Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy
by G. K. Chesterton

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About Book

Amazon.com
If G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith is, as he called it, a "slovenly autobiography," then we need more slobs in the world. This quirky, slender book describes how Chesterton came to view orthodox Catholic Christianity as the way to satisfy his personal emotional needs, in a way that would also allow him to live happily in society. Chesterton argues that people in western society need a life of "practical romance, the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." Drawing on such figures as Fra Angelico, George Bernard Shaw, and St. Paul to make his points, Chesterton argues that submission to ecclesiastical authority is the way to achieve a good and balanced life. The whole book is written in a style that is as majestic and down-to-earth as C.S. Lewis at his best. The final chapter, called "Authority and the Adventurer," is especially persuasive. It's hard to imagine a reader who will not close the book believing, at least for the moment, that the Church will make you free. --Michael Joseph Gross

From AudioFile
G.K. Chesterton put his philosophy of Christianity to paper in 1908, responding to the popularity of humanism with "a set of mental pictures" that stated his argument. Read by Simon Vance, those mental pictures come alive in a way that echoes Chesterton's original intent: to be at times poetic while maintaining the rhetorical style of an expert debater. While listening, the thought of Chesterton reading his work on a podium is likely to come to mind. Chesterton devoted too much of "Orthodoxy" to specific answers to religion's critics from his era. While you might remember H.G. Wells or George Bernard Shaw, references to their views on faith make these passages sound dated and dilute their overall effectiveness. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
"Whenever I feel my faith going dry again, I wander to a shelf and pick up a book by G.K. Chesterton."
--from the foreword by Philip Yancey, author of What's So Amazing About Grace? and The Jesus I Never Knew

"My favorite on the list [of top 100 spiritual classics of the twentieth century] is Chesterton's Orthodoxy. It offers wonderful arguments for embracing religious traditions, but it also has humor you don't typically find in religious writing."
--Philip Zaleski, author and journalist

Named by Publisher's Weekly as one of 10 "indispensable spiritual classics" of the past 1500 years.
--Publisher?s Weekly

"Chesterton's most enduring book.... Charming."
--World

Book Description
The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.

Download Description
This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book called "Heretics" because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is unavoidably affirmative and therefore unavoidably autobiographical. The writer has been driven back upon somewhat the same difficulty as that which beset Newman in writing his Apologia; he has been forced to be egotistical only in order to be sincere. While everything else may be different the motive in both cases is the same. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence. --G. K. Chesterton.

From the Publisher
Although he gained renown for his Father Brown stories, G.K. Chesterton is also considered to be the father of modern popular spiritual writing. Orthodoxy is his spiritual autobiography. Since it was first published in 1908, it has not lost its power as a timeless argument for the simple plausibility of an orthodox Christianity.

From the Inside Flap
Chesterton's classic explanation of the essentials of the Christian faith and of his pilgrimage to belief. Written in 1908, it displays all the intellectual clarity and literary skill of one of this century's greatest and most thoughtful authors.

From the Back Cover
"Whenever I feel my faith going dry again, I wander to a shelf and pick up a book by G.K. Chesterton."
--from the foreword by Philip Yancey, author of What's So Amazing About Grace? and The Jesus I Never Knew

"My favorite on the list [of top 100 spiritual classics of the twentieth century] is Chesterton's Orthodoxy. It offers wonderful arguments for embracing religious traditions, but it also has humor you don't typically find in religious writing."
--Philip Zaleski, author and journalist

Named by Publisher's Weekly as one of 10 "indispensable spiritual classics" of the past 1500 years.
--Publisher?s Weekly

"Chesterton's most enduring book.... Charming."
--World

About the Author
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English journalist, poet, biographer, historian, debater, radio personality, and novelist. One of the literary giants of the twentieth century, Chesterton constantly participated in public life, debating George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and maintaining on-going witty arguments with leading journalists and critics of his time. He is the author of more than 100 books on a wide variety of subjects; he is best known for his much-loved Father Brown series of detective stories and this apologetic classic.

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