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Soils for the Seeds of Doctrine: Chesterton's Orthodoxy as the Antidote to Modernity
By Matthew Lee Anderson
MERE ORTHODOXY
http://www.mereorthodoxy.com/
I have always thought that every academic–or wannabe, like me–ought have one or two hypotheses that are held very loosely, are somewhat defensible but impossible to prove, and just fringe enough to make academic parties interesting.
One such hypothesis that I have occasionally advanced is that G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy is the most important work of the twenty-first century, even though it was written in the twentieth.
Though Chesterton attained more fame during his life than C.S. Lewis-he was greeted by massive crowds on his trips around the world-by the beginning of World War II his position as chief apologist and defender of the faith had been taken over by Lewis. In particular, Chesterton's influence on American evangelicalism has been relatively non-existent compared to Lewis's.
And no wonder: Lewis's Mere Christianity, which has influenced numerous evangelical leaders over the past few decades, is a masterfully written apologetic. The discovery of Lewis helped many evangelicals in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s realize the importance of having a faith that was as intellectual as it was spiritual.
Yet the situation within evangelicalism (and without) has now changed, and Mere Christianity is an apologetic suited to its time. While evangelicals have made strides in recovering the life of the mind, it is now en vogue to criticize evangelical Christianity as too propositional. The new generation of post-modern evangelicals is moved more by the story of Christianity than its ideas, and more prone to appeal to the imagination than the intellect.
Such critics would do well to consider Orthodoxy.
For the rest of the story click here: http://www.mereorthodoxy.com/
