Wonder as rebellion. That's the surprising path Gilbert Keith Chesterton blazed through the intellectual landscape of early 20th century England—and precisely why his voice feels so startlingly relevant to our screen-addicted, anxiety-ridden modern world.
Born into the spiritual uncertainty of late Victorian England, Chesterton emerged as perhaps the most joyful apologist Christianity has ever known. Where others defended faith with stern dogmatism, he championed orthodoxy with wit, paradox, and an infectious sense of delight. His prodigious output—over 4,000 newspaper columns, hundreds of poems, novels, plays, and theological works—reveals a mind that refused to be constrained by false dichotomies or rigid thinking.
What makes Chesterton particularly fascinating was his approach to intellectual combat. Unlike the polarized, winner-take-all debates of our time, Chesterton maintained genuine friendships with his philosophical opponents. He debated socialist George Bernard Shaw and progressive scientist H.G. Wells dozens of times, always with respect, humor, and a willingness to acknowledge their insights even while disagreeing with their conclusions. When he wrote that "bigotry is not believing you're right; bigotry is not admitting when you're wrong," he offered a model of discourse desperately needed in our fractured public sphere.
Perhaps Chesterton's most enduring contribution was his political philosophy of distributism—a "third way" between unfettered capitalism and state socialism. Alongside his friend Hilaire Belloc, he advocated for an economic system where property ownership would be widely distributed among families and small producers rather than concentrated in corporations or government. Though never mainstream, these ideas continue to influence conversations about economic justice, localism, and sustainability today.
For those struggling with the spiritual aridity of modern life, Chesterton offers a transformative insight: orthodoxy is not a retreat from the world but its re-enchantment. His ability to see the extraordinary in the ordinary—to maintain that the world doesn't lack wonders but only our capacity for wonder—provides a powerful antidote to cynicism and despair. When he wrote that "angels can fly because they take themselves lightly," he was inviting us to recover a perspective that combines deep seriousness about truth with the lightness of joy and humor.
Ready to discover how a 300-pound man with a sword cane and cigar became one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the modern age? Dive into this exploration of Chesterton's life, works, and continuing relevance for anyone seeking to maintain faith, wonder, and intellectual integrity in challenging times.
Gil
Contact: subversiveorthodoxy@gmail.com
Instagram: @subversiveorthodoxy
Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation
Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.
Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.
Intro & Outro Music by Noah Johnson &
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so there's a lot of witty banter in there,
arguing about whether it'sbetter to build wealth and then
distribute it to the poor, or tohold to your idealism and serve
the poor by living poorly byliving poorly.
(00:23):
And, of course, chesterton hadhis own Christian answer to that
, which was well sure, you havea vibrant market and you have a
strong capitalist economy, butyou don't let it accumulate into
the hands of the few, but youmake sure that there's a
(00:44):
distribution network.
That's one of the other thingsof Chesterton was when he's
talking about wonder, and youquoted those sections about.
You know, we live in a universeof wonders, but we're losing
our capacity to wonder and thisincapacity to wonder feeds our
anxiety and depression andaddiction to screens.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy Podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generaljudeo-christian revelation of
god in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(01:36):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic and obsolete may be thevery life-giving power we need
to resist this distracted technostate we're living in full of
anxiety, depression and teenagesuicide.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
It's great entertainment, thrilling
entertainment.
It's the inside story, packedwith drama.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born on May 29,
1874, in Kensington, london,into a warm middle-class family
with literary leanings andspiritual curiosity.
His father worked for a realestate firm but was also a
creative spirit, a man whofilled the family home with
books and art and amateurtheatrical productions.
Chesterton inherited that blendof practicality and wonder and
(02:46):
from a young age he was moreinterested in drawing than
debating, more inclined towonder than to worry.
Chesterton's childhood was, byhis own account, happily
sheltered.
Yet England was in transition.
The late Victorian era was atime of empire and industry, but
also of deep spiritualuncertainty.
The old religious certaintieswere crumbling under the
(03:08):
pressure of scientificrationalism, urban poverty and
moral relativism.
The optimism of theEnlightenment was giving way to
the confusion of modernism Inthis world.
Chesterton was born a boy with asketchpad, a booming laugh and
a mind like a kaleidoscope.
He was educated at St Paul'sSchool and later attended the
(03:29):
Slade School of Art.
He never earned a degree.
By his early 20s he wasstruggling with depression and
spiritual darkness, evenexperimenting with the occult.
But he also began readingwidely, particularly Christian
thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, stFrancis of Assisi and even the
mystics.
These alongside hisphilosophical sense of justice
(03:51):
and love of common people beganto slowly shape the man who
would become the most joyfulapologist of the 20th century.
Chesterton came of age as awriter during a period of
enormous ideological conflict.
Industrial capitalism hadcreated vast wealth and deep
inequality.
Marxism and socialism wereoffering materialist solutions
(04:14):
to spiritual problems.
Scientific positivism providedobjectivity but delivered a
sterile and mechanisticworldview.
Chesterton saw these trends notas progress but as forms of
forgetting forgetting beauty,personhood, forgetting mystery
and the miracle of existence.
He responded not with bitterprotest but with wonder.
(04:35):
He believed that the truerebellion was to embrace
gratitude in the face ofnihilism and to affirm the
goodness of the world ratherthan simply deconstruct it.
But Chesterton's vision wasn'tlimited to the realm of ideas.
He also sought practicalalternatives to the economic and
political systems he founddehumanizing.
(04:56):
Alongside his friend HilaireBalak, chesterton helped
popularize a politicalphilosophy known as distributism
, a bold and subversive thirdway between the excesses of
capitalism and the coercion ofsocialism.
Rooted in Catholic socialteaching, especially Pope Leo
VIII's Rerum Novarum,distributism argued that
(05:17):
economic freedom and dignitycould only be preserved if
property was widely distributedamong families, craftsmen and
small farmers, not hoarded bymonopolies or managed by the
state.
Chesterton didn't invent thetheory, but he gave it its moral
heart and imaginative power.
In works like what's Wrong withthe World and the Outline of
(05:37):
Sanity, he laid out his dream ofa society built not on greed or
government control, but onsubsidiarity, stewardship and
joy.
Though it never became amainstream political movement,
at least not yet, distributisminspired movements like the
Catholic Workers and lives on inconversations about localism,
sustainability and the humaneeconomy.
(05:59):
It was yet another wayChesterton challenged the
powerful assumptions of his agewith reason, laughter and a deep
belief in the sacredness ofordinary life.
As a journalist and essayist, hewas prolific, writing over
4,000 newspaper columns,hundreds of poems, novels, plays
and theological works.
He never seemed to stop writing, thinking or debating.
(06:21):
Thinking or debating.
His best-known works includeOrthodoxy 1908, in which he lays
out his spiritual autobiography, arguing that Christianity is
the only worldview that takesthe world seriously enough to
rejoice in it.
In the Everlasting man in 1925,he offered a sweeping vision of
history that so impressed ayoung atheist named CS Lewis
(06:41):
that it helped lead to hisconversion.
Chesterton's writing style wasunique whimsical but pointed,
paradoxical, profoundly moral.
He was a master of turningideas on their heads to make
them shine in a new light.
He would say things like angelscan fly because they take
themselves lightly, or themadman is not the man who has
(07:02):
lost his reason.
He is the man who has losteverything but his reason.
These were not just cleverlines.
They were spiritual diagnosticsof modern man's condition.
Though he was a Christian longbefore, chesterton officially
converted to the Roman CatholicChurch in 1922, at the age of 48
, after years of spiritualsearching, his faith wasn't
(07:24):
abstract or merely doctrinal.
It was incarnational, mysticaland sacramental.
He saw the Christian story asthe truest fairy tale ever told
the infinite becoming finite,the creator becoming creature,
the crucified Christ offeringredemption through suffering and
joy.
Economically, chesterton's lifewas modest.
He was never wealthy, nor washe particularly concerned with
(07:48):
money.
He lived simply with his wife,frances, to whom he was deeply
devoted.
She managed much of hisbusiness affairs and kept him
grounded.
His fame did not translate intofortune, but his influence far
exceeded the financial and farexceeded his lifetime.
Chesterton's work left apermanent mark on modern
Christian thought.
He helped revive theintellectual credibility of
(08:09):
orthodoxy at a time when it wasconsidered obsolete.
He inspired CS Lewis, jrrTolkien, dorothy Day, marshall
McLuhan and even popes andpolitical dissidents.
His words continue to echo inplaces where laughter, wonder
and truth still matter.
Chesterton died in 1936, but heremains, paradoxically, one of
(08:32):
the most contemporary voices wecan read today.
In a world addicted to cynicism,chesterton teaches us laughter.
In a world obsessed withprogress, he invites us to
rediscover the miracle of being.
And in a culture that believesfaith must be narrow, chesterton
reminds us that orthodoxy is infact a wild and generous
adventure, as Robert N Chosteyputs it in Subversive Orthodoxy,
(08:55):
chesterton's genius was to showus that orthodoxy is not a
retreat from the world, but there-enchantment of it.
He didn't defend Christianityas an escape from reality, but
as the only worldview that makesreality bearable, because it is
beautiful, purposeful andanchored in joy.
And with no further ado, I'dlike to bring on my counterpart
(09:17):
to this podcast, of whom whowrote the books the Verse of
Orthodoxy, mr Professor RobertEnchasti.
