendent by means of being edgy and original, novel and fresh, will end up like that of G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936). In his pursuit of religious innovation, his quest led to orthodox Christianity. And indeed, this became the title of his most well-known work: the autobiographical and apologetic Orthodoxy - written in 1908.
Chesterton’s circuitous route back to traditional, theologically conservative Nicene Christianity - after a sojourn into unbelief, heresy, and even dabbling in the occult - reminds me of pastors who have experimented with trendy liturgical forms only to find, after wandering in the desert, that the Promised Land was in the hymnal all along.
James Parker of The Atlantic describes Orthodoxy as “Thomas Aquinas meets Eddie Van Halen." (Chuckling at this turn of phrase is neither an endorsement of Mr. Parker nor The Atlantic).
If you haven’t read Orthodoxy, it’s one that you might want to consider. As Christian Apologetics and social commentary against the insanities of modernity, it is as fresh as the day it was written. Though there are numerous contemporary references (Chesterton was a journalist and was not writing a textbook or treatise), you can just read through them and mine the voluminous gems along the way.
The book is in the public domain, so free, and virtually free, online copies abound. Libraries have the book, and inexpensive paperbacks are available everywhere.
Here is a helpful study guide - which includes this amusing observation of the book:
Dale Ahlquist recounts a story of Chesterton’s about a lady who went to see Hamlet. Upon coming out from the play, she remarked, “Why, the play was nothing but quotations!” Ahlquist goes on: “[T]hat’s the problem with Orthodoxy, for people who read it for the first time; [it’s] that the book is nothing but quotations. They underline almost every sentence in the book, and then at the end of the book they realize, ‘What was that about? What did I just read?’ Because they’ve lost the flow of his argument; because all of his sub-points, all of his supportive points are so great as quotations – as crystallized thoughts that just zing you – [that] you lose the train of the larger picture that he’s putting together.”
Indeed, the work is so packed with extraordinary observations, profound insights, pithy quotations, and laugh-out-loud moments that underlining is almost entirely useless - but be prepared that you probably won’t be able to help yourself.
So buckle your seatbelt and enjoy the ride.