People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. Dale Ahlquist fell in love on his honeymoon – with G.K. Chesterton.
Yes, that’s right: a newlywed Evangelical Protestant took with him on his honeymoon Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, a hefty book written as a direct answer to H.G. Wells Outline of History. Now, this is not easy reading. Dale concluded that his entire college education had been a fraud, and he started his journey with Chesterton.
Today Dale is a Catholic, the president and co-founder of the American Chesterton Society, creator and host of the Eternal Word Television Network series, G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense broadcast locally on KEFN Sunday nights at eight. He is the publisher of Gilbert Magazine, author of Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton, editor of The Gift of Wonder: The Many Sides of G.K. Chesterton, and associate editor of the Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton. He has been called “one of the most respected Chesterton scholars in the world” and has delighted audiences around the country with his talks on the great English writer. And yes, his wife stuck with him: they live near Minneapolis with their five children.
On his honeymoon, Ahlquist found Chesterton to be a complete thinker – Chesterton contradicts the notion that topics can be considered as independent questions or subjects. In fact, there is only one subject and only one question: “Are the claims of the Catholic Church true or not?” Which brings us to the greatest apologetical book ever: Chesterton’s Orthodoxy.
This is not the book you expect: it approaches the one and only question from a much different angle than the classical apologetic, a much wider angle, that of a quest. And when Chesterton the agnostic set off in search of his own truth (which he later called his own heresy) he discovered that his heresy was traditional Christianity:
“I have kept my truths but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom.”
The rest of his life, Chesterton’s writing would expound this discovery with a wonder and wit that entertains, challenges, and sparkles.
This gem of a book was written 100 years ago this year: 1908, fourteen years before Gilbert Keith Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church, and is more relevant today than it was then. Chesterton does not repeat formulas found in catechisms – he shows how a sense of wonder and experience have led to the truths that were not his own. He is funny, he is convincing, most of all he is right, and he presents the case with verve in a style seekers today will appreciate.
Don’t miss this opportunity!
Join Credo of the Catholic Laity at 6 p.m. on Sunday, August 10th for a delicious sit down dinner and a talk by Dale Ahlquist on the Orthodoxy of G.K. Chesterton at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 7750 Carondelet in Clayton. $25 per person.
CLICK and PRINT the Coupon below: 
Meal choices are Roast Beef Bordelaise or Baked Whitefish. Free inside parking: take a ticket as you enter at 7750 Carondolet or 7777 Bonhomme. The gate will be open when you leave. To make a reservation, call Howard Brandt at 314-894-6003 or e-mail hcbrandt@att.net.
Check out more on Chesterton:
The American Chesterton Society