Hey, travis, good to see you,welcome professor thanks for uh.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Thanks for doing another podcast episode with me
well, this is going to be a funone, uh a lot of fun a very fun
one yeah
Speaker 2 (09:38):
so to give our readers a little, that was some
of the bio.
Now here's.
Here's a little rundown of hisnotable works 1904.
He wrote the Napoleon ofNotting Hill, a sector, a
satirical novel.
In 1905, he wrote hereticswhere he was actually.
He was actually critiquingintellectual writers of his day
(09:59):
HG Wells, george Bernard, seanRudyard, rudyard Kipling and
professor is going to tell usabout how he actually ended up
debating them in person too.
Orthodoxy, 1908, which was hisspiritual autobiography.
The man who Was Thursday ANightmare.
1908, a Philosophical Thriller,which sounds awesome.
There's a couple here I'd neverheard about and they sound
(10:23):
awesome and I'll point out theone that sounds the coolest in a
second.
What's what's wrong with theworld, political and social
commentary.
And this is the book where hetalks about distributism
partially and he talks a lotabout the family and like just
social fabric of society, whichin a lot of our public debates
like, for example, so relevantto this when he wrote what's
(10:44):
Wrong with the World.
He talks so much about family,the church, the social fabrics
that we used to have in society,at least in the Western
European and American societies,that that was some of the
solutions was the family, wasthe church, was the local
community in his writings, wasthe family, was the church, was
(11:05):
the local community in hiswritings.
And today I was listening toBernie Sanders on Joe Rogan.
It just happened, like I think,in the last week, and you know
I don't hear Bernie Sandershaving that imagination about
family, about churches, aboutsocial communities.
It's all about government.
That's a big difference of whatwe have today versus what a
thinker like Chesterton wasthinking, like he had other ways
(11:30):
of solving problems other thangovernment, which is really
interesting.
Father Brown Stories is 1910, adetective fiction, which is
interesting.
He's all over the place withthese types of books.
The Ballad of the White Horseis 1911, an epic poem.
And then my favorite that Ihave not read but just I found
out about it, was the Flying In,and this is a fiction,
(11:50):
satirical dystopia, and thesynopsis was kind of really
intriguing to me.
In a future England wherealcohol is banned and political
correctness reigns, a pub onwheels becomes a symbol of
rebellion and joy.
That one sounds awesome.
(12:14):
Then the Everlasting man, 1925,christian Apologetics, and
that's the book that led CSLewis to Christ, in a sense had
an impact on him and helped himin his conversion.
Then another one on Francis ofAssisi, assisi, 1923, a
biography of spiritualcommentary, and then another one
.
Another biography on thomasaquinas, 1933, the dumb ox,
another biography and theology.
(12:34):
Reason orthodoxy are notenemies, they're allies in the
pursuit of truth was kind of histheme on that one.
And then last one, uh, here fornotable works the Thing why I
Am Catholic, 1929, essays andApologetics.
He claimed that the CatholicChurch is not a prison but a
(12:54):
home full of strange treasures.
As far as some of his themes,you'll notice some continued
threads from Kierkegaard.
Number one is paradox.
Truth often comes cloaked incontradiction, wonder, which was
also seen in Kierkegaard.
The ordinary is sacred whenit's seen rightly.
(13:15):
Tradition versus modernity Same, you know, we've seen that
thread through a lot of theseguys.
Progress must be grounded inenduring truths, personhood and
freedom and freedom.
A lot about freedom in um inchesterton, joy as rebellion.
Now laughter and festivities.
And you know, creativity ingeneral seems to be a huge thing
for him and that must have beenpassed down to cs lewis.
(13:37):
They both had that poetry, hadthe comedy.
Cs lewis and tolkien Tolkiendrew too.
He drew his own illustrations.
Yeah, these guys are veryartistic and intellectual,
that's right.
But when I was coming up, whenI was coming of age, theology
was in its own little ghettolike walls.
It had its walls, like it wasjust the just theology.
(13:58):
There was no overlap withcreativity.
I mean, we knew about CS Lewis,but we were just talking about
mere Christianity.
We weren't diving into thespace trilogy or anything.
I don't know where all that gotlost on me, like from the
Christianity of Chesterton andLewis to my generation in
(14:20):
America.
You know where did they chopart out of the equation?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, theology got very academic, didn't it?
Yeah, I think that's.
And theologians talking totheologians.
The CS Lewis was Oxford Don,right, and what was that?
Cs Lewis was a Don from Oxford,right?
Was that?
(14:47):
Uh, cs lewis was a don fromoxford, right.
He had a, he went to collegeand he was a professor.
And um, tolkien, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I'm sorry.
Can you just tell me what a donmeans in that context?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
uh like a um tenured professor at oxford okay, yeah,
I didn't know that yeah and uh.
Then, uh, tolkien was yeah, andthen Tolkien was, you know, a
first rate scholar of languagesand a graduate from, I think,
cambridge, yeah.
And so, like Chesterton didn'tgraduate from college and he
(15:21):
went right into journalism andhe considered himself a
journalist his whole life and hewrote columns in newspapers.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thousands, thousands of them.
He said 4,000.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
and essays and you can get a lot of them for free
on the internet.
You can get a lot of them.
You can see some of them onyoutube.
They have people read, theyread them to you and and those
aren't them.
You know, those are in additionto those major works that you
mentioned that people recognizeas Chesterton's sort of canon of
(16:04):
great works.
But he became famous, you know,he had these public events
where he'd take on all the topintellectuals of England of his
day and they'd pack houses andnot quite stadiums.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I wonder if things hadn't gotten so academic at the
time to let some uneducated guydebate these highly educated
people, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, yeah, I think they probably still had debates
at the Oxford Union, you know,like when Buckley debated James
Baldwin.
That was a major cultural eventin the 60s, but they didn't
have television and they didn'thave radio yet right Radio was
(16:57):
just in the coming up Infantstages.
Infant stages, infant stages.
So these were major sort ofentertainment, intellectual
events that were performancesand philosophical, theological
events, and every intellectualin London would show up, whether
(17:17):
they were suffragettes orwhether they were bohemian poets
or whether they were atheistsor whether they were believers.
They'd all pack the house andthey'd watch HG Wells and
Gilbert.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, chesterton, go at it.
And from all accounts,chesterton loved HG Wells.
They loved each other, theyrespected each other, not like
our people who disagree, andthey disagreed on every single
topic that came up.
And so it was just thiswonderful sort of conversation
(17:58):
of just two guys who knew whatthey believed and weren't going
to back down unless they weregiven some pretty good reasons
to question themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And then he also did that with, uh, bernard shaw yeah
, I was actually about to readthat one, that one's number two
on the fun facts yeah, go intothe into the thing about, uh,
about, george Bernard Shaw.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
That'd be interesting .
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, number two, on the fun facts.
He debated George Bernard Shawdozens of times, so this is a
lot of times dozens of times.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
always respect, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Always respectfully, often hilariously.
You know you can imagine thecrowd.
The crowds are laughing, if Imean, this guy's a comic too,
not just an intellectual, he's acomic.
Chesterton and Shaw disagreedon nearly everything, especially
politics and religion, but theyremained great friends.
Chesterton once said the worldwill never starve for want of
(18:57):
wonders, but only for want ofwonder.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And Shaw replied yes, and.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Chesterton is a wonder, so the crowd probably
went wild there.
Uh, here's some of the funfacts.
So, uh, number one, physicalstature.
No, I mean, most people don'tknow.
If they don't know much aboutchesterton, they don't know this
fun fact.
He was six foot four, 300pounds, and he had the
personality kind of like doc inBack to the Future.
(19:19):
He was like a mad scientist,often lost in his own city.
He was famously absent-minded.
Once his wife sent him atelegram saying no, no.
Once he sent his wife atelegram saying I am in Market
Harborough, where ought I to be,to which she replied home.
Before texting, he sent her atelegram saying where am I
(19:42):
supposed to be right now?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Oh man, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
He always, he always carried a sword cane, a cane
with a sword inside of it.
Like you pull off the, you pulloff the tip and there's a sword
.
And he said it wasn't as agimmick.
It was because he was genuine,genuinely believed life was an
adventure and he was a romanticin the truest sense whimsical,
dramatic and ready to duelnonsense with wit.
He illustrated his own books,considered himself an artist
(20:11):
first, before becoming a writer.
He studied at the Slade School,like we mentioned, and
illustrated some of his earlywork and remained a lifelong
doodler, often sketching in themargins of his manuscripts.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, he might have made graphic novels had he been
around to see the printingtechnology for that.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
That would have been really great to see that.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Well, I'm not sure what you're saying there,
Professor, because Blake wasdoing that before this time.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, that's right.
Blake and he have a lot incommon, don't they?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Although I think Chesterton was wittier and more
satirical and more politicallyengaged too.
In a way as a journalist hetook on social problems, and in
those debates he took on bigsocial ideas.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, it sounds like extremely culturally engaged and
politically as far as thosedebates go, because he would
have been debating everything.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, and Bernard Shaw was funny too.
I mean, bernard Shaw wroteMajor Barbara and I don't know
if you know that play, I don'tknow if you know that play?
I don't, but it's about a youngwoman whose father is a rich
industrialist and she ishumiliated by his money and his
(21:35):
ignorance of the poor.
And so she joins the SalvationArmy and she becomes a general
in the Salvation Army in orderto spy her father.
But in the course of the play,the Salvation Army starts
(21:57):
running out of money and a lotof their ministries are falling
apart.
