![]() ![]() ![]() You should read all of Chesterton for that matter. If you've ever had a panic attack combined with headache and chills while listening to a skeptic who says that all religions are equivalent forms of the same old junk competing for the attention of the brainless sheep, or if you've ever been suddenly nauseated by your complete inability to respond when someone suggests that all world religions have a sliver of the truth in them, then you might consider reading this. ![]() By 1925, both men were famous authors and their theological skirmishes in the pages of their respective books had sharpened into the form of their two respective masterpieces, Wells' Outline, and Chesterton's "The Everlasating Man." For Wells, so emphatic was his need to debunk the notion of Christ's divinity that he took a break from his novels and switched to a series of writings on history, the most famous of which ws his "Outline of History." Chesterton responded to his friend's writings regularly, diplomatically, and I think brilliantly. Was Jesus the son of God? I think one of the most fascinating attempts to answer that question was mounted in the early 20th century by the two famous friends and literary rivals HG Wells and GK Chesterton, respectively the agnostic extraordinaire and the Catholic par excellence. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.Ĭhesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. All that he writes derives from a keen intellect guided by the heart's own knowledge. As he puts it, "in answer to the historical query of why it was accepted, and is accepted, I answer for millions of others in my reply because it fits the lock because it is like life." Here, as so often in Chesterton, we sense a lived, awakened faith. "Barbarism and civilization were not successive stages in the progress of the world," he affirms, with arguments drawn from the histories of both Egypt and Babylon.Īs always with Chesterton, there is in this analysis something (as he said of Blake) "very plain and emphatic." He sees in Christianity a rare blending of philosophy and mythology, or reason and story, which satisfies both the mind and the heart. Writing in a time when social Darwinism was rampant, Chesterton instead argued that the idea that society has been steadily progressing from a state of primitivism and barbarity towards civilization is simply and flatly inaccurate. Wells, Chesterton in this work affirms human uniqueness and the unique message of the Christian faith. Responding to the evolutionary materialism of his contemporary (and antagonist) H.G. Chesterton starts with in this classic exploration of human history. ![]() What, if anything, is it that makes the human uniquely human? This, in part, is the question that G.K. ![]()
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