Armies starts running out ofmoney and a lot of their
ministries are falling apart,and so her father comes to the
rescue at the very end and theindustrialist takes all his
ill-gotten gains to fund theSalvation Army.
And Bernard Shaw has thiswonderful Bernard Shaw has this
(22:30):
wonderful laugh at the end ofthe Christian who sacrificed
everything, didn't have themoney to buy the bread to pay
the poor.
But the industrialist who builtan industrial empire now has to
come to the rescue of thechurch, to rescue of the church.
And so, um, george Bernard Shawsort of that was his uh joke
against uh social activists whowho um distrusted um
(22:52):
money-making uh capitalists, anduh, so he made the capitalist
the winner of, uh, the hero ofthat that play, um, and so
there's a lot of witty banter inthere, uh arguing about whether
it's better to build wealth andthen distribute it, uh to the
(23:15):
poor, uh, or to hold to youridealism and serve the poor by
living poorly.
And, of course, chesterton hadhis own Christian answer to that
, which was well sure, you havea vibrant market and you have a
(23:36):
strong capitalist economy, butyou don't let it accumulate into
the hands of the few, but youmake sure that there's a
distribution network and youdon't have to wait until your
daughter joins the SalvationArmy to set up social
(23:56):
institutions that can help makethat a possibility.
Institutions that can help makethat a possibility, and so like,
for example, in his debateswith HG Wells.
Hg Wells was this, you know,progressive scientist who had
these beliefs that science andtechnology would solve all the
(24:19):
economic, social problems in thelong run.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And George Bernard Shaw was sort of a true
believing socialist that what wehave to do is we give it to the
social agencies, which is notexactly distributism either, you
(24:48):
know.
And so he was.
I think it was very typical ofhim to try to show the virtues
of both sides of an argumentlike that and and try to
synthesize some sort of answerthat was reasonable but not
dogmatic you know you meanchesterton would try to yeah,
(25:31):
just like you try to synthesizeand use contribution and you can
thank him, you don't need todrive him out of town.
And so in the Salvation Armythey need to be sort of
appreciated as well, and theirservice to the poor.
And so the father and thedaughter reconcile at the end in
(25:56):
a kind of rough George BernardShaw satire ending, and I'm sure
Chesterton appreciated thehumor in it and the fact that
both the industrialist and hisdaughter had to give up their
dogmatic absolutes abouteconomics and about religion in
(26:20):
order to meet that center.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
In order to appreciate each other.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, in order to appreciate each other, and he
would try to sort of demonstratethat in his own arguments.
What was it that he said that Ialways thought was a brilliant
aphorism.
It was about being—he said thatbigotry is not believing that
(26:54):
you're right.
You should believe that you'reright.
Bigotry is not admitting thatyou don't live up to that, or
that what you think is rightmaybe needs to be corrected, and
(27:17):
that's just rationality.
Right, you know, take yourpoint of view, defend it, but if
you're wrong, own up to it.
Don't just try to squash theopposition, who has essentially
showed you where you're wrong.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And if anything you know, it's that humility is the
Christian virtue that makesthought great, Not the pride of
the ideologue.
And so, to the degree that achurch becomes doctrinaire to
(28:00):
United States as having all theanswers or wanting to have all
the answers.
And so people would join thechurch because they wanted to
know the answers to all of theseimpossible questions to answer.
And Chesterton would say well,no, you join the church because
(28:23):
the church knows what itbelieves, but then if it's wrong
, you call them on it, or youdon't believe what's wrong, you
evolve with it and say well, youknow, the church needs to
evolve into a greater knowledgeof itself, not just uphold its
authority.
And that's, you know,incredibly sane.
(28:46):
It's.
I guess you would say it'spost-industrial thinking, a
hundred years before its time.
But at the time, I guess in the40s and certainly at the
beginning of the 20th century,ideology was considered the
(29:08):
vehicle of thinking.
You know, the Communist Partyversus the democratic ideals of
the West.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh, it still is now.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Your ideology is what drives your thinking.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
In most cases, yeah, and unfortunately yeah, yeah, I
think you're right, because itmakes people so um aggressive
and embattled rather thanlistening and understanding and
um trying to understand theother side's view yeah, yeah,
and having a little bit of senseof humor about what you think
and what you believe, and beinghumble enough to be educated by
(29:49):
somebody that you wouldn't thinkwould educate you, like maybe
your daughter in Major Barbaraor maybe an industrialist in
Major Barbara.
They might have things to teachyou, but it isn't that your
values are wrong, it's thatyou're just not doing those
(30:11):
values well.
They're not sophisticatedenough in your hands and in your
head yet, and there's a lot foryou to still learn, and that's
not a bad thing.
To be able to embrace paradoxis a mark of high intelligence,
and to transcend the either orinto the both and or, if not
(30:34):
both, and at least theparadoxical third option that
was not on the table to beginwith, that's not only
intelligent, but it's also,turns out, it's entertaining to
the thousands of people thatcome to watch you in the stadium
with HG Wells.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, you just said something.
What did you say?
Paradox ability to handleparadoxes is a sign of high
intelligence.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
F Scott Fitzgerald that said that the mark of a
true intelligence is to hold twocontradictory truths in your
mind at the same time withoutimmediately reaching after for
resolution.
That resonates with me so muchbecause I think of myself as a
pretty smart person and I knowsometimes, when I'm talking
about something with somebodywho doesn't think of themselves
as very smart, like they've toldme, they'll say things like I
don't know how you, I don't knowhow you think about that, cause
I'm holding two things intension that I say well, you
(31:45):
know, you can hold things intension, you know, and they're
like well, you know, like, forexample, an older generation
that wants Fox News or MSNBC,and it's like you can actually
criticize both sides and have amiddle view on things.
Yeah, but to them, to somebodywho's rigidly stuck in one rut
(32:06):
or the other, they can't do that, like it's just too much
tension in the head.
Yeah, they can't do that.
Like it's just too much tensionin the head.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm not saying they'renot smart, but they may have
fallen into a not smart patternwhere it's like you are now in,
now you are in an unintelligentway of thinking, where you are
stuck in a rut, where you cannothold tension between two ideas
or hold two parties accountableto not getting something right
(32:30):
either, or like neither side hassomething right yeah yeah, that
happens a lot too, and that'snot.
I'm not just talking aboutpolitics, like that could be in
a lot of things, where neitheranswer is exactly correct, but
when we have a binary, black andwhite thinking, we need one to
be right, because there's justtoo much tension, otherwise I
can't handle it.
You know, yeah, I've seen thatin people.
It's really, it's reallyinteresting, either intellectual
(32:53):
or psychological issue.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Well, it's a product of our culture, you know, and
Chesterton said that, because hedidn't.
I mean, he went to art school,but he didn't go to college,
kind of like Blake Blake.
And so at one point he said youknow the thing about not going
(33:16):
to college, it gave me thefreedom not to worship education
.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And Chesterton said that yeah, oh, I love that.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And so education is a good thing, but it's not like
if it addicts you to either orthinking or a kind of
rationality that is weak inimagination.
Empathy, ethics, joy, happiness.
(33:47):
One of his aphorisms was a poetvery seldom goes crazy, but
mathematicians go crazy a lotmore, because the only virtue
that they embraceunquestioningly is rationality,
(34:11):
and if they get off on the wrongfoot, seeing the dark side of
life, they can find themselvesconvinced that there is no joy.
And one of the reasonsChesterton converted was because
he found joy in faith.
And you know, wow, and that'sinteresting that CS Lewis that's
(34:37):
why I said wow, because thatwas his testimony too.
For joy, you know?
Wow, that's so weird.
I never thought of that.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I didn't know.
Chesterton said that too.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, and so it was reason's good and he's one of
the most reasonable debaters inthe world.
But it isn't the final storyand it doesn't replace love.
And that's one of the otherthings of Chesterton was when
(35:07):
he's talking about wonder, andyou quoted those sections about.
You know, we live in a universeof wonders, but we're losing
our capacity to wonder and thisincapacity to wonder feeds our
anxiety and depression andaddiction to screens.
Although he didn't know thatthat would happen, that it would
(35:31):
happen, yeah.
Byproducts yeah, it wouldaddict you to other things.
So to find the joy in yourexperience is to see the mystery
in life.
I don't think it's in my book,but there's a wonderful in
Orthodoxy, chesterton's book, inwhich I got the idea of
(36:03):
subversive orthodoxy.
When I talk about orthodoxy andsubversive orthodoxy, I'm not
talking about Russian orthodoxyand I'm not talking about the
doctrines that are orthodoxrather than heretical.
I'm talking more about whatChesterton called orthodoxy,
which was this much moreexpansive idea of the way of
(36:27):
life that comes with Christianfaith, of life that comes with
Christian faith, and it's kindof like the Catholic or
Christian version of theperennial philosophy that Huxley
talked about.
But Huxley's perennialphilosophy was kind of
individualistic right, thespiritual practices of the East
(36:49):
and how it related to the.
The spiritual practices of theEast and how it related to the
spiritual practices of the Westand his view of an inner life
where Chesterton's view of thislarger philosophy is Christian
orthodoxy that's his name forthat and that includes churches
(37:14):
and families and children andall the different aspects of a
community that is trying to livethe Christian vision but knows
that they're just not reallyvery good at it.
(37:34):
And that was one of his greatgreat.
I just love the phrase.
You know.
He said you know people,everybody.
You know, you might not thinkit, but most people in fact.
He thought every personsearched for truth and and
wanted to love their neighbor.
(37:54):
They just weren't very good atit, he said, and he included
himself in that description.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You know, and that's why the it's sort of like
gracious and humble of a quote.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that part of being humble is
sort of seeing where you don'ttake yourself too seriously.
You think your reason is truth.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You think your dogma that will be let go as the
social, cultural, institutionalorder transforms into the next
historical phase.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And yeah, we'll get to that when we talk about the
five deaths yeah, the fivedeaths.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
You're jumping ahead, yeah, but let's, let's, uh,
let's back up a little andfinish the uh fun facts and then
we'll get back into uh, maybewe'll jump into the five deaths
then okay um, a few of the funones we're still coming and
they'll probably spark a fewother conversations.
But he number six, he dictatedmany of his books while lying in
bed.
Yeah, I love this one.
(39:17):
He said he was often worked uh,chesterton often worked from
bed due to exhaustion or illnessand dictated to his ever
patient secretary.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
He also once said that lying down was a perfectly
reasonable posture for thinking,because somebody probably asked
him and he's like it's aperfectly reasonable posture for
thinking which I love that umnumber the other thing we didn't
say about him is that you knowhe was six four and he weighed
(39:48):
300 pounds and he had that cane,but he also had a cigar in his
mouth most of the time.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
So he had this big stogie that he was smoking while
he's explaining the universe.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So he's all about health, yeah.
(40:25):
Yeah, he would really be anembarrassment to the fitness
megachurch where giving a talkto the yoga class about
Christian orthodoxy would be Nowdoing this deep dive on
Chesterton, I knew there was alink between him and CS Lewis
but I didn't know the artsyaspect, like the creative
writing aspect, and also thehumor aspect and the joy aspect,
like that's really interesting.
And one thing that reallyreminds me of Chesterton in CS
(40:48):
Lewis now, now that I know allthis, is his response to a
homeless man.
I may have told this on aprevious Whose response.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Chesterton's no CS Lewis.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So the story goes that CS Lewis was walking with a
buddy in Oxford and a homelessman was sitting there and he
asked for a pound.
And CS Lewis gave him a poundand the guy said why'd you give
that guy money, don't you know?
He's just gonna spend it on apint.
And cs lewis goes uh wellfigure, if I didn't give it to
(41:22):
him, then I was just gonna spendit on a pint.
Which?
Is the same same humility andhumor as.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Chesterton yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
So beautiful.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
So then he proposed the opposite of funny isn't
serious, it's dull.
So dull things are not theopposite of funny.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
He saw humor as a spiritual weapon.
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
He said Christianity is not too solemn but too
serious to be taken humorlessly.
That's amazing.
I mean, this is not the sameperson you get every day.
This is like a very uniqueperson.
He once joined the wrongpolitical rally by accident.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, that's right.
It was a socialist event and hewent up and he started talking
about distributism.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
It says, he began speaking thinking it was a
different event altogether and,rather than leaving, he stayed
and gave a speech critiquingboth capitalism and socialism.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I mean that's so amazing.
I do have another story abouthis public lectures when he was
with HG at Wells.
One time he came on stage andyou know he was huge stage and
(42:55):
you know he was huge and he andhe, uh, uh, you know he had his
cane and his stogie and and toto call attention away from
everybody that was kind oflooking at him, like you know
this slovenly guy who was, hesaid well, uh, uh, I'd like to
call your attention to HG Wells,my esteemed partner today in
(43:20):
our discussion.
He's a small man but he has abig head and a long neck and a
long neck and he has eyes thatgaze into the future like a
(43:42):
prophet.
In short, he's kind of acombination between a giraffe
and a microscope.
So when you get offended by myslovenly appearance, I want you
to think of that image whileyou're looking at HG.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
And it showed that it was both an introduction that
showed that they were friendsand could rib one another about
their appearances could rib oneanother about their appearances
but it also showed the tone ofthose events.
You know that they were kind ofhalf philosophy, half theology,
(44:21):
half growth, comedy mixed in,comedy mixed in with, you know
witticisms and things That'd befun if we had that back.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
That platform does not exist right now.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I don't think yeah, yeah, only in the only in the
roast.
But they, they've gotten.
The roasts have gotten so kindof mean-spirited in some ways.
You know they try to uh putyourself down and and uh,
occasionally you'll get a, agood spirited one, but but
(44:55):
chesterton apparently was likethat all the time okay, and then
our last two fun facts, andthen we're moving on he inspired
.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
He inspired cs lewis conversion, which we already
mentioned, but cs lewis saidthat that the book, chesterton's
book, the everlasting man.
He said the quote, the book,quote unquote the book that
baptized my intellect.
And then, last one, he wasnominated for sainthood.
Uh, seriously, in 2013, thebishop of northampton opened an
(45:25):
investigation into chesterton'scause for canonization.
While it hasn't advancedformally due to debates about
his legacy and some theologicalconcerns, many Catholics still
refer to him affectionately asSt Gilbert, st Gilbert.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Well, you know I'm thinking, and this is just
speculation.
But the Cold War, you know theideological wars of the 20s and
30s and the Cold War thatfollowed made common sense an
(46:01):
enemy of the people by all theseextremists of the right and the
left, and theology got veryalmost turned into philosophy,
analytic philosophy and all ofthese, and textual criticism and
(46:31):
textual criticism and newcriticism and all of the trying
to turn the humanities into softsciences, make them a little
more science than soft.
Maybe made it harder forChesterton, who was simply a
middle-class British Christianwith an IQ of about 3,000 or
whatever it was, made it alittle harder for him to enter
(46:52):
sainthood.
I mean, what were they going tomake him a doctor of the church
?
I mean he had no theory.
He wasn't trading theories ofanthropology with Delphi or
other major systems builderssystems builders and maybe it's
(47:16):
time to bring back the inquiryinto his sainthood because he's
probably offering us somethingwe need for the next phase of
Western civilization that's gotto break out of its ideological
blinders and preoccupation withcertainty and all of those.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I feel like this podcast is about that.
It's about finding in each ofthese people what can take us
forward.
Yeah, and I think some of themit's like breadcrumbs, but then
some of them it might be a wholemodality, like chesterton and
kierkegaard.
Yeah, yeah, I mean.
I mean a whole way of thinking,whole, whole um infrastructure
(48:03):
of values yes not just one value.
you know, like you got withsolstice, and you have the deep
honesty and like the thread goesthrough all of us that turns
these people into animals.
Yeah, you have there's.
There's a real morality you getfrom Solzhenitsyn, yeah, but
you don't get a whole frameworkof of worldview, but with
(48:24):
Kierkegaard and Chesterton, youget.
You get, like you know, 10things that are all
interconnected, that they'reproposing, which is very, very
exciting and invigorating to tolearn about.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, yeah, Well, and and you know, you can imagine
Chesterton, you know, takingSolson, hits it out for a beer.
I imagine they would.
They would get along and theywould have a lot to say to each
other, especially in terms oftheir shared faith.
But at a certain point I have afeeling that Solzhenitsyn would
(49:00):
get very serious.
Yeah, and Chesterton wouldlisten.
I'm sure that's what he woulddo, Because he would be in the
presence of somebody who knewsome things about suffering and
about how dark things could getthat he could learn from.
(49:20):
But I don't think he would giveup his joy.
I think he would afterwardsfind the humor even in that and
in the overreach even in that,which would be why we need a
(49:40):
Saint Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
And I also think Saint Gilbert could have been a
nice pick-me-up for Kierkegaardwhen he's depressed.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Oh, yeah, yeah, they could have been buddies on
YouTube or something.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Well, and the way they wrote creatively, and
Kierkegaard with his pseudonyms.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Imagine what they could have done in a debate
style.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Oh right, of writing together yeah, the, uh, the
multiple personalities andthings.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, yeah, they both have that extreme creativity of
thought.
Uh, with thought, you knowuh-huh, yeah, that's so true
let's move into our um five,five deaths concept from him and
I'll read the couple paragraphsfrom the book, from your book,
(50:40):
and then I'll say my take aboutit in relation to deconstruction
, and then I want to hear yourthoughts on it Okay.
On how significant of a conceptthis was.
This was in his Everlasting manright.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, I think it's chapter six in Everlasting man.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Okay, so this is on page 16 of Subversive Orthodoxy
Professor's book where he's thisis not the chapter.
If any of you are followingalong with the book.
This isn't in the chapter onChesterton.
This is actually in theoriginal intro of the whole book
.
So I believe yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's on like page two of the whole book,
Page 16 of the intro, yeah,which is page two of the actual
book.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Oh, okay, Of the text , okay, as it starts to talk.
So I'm going to read twoparagraphs here because I feel,
I feel like I underlined themall, I had all these notes and
and how much it related tocurrent deconstruction.
Um, in our, in our culture, andwe're gonna hit the pause
button there for the end ofepisode eight, which is part one
(51:46):
of chesterton.
You can look for part two rightbehind.
It will be coming outsimultaneously.
I hope you're resonating withthe powerful ideas and stories
of these people, especiallyChesterton, right now.
It might hit you differentdepending on where you're
spiritually located, whetheryou're a skeptic or a believer
or somewhere in between, on somekind of deconstruction journey.
We're going to be continuing toexplore what it means to live a
(52:10):
life of deep meaning in a worldthat often feels fragmented and
nihilistic.
And this revelatory faithdoesn't seem to come to us from
the expected places.
The prophetic voice doesn'tseem to come from the pulpits
and the seminaries.
All the time it's breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
activism, art and the unexpectedcorners of culture.
In Chesterton we find that theprophetic voice is coming in the
(52:33):
form of laughter and joy, whichis amazing.
We hope you'll continue to joinus on this ongoing conversation
Until then.
Thank you for listening to theSubversive Orthodoxy podcast.
If you love our podcast andfind it meaningful, please leave
a five-star review, subscribeand share with anyone who might
resonate with this conversation.
Star review, subscribe andshare with anyone who might
(52:57):
resonate with this conversation.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
This has been a subversive orthodoxy podcast
with Travis Mullen and Professorin trust.
I want to jump off a cliffwithout a parachute, like I'm
high on cannabis, and skipthrough fields naked, like I
wonder if I could drift, or if Icould drift through it, dancing
through moonlight undernighttime skies, forgetting the
world's lies.
Meanwhile I'm fine Lookingthrough a stained glass oceanic
scene.
Say hi to human beings with asmile unseen, grabbing
(53:21):
wildflowers as I slide downhills after the rain.
And so there's a lot of witty banter in there,
arguing about whether it'sbetter to build wealth and then
distribute it to the poor, or tohold to your idealism and serve
the poor by living poorly byliving poorly.
(00:23):
And, of course, chesterton hadhis own Christian answer to that
, which was well sure, you havea vibrant market and you have a
strong capitalist economy, butyou don't let it accumulate into
the hands of the few, but youmake sure that there's a
(00:44):
distribution network.
That's one of the other thingsof Chesterton was when he's
talking about wonder, and youquoted those sections about.
You know, we live in a universeof wonders, but we're losing
our capacity to wonder and thisincapacity to wonder feeds our
anxiety and depression andaddiction to screens.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy Podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generaljudeo-christian revelation of
god in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(01:36):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic and obsolete may be thevery life-giving power we need
to resist this distracted technostate we're living in full of
anxiety, depression and teenagesuicide.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
It's great entertainment, thrilling
entertainment.
It's the inside story, packedwith drama.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born on May 29,
1874, in Kensington, london,into a warm middle-class family
with literary leanings andspiritual curiosity.
His father worked for a realestate firm but was also a
creative spirit, a man whofilled the family home with
books and art and amateurtheatrical productions.
Chesterton inherited that blendof practicality and wonder and
(02:46):
from a young age he was moreinterested in drawing than
debating, more inclined towonder than to worry.
Chesterton's childhood was, byhis own account, happily
sheltered.
Yet England was in transition.
The late Victorian era was atime of empire and industry, but
also of deep spiritualuncertainty.
The old religious certaintieswere crumbling under the
(03:08):
pressure of scientificrationalism, urban poverty and
moral relativism.
The optimism of theEnlightenment was giving way to
the confusion of modernism Inthis world.
Chesterton was born a boy with asketchpad, a booming laugh and
a mind like a kaleidoscope.
He was educated at St Paul'sSchool and later attended the
(03:29):
Slade School of Art.
He never earned a degree.
By his early 20s he wasstruggling with depression and
spiritual darkness, evenexperimenting with the occult.
But he also began readingwidely, particularly Christian
thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, stFrancis of Assisi and even the
mystics.
These alongside hisphilosophical sense of justice
(03:51):
and love of common people beganto slowly shape the man who
would become the most joyfulapologist of the 20th century.
Chesterton came of age as awriter during a period of
enormous ideological conflict.
Industrial capitalism hadcreated vast wealth and deep
inequality.
Marxism and socialism wereoffering materialist solutions
(04:14):
to spiritual problems.
Scientific positivism providedobjectivity but delivered a
sterile and mechanisticworldview.
Chesterton saw these trends notas progress but as forms of
forgetting forgetting beauty,personhood, forgetting mystery
and the miracle of existence.
He responded not with bitterprotest but with wonder.
(04:35):
He believed that the truerebellion was to embrace
gratitude in the face ofnihilism and to affirm the
goodness of the world ratherthan simply deconstruct it.
But Chesterton's vision wasn'tlimited to the realm of ideas.
He also sought practicalalternatives to the economic and
political systems he founddehumanizing.
(04:56):
Alongside his friend HilaireBalak, chesterton helped
popularize a politicalphilosophy known as distributism
, a bold and subversive thirdway between the excesses of
capitalism and the coercion ofsocialism.
Rooted in Catholic socialteaching, especially Pope Leo
VIII's Rerum Novarum,distributism argued that
(05:17):
economic freedom and dignitycould only be preserved if
property was widely distributedamong families, craftsmen and
small farmers, not hoarded bymonopolies or managed by the
state.
Chesterton didn't invent thetheory, but he gave it its moral
heart and imaginative power.
In works like what's Wrong withthe World and the Outline of
(05:37):
Sanity, he laid out his dream ofa society built not on greed or
government control, but onsubsidiarity, stewardship and
joy.
Though it never became amainstream political movement,
at least not yet, distributisminspired movements like the
Catholic Workers and lives on inconversations about localism,
sustainability and the humaneeconomy.
(05:59):
It was yet another wayChesterton challenged the
powerful assumptions of his agewith reason, laughter and a deep
belief in the sacredness ofordinary life.
As a journalist and essayist, hewas prolific, writing over
4,000 newspaper columns,hundreds of poems, novels, plays
and theological works.
He never seemed to stop writing, thinking or debating.
(06:21):
Thinking or debating.
His best-known works includeOrthodoxy 1908, in which he lays
out his spiritual autobiography, arguing that Christianity is
the only worldview that takesthe world seriously enough to
rejoice in it.
In the Everlasting man in 1925,he offered a sweeping vision of
history that so impressed ayoung atheist named CS Lewis
(06:41):
that it helped lead to hisconversion.
Chesterton's writing style wasunique whimsical but pointed,
paradoxical, profoundly moral.
He was a master of turningideas on their heads to make
them shine in a new light.
He would say things like angelscan fly because they take
themselves lightly, or themadman is not the man who has
(07:02):
lost his reason.
He is the man who has losteverything but his reason.
These were not just cleverlines.
They were spiritual diagnosticsof modern man's condition.
Though he was a Christian longbefore, chesterton officially
converted to the Roman CatholicChurch in 1922, at the age of 48
, after years of spiritualsearching, his faith wasn't
(07:24):
abstract or merely doctrinal.
It was incarnational, mysticaland sacramental.
He saw the Christian story asthe truest fairy tale ever told
the infinite becoming finite,the creator becoming creature,
the crucified Christ offeringredemption through suffering and
joy.
Economically, chesterton's lifewas modest.
He was never wealthy, nor washe particularly concerned with
(07:48):
money.
He lived simply with his wife,frances, to whom he was deeply
devoted.
She managed much of hisbusiness affairs and kept him
grounded.
His fame did not translate intofortune, but his influence far
exceeded the financial and farexceeded his lifetime.
Chesterton's work left apermanent mark on modern
Christian thought.
He helped revive theintellectual credibility of
(08:09):
orthodoxy at a time when it wasconsidered obsolete.
He inspired CS Lewis, jrrTolkien, dorothy Day, marshall
McLuhan and even popes andpolitical dissidents.
His words continue to echo inplaces where laughter, wonder
and truth still matter.
Chesterton died in 1936, but heremains, paradoxically, one of
(08:32):
the most contemporary voices wecan read today.
In a world addicted to cynicism,chesterton teaches us laughter.
In a world obsessed withprogress, he invites us to
rediscover the miracle of being.
And in a culture that believesfaith must be narrow, chesterton
reminds us that orthodoxy is infact a wild and generous
adventure, as Robert N Chosteyputs it in Subversive Orthodoxy,
(08:55):
chesterton's genius was to showus that orthodoxy is not a
retreat from the world, but there-enchantment of it.
He didn't defend Christianityas an escape from reality, but
as the only worldview that makesreality bearable, because it is
beautiful, purposeful andanchored in joy.
And with no further ado, I'dlike to bring on my counterpart
(09:17):
to this podcast, of whom whowrote the books the Verse of
Orthodoxy, mr Professor RobertEnchasti.
Hey, travis, good to see you,welcome professor thanks for uh.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Thanks for doing another podcast episode with me
well, this is going to be a funone, uh a lot of fun a very fun
one yeah
Speaker 2 (09:38):
so to give our readers a little, that was some
of the bio.
Now here's.
Here's a little rundown of hisnotable works 1904.
He wrote the Napoleon ofNotting Hill, a sector, a
satirical novel.
In 1905, he wrote hereticswhere he was actually.
He was actually critiquingintellectual writers of his day
(09:59):
HG Wells, george Bernard, seanRudyard, rudyard Kipling and
professor is going to tell usabout how he actually ended up
debating them in person too.
Orthodoxy, 1908, which was hisspiritual autobiography.
The man who Was Thursday ANightmare.
1908, a Philosophical Thriller,which sounds awesome.
There's a couple here I'd neverheard about and they sound
(10:23):
awesome and I'll point out theone that sounds the coolest in a
second.
What's what's wrong with theworld, political and social
commentary.
And this is the book where hetalks about distributism
partially and he talks a lotabout the family and like just
social fabric of society, whichin a lot of our public debates
like, for example, so relevantto this when he wrote what's
(10:44):
Wrong with the World.
He talks so much about family,the church, the social fabrics
that we used to have in society,at least in the Western
European and American societies,that that was some of the
solutions was the family, wasthe church, was the local
community in his writings, wasthe family, was the church, was
(11:05):
the local community in hiswritings.
And today I was listening toBernie Sanders on Joe Rogan.
It just happened, like I think,in the last week, and you know
I don't hear Bernie Sandershaving that imagination about
family, about churches, aboutsocial communities.
It's all about government.
That's a big difference of whatwe have today versus what a
thinker like Chesterton wasthinking, like he had other ways
(11:30):
of solving problems other thangovernment, which is really
interesting.
Father Brown Stories is 1910, adetective fiction, which is
interesting.
He's all over the place withthese types of books.
The Ballad of the White Horseis 1911, an epic poem.
And then my favorite that Ihave not read but just I found
out about it, was the Flying In,and this is a fiction,
(11:50):
satirical dystopia, and thesynopsis was kind of really
intriguing to me.
In a future England wherealcohol is banned and political
correctness reigns, a pub onwheels becomes a symbol of
rebellion and joy.
That one sounds awesome.
(12:14):
Then the Everlasting man, 1925,christian Apologetics, and
that's the book that led CSLewis to Christ, in a sense had
an impact on him and helped himin his conversion.
Then another one on Francis ofAssisi, assisi, 1923, a
biography of spiritualcommentary, and then another one
.
Another biography on thomasaquinas, 1933, the dumb ox,
another biography and theology.
(12:34):
Reason orthodoxy are notenemies, they're allies in the
pursuit of truth was kind of histheme on that one.
And then last one, uh, here fornotable works the Thing why I
Am Catholic, 1929, essays andApologetics.
He claimed that the CatholicChurch is not a prison but a
(12:54):
home full of strange treasures.
As far as some of his themes,you'll notice some continued
threads from Kierkegaard.
Number one is paradox.
Truth often comes cloaked incontradiction, wonder, which was
also seen in Kierkegaard.
The ordinary is sacred whenit's seen rightly.
(13:15):
Tradition versus modernity Same, you know, we've seen that
thread through a lot of theseguys.
Progress must be grounded inenduring truths, personhood and
freedom and freedom.
A lot about freedom in um inchesterton, joy as rebellion.
Now laughter and festivities.
And you know, creativity ingeneral seems to be a huge thing
for him and that must have beenpassed down to cs lewis.
(13:37):
They both had that poetry, hadthe comedy.
Cs lewis and tolkien Tolkiendrew too.
He drew his own illustrations.
Yeah, these guys are veryartistic and intellectual,
that's right.
But when I was coming up, whenI was coming of age, theology
was in its own little ghettolike walls.
It had its walls, like it wasjust the just theology.
(13:58):
There was no overlap withcreativity.
I mean, we knew about CS Lewis,but we were just talking about
mere Christianity.
We weren't diving into thespace trilogy or anything.
I don't know where all that gotlost on me, like from the
Christianity of Chesterton andLewis to my generation in
(14:20):
America.
You know where did they chopart out of the equation?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, theology got very academic, didn't it?
Yeah, I think that's.
And theologians talking totheologians.
The CS Lewis was Oxford Don,right, and what was that?
Cs Lewis was a Don from Oxford,right?
Was that?
(14:47):
Uh, cs lewis was a don fromoxford, right.
He had a, he went to collegeand he was a professor.
And um, tolkien, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I'm sorry.
Can you just tell me what a donmeans in that context?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
uh like a um tenured professor at oxford okay, yeah,
I didn't know that yeah and uh.
Then, uh, tolkien was yeah, andthen Tolkien was, you know, a
first rate scholar of languagesand a graduate from, I think,
cambridge, yeah.
And so, like Chesterton didn'tgraduate from college and he
(15:21):
went right into journalism andhe considered himself a
journalist his whole life and hewrote columns in newspapers.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thousands, thousands of them.
He said 4,000.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
and essays and you can get a lot of them for free
on the internet.
You can get a lot of them.
You can see some of them onyoutube.
They have people read, theyread them to you and and those
aren't them.
You know, those are in additionto those major works that you
mentioned that people recognizeas Chesterton's sort of canon of
(16:04):
great works.
But he became famous, you know,he had these public events
where he'd take on all the topintellectuals of England of his
day and they'd pack houses andnot quite stadiums.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I wonder if things hadn't gotten so academic at the
time to let some uneducated guydebate these highly educated
people, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, yeah, I think they probably still had debates
at the Oxford Union, you know,like when Buckley debated James
Baldwin.
That was a major cultural eventin the 60s, but they didn't
have television and they didn'thave radio yet right Radio was
(16:57):
just in the coming up Infantstages.
Infant stages, infant stages.
So these were major sort ofentertainment, intellectual
events that were performancesand philosophical, theological
events, and every intellectualin London would show up, whether
(17:17):
they were suffragettes orwhether they were bohemian poets
or whether they were atheistsor whether they were believers.
They'd all pack the house andthey'd watch HG Wells and
Gilbert.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, chesterton, go at it.
And from all accounts,chesterton loved HG Wells.
They loved each other, theyrespected each other, not like
our people who disagree, andthey disagreed on every single
topic that came up.
And so it was just thiswonderful sort of conversation
(17:58):
of just two guys who knew whatthey believed and weren't going
to back down unless they weregiven some pretty good reasons
to question themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And then he also did that with, uh, bernard shaw yeah
, I was actually about to readthat one, that one's number two
on the fun facts yeah, go intothe into the thing about, uh,
about, george Bernard Shaw.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
That'd be interesting .
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, number two, on the fun facts.
He debated George Bernard Shawdozens of times, so this is a
lot of times dozens of times.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
always respect, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Always respectfully, often hilariously.
You know you can imagine thecrowd.
The crowds are laughing, if Imean, this guy's a comic too,
not just an intellectual, he's acomic.
Chesterton and Shaw disagreedon nearly everything, especially
politics and religion, but theyremained great friends.
Chesterton once said the worldwill never starve for want of
(18:57):
wonders, but only for want ofwonder.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And Shaw replied yes, and.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Chesterton is a wonder, so the crowd probably
went wild there.
Uh, here's some of the funfacts.
So, uh, number one, physicalstature.
No, I mean, most people don'tknow.
If they don't know much aboutchesterton, they don't know this
fun fact.
He was six foot four, 300pounds, and he had the
personality kind of like doc inBack to the Future.
(19:19):
He was like a mad scientist,often lost in his own city.
He was famously absent-minded.
Once his wife sent him atelegram saying no, no.
Once he sent his wife atelegram saying I am in Market
Harborough, where ought I to be,to which she replied home.
Before texting, he sent her atelegram saying where am I
(19:42):
supposed to be right now?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Oh man, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
He always, he always carried a sword cane, a cane
with a sword inside of it.
Like you pull off the, you pulloff the tip and there's a sword
.
And he said it wasn't as agimmick.
It was because he was genuine,genuinely believed life was an
adventure and he was a romanticin the truest sense whimsical,
dramatic and ready to duelnonsense with wit.
He illustrated his own books,considered himself an artist
(20:11):
first, before becoming a writer.
He studied at the Slade School,like we mentioned, and
illustrated some of his earlywork and remained a lifelong
doodler, often sketching in themargins of his manuscripts.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, he might have made graphic novels had he been
around to see the printingtechnology for that.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
That would have been really great to see that.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Well, I'm not sure what you're saying there,
Professor, because Blake wasdoing that before this time.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, that's right.
Blake and he have a lot incommon, don't they?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Although I think Chesterton was wittier and more
satirical and more politicallyengaged too.
In a way as a journalist hetook on social problems, and in
those debates he took on bigsocial ideas.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, it sounds like extremely culturally engaged and
politically as far as thosedebates go, because he would
have been debating everything.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, and Bernard Shaw was funny too.
I mean, bernard Shaw wroteMajor Barbara and I don't know
if you know that play, I don'tknow if you know that play?
I don't, but it's about a youngwoman whose father is a rich
industrialist and she ishumiliated by his money and his
(21:35):
ignorance of the poor.
And so she joins the SalvationArmy and she becomes a general
in the Salvation Army in orderto spy her father.
But in the course of the play,the Salvation Army starts
(21:57):
running out of money and a lotof their ministries are falling
apart.
Armies starts running out ofmoney and a lot of their
ministries are falling apart,and so her father comes to the
rescue at the very end and theindustrialist takes all his
ill-gotten gains to fund theSalvation Army.
And Bernard Shaw has thiswonderful Bernard Shaw has this
(22:30):
wonderful laugh at the end ofthe Christian who sacrificed
everything, didn't have themoney to buy the bread to pay
the poor.
But the industrialist who builtan industrial empire now has to
come to the rescue of thechurch, to rescue of the church.
And so, um, george Bernard Shawsort of that was his uh joke
against uh social activists whowho um distrusted um
(22:52):
money-making uh capitalists, anduh, so he made the capitalist
the winner of, uh, the hero ofthat that play, um, and so
there's a lot of witty banter inthere, uh arguing about whether
it's better to build wealth andthen distribute it, uh to the
(23:15):
poor, uh, or to hold to youridealism and serve the poor by
living poorly.
And, of course, chesterton hadhis own Christian answer to that
, which was well sure, you havea vibrant market and you have a
(23:36):
strong capitalist economy, butyou don't let it accumulate into
the hands of the few, but youmake sure that there's a
distribution network and youdon't have to wait until your
daughter joins the SalvationArmy to set up social
(23:56):
institutions that can help makethat a possibility.
Institutions that can help makethat a possibility, and so like,
for example, in his debateswith HG Wells.
Hg Wells was this, you know,progressive scientist who had
these beliefs that science andtechnology would solve all the
(24:19):
economic, social problems in thelong run.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And George Bernard Shaw was sort of a true
believing socialist that what wehave to do is we give it to the
social agencies, which is notexactly distributism either, you
(24:48):
know.
And so he was.
I think it was very typical ofhim to try to show the virtues
of both sides of an argumentlike that and and try to
synthesize some sort of answerthat was reasonable but not
dogmatic you know you meanchesterton would try to yeah,
(25:31):
just like you try to synthesizeand use contribution and you can
thank him, you don't need todrive him out of town.
And so in the Salvation Armythey need to be sort of
appreciated as well, and theirservice to the poor.
And so the father and thedaughter reconcile at the end in
(25:56):
a kind of rough George BernardShaw satire ending, and I'm sure
Chesterton appreciated thehumor in it and the fact that
both the industrialist and hisdaughter had to give up their
dogmatic absolutes abouteconomics and about religion in
(26:20):
order to meet that center.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
In order to appreciate each other.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, in order to appreciate each other, and he
would try to sort of demonstratethat in his own arguments.
What was it that he said that Ialways thought was a brilliant
aphorism.
It was about being—he said thatbigotry is not believing that
(26:54):
you're right.
You should believe that you'reright.
Bigotry is not admitting thatyou don't live up to that, or
that what you think is rightmaybe needs to be corrected, and
(27:17):
that's just rationality.
Right, you know, take yourpoint of view, defend it, but if
you're wrong, own up to it.
Don't just try to squash theopposition, who has essentially
showed you where you're wrong.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And if anything you know, it's that humility is the
Christian virtue that makesthought great, Not the pride of
the ideologue.
And so, to the degree that achurch becomes doctrinaire to
(28:00):
United States as having all theanswers or wanting to have all
the answers.
And so people would join thechurch because they wanted to
know the answers to all of theseimpossible questions to answer.
And Chesterton would say well,no, you join the church because
(28:23):
the church knows what itbelieves, but then if it's wrong
, you call them on it, or youdon't believe what's wrong, you
evolve with it and say well, youknow, the church needs to
evolve into a greater knowledgeof itself, not just uphold its
authority.
And that's, you know,incredibly sane.
(28:46):
It's.
I guess you would say it'spost-industrial thinking, a
hundred years before its time.
But at the time, I guess in the40s and certainly at the
beginning of the 20th century,ideology was considered the
(29:08):
vehicle of thinking.
You know, the Communist Partyversus the democratic ideals of
the West.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh, it still is now.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Your ideology is what drives your thinking.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
In most cases, yeah, and unfortunately yeah, yeah, I
think you're right, because itmakes people so um aggressive
and embattled rather thanlistening and understanding and
um trying to understand theother side's view yeah, yeah,
and having a little bit of senseof humor about what you think
and what you believe, and beinghumble enough to be educated by
(29:49):
somebody that you wouldn't thinkwould educate you, like maybe
your daughter in Major Barbaraor maybe an industrialist in
Major Barbara.
They might have things to teachyou, but it isn't that your
values are wrong, it's thatyou're just not doing those
(30:11):
values well.
They're not sophisticatedenough in your hands and in your
head yet, and there's a lot foryou to still learn, and that's
not a bad thing.
To be able to embrace paradoxis a mark of high intelligence,
and to transcend the either orinto the both and or, if not
(30:34):
both, and at least theparadoxical third option that
was not on the table to beginwith, that's not only
intelligent, but it's also,turns out, it's entertaining to
the thousands of people thatcome to watch you in the stadium
with HG Wells.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, you just said something.
What did you say?
Paradox ability to handleparadoxes is a sign of high
intelligence.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
F Scott Fitzgerald that said that the mark of a
true intelligence is to hold twocontradictory truths in your
mind at the same time withoutimmediately reaching after for
resolution.
That resonates with me so muchbecause I think of myself as a
pretty smart person and I knowsometimes, when I'm talking
about something with somebodywho doesn't think of themselves
as very smart, like they've toldme, they'll say things like I
don't know how you, I don't knowhow you think about that, cause
I'm holding two things intension that I say well, you
(31:45):
know, you can hold things intension, you know, and they're
like well, you know, like, forexample, an older generation
that wants Fox News or MSNBC,and it's like you can actually
criticize both sides and have amiddle view on things.
Yeah, but to them, to somebodywho's rigidly stuck in one rut
(32:06):
or the other, they can't do that, like it's just too much
tension in the head.
Yeah, they can't do that.
Like it's just too much tensionin the head.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm not saying they'renot smart, but they may have
fallen into a not smart patternwhere it's like you are now in,
now you are in an unintelligentway of thinking, where you are
stuck in a rut, where you cannothold tension between two ideas
or hold two parties accountableto not getting something right
(32:30):
either, or like neither side hassomething right yeah yeah, that
happens a lot too, and that'snot.
I'm not just talking aboutpolitics, like that could be in
a lot of things, where neitheranswer is exactly correct, but
when we have a binary, black andwhite thinking, we need one to
be right, because there's justtoo much tension, otherwise I
can't handle it.
You know, yeah, I've seen thatin people.
It's really, it's reallyinteresting, either intellectual
(32:53):
or psychological issue.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Well, it's a product of our culture, you know, and
Chesterton said that, because hedidn't.
I mean, he went to art school,but he didn't go to college,
kind of like Blake Blake.
And so at one point he said youknow the thing about not going
(33:16):
to college, it gave me thefreedom not to worship education
.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And Chesterton said that yeah, oh, I love that.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And so education is a good thing, but it's not like
if it addicts you to either orthinking or a kind of
rationality that is weak inimagination.
Empathy, ethics, joy, happiness.
(33:47):
One of his aphorisms was a poetvery seldom goes crazy, but
mathematicians go crazy a lotmore, because the only virtue
that they embraceunquestioningly is rationality,
(34:11):
and if they get off on the wrongfoot, seeing the dark side of
life, they can find themselvesconvinced that there is no joy.
And one of the reasonsChesterton converted was because
he found joy in faith.
And you know, wow, and that'sinteresting that CS Lewis that's
(34:37):
why I said wow, because thatwas his testimony too.
For joy, you know?
Wow, that's so weird.
I never thought of that.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I didn't know.
Chesterton said that too.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, and so it was reason's good and he's one of
the most reasonable debaters inthe world.
But it isn't the final storyand it doesn't replace love.
And that's one of the otherthings of Chesterton was when
(35:07):
he's talking about wonder, andyou quoted those sections about.
You know, we live in a universeof wonders, but we're losing
our capacity to wonder and thisincapacity to wonder feeds our
anxiety and depression andaddiction to screens.
Although he didn't know thatthat would happen, that it would
(35:31):
happen, yeah.
Byproducts yeah, it wouldaddict you to other things.
So to find the joy in yourexperience is to see the mystery
in life.
I don't think it's in my book,but there's a wonderful in
Orthodoxy, chesterton's book, inwhich I got the idea of
(36:03):
subversive orthodoxy.
When I talk about orthodoxy andsubversive orthodoxy, I'm not
talking about Russian orthodoxyand I'm not talking about the
doctrines that are orthodoxrather than heretical.
I'm talking more about whatChesterton called orthodoxy,
which was this much moreexpansive idea of the way of
(36:27):
life that comes with Christianfaith, of life that comes with
Christian faith, and it's kindof like the Catholic or
Christian version of theperennial philosophy that Huxley
talked about.
But Huxley's perennialphilosophy was kind of
individualistic right, thespiritual practices of the East
(36:49):
and how it related to the.
The spiritual practices of theEast and how it related to the
spiritual practices of the Westand his view of an inner life
where Chesterton's view of thislarger philosophy is Christian
orthodoxy that's his name forthat and that includes churches
(37:14):
and families and children andall the different aspects of a
community that is trying to livethe Christian vision but knows
that they're just not reallyvery good at it.
(37:34):
And that was one of his greatgreat.
I just love the phrase.
You know.
He said you know people,everybody.
You know, you might not thinkit, but most people in fact.
He thought every personsearched for truth and and
wanted to love their neighbor.
(37:54):
They just weren't very good atit, he said, and he included
himself in that description.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You know, and that's why the it's sort of like
gracious and humble of a quote.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that part of being humble is
sort of seeing where you don'ttake yourself too seriously.
You think your reason is truth.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You think your dogma that will be let go as the
social, cultural, institutionalorder transforms into the next
historical phase.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And yeah, we'll get to that when we talk about the
five deaths yeah, the fivedeaths.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
You're jumping ahead, yeah, but let's, let's, uh,
let's back up a little andfinish the uh fun facts and then
we'll get back into uh, maybewe'll jump into the five deaths
then okay um, a few of the funones we're still coming and
they'll probably spark a fewother conversations.
But he number six, he dictatedmany of his books while lying in
bed.
Yeah, I love this one.
(39:17):
He said he was often worked uh,chesterton often worked from
bed due to exhaustion or illnessand dictated to his ever
patient secretary.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
He also once said that lying down was a perfectly
reasonable posture for thinking,because somebody probably asked
him and he's like it's aperfectly reasonable posture for
thinking which I love that umnumber the other thing we didn't
say about him is that you knowhe was six four and he weighed
(39:48):
300 pounds and he had that cane,but he also had a cigar in his
mouth most of the time.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
So he had this big stogie that he was smoking while
he's explaining the universe.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So he's all about health, yeah.
(40:25):
Yeah, he would really be anembarrassment to the fitness
megachurch where giving a talkto the yoga class about
Christian orthodoxy would be Nowdoing this deep dive on
Chesterton, I knew there was alink between him and CS Lewis
but I didn't know the artsyaspect, like the creative
writing aspect, and also thehumor aspect and the joy aspect,
like that's really interesting.
And one thing that reallyreminds me of Chesterton in CS
(40:48):
Lewis now, now that I know allthis, is his response to a
homeless man.
I may have told this on aprevious Whose response.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Chesterton's no CS Lewis.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So the story goes that CS Lewis was walking with a
buddy in Oxford and a homelessman was sitting there and he
asked for a pound.
And CS Lewis gave him a poundand the guy said why'd you give
that guy money, don't you know?
He's just gonna spend it on apint.
And cs lewis goes uh wellfigure, if I didn't give it to
(41:22):
him, then I was just gonna spendit on a pint.
Which?
Is the same same humility andhumor as.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Chesterton yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
So beautiful.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
So then he proposed the opposite of funny isn't
serious, it's dull.
So dull things are not theopposite of funny.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
He saw humor as a spiritual weapon.
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
He said Christianity is not too solemn but too
serious to be taken humorlessly.
That's amazing.
I mean, this is not the sameperson you get every day.
This is like a very uniqueperson.
He once joined the wrongpolitical rally by accident.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, that's right.
It was a socialist event and hewent up and he started talking
about distributism.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
It says, he began speaking thinking it was a
different event altogether and,rather than leaving, he stayed
and gave a speech critiquingboth capitalism and socialism.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I mean that's so amazing.
I do have another story abouthis public lectures when he was
with HG at Wells.
One time he came on stage andyou know he was huge stage and
(42:55):
you know he was huge and he andhe, uh, uh, you know he had his
cane and his stogie and and toto call attention away from
everybody that was kind oflooking at him, like you know
this slovenly guy who was, hesaid well, uh, uh, I'd like to
call your attention to HG Wells,my esteemed partner today in
(43:20):
our discussion.
He's a small man but he has abig head and a long neck and a
long neck and he has eyes thatgaze into the future like a
(43:42):
prophet.
In short, he's kind of acombination between a giraffe
and a microscope.
So when you get offended by myslovenly appearance, I want you
to think of that image whileyou're looking at HG.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
And it showed that it was both an introduction that
showed that they were friendsand could rib one another about
their appearances could rib oneanother about their appearances
but it also showed the tone ofthose events.
You know that they were kind ofhalf philosophy, half theology,
(44:21):
half growth, comedy mixed in,comedy mixed in with, you know
witticisms and things That'd befun if we had that back.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
That platform does not exist right now.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I don't think yeah, yeah, only in the only in the
roast.
But they, they've gotten.
The roasts have gotten so kindof mean-spirited in some ways.
You know they try to uh putyourself down and and uh,
occasionally you'll get a, agood spirited one, but but
(44:55):
chesterton apparently was likethat all the time okay, and then
our last two fun facts, andthen we're moving on he inspired
.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
He inspired cs lewis conversion, which we already
mentioned, but cs lewis saidthat that the book, chesterton's
book, the everlasting man.
He said the quote, the book,quote unquote the book that
baptized my intellect.
And then, last one, he wasnominated for sainthood.
Uh, seriously, in 2013, thebishop of northampton opened an
(45:25):
investigation into chesterton'scause for canonization.
While it hasn't advancedformally due to debates about
his legacy and some theologicalconcerns, many Catholics still
refer to him affectionately asSt Gilbert, st Gilbert.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Well, you know I'm thinking, and this is just
speculation.
But the Cold War, you know theideological wars of the 20s and
30s and the Cold War thatfollowed made common sense an
(46:01):
enemy of the people by all theseextremists of the right and the
left, and theology got veryalmost turned into philosophy,
analytic philosophy and all ofthese, and textual criticism and
(46:31):
textual criticism and newcriticism and all of the trying
to turn the humanities into softsciences, make them a little
more science than soft.
Maybe made it harder forChesterton, who was simply a
middle-class British Christianwith an IQ of about 3,000 or
whatever it was, made it alittle harder for him to enter
(46:52):
sainthood.
I mean, what were they going tomake him a doctor of the church
?
I mean he had no theory.
He wasn't trading theories ofanthropology with Delphi or
other major systems builderssystems builders and maybe it's
(47:16):
time to bring back the inquiryinto his sainthood because he's
probably offering us somethingwe need for the next phase of
Western civilization that's gotto break out of its ideological
blinders and preoccupation withcertainty and all of those.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I feel like this podcast is about that.
It's about finding in each ofthese people what can take us
forward.
Yeah, and I think some of themit's like breadcrumbs, but then
some of them it might be a wholemodality, like chesterton and
kierkegaard.
Yeah, yeah, I mean.
I mean a whole way of thinking,whole, whole um infrastructure
(48:03):
of values yes not just one value.
you know, like you got withsolstice, and you have the deep
honesty and like the thread goesthrough all of us that turns
these people into animals.
Yeah, you have there's.
There's a real morality you getfrom Solzhenitsyn, yeah, but
you don't get a whole frameworkof of worldview, but with
(48:24):
Kierkegaard and Chesterton, youget.
You get, like you know, 10things that are all
interconnected, that they'reproposing, which is very, very
exciting and invigorating to tolearn about.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, yeah, Well, and and you know, you can imagine
Chesterton, you know, takingSolson, hits it out for a beer.
I imagine they would.
They would get along and theywould have a lot to say to each
other, especially in terms oftheir shared faith.
But at a certain point I have afeeling that Solzhenitsyn would
(49:00):
get very serious.
Yeah, and Chesterton wouldlisten.
I'm sure that's what he woulddo, Because he would be in the
presence of somebody who knewsome things about suffering and
about how dark things could getthat he could learn from.
(49:20):
But I don't think he would giveup his joy.
I think he would afterwardsfind the humor even in that and
in the overreach even in that,which would be why we need a
(49:40):
Saint Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
And I also think Saint Gilbert could have been a
nice pick-me-up for Kierkegaardwhen he's depressed.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Oh, yeah, yeah, they could have been buddies on
YouTube or something.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Well, and the way they wrote creatively, and
Kierkegaard with his pseudonyms.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Imagine what they could have done in a debate
style.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Oh right, of writing together yeah, the, uh, the
multiple personalities andthings.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, yeah, they both have that extreme creativity of
thought.
Uh, with thought, you knowuh-huh, yeah, that's so true
let's move into our um five,five deaths concept from him and
I'll read the couple paragraphsfrom the book, from your book,
(50:40):
and then I'll say my take aboutit in relation to deconstruction
, and then I want to hear yourthoughts on it Okay.
On how significant of a conceptthis was.
This was in his Everlasting manright.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, I think it's chapter six in Everlasting man.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Okay, so this is on page 16 of Subversive Orthodoxy
Professor's book where he's thisis not the chapter.
If any of you are followingalong with the book.
This isn't in the chapter onChesterton.
This is actually in theoriginal intro of the whole book
.
So I believe yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's on like page two of the whole book,
Page 16 of the intro, yeah,which is page two of the actual
book.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Oh, okay, Of the text , okay, as it starts to talk.
So I'm going to read twoparagraphs here because I feel,
I feel like I underlined themall, I had all these notes and
and how much it related tocurrent deconstruction.
Um, in our, in our culture, andwe're gonna hit the pause
button there for the end ofepisode eight, which is part one
(51:46):
of chesterton.
You can look for part two rightbehind.
It will be coming outsimultaneously.
I hope you're resonating withthe powerful ideas and stories
of these people, especiallyChesterton, right now.
It might hit you differentdepending on where you're
spiritually located, whetheryou're a skeptic or a believer
or somewhere in between, on somekind of deconstruction journey.
We're going to be continuing toexplore what it means to live a
(52:10):
life of deep meaning in a worldthat often feels fragmented and
nihilistic.
And this revelatory faithdoesn't seem to come to us from
the expected places.
The prophetic voice doesn'tseem to come from the pulpits
and the seminaries.
All the time it's breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
activism, art and the unexpectedcorners of culture.
In Chesterton we find that theprophetic voice is coming in the
(52:33):
form of laughter and joy, whichis amazing.
We hope you'll continue to joinus on this ongoing conversation
Until then.
Thank you for listening to theSubversive Orthodoxy podcast.
If you love our podcast andfind it meaningful, please leave
a five-star review, subscribeand share with anyone who might
resonate with this conversation.
Star review, subscribe andshare with anyone who might
(52:57):
resonate with this conversation.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
This has been a subversive orthodoxy podcast
with Travis Mullen and Professorin trust.
I want to jump off a cliffwithout a parachute, like I'm
high on cannabis, and skipthrough fields naked, like I
wonder if I could drift, or if Icould drift through it, dancing
through moonlight undernighttime skies, forgetting the
world's lies.
Meanwhile I'm fine Lookingthrough a stained glass oceanic
scene.
Say hi to human beings with asmile unseen, grabbing
(53:21):
wildflowers as I slide downhills after the rain.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.